Is Darl's group too tough?

[Callum]

I'm worried that, if Darl is properly prepared to fight the PCs (which he should be, as written in the adventure), he'll easily defeat my group of four 17th-level PCs. I've read several threads here on this fight, but none of them mention what seems to me a significant factor: with the hand of Vecna, Darl can use unholy aura to ward his entire group just before the fight. If, in addition, he uses his wand to put stoneskin on everyone in advance, they're going to be pretty tough to deal with, it seems to me. Has anyone run the combat this way?

[wordelo]

the hand of vecna is not powerful at all, the unholy aura and blasphemy abilities can only be used once per day.

and with my group they have crazy counterspell skills so they just counterspelled almost everything he used, he did a mass heal on his party that was countered, a destruction was countered, his implosion was not countered but the PC saved. he also had a crazy amount of buffs that were mostly all dispelled. and the barbarian had access to an adamantine weapon.

had they not countered anything or dispelled anything it indeed would have been a hard fight.

have faith in your PCs they are 17th level.

[Callum]

Thanks for the feedback, wordelo. Unfortunately, my group doesn't have crazy counterspell skills - in fact, they're a bit light on arcane magic overall. Hopefully they'll think of dispelling things - though this may not be effective against Darl's spells, or against the unholy aura (CL 20).

Although the unholy aura can only be used once a day, that's all that's needed - it provides a big defensive boost before the fight to all of Darl's group (along with protection from spells, which Darl will also cast on the whole group).

[wordelo]

I need to read the cards, I didn't know unholy aura was an area spell. we've been using that wrong for a while.

well I changed darl also, gave him a bunch of other classes...

6 cleric/ 6 divine oracle/ 1 contemplative/ 4 thaumaturgist/ 1 Loremaster

his contingent summon was a half fiend fang dragon, the barbarian took the dragon out in 1 round.

they can still take a ready action to attack him when he casts spells then he would have to do a concentration check DC 10 + damage dealt or lose the spell. this works regardless if he's casting defensively.

look at this little comic strip of a powerful caster being nuetralized by a fighter by using that technique.

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0886.html

whether you want to tell them this is up to you, or if they already know that will they even use it. what fighter would want to give up 3 attacks to basically counter the mage and he still has to hit.

my darl had a 39 AC and he also cast shield of faith on everyone which was +5 deflection bonus to AC and made unholy aura mostly moot anyway.

again have faith in your PCs but if you kill them just roll up new characters. Darl's team should be able to take out the titan (or take the belt from PCs if they have already done so) and succeed in releasing the information but this will be revealed to everyone. if this comes to pass you should just start with manzorian sending them to kongen thulnir to destroy the phylactery.