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I described the clock tower to my group, mentioning it's great height and how it was so high it almost reached the bottom of the bridge. The book says the top is five feet from the Irespan.
My group, being mad geniuses, decided to circumvent the tower by pooling their money and having the crafter make slippers of spiderclimb. Then they walked along the bottom of the bridge to the clock tower and dropped down.
A big advantage. Instead of being divided by the stairs, they all had line of sight (albeit upside down) and everyone could engage Xanesha when she appeared.
A very different fight from what I was expecting.
Even having Xanesha summon the faceless stalkers from below didn't help.
It also meant they looted the scarab of golembane. So when they went downstairs they just slapped around the scarecrow.
suggestion "Let go."
deep slumber
deep slumber
deep slumber
Also, stand on the tower top and make AoO as each invader drops from the Irespan.
Also, pelt them with magic missile as they approach. The Irespan looks to be about 600ft wide. If she's paying any attention she should have plenty of time to notice them and start making a mess from a distance.
You need both hands to actually climb using spider climb though I allow my players to take hands away to fight as long as they aren't going to move at all. From the map it seems she'd be able to take decent cover behind the statue and annoy the invaders.
That said, that's very, very clever.
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Slippers of spiderclimb explicitly free your hands.
And they were sly and opted to go during the night, which reduced the distance she could see them to the limits of her darkvision.
I tend to stick to tactics as written. For fairness and consistency as much as anything. I might have opted to think creatively had she survived longer. But they also rolled well for their attacks. And had some clever tactics mid-fight that prevented her from being able to heal and stopped her from playing "whack the witch".
It's funny. My group thought about this, though from a more mundane perspective (lowering down a rope to the tower), but got antsy about the weird spiderlike beings that are rumored to inhabit the bridge (as well as the occasional stone that falls from it) and shied away from the whole plan.
On the other hand, they did Fly and Spider-climb up the tower after the goons dropped a bell on them, so the thought exercise wasn't wasted.
My first thought would have been to reverse the order of encounters in the tower (Scarecrow up top, X-girl down below), but I also wouldn't have wanted to penalize the PC's for being so creative, even if they'd never know.
I would have put some penalties for fighting upside down, though, for as long as they were. That's gotta throw you off.
Smelling a trap inside the tower, my players flew (fly spell) to the top. Xanesha was waiting for them (they used the birds from Ironbriar's office to locate the tower, so she knew something was off when the bird arrived without a message)
A big fight started, and she called her faceless stalkers bodyguards. When she critted the oracle, knocking him unconscious, things weren't looking good for the group.
At one point she was damaged enough to flee. Using her feather fall spell, she dropped to the ground... where the scarecrow was waiting. Half of the group (fighter and ranger) followed her to the ground using the fly spell. It didn't help when on the first round joining combat, the scarecrow went berserker and started attacking whoever was closest. the ranger took quite a beating.
And so the battle proceeded on two fronts: at the top of the clock, and on the ground.
In the end the heroes prevailed, but it was a tough fight. Just like they (the players) wanted it.
My players bought potions of levitate and scrolls of fly and kited/bungie jumped off the irespan too. Without a ton of time to buff up, 3.5/pre-AE Xanesia isn't quite a TPK machine as she is as written.
I subtly encouraged my group to fast-rope down from the Irespan, but they were having none of it and fought their way from the bottom up. :(