I posted this elsewhere, but I thought others might find it enjoyable...
We ran into this crazy encounter on Tuesday night. The team was comprised of a Cleric4/Wizard2, Rogue5/Barbarian1, Monk6, and Ranger6. We scouted the place and heard through a combination of Speak with Animals (rats in a city are GREAT informants for a little jerky) and a very sneaky, spider-climbing rogue, learned about the layout and defenses of the place, as well as how she flies in at morning time to sleep on the roof.
With this, we decided on sneaking in through the rooftop and ambushing the Lamia when she came in to sleep in the morning. We bedded down early, had the caster prep for dealing with a flying (possibly invisible) enemy when we woke, and had the rogue scale the tower with a rope line so we could all get up safely (though the cleric/wizard had to blow his featherfall at one point).
Once at the top, the group quickly wiped out the faceless horrors and found hiding places, with the caster replacing the spear with an illusory double using Minor Image, and the rogue hiding under the pillows of her nest.
When the Lamia finally arrived, we waited till she had her back to the ladder leading down into the tower, and the Monk charged silently up to wrassle the big meanie down, only to have her easily evade his grapple attempt. It was at about this point that we realized we might be in trouble.
We got off a surprise round and another round as she tried to grab her fake spear before she vanished using invisibility. The caster countered with see invisibility, and by pulling a potion out of his pack, but the Lamia threw on shield and magic armor, making her save for the silence spell the caster tried.
The caster helped the ranger pick squares, but the arrows were largely ineffectual, until one of them had a lucky crit for around 30 damage. The Lamia, having had enough, attempted to roast the caster with a Scorching Ray. This turned out to be a tactical error.
The monk had not been idly wasting his time. He tied a bit of their rope to the 2-ton angel statue on the clock tower, and fashioned the other end of it into a lasso. The GM ruled that, since the lasso was not trying to actually find a chink in her armor, hooking her with it would be a touch attack, albeit one with a -4 non-proficiency penalty.
A good roll found her leashed to the statue, and when the Lamia failed her Escape Artist roll to get out, the rogue and ranger thought it would be funny to push the Angel down the ladder. The weight rapidly dragged the Lamia into the hole and to the ground floor of the Tower. The caster knew they would only have a moment before she broke free, So he used his move action to step into the hole 160ft above his target, and he used his Standard to drink the potion of Tree Form they had taken from the goblin druid several adventures back. The monk followed suit with a 160 foot elbow drop of doom.
Both characters made their ranged touch attacks to connect with the Lamia on the ground floor, and the damage was finally enough to splatter her, though it drove the caster into single digits (the DM rolled low on the 16d6, and was nice enough to give the caster/tree 5/slashing, just like a real tree). They ran like hell from the construct that guarded the ground floor while the ranger and the rogue looted the place.
It was a good night.
LOL (Literally)
That's wonderful. I can't wait to see how my players handle this one...