|
This is a players view. There will be spoilers.
Played this on Saturday with my Level 10 Musketmaster (a first level 10 scenario). There was also a 10 Sorc, 11 Fighter, 9 Cleric and 9 Paladin. I was pretty confident. Whilst this was my first Pathfinder character, he has only died once before (level 5) and could dish out a lot of damage.
I had stocked up on things to counteract Darkness, fear effects etc. We received plenty of buffing from both the Cleric and Sorc.
The herald of Lissala died in 2 rounds. I managed to crit with a Musket in my first attack and combined with a certain feat enabled me to worry less about DR. The Paladin finished the creature off but that kill made me very cocky about our likelihood of success.
What we did wrong is spend too much time disabling the runes which in turned gave a certain Runelord time to not only buff but bring in friends.
I tried to create a List of what we fought in that last battle
1) Krune
2) Magic Staff/ Artifact?
3) Dark Naga
3) Head Clerc/Priestess
4) 2x Shadowdancers
5) Bebilith
6) Large/Huge Earth Elemental
7) Succubus
8) Babau
9) Medium Fire Elemental
Runes had been setup all along the corridor behind the door to the room next to the awakening room. Between the Cleric and Sorc, they tricked out the Fighter to absorb and heal the damage as it was metered out. We then move enmasse down the corridor only to encounter the Cleric, Dark Naga and 2 shadowdancers (thats what the gm called them.. dont know what they actually were) . The lightining Sorc used his stunning ability to 'lock' the room down while we all had resistance to the damage. Krune became active and summoned in a whole plethora of buddies (those listed above). Combined with some lucky saves and a Haste both the Fighter and myself managed to take down the Bebilth, before a Cloudkill cast after a Black Tentacles locked down one side of the room . In fact due to the Cloudkill con damage and some nasty hits.. what came next was kinda appropriate
I took 76 damage (after a successful save) from a Empowered Maximised Horrid Wilting. Game over.
The Cockyness fade and I scrapped together the prestige to get better and be recovered.
Developer
|
Sorry to hear that things turned out so rough. Am I understanding correctly (by inference) that the players spent 90+ minutes of in-game (not out-of-game) time disabling the runes?
I recall that's how long it takes before Krune revives on his own, and that is primarily a means of mitigating the means by which a group might rest after just the first fight.
|
|
John: It was not that rough until the Black Tentacles (which is one of my all time fave sorc/wiz spells), Id say we were breaking even or slightly ahead until the tentacles.
Yes, we essentially spent about 90-95 minutes of in game time doing the runes, repairing injuries etc. I should also mention that I managed to get a Vampiric Touch hit my character which apparently hastened the process of revival. I should of mentioned this but missed it.
Don't feel too bad for us though John, everyone 'survived' ... and now I know how deadly 10-11 can be.
|
Developer
|
Don't feel too bad for us though John, everyone 'survived' ... and now I know how deadly 10-11 can be.
Heh, well given the menagerie that you ended up facing, I'd say you probably experienced some of the worst that 10–11 can (or should) throw at a group. With a few arguable exceptions, I think you'll find other 10–11s easier.
|
Our group had (or, rather, is having) a very different experience. We spent about two hours (out of game) taking on the first half the the scenario and managed to disable all of the runes. We didn't have any particular trouble dealing with Krune's flunkies, and even managed to shatter his emerald to summon him prematurely (still not sure what benefit that actually gave us). He arises, we do about 100 points of damage to him, then he dumps all kinds of ancient Thassilonean hurt on us... and teleports away. We spend the next three rounds chasing after him, only to see him healing up with bralanis and watch as he seals off the hallway with a wall of stone. So, about 600 feet of circumference later, we make it to the other side of the wall, but he's hiding behind a bralani barricade, and we can't get to him before he dumps a few more spells and teleports. A few more rounds of frantic running, and we find him again, this time in his original chamber, where he's waiting with a bone devil. A few of us get near him, but he walls us inside the poison mist and teleports away. At this point, the combat's lasted ~15 rounds and 3 hours. It's 12:30 at night, and we have work the next day. Krune is, according to our GM, at a bit less than max health and hasn't even used half his spells yet. I suspect that we have another 3-4 hours left in this fight.
I have to run this scenario in two weeks at a local convention, and I don't know how to run Krune as he should be run without making the scenario last 12 hours. Admittedly, I haven't read the scenario yet, but I trust our GM to have been running it correctly. How can I speed things along when I run it?
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Hey, I was playing the level 10 Sorcerer in Matthews game above.
I actually enjoyed the horde'o'creatures we ended up fighting in that encounter (although I do feel sorry for Andrew having to track that many stat blocks, so as Matthew said, hats off to him). We were fighting the Runelord that specializes in conjuration, I expected the room to get really packed.
We managed to kill pretty much everything in the room except his spear, a babau (we were ignoring it as it was not powerful enough to hurt us) and a fire elemental. I say this to point out that the time delay made the encounter more challenging but not impossible for a properly kitted out party.
The problem was the Empower Maximized Horrid Wilting. To illustrate; A level 11 D6 hit die based character (read Sorcerer) with high, for a mage, con (lets say 14) only has 63 hit points. Now chances are a Sorcerer 11 is going to make the DC29 fort save nearly every time but even then she is going to take 76 damage. Which puts her on -13, 1 point from death.
If the Runelord simply casts Empower Maximized Horrid Wilting on the party as soon as they walk in, then recalls Horrid Wilting (using his pearl of power) and again casts it Empowered and Maximized the party is dead.
As a highly intelligent NPC (30?) there is no reason that I can see that he wouldn't do the above.
The only way that I can see a party surviving this scenario is if the GM doesn't do her prep thoroughly (Which I am occasionally guilty of but sadly Andrew was too good a GM in this case)
Lastly, I though that this scenario was well laid out both thematically and in challenge. Its only the combo of hitting a level 11 party with two consecutive level 13 spells that causes issues.
|
Matthew, do note: Because of the time your group took, it looks like you got two encounters thrown at you together.
The Priestess and the 2 Shadow Dancers (Fighter/Rogue/PrC, I think) are one encounter.
Krune and his items and summonses are, normally, a separate encounter.
We also lucked out on some rolls when confronting the priestess and shadow dancers. Turns out that my trip fighter managed to roll higher on Perception than the Shadow Dancers rolled for Stealth, so they sort of ran into a meat tenderizer instead of clotheslining my PC. My party didn't seem to object to having prone enemies, for the most part, and I always tried to check so that the ranged users could have their preference...
Contributor
|
When I ran it, my group got *very* lucky - they wiped out the Shadowdancers, Naga, and Lashmistress fairly quickly, and the party barbarian went in to start beating on Krune's sarcophagus while everyone else buffed and readied actions (gunslinger, gunslinger/magus, summoner w/tricked-out-pouncing-eidolon, lore warden trip-specialist fighter).
Krune was forced out "early" and was disoriented...and then both gunslingers scored critical hits with readied actions. Krune threw up a quickened cloudkill then teleported away, but since the party had haste up already, they found him while he was in the middle of casting a summons spell to bring in creatures to protect/heal him. Summoner dimension doors most of the party up close - one burrowing bullet and a few pounces from eidolon/barbarian later, Krune is down for good.
Kind of anticlimactic from a GM standpoint, since we did tons of prep, but at least the other GM who ran it at the same time as me had a much more epic and drawn-out final battle.
...ok, so not a player's perspective, but I felt like sharing anyway :P
|
Empowered Maximised spells do not work that way, you still need to roll for the empowered section of the spell the average is 108 half on a save for 54.
Sorry your math is wrong. My dad roll's far better than that. Let's look at the breakdown.
17d6 for full is 102 an average roll of 17d6 is 59.5 x1.5 = 29.75 = 30 So your average horrid wilting maximized empowered is 132 fort save for halfses.Have fun. DIE FOR KRUNE.
|
Sorry to hear that things turned out so rough. Am I understanding correctly (by inference) that the players spent 90+ minutes of in-game (not out-of-game) time disabling the runes?
I recall that's how long it takes before Krune revives on his own, and that is primarily a means of mitigating the means by which a group might rest after just the first fight.
Of course, if you have a GM who isn't fully prepared and spends 20 minutes reading before you enter the room with the Lashmistress and the naga, then you're just boned.
|
|
If you disabled all the runes then krunes caster level should have been significantly reduced limiting the wilting damage. A sorc is still going to have to be very lucky to make the dc29 cort save though.
Correct about the spell level. Unfortunately our GM missed that bit of the "disabling runes" section, which I don't really have and issue with. There is a lot going on in that room. Frankly, I am impressed thats the only thing he overlooked.
As for the fort save, any Sorcerer that goes to fight a Runelord without getting 'Bestow Grace' on herself is... well... silly. (My Sorcerer has a wand of it)
So in my case:
+3 class bonus.
+2 con bonus.
+2 profane bonus (Endurance Rune)
+4 resistance bonus (Cloak of Resistance)
+9 sacred bonus (Bestow Grace)
Total of: +18.
So the save is 50/50. Better if you are level 11 and have a Cloak of Resistance + 5.
(Writing this up made me realize that Protection from Evil doesn't stack with Cloaks of Resistance, so looks like both the Gm and I 'cheated' in that combat.)
|
|
If you disabled all the runes then krunes caster level should have been significantly reduced limiting the wilting damage. A sorc is still going to have to be very lucky to make the dc29 cort save though.Correct about the spell level. Unfortunately our GM missed that bit of the "disabling runes" section, which I don't really have and issue with. There is a lot going on in that room. Frankly, I am impressed thats the only thing he overlooked.
As for the fort save, any Sorcerer that goes to fight a Runelord without getting 'Bestow Grace' on herself is... well... silly. (My Sorcerer has a wand of it)
So in my case:
+3 class bonus.
+2 con bonus.
+2 profane bonus (Endurance Rune)
+4 resistance bonus (Cloak of Resistance)
+9 sacred bonus (Bestow Grace)Total of: +18.
So the save is 50/50. Better if you are level 11 and have a Cloak of Resistance + 5.
(Writing this up made me realize that Protection from Evil doesn't stack with Cloaks of Resistance, so looks like both the Gm and I 'cheated' in that combat.)
That is a very expensive wand. At a cost of 6000gp I think there are many things I can get for that kind of coin that are much better.
|
|
That is a very expensive wand. At a cost of 6000gp I think there are many things I can get for that kind of coin that are much better.
Sure is and its obviously your call but at higher levels (8+) its not unmanageable and means that you rarely, if ever, fail saves.
You can always drag along a Paladin and annoy them until until they cast it on you. :D
That is a very expensive wand. At a cost of 6000gp I think there are many things I can get for that kind of coin that are much better.
Yeah, like a Raise Dead spell after one fails one's save vs. maximized empowered Horrid Wilting. ;-)
|
|
We ended up disabling all but two of the runes, playing the 7-8 subtier with the 4 player modification, with a party of Bard 8, Wizard 8, Fighter 10, Paladin 10. Our bard got dropped by 5 lightning bolts, but our Paladin came out of the fog and crit Krune shooting past him summons with a Longbow+Haste. Was pretty great for us, but lucky on our part. From an RP and just interesting scenario standpoint though, I felt it was slightly lacking. Writing a thoroughly difficult and intricate encounter doesn't necessarily preclude the use of good roleplaying. I'm not saying I could have done it better, but there wasn't much else besides combat to it. I easily made the skill checks on the runes, and the Bard and I could get most of the runes down, it's not like they were very interesting. Overall it was interesting for the variable difficulty factor, but I have enjoyed the events of simple 1-5s more than the conversation in this scenario.
What were others thoughts on how the scenario was? Was the combat interesting enough to keep you in it the whole time?
|
|
When I played it low teir, half the players got bored after we identified, but did not attempt to disable the runes and started the end encounters. I thought the first round wall of stone, quickened empowered cloudkill was bad until I realized he could have killed me in the first round with a maximized empowered horrid wilting. The damage on it was high enough that making the save with full con would have still killed me.
I should have been worried when the con table I was sitting at had people excited that they were going to die to Thune before we even left the briefing.
|
|
Of course, if you have a GM who isn't fully prepared and spends 20 minutes reading before you enter the room with the Lashmistress and the naga, then you're just boned.Sorry to hear that things turned out so rough. Am I understanding correctly (by inference) that the players spent 90+ minutes of in-game (not out-of-game) time disabling the runes?
I recall that's how long it takes before Krune revives on his own, and that is primarily a means of mitigating the means by which a group might rest after just the first fight.
The time the GM spent reading the mod would be "out of game" time not "in game" time. It should not count against you. Like john said it is there mostly to stop people from resting.
|
|
Yeah, like a Raise Dead spell after one fails one's save vs. maximized empowered Horrid Wilting. ;-)
That is a very expensive wand. At a cost of 6000gp I think there are many things I can get for that kind of coin that are much better.
Does Raise Dead work on someone killed by Horrid Wilting? My GM ruled that we needed Resurrection since the body was no longer whole.
|
|
Our group over planned this big time (if you play Shadowrun, THAT kind of over planning); we had layered strategies, contingencies, you name it.
(I developed our strategy, but I was ignorant of the scenario beyond "it's really deadly and there's a hard mode.) Fortunately, everyone complied with strategy and stayed focused. We had no deaths, we disabled all traps and killed everything, and did it on less than the four hour slot.
The BIG advantage was that I made sure everyone had a Goz mask (except one of us who we kept echolocation on); we walked around with an open eversmoking bottle, so we had a perpetual 100' radius cloud of smoke around us: impossible for Krune to target us with his horrid wilting.
We all had life bubble, freedom of movement, a couple had magic circles vs evil. My wizard kept analyze dweomer up so I knew all of Krunes active spells (especially the spell turning, which was a problem). After a few rounds, we managed to get a dimensional anchor on him: the end.
(He wished for a prismatic wall, so he used that to define a safe zone.
I petrified the lash mistress, so she folded instantly (persistent flesh to stone).
The visibility advantage was crucial, obviously.
Still, a fun mod, cool display of the power of preparation, and hard mode won in three hours and change.
I look VERY forward to running it (mwahaha!)
|
|
Played this on Hard Mode, and had a blast.
|
|
Krune was a blast to fight. We annihilated the Herald in the first room, and moved on to start disabiling runes. The GM was very interested in how long we spent disabling them... and we found out why when the Herald popped back up at full health and started attacking us again. Turns out that she wasn't quite dead... and Regeneration is a thing. So, after the second time killing her, we managed to disable all the runes relatively quickly, though it cost us a lot of high-level spell slots and several lucky rolls on dispel magic, if I remember correctly from several months ago.
Once they were down, we entered the inner chamber and... obliterated everything in the blink of an eye. With bladed dash and fly I got into the room, and killed both of the large-sized creatures in there (I think they were invisible) with a full attack... and followed it up with a five-foot-step in the air to the square directly above the spellcaster in there.
She didn't live long.
With the entire room down, we all beat Krune's initiative and unloaded massive damage on him before he teleported away. He led us on a wild goose chase around the chamber, so I almost immediately left the rest of the party and chased him down one-on-one. I only got one attack off on him before he got away, but it forced him back to where the rest of the party could see him.
It's been a while so I don't remember exactly, but I think someone mind-controlled one of his summons and used that to strike the finishing blow.
The BIG advantage was that I made sure everyone had a Goz mask (except one of us who we kept echolocation on); we walked around with an open eversmoking bottle
Heh, well, the rest of us actually played the encounter.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Unless a GM has full control of a game and abilities to modify on a whim, Goz mask+eversmoking bottle, makes 95% of games easy, even ones with hardmode.
If you're trying this exploit on me and I have access to a villain with wish, you'd better believe I'm wishing the bottle (if not the person holding it) to the middle of Golarion's sun. :P
|
|
Unless a GM has full control of a game and abilities to modify on a whim, Goz mask+eversmoking bottle, makes 95% of games easy, even ones with hardmode.
Exactly so, which is why it was the "core" strategy.
(Leveraging the rare situation that 5 out of our 6 players had a boon on their character granting use of an 8000gp item for one scenario... coincidentally, the cost of a Goz mask. None of us actually owned one!)
I can certainly think of a number of ways for Krune to counter it, though.
|
|
Unless a GM has full control of a game and abilities to modify on a whim, Goz mask+eversmoking bottle, makes 95% of games easy, even ones with hardmode.If you're trying this exploit on me and I have access to a villain with wish, you'd better believe I'm wishing the bottle (if not the person holding it) to the middle of Golarion's sun. :P
I sympathize, but in PFS, you're kind of bound by RAW.
First, you'd still need to target the bottle (hard, in the smoke), and second, you'd need to replicate a 9th level spell (interplanetary teleport), which a wish can't do (it's limited to 8th level spells).
What I would probably have done would have been to wish a greater planar binding to bring in two efreet, who would then use their three wishes each to also cast greater planar binding three times, so I'd have a total of six elder air elementals. They'd clear the air nicely, as well as provide some nice melee support.
I'm the first to admit that an all-Goz party deserves the symmetrical cheese of six elder air elementals!
|
What is funny about when I played was that the sub-boss fight took longer than the krune and friends fight. She put up stinking cloud (if I remember correctly) and everyone wanted to stay back. I my lvl 11 fight ate the scroll of life bubble and had it cast on him to go in. I can say for myself that I did prep more for facing a high powered wizard than I did the other things we might face.
Damaging the runes was no problem. Our party make up made this a cake walk. My fighter rolled 1 away from max on a improved vital strike power attack with a +3 bludgeoning weapon we found to destroy 1. Our rouge, we my fighter's adamantine weapon, used her ability to cause ability score damage to another. I wish I could remember the others.
Between the flying eidolon, my fighter, and the oracle, and the entire party being hasted, the cleric and others all died right before Krune had the chance to rise. He did get a black tentacles off (or it was already there) and failing to turn my fighter into a bunny before teleporting into the "pyramid" room at about 60% health. About 2 rounds later (haste and my fighter having freedom of movement) my fighter spots him in middle of casting a spell and yells out the location. In comes the summoner and eidolon via dimension door and the eidolon mauls Krune to death.
If I ever get the chance to play this on Hard mode, I will so easily turn in a gm star to replay it on hard.
|
|
First, you'd still need to target the bottle (hard, in the smoke), and second, you'd need to replicate a 9th level spell (interplanetary teleport), which a wish can't do (it's limited to 8th level spells).
Take a look at wish.
Transport travelers. A wish can lift one creature per caster level from anywhere on any plane and place those creatures anywhere else on any plane regardless of local conditions. An unwilling target gets a Will save to negate the effect, and spell resistance (if any) applies.
|
|
My group was all but tpked.
Cleric 9 ( with lion AC), ninja 7, cleric 8, and fighter 7.
First room, lion and fighter climb up, then bad guy casts stinking cloud. Cats out, fighter staggers forward.
Fighter gets hit with hold person then coup de graced. Bad guy kills cleric 8 and ninja, cleric9 and lion are forced to retreat, unable to deal with a flyer or cloud.
Lamest pf experience I have ever had. I learned to carry ways to fly or deal with clouds, but also have had a skewed view of this game since, and long for a day when you didn't have to cover 20+ situations.
I cannot emphasize how lame it was and how of dropped in my opinion.
|
|
I'll admit when I went through this, we should have all just died. Thank god for tactical errors and a WHOLE LOT OF LUCK!
So the party is:
lv 9 two-handed fighter
lv 9 ninja
lv 9 sorceror
lv 10 arcane duelsit bard (Me)
lv 11 wizard
lv 11 alchemist
So the majority of the party is mid-tier and we're playing up. The second problem is well, I don't know the details exactly but, our spellcasters spell selection, SUCKS. Like the wizard in known for his death summons, but has only 3 prepared; The sorc's best blast is either fireball or shout; and my spells are selected for buffing my normal martial heavy group.
So the herald was the first indication we were in for a long night. Mirror image keeps me from getting plane-shifted as the party has to verbally keep yelling where in the darkness the herald had moved to. Our wizard blows 2 of his summon spells for really no reason. This is when I notice the alchemist doesn't like to throw bombs.
So the runes, we successfully drop 4 of them, miss droping armor by 3 points of damage can't figure out/don't have access to disable the other 2. Krune wakes up as we enter his chamber. Over all we do well on initiative, The flunkies are flash fried and then the trouble starts. DM kindly doesn't use horrid wilting, but instead drops a cloudkill and DDoors away. The fighter eats max damage cloudkill completely, the rest of us are rocked hard. Wizard blows his last summon for a gust of wind SLA hoard. We then spend about, oh, 4 rounds in his chamber trying to figure out where Krune disappeared to. Meanwhile Krune summons a hoard.
So we figure out where Krune is as the hoard is just about completely flanked the hall to the door; and so we're all clumped up for cloudkill No. 2. It was nice knowing our fighter. Alchemist constantly delays now, seemingly paralyzed by the army of summons. Wizard is doing his best to crowd control, and it isn't going well; while his summons blow away the cloudkill again. Our Sorc casts shout.
I institute plan "Balls deep hail marry" grab my Ninja's neck and DDoor behind Krune. What happens next is an utter lucksack. Ninja crits on 3 out of his 4 hits, making a bloody Krune. Still its a bard and a ninja in the middle of the summon hoard. Krune happily DDoors away, but not to where I can't see him, the mistake. While the hoard spends all it's attacks on the Ninja's and my mirror images, the luck. I then give my party a heart attack by looking at the ninja and saying "I got one more DDoor, shall we?" One easily passed life or death concentration check later and the ninja turns Krune into Sushi.
Killing a Runeloard is hard.
