Hello fellow SCAPers,
My players have just completed their third session of TotSE, and have just completed the first and second enounters at the Cathedral of Feathers. At the moment, I have 3 10th lvl PCs, and 2 9th lvl NPCs.
While they made it through the Narthex in relatively good shape (mostly due to a fabulous set of saving throws) the encounter in the Cathedral proper was extremely difficult (due entirely to an abysmal chain of saving throws).
In the surprise round, the heavy and the scout surged out ahead of the party. Both fail their Spot checks, allowing the Succubus to dive down and charm the archer (a follower of Kord), convincing him that the mean ol' wizard was evil, and that she was a maiden in distress. Also during that round, the Salamander put up a Wall of Fire, separating the heavy and the scout from (importantly) the main healer.
In the 1st round, the wizard pops over the WoF to get away from the archer and got fireballed, along with the heavy. The wizard did, however, convince the scout that he to go back and help the archer out by killing the succubus. The heavy charged the Salamander and took an AoO from the Salamander's tail; he ended up grappled 10 ft out, leaving him deliciously in range of the Salamander's longspear. The heavy doesn’t carry any small magical weapons, so he was pretty much out of the fight until he broke the grapple, 4 rounds later.
So the scout went around the wall to help the archer, got charmed by the succubus (Charm Monster) and immediately begins guarding the rear of the party, ie stood out of the way of the combatants.
So a few rounds pass, the cleric takes out the succubus with a few rounds of Spiritual Hammer, when the Salamander decides to play the rest of his hand and pull out the Huge Fire Elemental.
Thankfully, Kaurophon managed to work his way around the Guardinal and rejoin the group (using Dimension Door) and weakened the elemental, salamander and Wall of Fire with some Cones of Cold, allowing the party to regroup and finish them off. We ended up with one dead and everyone else in the single digits, except the scout, who never took any damage.
Anyway, it was a great fight. I am so happy with it that I needed to share with some people who would understand.
Thanks,
Olodrin
Sounds great, my players killed the succubus in the 1st hit of the 1st round of combat.
That is awesome.
Kaurophon saved my players a couple of times, too. That probably says something about the adventure...