My party never managed to defeat either lamia matriarch. They kept going back time and again, always losing. Eventually I just moved the plot along and both lamia matriarchs are still out there somewhere.
My first party had a rough time against Xanesha, but eventually their sorceror went to work on her with rays while the rest of the party kept her off his back. Xanesha escaped, turning up with one of the ogres' leaders in Fort Rannick. The party overwhelmed her with summoned hippogriffs, repeatedly trying to grapple until one succeeded, then moving in for the kill.
The second group also started out sweating, but their spellthief and the hexblade efficiently debuffed Xanesha until they were able to hit her. She went down quickly once their half-ogre went to work on her.
One party caught Lucretia completely off-guard. They crept in through the secret passage; their druid kept its defenders quiet. She feigned that she was an innocent pawn of the true villains (She was in human form at the time), so they locked her into a cell, bound and gagged. The Lamia promptly escaped once they left, then tracked down some ogres to help her attack them.
The other party planted their "cork" to block the stairway while they pelted Lucretia with spells. The fight was grueling, but they eventually took her down.
If Lucrecia is the “easy” one (as several have attested), how is a party of this level (4 8th level characters, I presume – my party is 5 7th level ones) supposed to defeat her?
At this point in your game, the lamias have to be feeling a bit cocky. The next time a lamia faces the party, I'd have her use suboptimal tactics, skipping a couple of buffs and trying to seduce the party to the "Dark Side".
Don't have the two matriarchs appear together: They may prefer to work independently, as each is used to being in charge. Instead, give each a couple of ogre flunkies. (The ogres won't be much help in any batle, since they are easy meat for the confusion magic the party should have already found.)
Throwing your group against both, when they had fled from the first, was a gamble, and it didn't turn out well. It could have though, your math was spot on, it's just these girls stretch the math a bit, because they are so well rounded high CR encounters.
Normally a high CR encounter is tough, but once you find the weakness, handle-able. With well-rounded monsters, you need the specialists who can break any SR, hit any AC, or break any DR, in order to get any traction on them. Normally the specialists don't shine quite so brightly, since they usually end up wasting a lot of their talents.
As far as strategies, your group will need to be trading off who is taking the hits and wear them down. Hit and run can work well, since they only have so many spells, that only last so long. Extra dispel magics would work very well in this case.
Tough encounters that make the party run are *fine*, as long as you don't have too many in a row, and give them some easy successes too. As well as an eventual chance for vengeance.
Good luck!
|
This might sound silly to some people but...
I have a tactic I occasionally use to save my players that I think of as "secret nerf".
Let them meet her again in an environment that is favourable to the party (usually low-ceilings but large area) and have the party make spot checks.
Pick the highest score, blow a sigh and declare; "ooh, only just..." then announce: "You notice the strange seven sided star medallion around her neck is glowing with arcane power."
Once it has been sundered/shattered/targeted dispelled/whatever drop her AC, SR and stats.
Obviously this is a lower CR creature with less XP to collect, but it plays up the powers of the Sihedron and makes the creature beatable.
|
|
Lucrecia is tough, my party had a hard time against her as well. The wizard got lucky and critted her with an Orb of Cold, otherwise it might have been a TPK. Honestly, I think the safest solution (which is what I would do if I had to run it again) is probably just to tweak her and lower her AC, damage, etc. Especially since she already defeated the group once.
|
Lucrecia is tough, my party had a hard time against her as well. The wizard got lucky and critted her with an Orb of Cold, otherwise it might have been a TPK. Honestly, I think the safest solution (which is what I would do if I had to run it again) is probably just to tweak her and lower her AC, damage, etc. Especially since she already defeated the group once.
When my party faced Xanesha in Magnimar, she killed the monk and allowed the party to take the body and run away (after seizing Nualia's Sihedron Medallion from around the monk's neck).
Last night they encountered her again, in the dungeon of Fort Rannick (in place of Lucrecia -- "Lucrecia" was just an alias for Xanesha in my storyline). The party had leveled quite a bit since Magnimar and I expected a more even fight.
On the first round the ranger nailed her with a critical flaming Manyshot dealing 59 points of damage. Along with about 32 points of assorted other damage dealt by the party her second action (after silencing the sorceress) was to dimension door away, yielding the field to the PCs.
She'll be back. I love recurring villains. :-D
I hate to say it, but some pretty blatant DM intervention may be necessary at this point. I've heard some of the these horror stories as well and one thing I've done is arm the PCs with extra magic items.
You could have the PCs retreat to Turtleback Ferry where {insert convenient plot device} has them acquire weapons of power.
[this idea came from somewhere on these boards -can't remember from whom, but thanks !]
When both of my groups reached the top of the Shadow Clock I had them make Perception checks to notice how rotten and weak the wood looked at the centre [apex] of the roof, and how big and heavy! the Angel statue looked from the scaffolding. Thankfully both groups managed to get the Lamia under the centre of the room so that it got well and truly squished when the roof gave way after taking damage from the party.
If you run the encounter tactically from the Lamia's perspective, bar some very jammy dice rolls, a TPK is very likely.
I placed a Wand of Dispel Magic Level 10 in Ironbriars stuff I think it will be enough (I hope)