Tonight my players had some bad luck.
They infiltrated from the redcap tunnels, and underestimated Enga Keckvia. She got beat up, but ran north calling for help, and alerting the (4) Pit Guardians.
Galenmir stepped out and Power Attacked for a full round on the party fighter. He scored a critical hit with his Heavy Pick (which is a x4 weapon), and dropped her dead in her tracks.
They weren't really dumb in their tactics, but they had some back luck and completely lost control of the situation and never regained it back. By the time they recovered their fallen party member, the whole upper level of the Caverns was aware that there was an invasion.
The party fled the dungeon via teleport.
Now I'm wondering what the response should be. Especially since they've built Mokmurian up to be fairly smart.
Any suggestions besides replacing a few fallen Pit Guardians?
Tonight my players had some bad luck.
They infiltrated from the redcap tunnels, and underestimated Enga Keckvia. She got beat up, but ran north calling for help, and alerting the (4) Pit Guardians.
Galenmir stepped out and Power Attacked for a full round on the party fighter. He scored a critical hit with his Heavy Pick (which is a x4 weapon), and dropped her dead in her tracks.
They weren't really dumb in their tactics, but they had some back luck and completely lost control of the situation and never regained it back. By the time they recovered their fallen party member, the whole upper level of the Caverns was aware that there was an invasion.
The party fled the dungeon via teleport.
Now I'm wondering what the response should be. Especially since they've built Mokmurian up to be fairly smart.
Any suggestions besides replacing a few fallen Pit Guardians?
Well, increased patrols all around. Send some giants off to the Storval Stair to guard it. I guess he doesn't really have a lot of resources for sending something into the red cap tunnels to guard them, so not a lot of options there if I'm remembering correctly.
Of course, Mokmurian doesn't know there is a traitor, so she might choose to take a more proactive role in getting the party to him.
I would suggest that Mokmurian find the tunnel maze an annoyance and has the lamia's seal it shut with a stone shape. It'll be pretty difficult for the PCs to find the spot were this occured since they are coming from a maze with many deadends.
Mokmurian also has most spells of 7th or lower. He could prepare some different spells to aid him.
I had him use Planar Binding to summon a 12 HD demon to help guard or roam locations he felt were vulnerable after the first PC invasion.
Other spells such as Prying Eyes can be fun. 1d4 + 1/level floating eyes searching for the wearabouts of PCs can be fun. Give them a perception roll to notice them before they slip away to tell Mokmurian.
Mokmurian is a 14th level wizard with an ancient library at his disposal, not to mention being fairly intelligent. As the DM you should not let these go to waste and have him just sitting there waiting for a minion to say, "They are here boss".
I would suggest that Mokmurian find the tunnel maze an annoyance and has the lamia's seal it shut with a stone shape. It'll be pretty difficult for the PCs to find the spot were this occured since they are coming from a maze with many deadends.
I agree.. Actually to cover their escape, the PCs had done that themselves. I planned on having the lion sisters finish the job, making return that way all but impossible.
Mokmurian also has most spells of 7th or lower. He could prepare some different spells to aid him.
Right! Those are the sort of ideas I'm looking for! I appreciate that Mokmurian would of course replace the guards, and beef up patrols- but I could think of tht on my own. I'm looking for something more intelligent and creative.. that represents a high level wizard intelligently.
I had him use Planar Binding to summon a 12 HD demon to help guard or roam locations he felt were vulnerable after the first PC invasion.
Interesting. What areas did you think were vlunerable last time?
Other spells such as Prying Eyes can be fun. 1d4 + 1/level floating eyes searching for the wearabouts of PCs can be fun. Give them a perception roll to notice them before they slip away to tell Mokmurian.
Cool! That's what I'm talkin' about!
Let me ask another brainstorm question- what do you think his response should be if one of the Prying Eyes makes a report?
Mokmurian is a 14th level wizard with an ancient library at his disposal, not to mention being fairly intelligent. As the DM you should not let these go to waste and have him just sitting there waiting for a minion to say, "They are here boss".
Exactly.. any ideas or tips you have, please pass 'em on!
I think my post disappeared, but as far as switching it up a little bit. Mokmurian should be intelligent enough to have his minions "move the furniture" in almost all the rooms so that the Teleport spell will malfunction at best.
From the SRD,
“False destination” is a place that does not truly exist or if you are teleporting to an otherwise familiar location that no longer exists as such or has been so completely altered as to no longer be familiar to you. When traveling to a false destination, roll 1d20+80 to obtain results on the table, rather than rolling d%, since there is no real destination for you to hope to arrive at or even be off target from.
Additionally, I'd GM a Teleport attraction affect centered on a big metal cage surrounded by some big goons with polearms. So if the PC's try and commando port in, they get dropped in a cage surrounded by guards with reach weapons.
Additionally I'd double the guards at choke points and add a few glyphs of warding or other traps, maybe add an alarm spell or two.
Well I think for each DM's group things will always be different. Best I can do is to tell you some of the changes I did with my group.
My group currently has 7 players in it too (so I have beefed my encounters a bit).
Setup: I had several NPCs survive the PCs from earlier fights. Namely: Lucrecia (which I have added a few rogue and sorc levels to bring her to a CR 13).
Teraktenus and Longtooth both survived the attacks on Sandpoint.
I decided I wanted more roaming encounters at the fortress so I set Teraktenus up with 4 stone giants to roam outside of the walls tracking what has been killing off several groups of stone giant hunters.
Longtooth pretty much sticks to the mountains looking for large animals to roast and take back to his lair to snack on. The PCs do not have much to worry about from him unless they get real frisky.
I turned Zinderhall from the Valisganderr clan into a Half Fiend Stone Giant Fighter 1 (a pretty nasty upgrade) and coupled him with a Cyclops Oracle 11 (CR 11) and had them roaming the lower level of Jorgenfist.
I also had another roaming group for the lowest level. Mokmurian after learning of an incursion from humanoid adventurers decide to use his Lamia's worship of Lamashtu to summon forth Demons to help hunt down the intruders. I made this group to be 1 Hezrou, 2-3 Babaus, 4-6 Dretches. (Planar Binding from Mokmurian and Lesser Planar Ally from the Lamias)
Mokmurian uses spells such as prying eyes to find the PCs and then uses scrying and divination spells to command his minions to ambush or attack them.
I'm still debating if Mokmurian would be too egotistical to make appearances during fights via teleportation spells, buff (haste, mass stat buffs, etc), his minions and leave. I currently feel he wouldn't do these kind of actions, but perhaps when he starts to feel more desperate these kinds of ambushes would be more plauseable or maybe not.
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How much does your Mockmurian know about the PCs? Does he know that they've singlehandedly thwarted a bunch of his schemes and taken down some of his most powerful minions (lamia-kin, retaken a keep from a tribe of ogres, fought off Black Magga, Longtooth etc..)?
It changes the module quite a bit, but when I was running it I decided that if the PCs were found out and identified as the Big Damn Heroes, Mockmurian and Karzoug triggered the invasion early. Mockmurian knows his army could evaporate (he's keeping it out of jorgenfist for fear of them learning about his allies / methods according to the module), so better to get it moving than to have it get scoobie-doo-ed right out from underneath him.
It makes investigating Jorgenfist simpler for the PCs but means having to figure out how fast the army moves and what gets destroyed by it. And you run the risk of redirecting the PCs away from Jorgenfist and into following the army.
In my game after we beat Mockmurian he used dimension door to flee, so my wizard took some of his blood that was spattered everywhere from the fight and very thoroughly scried him followed by teleporting right behind him. If your fighter got exploded that badly maybe you could have a fun encounter where Mockmurian teleports in a stone giant hitman squad at whatever is your PC's base.