Basically I'm looking for a way to let him use some of his higher level defensive spells which would likely not get a chance to come out otherwise. (I mean really, is a mirror image, a shield, and whatever lower level buffs really going to be enough to hold off a party of high level adventurers for more than half a round?)
Any opinions? Would this make a seemingly overrated monster the tough challenge it's supposed to be, or would it just be overkill?
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
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Hmm, i think time stop can be a huge bummer for the party. I would suggest you keep something else in hand. Maybe add a beetle to the encounter, or something else to break the waves. Maybe something that actually counters their smackdown? Maybe something in the area of spell turning?
Are your PCs kicking ass and taking names? SoLs is purported to be maybe the hardest adventure in the whole series (by hardest I mean most lethal to characters of the appropreate levels). If your feeling the need to beef up SoLs your really going to have to help out some of the later adventures (or chop the XP they get in 1/2 and thereby know them back a few levels).
I would assume that the Harbinger is aware of the PCs as soon as they enter they Spire (either via 'alarm' spells, or via telepathy - he 'hears' their thoughts as they approach). So he has time to get all his buffs in place. And rather than have the Knights of Kyuss waiting in those little 10x10 rooms - have them with him, acting as elite guards.
If your PCs find that too easy - then they're too powerful. Throw in a rust monster. ;-)
Sadly, Mak'ar doesn't hold up well in a fight with just him and the party. Mak'ar is described as being "willing to speak, but he has no interest in forming alliances". Although it is interesting that he seems to be most likely to beg for his "un"-life, this portrays him in a rather anti-climactic light.
The fight in my campaign with him was bitterly short, so I would recommend a few changes:
1: Ditch the small hallway preceeding room 13, and/or widen the area of the room to a 60-foot diameter circle. This will keep him from getting pinned down too fast. Also consider making the room have a staircase which dips into a twenty-foot deep pit, with Mak'ar levitating in a green, writhing pillar of light emanating from the center of the room. Having a height advantage will help with melee attacks.
2: Consider giving him either contingent spells, such as displacement, fire shield, etc, to aid against ranged spamming. Even better, place alarm spells throughout the lower level of the ziggurat, with mental cues to Mak'ar, to justify his buffing in advance. Great buffs include, of course, mage armor, shield, cat's grace, resist energy, etc. My rule is, if the players trigger an outlying alarm, the BBEG spellcaster starts casting hours/level or 10 min/level spells; when closer, he casts min/level spells, and just outside the entrance, rounds/level spells. Keep track of the order of his buffs, and durations, if applicable. But this will give your spellcaster more of a chance to shine, in a justified way.
3: Add secret passages connecting rooms 10 or 12 to room 13. This will allow Mak'ar to summon his allies swiftly. They shouldn't take more than a round to show up. Of course, if your players already cleared out these areas, it might make things easier, or might not matter at all. Still, one lich is threatening, but one lich with a few kyuss knights and/or a worm naga makes for an even more exciting encounter.
Alternately, you could just have Mak'ar jump into the combat with the overworm, but frankly, this could be pretty menacing, especially with repulsion. Still, good luck, and enjoy this phenomenal adventure.
Thanks for the advice. I'll probably go with a combo of the increasing the combat zone area, and some precast buffs. I might also swap out a spell or two of his to help mitigate the splattiness of my PC's. Maybe a globe of invulnerability/repulsion combo will slow 'em down a touch. ;)
Ugh... I ran this encounter finally, with a few slight tweaks.
A DC 26 Will save vs. fear in a 60 foot radius doesn't require much in the way of strategy... Only the Monk and the Warlock in a party of five (plus cohorts) made their saves... The Warlock is now permanantly insane (Prismatic Spray) and paralyzed. The Monk was plane shifted to Bytopia. (Not so great considering he's Lawful Evil...)
Essentially, the rest of the party was cowering in fear, trapped behind a wall of force. I took to heart the passage where it says Ma'kar isn't particularly interested in killing the PC's, since they might actually be helping the Age of Worms come to pass. Thus, he pretty much told them to get the hell out and never come back. The Duskblade in the party said later that was worse than just getting killed, being treated like a petulant five-year old...
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Ugh... I ran this encounter finally, with a few slight tweaks. ** spoiler omitted **
So make sure Ma'kar comes back to haunt the party. Give them a chance to get even. Perhaps replace Maralee in Dawn of a New Age with a (slightly) beefed up Ma'kar, or even have him stand alongside his "master" in the final battle.
Unless your PCs have high will saves, they'll have a hard time penetrating the Harbinger's repulsion spell. If used carefully (and fully buffed, which the spellweaver should be unless the PCs somehow slip directly into the Harbinger's sanctum, bypassing all monsters in the Spire), the group should have a difficult time. Repulsion is hard to bypass. Greater dispelling. 30 magic missiles in one round that could annihilate an arcane caster easily, not to mention 9 scorching rays or 2 fireballs. Prismatic spray. Chain lightning. Power word blind/stun...
Give the Harbinger greater invisibility, cold shield, mirror image, stoneskin, repulsion, displacement, and have it simply observe the PCs, lashing out with a greater dispelling against any spellcasters (especially those who can clearly see it with see invisibility), then pick off an arcane caster with a 30-magic missile blast. I also recommend holding back so that when that first PCs breeches the repulsion, use a readied action to maze that PC before he/she closes. Chances are that brawler's INT is low, and that will remove the brawler from the encounter. Once that first PC is mazed, unleash hell.
The Harbinger (with the aid of the overworm) almost ended my campaign.
OK, the overworm, that was a fight. (First time in: the Radiant Servant air walks forward to bring the wormcallers into turn range, the worm explodes out of the lake, crits him into negatives and the following round swallows him before the party can rescue him! Following the side quest to raise the funds for True Res, the Radiant Servant uses greater planar ally to get a planetar into the fight!)
But the Harbinger? I ran the fight as scripted: There was one maximised orb of acid from the sorceror, the warlock's eldritch blast and it was all over before he could cast mirror image, let alone prismatic spray.
Did they make those will saves against fear? That thing's got a 60' radius (rather ungodly, if you ask me...)
Did they make those will saves against fear? That thing's got a 60' radius (rather ungodly, if you ask me...)
By that point Heroes' Feast is pretty common (in my experience).
Lipto, I like how you ran things with the Harbinger...
My PCs are power-house slayers. They've dominated most of the modules so far, but the Spire was a different story. The entire module was difficult, but the Harbinger was the most difficult boss of the campaign yet. Let me say more...
In my campaign, when the Harbinger noted the PCs ransacking his Spire, it was prepared. Once the group made it to the lower levels, it began buffing itself. When the overworm was attacked, the Harbinger floated out of its sanctum, invisible, with stoneskin, mirror image, displacement, cold shield, and repulsion cast.
Only the sorceress could see the Harbinger, and the spellweaver immediately noticed this. It communicated with the sorceress, in a calm, collected tone, to come down and explain the actions of the PCs, and surprisingly enough, she did, swooping down to the tunnel leading to the Harbinger's sanctum to parlay. In an attempt to hit the Harbinger in the back, the sorceress did as she was told, and laid down in submission while the Harbinger accessed the situation (5 PCs tangling with the overworm).
Once the spellweaver turned its back on her, she fired an empowered disintegrate, missing horribly. The Harbinger whirled around and used a greater dispelling on her, which stripped her of all her magical protections. She was warned to stay down, and promised that she will be given "accession" should she comply, as will her comrades if they do the same (accession is transformation into a spawn of Kyuss, by the way, though the Harbinger wasn't clear about that). The Harbinger, now fully visible, turned to examine the destruction of its overworm, and the sorceress fired her own greater dispelling, which only stripped the Harbinger's cold shield. In the next round, the spellweaver unleashed an empowered magic missile using all six arms, dealing over 200 points of damage to the sorceress, turning her into a blackened pile of bones.
The remainder of the encounter went down as follows:
The elf scout was swallowed and digested by the overworm.
The lizardfolk druid (the only PC to breach the Harbinger's repulsion) was readied-action mazed and was rolling INT checks for the duration of the encounter.
*By now, the spellcasters had been neutralized, leaving the brawlers to pound away at the Harbinger's mirror images at range, since none of them could breach the spellweaver's repulsion.*
The half-orc fighter was slain after suffering from a prismatic spray and a chain lightning.
That left the awakened dire ape ranger and the half-orc ranger/warshaper (who was immune to stunning and had listen lorecall active). A power word stun was strangely ineffective, as was a power word blind. Wielding a ghost strike hammer, the ranger threw it three times, ultimately destroying the spellweaver on a critical (ghost strike weapons can critical undead), whose spells were dwindling by that point.
The awakened dire ape ranger (Zorgus from Dungeon #131) was airbourne firing arrows with the legendary Nimbus Bow, though he was doing paltry damage even when he hit.
Really, I allowed the half-orc ranger to succeed. I could have obliterated the party with the spellweaver lich, but I didn't want the campaign to end. ;-) The players were genuinely scared (and so was I) that the game was going to end with that awful encounter, but I hadn't put all this effort into a campaign just to run a TPK. Oh no...
The Harbinger is a thousands-year-old lich, and simply should not be hosed without #1 being totally buffed with spells and #2 slaying at least one party member in the process.