My party is going to end HMM next weekend. I decided to rewrite the end of the AP like someone suggested on GM refenrence topic: Barl Breakbones attacks to Fort Rannick trying to take it back. I have been designing the last battle hoping for memorable fight against the giants. But I fear that battle is going to be too easy OR too hard for my PCs. Here is something I designed:
-Barl and his stone giant servant
-Annis Hags and better Lamatar
-8 Ogre zombies that Barl animated after killing them
-2 Kreeg Ogres and 3 normal Ogres
I designed this for APL 15 and I still have 6400XP to put in attackers side. APL 15 is bit high to 4PCs but they have Black Arrows and Shalelu on their side. Maybe also some militia from Turtleback Ferry.
I want to hear your opinions about my plans. I planned that first Barl sends zombies to attack east gate. Same time living ogres try to climb to the walls. When the gate is opened hags and wight assault in the fort's yard. Barl and the other giant attack defenders at range another with spells other with stones. Among ogres the moral is low: if both Kreeg ogres are slain/they flee remaining normal ogres also flee. All ogres flee if they are brought below 25% hp. I'm not so sure about hags, maybe same to them. Barl and the other giant fights to death.
My PCs are all nine level characters: fighter with halberd [deals easily over 20 points of damage with one hit], cleric of Gozreh [healing machine with some cool abilities like animal companion], spy themed rogue [very effective close combatant] and sorcer of Arcane bloodline [lots of enchament and transmutation spells, some evocation like magic missiles and lighting bolt]. They are really effective team in combat eventhough they fear death really much.
What you people say? Is this enough hard to the PCs or will they kick Barls gangs ass too easily if it is like that? I really appreciate your help. :)
-Blue_Hill "who is sorry about his english because he hasn't used it in a long time"
That's about a comparable force to what my PCs fought--they fought two Kreeg ogres, 2 ogre zombies, 6 ogre skeletons, 6 exhausted ogres, the hags (one of which was replaced with a witchflame from PF 5) and Lamatar riding in the skeleton of the Runebound King, two eight headed skeletal hydras, Barl Breakbones and the classless stone giant. Of course, I had a party of six players, but then again, they had only one NPC ally survive to this point. So I think your PCs will probably be okay.
You've already got them attacking in waves, which will help the difficulty factor--the PCs can concentrate their attention on one target at a time. Also, don't underestimate the impact of your plan to have multiple angles of attack. It'll split up PC attention and make things more difficult for them. Whether that's a good or a bad thing depends on your group.
Your attackers look really bad ass, did any of PCs die defending the fort? Maybe I should add something more to the attackers. I like and I don't like undeads. It is nice that they don't runaway but it is also annoying because it makes them hard to defeat. Cleric of Gozreh will get some cool times with his channel energy featuring phylactery of undead turning..
Maybe I should add more normals ogres. That because I really want to PCs notice that moral among the attackers is low and I want to see can they use that information on their advantage. Making normal ogres to be exhausted is perfect way no make them bit easier and also show that they have been forced to attack by their leader.
I'll post my updated plans here too. ^^
-Blue_Hill "who likes Paizo forum"
Here again. Little update about plans and forces of Barl Breakbones. I added three normal [exhausted] ogres so total of normal ogres is six. I like that. Still there is eight undead ogres and I like that too. Three hags [I can't find good finnish translation to "annis" so I just call them hags]and elite wight Lamatar.
Whole new thing is skeleton chimera. I have to thank Demiurge 1183 about this one. Those skeleton hydras gave me idea about multiheaded undead so I came up with chimera. It can't fly because it is skeleton so fighting against this isn't alike with Longtooth in FotSG. Still it is kinda scary thing. Couple extra HDs and it is fine to me.
First wave: zombies and ogres. After the gate is opened: chimera, hags and elite wight. Last wave: Barl flies to fort and stone giant follows him by foot. This is the last resort to Barl so it is really desparate try after chimera and hags are slain. When Barl flies to fort there might bee some zombies around but hardly ogres if I know my PCs. They really hate them.
Hopefully this is enough to my PCs :)
Your attackers look really bad ass, did any of PCs die defending the fort?
No, although it got very close. The hag covey, Lamatar and the Runebound King all got taken out without doing very much--solid fog + wall of fire = bad times, especially for the undead. The party mage got taken down, but thanks to delay death (a spell from the Spell Compendium), he couldn't die from damage for 9 rounds. A fact that was taken advantage of with a suggestion to the normal stone giant--"keep beating on the wizard". It actually was a pretty narrow struggle for the cleric's healing magic to stay caught up with the damage the giant could dish out.
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I think it's a good idea to add a number of regular ogres, because as I understand it, there were still some ogres living in the tribal caves. Having those easier-to-kill enemies will make the PC's feel more heroic, and you can also have the Black Arrows and other NPCs focus on those enemies and make it appear that they contributed something valuable to the battle. Having them exhausted is a good idea (maybe Barl had them do a forced march from the tribal caves?).
One thing that was pretty dangerous in my campaign is that the hags have the Forcecage spell when they're together: so they can take out one of the PC's from the fight... It can make a pretty big difference (and make that game very boring for that PC :( ).
It's pretty important that the PC's fight these enemies in waves, with some time to heal themselves in between. Otherwise it will be too dangerous. But it seems you are already planning to do this.
PS: The skeletal hydra and chimeras are very cool ideas!
My PCs survived the attack kinda nicely:
When they get to the walls, zombies were on the bridge and ogres move to south trying to get flank attack. Zombies were really easy to my PCs and Black Arrows, only two survided to the close combat. Ogres climbed on the walls after the zombies were beaten mainly because zombies died very fast. Same time hags, chimeira and Lamatar started to move closer to fort. Ogres died very fast only rogue take damage [sorcerer avoided damage with "charm monster" and now he has nice ogre pet...] and only two ogres survived to fled the fort.
Now PCs had couple of rounds to heal their damage. I think that it was good to give them time in this part of attack. Mainly because next opponents were really annoying to them. Hags cast lot of fog on the battle field and moved behind that. Skeletal chimeira climbed on the walls and Lamatar moved there also. One of the hags died on arrows. Barl and other stone giant moved closer and Barl started casting in this point. Rogue escaped to the fort because he was the main target to Barl. Fighter guy got trapped in the forcecage. Sorcerer got hit by stone and fell negative hit points. Everything looked really bad in this point.
One hag followed rogue to the fort and she died by the sneaky rogue. Forcecage ended after the cleric and rangers kicked chimeira's and Lamatar's ass. Fighter attacked hag [heroic leap over the walls like Aragorn and Gimli did in Helms Deep ^^"] and soon she fled. Barl and his assistant attacked with all they power and after ~4-7 rounds of combat they were killed. Barls last words: "You won now but you can't save the Varisia from darkness! Hahahaaahaaargh.."
I think that this went well. I haven't read PCs comments yet but they seem to like to defend the fort. Only problem maybe was that fight was very long, 27 rounds. In real life battle lasted over two hours [almost three]. One of players got bit tired but still he said he liked.
If you want to things better than me here is some suggestions [I may update this list in future]:
- This battle take place on the east gate. Some attackers should try to use southern gate because now all defenders were in same place and nailed things too easily. Maybe my Black Arrows were little bit overpowered.. [Jakardros dealed easily over 30 points of damage.]
- Bring some civilians to fort before attack begins. Now there were only 7 workers in fort. Some ogres could try to get in the fort and PCs have to also go there to save the civilians. Now they had nothing to be worried about because they were almost alone in the fort.
- Zombies are maybe little bit boring enemies. Ogres are more better because they can react to things. Undeads may fit but think wisely about what kind of undeads on how many.
PCs don't have strong connection to the fort but this battle may create it so this is important to be challenging.
-Blue_Hill "who really waits the start of FotSG"