This sounded like a cool encounter but all the PC's have to do is cast a protection from evil on their gladiator and have that PC fight a Lemure one on one b/c the other summoned Lemures cant touch him! Thats what my PC's did and it was a boring fight until Mantrithor went crazy and the battle began. So I'm just saying that protection from evil is all it takes to negate Mantrithors tactic. Was that overlooked by the designers? Any reason for such an easy counter? Thoughts....
Creative Director
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This sounded like a cool encounter but all the PC's have to do is cast a protection from evil on their gladiator and have that PC fight a Lemure one on one b/c the other summoned Lemures cant touch him! Thats what my PC's did and it was a boring fight until Mantrithor went crazy and the battle began. So I'm just saying that protection from evil is all it takes to negate Mantrithors tactic. Was that overlooked by the designers? Any reason for such an easy counter? Thoughts....
That's cheating, and the organizers of the competition would call the PCs on it. It was indeed overlooked by the designer AND by me, the developer; but had we remembered it would have been mentioned as pretty much the ONLY rule. Since the whole point of the thing is to fight summoned monsters against folks, after all. This is a great point to simply not allow the spell into the fight with an in-game "against the rules" to back it up.
That's cheating, and the organizers of the competition would call the PCs on it. It was indeed overlooked by the designer AND by me, the developer; but had we remembered it would have been mentioned as pretty much the ONLY rule. Since the whole point of the thing is to fight summoned monsters against folks, after all. This is a great point to simply not allow the spell into the fight with an in-game "against the rules" to back it up.
This thread is perfectly timed for me. I was just sitting down to think about what I could do to spice up the encounter, since I'm sure Pro from Evil will be the first spell my players will cast. I hadn't considered simply banning the spell from the contest.
I was leaning towards bumping Thrax to 9th level (My group is 5 players and I need more XP in the mix), and have him cast Summon Monster III a few times to toy with the champion. He'd have a few more Summon Monster III or IV spells available via scroll if he gets pressed and runs out of III and II summons.
Once he realizes he's foiled by ProEvil and he can't win, he'll cast Summon Monster V to bring in a Large Earth Elemental (which isn't affected by ProEvil), and then join the fray personally. With his 4th level spells, he'd try to debuff the champion with Enervation and Bestow Curse.
It won't take long for the rest of the party to jump to the champion's aid, but they won't be protected vs the existing lemures, and it should be a grand melee.
If I screwed up on the encounter, my Deux Ex Machina is to have the elemental dispelled by someone hired by Rance to keep things safe in case the summoned creatures get into the crowd. By virtue of Thrax summoning the elemental, the PCs will have won the challenge.
I'm still working through the details, but I might look more closely at simply disallowing Pro from Evil and see if that will still create some serious drama for his group.
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Creative Director
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Protection from evil is such an obvious counter to the whole way the Devildrome fights are set up, I would actually suspect that there'd be a big sign up above the door or something to that effect that blatantly spells out the ban on the spell, to be honest. In fact, that's a fun bit of flavor for the encounter that I really wish I'd thought to include in print, not just because it keeps the encounter from being broken, but because it's just some fun flavor.
That is pretty good.
My group tends to outmaneuver the bad guys regularly with their tactics, so I'm sure Thrax will need another ace up his sleeve to add to the drama. Disallowing Pro from Evil will help balance things a bit more out of the gate.
This sounded like a cool encounter but all the PC's have to do is cast a protection from evil on their gladiator and have that PC fight a Lemure one on one b/c the other summoned Lemures cant touch him! Thats what my PC's did and it was a boring fight until Mantrithor went crazy and the battle began. So I'm just saying that protection from evil is all it takes to negate Mantrithors tactic. Was that overlooked by the designers? Any reason for such an easy counter? Thoughts....
To me this whole challenge seemed so strange I decided to make my own rules.
"At the first round of the fight each wizard must summon at least 1 creature."
"If at any given time one of the 2 fighting wizards have no creatures in the arena, he must immediately summon a creature or loose the match."
"It is forbidden to attack the others creatures directly or the other wizard (anything that would break an invisibility is forbidden)."
"It is forbidden to hide ones creature from the crowd."
This gives a bit more homework for the gm, since he will summon lots of different beasts. Another point is that the GM must make sure that the fight wont draw out too long. I made the fight about 10 rounds long before Thrax lost and went beserk. Among the things thrax summoned was:
Dire Lion, Giant spiders, Dire bat, Riding dogs, Lemures, And a demon that could cast fear and stinking cloud (cant remember the name).
Along with Protection from Evil, it seems there are a few other spells that could be used to break the spirit of the rules (Sanctuary, Levitate, Invisibility, Gaseous Form, Fly, Rope Trick, etc). Basically, any spell or item used as part of a tactic to safely keep out of range of the summoned creatures with the intent of waiting for the summons to expire is disallowed. Using invisibility to sneak attack a lemure is fine. Using invisibility to hide for 10 rounds is not.
I'll have to figure out the best way for Rance to express this, but he'll also explain that the crowd is the ultimate judge of what is considered "fair". The crowd's reaction will be a good indicator of what is and isn't allowed. If the crowd is extremely agitated after awhile due to PC actions, he'll stop the fight and name Thrax the winner.
That gives me a tool to adjust PC behavior if they are exploiting a loophole that I haven't considered yet.
My PC's had a huddle on what they were going to do. When they dropped a Protection from evil I was like....Uhhhhh....huhuhuhu (Butthead style)LOL.
Thanks for the response, now we are off to visit Madjaw and Deathgorger!
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Creative Director
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Along with Protection from Evil, it seems there are a few other spells that could be used to break the spirit of the rules (Sanctuary, Levitate, Invisibility, Gaseous Form, Fly, Rope Trick, etc). Basically, any spell or item used as part of a tactic to safely keep out of range of the summoned creatures with the intent of waiting for the summons to expire is disallowed. Using invisibility to sneak attack a lemure is fine. Using invisibility to hide for 10 rounds is not.
I'll have to figure out the best way for Rance to express this, but he'll also explain that the crowd is the ultimate judge of what is considered "fair". The crowd's reaction will be a good indicator of what is and isn't allowed. If the crowd is extremely agitated after awhile due to PC actions, he'll stop the fight and name Thrax the winner.
That gives me a tool to adjust PC behavior if they are exploiting a loophole that I haven't considered yet.
Those other spells don't arbitrarily bar a summoned creature from attacking, though; the creatures have ways to get by most of them, so I wouldn't have them banned.
What I would do, though, is also use the crowd reaction to the battle to try to shame the PCs into playing fair. Remember... this isn't just a fight; it's an exhibition. If the PCs do something that makes a fight boring, or makes them seem cowardly, the crowd is going to let them know by booing or throwing rotten tomatoes or otherwise catcalling them. If the PCs end up, through cheaty or cowardly tactics, making a really dull fight, you as the GM can feel free to not award them any Fame points for the battle because the crowd found their performance in the battle to be lackluster.
Those other spells don't arbitrarily bar a summoned creature from attacking, though; the creatures have ways to get by most of them, so I wouldn't have them banned.
Fair enough. My challenge is that my group's personality is that of a tactical wargamer. Each encounter is about resource management and minimizing risk for maximal reward. Not sure fame points will be enough to dissuade them if they come up with the idea of a flying champion with an aligned bow.
I'm sure they see the events leading up to entering Delvehaven as annoying speed bumps before getting to the "good stuff". So, I need to keep them seriously challenged each step, or with a flying champion they'll lobby that "They kill a lemure every 4 rounds, and in 12 rounds they are all unsummoned or dead. What's next?"
Some days I think it would be easier, and equally fun for them, if I just rolled on the random encounter tables till they died. :-).
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Creative Director
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Those other spells don't arbitrarily bar a summoned creature from attacking, though; the creatures have ways to get by most of them, so I wouldn't have them banned.Fair enough. My challenge is that my group's personality is that of a tactical wargamer. Each encounter is about resource management and minimizing risk for maximal reward. Not sure fame points will be enough to dissuade them if they come up with the idea of a flying champion with an aligned bow.
I'm sure they see the events leading up to entering Delvehaven as annoying speed bumps before getting to the "good stuff". So, I need to keep them seriously challenged each step, or with a flying champion they'll lobby that "They kill a lemure every 4 rounds, and in 12 rounds they are all unsummoned or dead. What's next?"
Some days I think it would be easier, and equally fun for them, if I just rolled on the random encounter tables till they died. :-).
Well... in that case, the Devildrome encounter might just be the PERFECT fun encounter for your group, since they'll be able to plot out their tactics for real. I say give them the layout of the battle and the known facts and let them have fun plotting. If it turns out their plots get totally messed up by the bad guy's tactics, that's just as fun as if their plots allow them to come in and completely ruin and humiliate the reigning champion. I would use the crowd reaction to pump up their egos, in this case; this is one place where you can effectively give the PCs cheerleaders, and that can really help as a sort of reward for their skill. Even if it's not a reward they can write down on a character sheet to gain a tactical bonus.
Well... in that case, the Devildrome encounter might just be the PERFECT fun encounter for your group, since they'll be able to plot out their tactics for real. I say give them the layout of the battle and the known facts and let them have fun plotting. If it turns out their plots get totally messed up by the bad guy's tactics, that's just as fun as if their plots allow them to come in and completely ruin and humiliate the reigning champion. I would use the crowd reaction to pump up their egos, in this case; this is one place where you can effectively give the PCs cheerleaders, and that can really help as a sort of reward for their skill. Even if it's not a reward they can write down on a character sheet to gain a tactical bonus.
Great ideas! I've been coming around to this line of thinking too. I think if I allow a variety of creatures, and give Thrax a sidekick to cast some buffing spells, they'll have their hands full and it will make for a memorable event.
Great ideas! I've been coming around to this line of thinking too. I think if I allow a variety of creatures, and give Thrax a sidekick to cast some buffing spells, they'll have their hands full and it will make for a memorable event.
Ran the encounter last night, and I think the group enjoyed the challenge. Got a big laugh when they walked up and saw the big sign saying The Devildrome bans the use of Protection from Evil on the premises. (It's a play on a common local sign banning firearms in buildings).
The event started with Rance announcing each of the PCs by name, and the character they played in the play. Larazod got the biggest response, and Farus got a golf clap.
Thrax was announced (with girlfriend in tow) to raucous boos. I pictured him as a WWE heel with arm candy (who also happened to be a sorcerer, which I didn't end up using).
For the actual combat, I decided I was going to push them to the breaking point, and Thrax would use scrolls if necessary to cast higher level summons. But, I still wanted to keep the total number of summons cast to be about the same as what he had.
In the first few rounds, the champion received align weapon, heroism, shield other, haste, shield of faith, bear's endurance, and displacement.
Thrax initially summoned 5 lemures, followed by haste. The champion cut them all down in a total of two rounds (attack, haste attack, cleave). He had something over +10 to hit, +15 damage and a low 20's AC.
Thrax then cast Summon Monster IV for the next 5 rounds, although due to the short range of the spell, they had to move up to attack.
Next summoned creature was 1 leopard. Dead in two blows.
Next was two aurochs. The trample caused a bit of damage, and they died in two blows each.
Next was a bison, followed by grizzly bear. This actually threatened the champion a bit. It could have been worse, but the grizzly bear got in the way of the bison, and it could not trample after the first round. The cleric was absorbing half the damage from the attacks, and good use of channel energy and cure spells were keeping up with the pace.
Some of the champion's buffs were gone when the wizard cast Rage, which lasts a duration of "concentration". That's when Thrax lost it, and brought out the biggest gun he could (Hound Archon) and followed it up with the stinking cloud.
All but the cleric failed their initial fort save, and fled away from the arena to be nauseated outside the cloud for 5 rounds each. The cleric made his save and held his ground, since leaving would break shield other, and the champion was now facing the archon, bear, and bison.
The champion raged and now was now making 4 attacks per round (including a recast of haste, cleave, and bite). He got rid of the bison, was grabbed and escaped the bear, and took a few whacks from the archon.
Thrax entered the arena, and moved closer to use his short range spells.
The cleric held his ground two more rounds in the stinking cloud, and kept the champion up, even surviving the crit from the archon (which brought the cleric down to 1 HP, although the champion was fine). The bear went down, and the champion went after Thrax. A few rounds later, the archon was unsummoned, and Thrax was left to fend for himself. He fought a spirited fight, but was absolutely no match for a seriously buffed raging half-orc barbarian with a +1 greataxe.
That was about as tough as I could make it in the spirit of the encounter, and they nailed it (with a bit of good dice rolling too).
Now my problem is that I had told them people wager on these fights, and the odds were way in Thrax's favor. 3 of the PCs pooled their money together and put 1000 gp on the champion. The 4th realized he hadn't spent all of his cash from looting the Knot and put 3000 gp on the champion. Now I have to figure out a payout that isn't going to make them filthy rich. They already have 7th level character wealth (or more), I'm sure...
Now my problem is that I had told them people wager on these fights, and the odds were way in Thrax's favor. 3 of the PCs pooled their money together and put 1000 gp on the champion. The 4th realized he hadn't spent all of his cash from looting the Knot and put 3000 gp on the champion. Now I have to figure out a payout that isn't going to make them filthy rich. They already have 7th level character wealth (or more), I'm sure...
Just reduce the loot for a couple of the future encounters until they're where they should be again :)
