Music to fight the Stag Lord by

[pennywit]

My PCs are poised to assault the Stag Lord next week. Any suggestions on some music to set the mood?

[Orthos]

How about some Two Steps from Hell?

If your group's like mine and likes of the video game style music, maybe "Brink of Death" from Chrono Cross or Boss Battle from Legend of Dragoon.

For something more metal, try SSH (complete with Seelah picture).

[captain yesterday]

johnny cash doing tom petty's ''i wont back down'' or any later years johnny cash. If going classical danny elfman's ''music for a darkened theater'' is pretty creepy and cool

[DM_aka_Dudemeister]

"Let the bodies hit the floor".

[BornofHate]

Fort Battle from The Last of the Mohicans soundtrack. It's an amazing soundtrack through and through and you won't be disappointed with the purchase but the name of the song says it all.

[captain yesterday]

BornofHate wrote:

Fort Battle from The Last of the Mohicans soundtrack. It's an amazing soundtrack through and through and you won't be disappointed with the purchase but the name of the song says it all.

Good one!!!

[Bofdm]

For my group, the Stag Lord didn't arrive on the scene until after a rather large brawl with the Owlbear, the rest of the bandits, Dovan, and Auchs was nearly at an end.

His grand entrance was shooting an arrow through Akiros' back which was unfortunately the first of only two sneak attacks he managed to get (glitterdust and being outnumbered prevented a lot of stealthing).

But as for music...this worked out rather well as the Stag Lord, despite being surrounded, was nearly unhittable for the entire fight.

Battle for Survival

[pennywit]

Hmm. I'm doing a mythic Kingmaker (though my PCs haven't Ascended yet), so my Staggie's going to have one or two tiers of mythic to him. Is that going to be too much for a mostly 3rd level party?

[Orthos]

2 Mythic Tiers are about equal to 1 level/+1 CR. So if you add Mythic to him, you might want to dock him by a level.

[pennywit]

I'm actually running the 6-player conversions as it is for my five-member 20-point-buy squad, but that makes sense, Orthos. With the rogue levels he has currently, he could potentially knock a couple of PCs out of the hit with one shot. I want the encounter to be challenging, but I don't think it's fun when the villain one-hits everything.

[pennywit]

I created a special Stag Lord. A mythic tier. An extra level. I planned out his epic entrance amid my players battling bandits. There was going to be fire. There was going to be the clash of steel.

But ... my players chose guile. One drink, one coup de grace, and one failed Fortitude save. The terror of the Northern Greenbelt, done in by a coup de grace by a 17-year-old girl.

[Orthos]

Hahah =D

Not sure if that's better or worse than my anticlimactic comedy-of-errors that was "Operation Stag Party".

[pennywit]

It was actually kind of funny. They went with the liquor and disguise route (using dust of Illusion and Disguise Self spells) because they'd been thumping bandits all over the Greenbelt for a couple months now. Because their disguises had a time limit, they skipped the getting-to-know-you portion of the bandit encounter. They checked in on Akiros (they had met him previously at the ruined temple to Erastil), and he pointedly paid attention to other things while they did their bit.

Their plan consisted of two parts:

A) Release the owlbear to distract bandits
B) Have the rogue coup de grace the sleeping Stag Lord.

The rogue sneaked to Staggie's quarters with her scimitar while the other party members kept the bandits in the common room distracted. They released the owlbear while the rogue stabbed Staggie (and my players quiet enjoyed the expression on my face when the rogue did the deed). The rest ... was mostly mop-up. The biggest danger was Beaky, who had some bandit lunch then went for barbarian dessert. (Barbarian player: "Who's plan was this? Oh yeah, mine.")

The rest was ... anticlimactic. Dovan tried to rally the other bandits, but they headed for the hills once they figured out Staggie was losing. Akiros and the PCs KOed Dovan and Auchs. The downstairs druid was a short battle afterward. (Admittedly, this was a short battle because we were near the end of playing time and I wanted to wrap things up).

[Orthos]

Yeah the druid was pretty much the same in my game, the Magus and Akiros just went, yanked him forcefully off the ceiling, and beat him to death, and it was over pretty quick.

[pennywit]

I hope RRR is less anticlimactic. I'm planning to throw Dudemeister's Hargulka's Monster Kingdom at my PCs .... I'm also pushing Kingmaker into Mythic territory. Really funny: That rogue has already decided Akiros is her "special protector."

[Orthos]

I did the same and it did come out much less anticlimactic =) Best of luck to you!

[IcedMik]

Bofdm wrote:

Battle for Survival

This has been on my ipod for years since I played DDS. My party thinks it's not suitable. I don't care.

Here's a list of my playlists. Anything with RPG in the front is what I loop in certain situations.

[pennywit]

I actually found a nice track from Conan the Destroyer (can't remember which one) as my players bluffed their way into the bandits' hideout. It wasn't battle music, but it hand something of an ominous undertone. One player remarked, "I don't like where this music is going."

[DrakeCross]

The battle with the Staglord was quite climatic considering. I had changed it to were he was not much of a drunk but a active (if crazy) bandit leader. Overall the players infulrated the bandit fort and poisoned his drink for the upcoming feast where also the bandits they had promised to pardon would help take over the castle.

So its the 3 players I have, a elf wizard, catfolk gunslinger and human paladin against the staglord. I had him focus on running into the next room and hiding, letting the bandits and later on the owlbear distract the players before sneak attacking then hanging back and retreating the next room. While they did not hurt him it still went well since he ran out of rooms and forced to run out of the castle for a fairy ring to contact his mistress.

So now with nowhere to run its a more direct fight and in the end they do beat him, however I gave him a 2nd form where he gets mutated into this large fae werestag monster. He's not much tougher but the extra health and damage resistance made him last the 10 round time limit until he escaped. Still very epic boss fight considering.