How in the heck can the players win in the final fight with the queen? Im reading stats and looking at this thinking holy cow what the heck!
How did some of your fights go down in the past?
Assuming they all survive to this point the party will consist of:
An elf Ronin
A half elf ninja/oracle
A half orc Barbarian/inquisitor/rage prophet
and A Dwarf Kensai Magus.
It is difficult...
Serithial also gives her negative levels, granted the dread wraiths would be easier if there were a cleric...
Her main weakness is that she doesnt do much damage...only her spells are a problem (irresistable dance and the quickened charm monster being primary)
I played this in 3.5 so in my final battle, the cleric (focused on undead turning) took care of the wraiths no problem.
The sorcerer and rogue did most of the work on the queen along with the paladin.
The strategy was to have the Paladin and Rogue Flank hitting her with Serithial and Smiting while the rogue does sneak attack.
To deal with her flying our sorcerer just casted mass fly on the group countering the queen's fly.
Also: if you think they need more help, send in some allies with them...Vencarlo, Grau, or Trinia perhaps (depending on how the characters have been interacting with them). Add a couple levels to the NPCS to make them decent and volunteer them...its their city too you know!
Although with your group...I think it really depends if they can either fly or dispel her fly...as if not then she'll be taunting them all game from above.
BTW: Ninja/Oracle is an interesting combination...
When we played this final fight, the players won with relative ease. The main reason is she cannot do enough damage to present a serious threat. By the time the players reached the final fight, they all had some way to fly (as expected in these levels).
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This fight was annoying to my players but that's about it. Her power comes from her enchantment effects but other than that she's a pussycat. She has one schtick but if that doesn't work she's stuffed.
Frankly, compared to some AP BBEG's she isn't that tough. Of the 5 AP BBEG's I have ran or faced only one gave the players less of a challenge.
In my fight it ran for quite a few rounds and a couple of players were dropped but that's about it. She dominated the Ranger as I recall but really she didn't have enough actions to deal with the rest of the players. Action economy is a killer.
That said, if you are concerned with her stats there are several things you can do:
1) Allies: at this point the players should have a bunch of allies, Trinia, Cressida, Krojun, Thousand Bones, Vencarlo, Keppira D'Bear and Grau Soldado could all render assistance. Hell, even Laori/Sial or Glorio Arkona could help depending on how your campaign went. Choose a couple, stat them up and send them with the players.
2) Down stat Ileosa: This is easy to do, just remove some of her inherant stat bonuses or drop her a few levels.
3) Upstat your players: The best way to do this is to run a side quest with your players to get them to a higher level. Perhaps the Grey Maidens need some persuasion to flee or you could adapt Academy of Secrets for this purpose.
But really I think you should leave it as is. I reiterate, she's not as bad as you think and really your players should have to work hard for their victory. If you provide the appropriate challenge your players will find it more memorable...
Shoot....I plan on boosting her badness because my party is too awesome for words and they'll likely one-round her flying butt.
I also thought about (less seriously) allowing the dragon to come back so they could get a 'real' challenge, but that may be too mean. ;-)
Similar experience as other posters. Its been awhile but from what I recall a lot of this encounter boiled down to how many times the party had prepared a greater dispel magic. I remember there was a thread where someone had converted Ileosa to a sorceror and if I had to run this again I would've used that stat block to make her more dangerous.
I do also remember boosting the number of greater wraiths.
There are two players in this group who Bum rushed Alicvaniss from SD and they had to fight undead too, which as written wasnt supposed to BE a fight. and they ridiculously won (action economy was a big culprit).
However since then i've down graded part stats (to maximize fun) so now we all roll 3d6 re roll 1s for stats. Everyone is alot less optimized than they once were. Since then, non of our parties have finished an AP, always TPKd.
From what I can see the group has a decent chance this time, except for this final fight.
A BIG difference could be if the barbarian/rage prophet dropped his schtick and just went barb/inquisitor (more levels of inquisitor) he would be mechanically more powerful but lose his entire "flavor" he's actually been talking about it, but the character was so well thought out and back storied it was awesomesauce. But mechanically the barb/inquisitor will wipe house.
Im concerned a bit of the lack of arcane power and counter spelling (the ninja oracle usually plays an archaist, normally a witch these days)
The magus player is normally a beat stick but played the magus so the party can have some arcane spell power, but as a blade bound kensai, hes got less punch.