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Over the weekend, in hopes of being able to contribute to the high-level playtest, I ran the first section of Mike Mearls' "Root of Evil" adventure from Dungeon #122, using four pregenned versions of the iconics - Valeros, Merisel, Ezren and Kyra, specifically. As it happens, the very first major encounter of that adventure almost exactly matches the description Jason offered for one of the scenarios he wanted to see run. Here are the differences:
1) There was no buff time, save for long-term effects that were still in play from that morning. Ezren was floating around on an extended overland flight spell, and the entire group had had an extended heroes' feast as well.
2) Two worms appeared on Round One through the ground, and then two more appeared on Round Two.
3) The room suffered an earthquake-like effect, requiring those standing on the ground to make a Reflex save (DC 22) or lose their actions for the round.
The PCs were all 18th level, and had had one "encounter" beforehand: a group of 15 orcs (War1) and 4 trolls, which had been largely dealt with by a single chain lightning from Ezren. Merisel and Valeros handled cleanup, with Kyra providing the final fire-based touches.
When the worms appeared, Ezren made a Knowledge check and got something in the low 40s, so he rattled off dangers and weakenesses. The "tremorsense" part caught Merisel's ear, and she used her wings of flying to regain the potential for stealth - thanks to the columns, I ruled that she had sufficient cover to disappear, which she promptly did (Stealth mod of +54). Valeros waded into one, forced to charge and therefore not to get his full attacks off, while Ezren zapped the other with a lightning bolt. Unfortunately, that one proceeded to bite, grapple, and swallow (and in retrospect, I have discovered I have been running 'swallow whole' wrong - never realized it takes two rounds to accomplish) Merisel after she sneak attacked, which made Kyra and Ezren both worry about which effects they could use without hurting Merisel inside the worm. Merisel had acid resistance 10, however, and was doing alright for the moment. The other worm tried to bite Valeros and succeeded, tried to grapple him and failed (nat 1), and then tried to sting him and succeeded. The issues with poison, however, are hugely magnified at 18th level - trying to poison an 18th level fighter with a heroes' feast on him is really an exercise in futility, particularly when he only needs to make one save to shake it off.
On the second round, Merisel discovered that even being grappled is not so bad, got ahold of one of her daggers, and went to town on the worm from the inside. She wasn't quite able to work herself free, but the worm was beginning to have second thoughts about its meal. The worm facing Valeros had its back against a wall, and so it couldn't get away - this meant that Valeros unloaded all 5 of his attacks (using Imp Vital Strike to drop them down from 7 attacks), including one crit that triggered Bleeding Critical (Fort save, DC 28, is pretty hard for even a purple worm to make safely). The worm was down well over half its hit points, and bleeding to boot. Two more worms appeared, however, before Ezren and Kyra got to go, and each of them was promptly chomped and swallowed. Ezren took the matter in stride, however, autosucceeding on the Spellcraft check to cast while grappled and then using finger of death on the worm. The worm actually failed its save, but still did not die - so much for SoD effects, yes? Unwounded, it was still at 20 hp, though it nonetheless triggered the massive damage rule (could only fail on a 1, of course). I still ruled that Ezren had blown a hole in the thing's neck, and he calmly stepped out and flew off again. Kyra had a few more issues - also acid resistant, but without a light weapon or any prepped spells so suited to the cause. Instead, she cast righteous might after dropping her scimitar (it was not affected by the spell, and was now a light weapon for her) and expanded in the thing's gullet, then grabbed her scimitar and prepared to cut her way free.
On the third round, Ezren used his rod of lesser maximize metamagic to maximize a scorching ray at the worm holding Merisel, while the worm that had held him fled through the ceiling again. Merisel finished cutting herself free, and killed the worm in the process. Valeros launched another full attack on his worm, got another crit and made me yelp when I realized Bleeding Critical specifically allows its effects to stack, in contradition with the usual rules on bleed effects. The worm was taking an extra 4d6 hp every action at this point, and it actually killed itself trying to hit him. That only left Kyra, who cut herself free rather easily, and then they all tore the last worm apart.
Specific notes not mentioned above:
1) The only healing the party used was channel energy, which was 11d6 (phylactery) for Kyra, who could do it 10/day. The healing available via channeling scales extremely well with level.
2) When making the pregens, I wanted to do more with the critical feats, but simply did not have the room (even for a fighter). Having to take both Critical Focus and Critical Mastery in order to have more than one critical feat be worthwhile simply took too much space, since I couldn't start buying the feats until relatively high level.
3) In a later encounter, Valeros tore apart a greater stone golem by himself, despite not having the ability to overcome the thing's DR through pluses or weapon composition. In this regard, Improved Vital Strike was extremely helpful, since it got more damage through the DR than would have happened otherwise.
4) On the other hand, Vital Strike and Improved Vital Strike seemed to work at odds in fights where the opponents could suffer the effects of Bleeding Critical, since crits are determined almost entirely by the number of times you roll the dice.
I'm surprised no one has commented on this outstanding fight!
I also ran this fight with a group 18th level PCs (made for the playtest) - Barbarian, Wizard, Cleric, and Monk.
It went rather quickly, with the worms only hitting once or twice (on the Barbarian which had better or equal CMB to them, so no grapple/swallowing going on).
Two devastating blows took down one. The monk's flurry (enlarged, no vital strike) nearly took one out in a single round. An empowered firestorm did a good bit of damage, while a destruction save was made.
The Monk's sheer number of attacks made Gorgon's Fist a poor choice, even as a setup for Medusa's Wrath.
I think there was one left by the end of the second round. No healing was bothered with, not too many resources used.
It felt about right for an EL16 encounter for an 18th level party - quick and easy, but not frivolous. Failing to expend spell resources could have resulted in a bit more danger of swallow whole.
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I'm surprised no one has commented on this outstanding fight!
What surprises me is that my post and your reply constitute the only playtest reports I've seen that actually fit the scenarios Jason asked us to playtest. What's everybody doing?
I also ran this fight with a group 18th level PCs (made for the playtest) - Barbarian, Wizard, Cleric, and Monk.
It went rather quickly, with the worms only hitting once or twice (on the Barbarian which had better or equal CMB to them, so no grapple/swallowing going on).
Two devastating blows took down one. The monk's flurry (enlarged, no vital strike) nearly took one out in a single round. An empowered firestorm did a good bit of damage, while a destruction save was made.
The Monk's sheer number of attacks made Gorgon's Fist a poor choice, even as a setup for Medusa's Wrath.
I think there was one left by the end of the second round. No healing was bothered with, not too many resources used.
It felt about right for an EL16 encounter for an 18th level party - quick and easy, but not frivolous. Failing to expend spell resources could have resulted in a bit more danger of swallow whole.
I found that I couldn't really help hitting or swallowing pretty much anyone in the party. It just wasn't really a problem once they were swallowed. The crushing damage wasn't fun, but there just wasn't anything really to stop the casters from doing their thing, and energy resistance was simple to come by - pretty much everyone had some, and as it happened, the two that were in the gullet for more than one round were the ones that had acid resistance specifically. What sorts of ACs were you looking at?
My main problem running the high level stuff hasn't really been possible lately... we have just about 2 weekends left for RoTRL and I only have one day a weekend to get anything in. Here in a month I got a con coming up (concave) so I'm going to try and get some heavy playtesting in during that.
I think these post are extremely useful though.
When I do run some of these I'm hoping the players will use the features that have changed the most.
What sorts of ACs were you looking at?
Monk: 41, Cleric: 36, Wizard: 36, Barb: 31 (and a CMB of 31).
So, where are the vitals on a golem anyway???
11th level Wizard Lich is in the Monster Manual also.
I also ran those characters through the Fire Giant fight, followed by the Black Dragon (increased to Very Old CR 18).
The Fire Giants were a peace of cake really, but they did consume resources. For a multi-creature EL 16 for an 18th level party, it felt about right - no real threats, but lots of effort to take it all down without suffering damage.
The resources which were already expended when they encountered the black dragon made things slightly more difficult. The black dragon was a solid battle - most of the time spent trying to grab and kill the wizard (who dispelled the heavy magical protections the dragon had put up). Unable to keep hold of the wizard, it died after a few rounds. A credible EL 18 for an 18th level party.
Next up is the devil encounter, without a refresh.
Yesterday, one of my groups and I had the possibility (and the time) to playtest some of the high-level challenges proposed by Jason in these Forums. One is posted here, while the other is posted here.
The group was composed by a Paladin, a Barbarian, a Druid, and a Wizard (I used the pre-made characters posted by me here). I used also the proposed ‘Improved Standard Attack Action’ (on BaB +11 or more, a character can make two iterative attacks as a standard action). I allowed al of them to have a simple, plain dagger into one of their boots (2 gp), to prevent the ‘swallowed forever’ syndrome
The group was traveling into a huge cave complex, and managed to find a gigantic cavern with the ceiling at 20 ft, and large columns scattered around.
Purple Worms:
Skills: Perception +18, Swim +20
Feats: Awesome Blow, Cleave, Great Cleave, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Grapple, Power Attack (+12, Weapon Focus (bite), Weapon Focus (sting)
I used for the monsters the same Feat progression of characters – one feat for every 2 HD; I gave them Improved Grapple in order to allow them to grapple without the need to actually hit with the Bite attack (in-game reasoning from a creature with 1 Intelligence: ‘If I cannot take you into my mouth, I swallow the WHOLE GROUND around you to take you into my mouth’
CMB: +32 (+34 on Bull Rush and Grapple checks)
Preparations:
Druid: Freedom of Movement
Wizard: Mirror Image (8 images rolled)
Barbarian: nothing
Paladin: nothing
Purple Worms: wait until the thingies above us are in the middle…
Initiative count: Horse/ Druid/ Wizard/ Barbarian/ Purple Worm/ Paladin we forgot the poor Wolf… but he was useless anyway
Moving below them, the Purple Worm alerted the characters – no surprise round however, they were all clustered (and the Worms had room enough to surround them…
Round 1) Druid casts Animal Growth on his Wolf (but doesn’t move…)/ Wizard casts Fly and flies above ground (10 ft)/ Barbarian delays this is the same character of the Monk of the other playtest… remember it !!!; Worms move out of the ground + Bite and Improved Grab – Worm1 on Horse, succeeds (13 hp, thanks to Horse’s DR 10/magic) and Grapples, Worm2 on Barbarian (19 ho thanks to DR 4/-) and Grapples, Worm3 on Druid (23 hp) but Druid immune to Grapple, Worm4 on Wolf (23 hp) and Grapples; Barbarian enters Initiative count, Rage + Strength Surge to free himself, Standard action to exit from Grapple – and fails miserably…; Paladin full attack with Lance on Purple Worm to free his Horse, misses with 1 attack (a 1!), deals 28 hp to Worm1
Round 2) Horse tries to escape from Grapple and fails; Druid casts Fire Seeds on Worm1 (64 hp), splash damage on Worm2 (15 hp); Wizard casts Horrid Wilting on all Worms – Worm1 (31 hp), Worm2 (31 hp), Worm3 (62 hp), Worm4 (31 hp); Worms, °1 Swallow Whole on Horse – succeeds, 9 hp (thanks to DR and Acid Res), °2 Swallow Whole on Barbarian – succeeds, 23 hp (thanks to DR), °4 Swallow Whole on Wolf – succeeds, 27 hp, Worm3 makes AoO on Paladin, hits and Grapples (19 hp) since the Horse was ‘sucked in’ the mouth of Worm1, the Paladin fell to the ground, moving out of a threatened square… and provoking AoO from the only non-grappling Worm; Barbarian, move action to draw the dagger (he holds the Greataxe with the free hand, anyway), Standard action (2 dagger attacks) plus Animal Fury inside the belly of Worm2, opens a hole note: do hp damage to the gizzard count towards the hp total of the creature ? I ruled for a ‘NO’, but this is a bit questionable…; Paladin move action to draw Sword (drops Lance as free action), Standard action (2 attacks) towards Worm3, 24 hp damage
Round 3) Horse is helpless (can bite, but it’s too tired of his uselessness…); Druid casts Flame Strike on Worm1 and Worm2 – °1 takes 23, °2 takes 47; Wizard, it’s NOVATIME !!! Arcane Bond casts Delayed Blast Fireball on °1 (62hp) and °2 (62 hp… and DIES), Empowered Fireball on °2 (46 hp… and DIES) and °4 (23 hp); Worm3 tries to Swallow Whole the Paladin – succeeds, 30 hp – while Worm4 makes a Full Attack with Power Attack on the Druid – hits only with Bite, 39 hp (and again, Druid cannot be Grappled); Barbarian moves towards Worm3 and provokes AoO (the Worm was not grappling anymore…) – Worm3 succeeds, 15 hp plus Grapple (again… poor Barbarian) as a side note, I totally forgot to make the AoO of Worm4, since it was threatening the area – my fault; however, two Gargantuan cannot grapple contemporaneously the same Medium creature, if I remember correctly…; Paladin draws his dagger as a move action (and leaves the Longsword inside the belly of Worm3) and tries to cast Holy Sword on the dagger (to have a +5 Holy Dagger) – and fails
Round 4) Horse exits from the carcass of Worm1 and does nothing else; Druid decides to fight Size with Size, and Wild Shapes into a Huge Fire Elemental; Wizard now is totally adjacent to the Druid, and decides to use a trick – and casts Enlarge Person on the Druid since the Druid has the shape and damage of a Fire Elemental, but is still of humanoid type, he can be affected by this 1st-level spell… and becomes a Gargantuan-sized Fire Elemental with 18 Str (+2 from Enlarge Person), Dex 16 (-2 from Enlarge Person), AC 23 (-1 from Dex reduction, -2 from size increment), 2 Slams +13 (+1 Str increment, -2 size increment) 4d6+6 plus 4d6 fire !!!, then Wizard uses his Metamagic Mastery to cast a Quickened Hold Monster on Worm3 – which fails I still think that being able to cast the equivalent of a 9th-level spell at 15th level is a bit overpowered…; Worm3 cannot hold the Barbarian in Grapple anymore, but his guts still damage the poor Paladin for 34 hp, Worm4 makes a Full Attack with Power Attack on the Druid – and fails on both hits (…); now it’s MINCER TIME !!! Barbarian makes a Raging Power Attack Greataxe Full Attack plus Animalistic Fury to free the poor Paladin - °1 hit (65 hp), °2 a 20 !!! confirmed (127 hp), °3 ANOTHER 20 !!! (I know, it seems incredible… but it was right under my eyes) confirmed (129 hp), Bite hits (16 hp) = 337 hp damage – poor wounded Worm3 went to –223hp…; Paladin is suddenly freed from 40000 pounds of meat who simply NEBULIZED around him… since he is adjacent to Worm4, he makes a Full Attack with his trusty dagger (!) for 19 hp damage, and uses as a swift action Lay on Hands on himself, healing 29 hp
Round 5) Druid makes a Full attack on Worm4,hits with both slams, and deals 66 hp; Wizard casts Fireball – Empowered with his Metamagic Mastery – and deals another 55 hp; Worm4 tries to hit Barbarian, and succeeds – 19 hp, and Grapple; Barbarian however is enraged, and simply makes an Animalistic Fury Bite with Power Attack to the last surviving Worm, dealing 14 hp, and killing it.
Final thoughts: in some ways, this fight was more difficult than that of the Dragon; however, the combined forces of the characters were more than enough to annihilate the threat without being in real danger. The Barbarian is a real cannon – but a glass cannon, anyway; Critical Hits not mentioned, with the new Power Attack, only a creature with a low AC (like the Purple Worms) can be dealt such a huge amount of damage. If this is bad or not, I really cannot say it.
My players however were so much enthralled by these two fights that asked me for an ‘over the top’ fight when we have spare time; they agreed to meet an ‘impossible fight’ – a CR20 Balor – with these 15th-level characters, to see if with the current rules they are too much powerful or not…
That was a pretty cool fight, and a good reading too. Awesome post.
Do you think the characters used up an appropriate number of resources for the fight? The wizard seems to have blasted through an important portion of his daily powers (all metamagic mastery, several high level spells, arcane bond wild-card…).
Related to that:
Wizard, it’s NOVATIME !!! Arcane Bond casts Delayed Blast Fireball on °1 (62hp) and °2 (62 hp… and DIES), Empowered Fireball on °2 (46 hp… and DIES) and °4 (23 hp);
Is that a house rule like the standard action granting two iterative attacks? I am pretty sure the description states that the wizard casts the spell from the arcane bond. As in “it still uses his standard action for the round (or full-round if the casting time is such)”. By no means was the arcane bond intended to give a quicken spell for free right from level 1, IMO anyway.
That was a pretty cool fight, and a good reading too. Awesome post.
Do you think the characters used up an appropriate number of resources for the fight? The wizard seems to have blasted through an important portion of his daily powers (all metamagic mastery, several high level spells, arcane bond wild-card…).
Related to that:
Wizard, it’s NOVATIME !!! Arcane Bond casts Delayed Blast Fireball on °1 (62hp) and °2 (62 hp… and DIES), Empowered Fireball on °2 (46 hp… and DIES) and °4 (23 hp);Is that a house rule like the standard action granting two iterative attacks? I am pretty sure the description states that the wizard casts the spell from the arcane bond. As in “it still uses his standard action for the round (or full-round if the casting time is such)”. By no means was the arcane bond intended to give a quicken spell for free right from level 1, IMO anyway.
Obviously, the party didn't pull punches because they knew this was the only fight of the day - I'm fairly sure they wouldn't have blown so much resources elsewhere.
Regarding the Arcane Bond, I didn't houserule - perhaps I simply misunderstood the power itself, but:
"A bonded object can be used once per day to cast any one spell that the wizard knows and can cast, just as if the wizard had cast it. This spell cannot be modified by metamagic feats or other abilities. The bonded object cannot be used to cast spells from the wizard’s prohibited schools."
I thought that the Arcane Bond 'casts by itself' a spell (much like an Imbued Familiar, or a Familiar with a Spell-like ability), but at the cost of a swift action of the Wizard - obviously, if I'm wrong, I would be happier (this smells like cheese...) and correct this in the future.
Just a note, forced movement, like being dismounted when your horse it eatin', does not provoke AoO, so the Pal, would have still been standing there. doubt it would have made a difference though.
Where can I find this in the rules? I made a throught research but I didn't find this anywhere...
Since you provoke Attacks of Opportunity because the action you are taking does not allow you to defend yourself fully (and so, the enemy has the possibility to land a blow past your defenses), I thought that a falling creature (for example) allows AoO, much like (by rules) a running creature does. Can you point me where to look? Thank you.
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I am sorry, i didn't word that right. I was using the example for Bull rush.
"Note: The defender provokes attacks of opportunity if he is moved. So do you, if you move with him. The two of you do not provoke attacks of opportunity from each other, however."
I take this as the monster that eats your horse cannot also attack you.
I am sorry, i didn't word that right. I was using the example for Bull rush.
"Note: The defender provokes attacks of opportunity if he is moved. So do you, if you move with him. The two of you do not provoke attacks of opportunity from each other, however."I take this as the monster that eats your horse cannot also attack you.
Well, it was not the Worm that swallowed the horse (Worm1), but the adjacent Worm3 which was not holding anybody/anything. Even Worm4 (who had just Full-attacked the Druid, but could not Grapple him thanks to his Freedom of Movement) could make an AoO, but in the heat of battle I forgot it (plus, Paladin was already Grappled by Worm 3 with its AoO).