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End of Book 4, rocket tag galore.
We started the night with the umbral dragon. I only got one Str drain breath weapon off before it was stomped.
The group then handled the harvester like the child it was.
They then descended down into the temple proper, after dropping a stone with Daylight to see how deep it was.
Since the stone was dropped, the demons down below knew they were coming.
Most of the Klavakus didn't last long, just long enough for the succubus and the glabrezu to show up.
Two of the succubus went off to warn the rest of the temple. One succubus woke up the two miners and the second warned all the demoniacs. The succubus teleported back in with the miners, while the demoniacs summoned more succubus.
Of a note, Brother Peter runs Mythic Shield Other on the entire party at all times.
After about six or seven rounds of combat, just about everything in the area was dead. One last klavakus demon (who was ignored as too weak to actually hurt them) teleported down to the mines proper and brought the last four miners up.
Rocket tag then reversed and three crits later with hasted miners had killed Brother Peter. It would have been a TPK except I ruled that the Shield Other was still in effect and destroying Peter's corpse. Which saved their ass when another crit went off again.
The party ended up using the oil of true rez from book 2 on Brother Peter, and then decided to rest an hour right there to get their spells back.
So I ruled it took Hepzamirah about an hour to get her crystal to a stable enough point to deal with the idiots outside her door.
She stepped out, outside their vision, and got a surprise round mythic flame strike.
Brother Peter ate most of that.
Mythic Init got her on the top of the init order. Mythic Augmented Blade Barrier as an immediate action on top of the party.
Inspired Spell Mythic Augmented Blade Barrier as a standard. (Augmented says may, not will cast).
Move action to swing one blade barrier around on them.
Amazing Init to get a standard action to use as a move action, to move the second barrier around as well.
By this point, Brother Peter has eaten 3 spells, plus the Shield Other for the rest of the party. He died again.
Party, nearly out of power, grabbed the body and teleported then planeshifted out.
When they returned the next day, I ruled that Hepzamirah had reached out to her father for a few new protectors and he gave her a mythic marilith.
When the party Mythic Planeshifted directly back in (automatically be on target), the ate the marilith in one round. Party paladin actually got his Righteous Medal of Agility due to this.
They then found Hepzamirah in her room after triggering off the mythic glyph. Tried the same trick as before, but the paladin managed his reflex saves this time and just inched further.
Hepzamirah died to a foe-biting, smiting Paladin in one round. They honestly probably could have taken Baphomet if Nocticula hadn't.
End of Book 4, rocket tag galore. ...
Wow. Are you using the original stats, or the updated stats?
(And are you doing anything to boost opponent HPs?)
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Here's a report on the Zelmisdria and Azrivauxus and the Ancient Apocalypse Locust fights that my players just went through. Both were tough fights. The first lasted 10 rounds and had 3 PC deaths; the second lasted 4 (intense) rounds, and had 1 PC death. And the party needed to use a bunch of mythic power (6-8 uses) and party resources to get through them.
Both encounters were a lot of fun. The player's favorite part was probably the Locust's Death Throes ability, which worked really well both thematically ("It explodes in a shower of gore and fiendish hormones, sending the other locusts twitching in berserk fury!") and mechanically. Usually these several-opponent fights are tough until one or two enemies go down, and then turn into a cake walk. But with the surviving bugs getting tougher and tougher, the fight was intense from start to finish. Nice!
Zelmisdria's spells were left blank, so I filled them in as follows:
- 3rd: Fickle Winds, Instant Enemy
- 2nd: Barkskin, Hunter's Eye
- 1st: Longstrider, Gravity Bow, Longshot
Zelmisdria started with the following buffs up: Barkskin, Longstrider, Longshot, Gravity Bow, Mythic Heroism (from Azrivauxus), having already summoned a Balor. Azrivauxus started with the following buffs up: Mythic Heroism, Mythic Mage Armor, Mythic Protection from Good, Mythic Mirror Image, Shield and See Invisibility.
The Fight: The party started perched 300' in the air above Citadel Drezen, and Zelmisdria, Azrivauxus and the Balor started bearing down on them from 600' out, at the head of a drake army. In the first turn both sides cast some buff spells (Zelmisdria casting Fickle Winds, Azrivauxus casting Displacement and Mythic Divine Favor) and exchanged some ineffective ranged fire (since both sides were protected by Fickle Winds).
In the second turn, Zelmisdria cast Instant Enemy while waiting for the Balor to dispel the party's Fickle Winds, and Azrivauxus used its breath weapon on the party, nauseating half of them. But the party used Unstoppable to shake then nausea, kicked in the shared Smite Evils, and the paladin, ranger and cleric used Fleet Warrior to pound Zelmisdria for over 900 damage, dropping her. At this point, the players started celebrating, thinking the fight was almost over...
Then the Balor cast a Greater Dispel Magic on the paladin, dispelling 5 buffs including Air Walk, dropping her 300' onto the battlefield below. Then Azrivauxus used his dual initiative to unleash a pair of full attacks on the ranger, slaughtering her---even with Invincible Stand, Absorb Blow, a Contingency Breath of Life and Divine Interference, she was dropped to -130 HP.
For the next several rounds, the party frantically tried to regroup. They Dimension Doored down to join the paladin, used Relentless Healing and several Heal/Mass Heal spells to repeatedly bring dead melee-ers back to life, and used Greater Dispel Magics to get rid of some of the Azrivauxus's buffs, while Azrivauxus tore into them and the Balor continued to dispel buffs from a distance.
Finally the sorcerer used a pair of Maze spells on Azrivauxus to give the party the some breathing room, the party took out the Balor, and they managed to heal and partially re-buff themselves before fighting the dragon again. After another couple rounds they finally managed to drop the dragon.
The Fight: The party Dimension Doored into the dungeon of the Citadel, and faced off against the 4 locusts. The locusts largely ganged up on the paladin, who spent most of the fight grappled and ineffectually trying to attack the locusts with her non-magical back-up weapon (since her primary weapon was 2-handed, and she couldn't use it while grappled), while the locusts tore her to shreds.
Although their poison and breath weapons weren't much of a threat to the paladin (given her high saves), their Tenacious Grapple was nasty---the players got pretty scared when neither the paladin's Freedom of Movement, the cleric's Freedom's Call, nor the sorcerer's Dimension Door were able to get the paladin free. And every time the party managed to drop the locust grappling her, another more-buffed locust would step up and make the check to grapple her again.
The players went all out here: and the sorcerer unleashed a pair of Channeled Mythic Augmented Empowered Maximized Selective Fireballs in the second and third rounds, the paladin invoked Invincible Stand to try to stay alive and shared Smite Evils, the cleric tried to keep the paladin alive with Heals and Relentless Healing, and the ranger full attacked whichever locust was grappling the paladin. After 4 tough rounds, they finally managed to finish off the last locust.
Updated stats, zero additions to HP.End of Book 4, rocket tag galore. ...Wow. Are you using the original stats, or the updated stats?
(And are you doing anything to boost opponent HPs?)
Ah, gotcha.
I likewise found that adopting the updated stats wasn't enough to keep things challenging in book 5, and had to increase HPs for mythic opponents as well. Sounds like the same is true for book 4.
@Lochar,
It seems to me that you did very well with this part of the adventure. You got some kills and that speaks volumes about the difficulty of an encounter.
Specifics:
- I will update Melazmera's spell list a little. With mage armor, shield and prot. from good up, she should be a little harder to hit. Even with that bonuses, as a non-mythic enemy, I think she will be easy.
- For the harvester I'll do some upgrades, like increasing its reach. Again, it should be an easy encounter, I don't count on it being more than a speedbump.
- It seems the minotaurs miners can be nasty if they score some good hits! the rest of the monsters should be easy at this point. I was thinking about introducing some powerful minions, like the special glabrezu antipaladin mentioned in the Baphomet article.
- Glad to see that Hepzamirah can devastate a party if she can get some spells off. The only thing I would have done is give her more minions after the party went to rest (an entire horde). Or even make Hepzamirah flee, and give the party the tier even if they don't see the fight between the two demon lords. The whole "hepzamirah must die" scenario as suggested in the adventure seems a little railroady to me.
I'm not surprised that the paladin killed her in one round. As the tiers/levels go up, it seems that either the enemies or the players will kill the other group in one/two rounds.
Thanks for writing all of this Lochar, it will help me prepare for this part of the adventure.
Do you think it will be necessary to give the enemies more HP?
@Porridge,
Nice fights! it seems the locusts will be as fun as I thought :-) Thanks for the write-up, again I will take some notes for my own game.
It is a shame that they took out Zelmisdria so fast, but Azrivauxus made up for it (3 deaths! wow!)
Any comments on any of the mythic dragon traits? was the higher-DC (or quickened) breath useful?
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@Lochar,
It seems to me that you did very well with this part of the adventure. You got some kills and that speaks volumes about the difficulty of an encounter.
Yes. And I keep coming to the conclusion that all worthwhile challenges require at least 3 enemies. Otherwise, what could be an interesting encounter is quickly overwhelmed by the action economy.
Specifics:
- I will update Melazmera's spell list a little. With mage armor, shield and prot. from good up, she should be a little harder to hit. Even with that bonuses, as a non-mythic enemy, I think she will be easy.
Melazmera was easy because the Omox warned them it was coming. They had a chance to prep. If Melazmera would have know, I would have abused project image. Also, I forgot to mention that I'd had Melazmera quick breath as a sign of things to come. I don't think they caught my reference though. :P
- For the harvester I'll do some upgrades, like increasing its reach. Again, it should be an easy encounter, I don't count on it being more than a speedbump.
Yeah, I expected an easy encounter there and it was. If I ever run it again, I'll at least fluff it a bit more by letting the harvester reach through it's portals at the PCs inside of it's reach. To give them a bit more scare. Doesn't help that I used Hastur as the image for my online game.
- It seems the minotaurs miners can be nasty if they score some good hits! the rest of the monsters should be easy at this point. I was thinking about introducing some powerful minions, like the special glabrezu antipaladin mentioned in the Baphomet article.
Yeah, the miners are crazy powerful if they crit. Again, I learned here though that it was the combination of a whole lot of enemies that caused problems. The most devestating of the little enemies actually turned out to be the Kalavakus because they hasted the Minotaurs.
- Glad to see that Hepzamirah can devastate a party if she can get some spells off. The only thing I would have done is give her more minions after the party went to rest (an entire horde). Or even make Hepzamirah flee, and give the party the tier even if they don't see the fight between the two demon lords. The whole "hepzamirah must die" scenario as suggested in the adventure seems a little railroady to me.
Yeah, they didn't build Hepzamirah up enough. If she had been built up as one of the very few entities capable of stabilizing the crystals or something else (The party didn't even really realize she was Baphomet's daughter until he popped out of her.) Also, I'd promptly forgot what I'd just learned by only throwing the one marilith at them.
I'm not surprised that the paladin killed her in one round. As the tiers/levels go up, it seems that either the enemies or the players will kill the other group in one/two rounds.
Thanks for writing all of this Lochar, it will help me prepare for this part of the adventure.
My pleasure.
Do you think it will be necessary to give the enemies more HP?
Likely not. Instead, I'll have to make sure the other PCs have targets as well. If they all had stacked HP it would turn into a game of 'Keep the paladin moving long enough to give him full attacks on things.' As it is now, the other PCs have slid fairly well into roles (even Rogar now that he has Greater Spell Pen and mythic of it). It allows them to disable/destroy the things giving the major enemies their support while the Paladin is the major face-damage dealer.
It is a shame that they took out Zelmisdria so fast, but Azrivauxus made up for it (3 deaths! wow!)
Yeah, Azrivauxus was really nasty!
He was so nasty that the players started wondering how Zelmisdria had tamed him. I rolled with it, and dropped a few hints suggesting that Azrivauxus was really in charge, and using Zelmisdria as a figure-head to deal with the other demon leaders...
Any comments on any of the mythic dragon traits?
Most of the Mythic dragon traits got used in the fight, but the two biggest difference-makers were Reflective Scales and Augmented Critical. Since the paladin and ranger are the main damage dealers, using Reflective Scales each turn to ignore the attacks of one of them each round allowed him to last a lot longer than usual. (And being able to ignore the paladin's attacks ensured that no Stunning Criticals were able to stun or stagger the dragon.)
On the flip side, Augmented Critical (combined with the Mythic Improved Critical and Mythic Power Attack) was devastating; I think all of the party deaths came from critical bite and claw attacks. And criticals happen a lot when you're Hasted, have Dual Initiative, and have a 25% chance per attack of landing one...
was the higher-DC (or quickened) breath useful?
Because combat lasted so long, Azrivauxus did use his breath weapon quite a bit (3 times), usually as a standard action to get the higher DCs. The acid damage itself wasn't that harmful (since the cleric cast a Communal Protection from Energy (Acid) spell at the start, and again several rounds later), but the high reflex save DCs combined with Azrivauxus's Delirious Breath succeeded in nauseating about half of the party each time. (They were able to shake this off using Unstoppable, but it cost them precious mythic power each time to do so.)
I'm looking ahead to the party's next encounter (against the Devastator and Pyralisia), and I think, for the first time, I've found an encounter that's too tough for them...
Now granted, the party does have a few tricks up their sleeve that would allow some of them to reduce this damage a bit. But a couple of them would probably die immediately, and with a little bad luck (high damage rolls, Pyralisia's initiative rolls giving her two back-to-back actions) all of them would.
Anyway, I'm trying to decide how to tweak things to make this encounter a little more survivable for my players. Any thoughts?
I'm looking ahead to the party's next encounter (against the Devastator and Pyralisia), and I think, for the first time, I've found an encounter that's too tough for them...
** spoiler omitted **
Anyway, I'm trying to decide how to tweak things to make this encounter a little more survivable for my players. Any thoughts?
Make the redemption of the Phoenix Relevant. Allow the Herald of Iomedae or a Sarenite character to "feel" the presence of a creature in need of salvation like a vision or something. This will allow your players to prepare themselves with protection from fire and such, gaining 1 round worth of combat while the phoenix tries to dispel said protection before unleashing is abyssal wrath.
After that, allow the players to heal and redeem the phoenix, so that they may fight some mayor foe (terendevel, the storm king and his entourage) while riding the reedemed phoenix! Holy burn awesome!
@Porridge,
You can do several things to make the encounter easier:
- Don't unleash her most powerful spells on the same turn, or try to use a single-target spell instead of two area spells (destruction or harm).
- Don't apply Channel power to her spells.
- Remember that her lightning damage can be resisted. She only overcomes fire resistance or immunity.
- Instead of using the aura offensively by approaching the party from the start, try to use it defensively by keeping your distance, making things harder for the meleers when they close on her.
- Don't use the devastator in the same encounter. You can make it appear after the combat by plane-shifting into Aponavicius' lair, or hide the devastator behind a wall that opens as the players defeat Pyralisia. Staunton could use a fighting buddy, so I think it will be for the best.
She has a lot of options, but you don't have to use all of them, or to the best of her abilities. She's a creature consumed by rage against the crusaders and the demons. You can play with that to represent her not making the best tactical choices.
Hope this helps.
Make the redemption of the Phoenix Relevant. Allow the Herald of Iomedae or a Sarenite character to "feel" the presence of a creature in need of salvation like a vision or something. This will allow your players to prepare themselves with protection from fire and such, gaining 1 round worth of combat while the phoenix tries to dispel said protection before unleashing is abyssal wrath.
Unfortunately, Mythic Meteor Swarm bypasses all resistances and immunities to fire, so Protection from Fire won't save them... :( (And Pyralisia's Incinerate ability also allows any fire damage she does to automatically overcomes any fires resistance or immunity.)
The redemption angle is an interesting idea, though... hrmm...
@Porridge,
You can do several things to make the encounter easier:
- Don't unleash her most powerful spells on the same turn, or try to use a single-target spell instead of two area spells (destruction or harm).
- Don't apply Channel power to her spells.
- Remember that her lightning damage can be resisted. She only overcomes fire resistance or immunity.
- Instead of using the aura offensively by approaching the party from the start, try to use it defensively by keeping your distance, making things harder for the meleers when they close on her.
- Don't use the devastator in the same encounter. You can make it appear after the combat by plane-shifting into Aponavicius' lair, or hide the devastator behind a wall that opens as the players defeat Pyralisia. Staunton could use a fighting buddy, so I think it will be for the best.
Dropping the automatic Channel Power boost sounds like a good idea; that would lower the save DCs by 2, and reduce the all-saves-made damage to about 200, which seems more manageable... And splitting off the Devastator fight; either as something that activates as soon as Pyralisia is defeated, or as a fighting buddy with either Staunton or Aponavicius, also sounds like a good idea...
I think I'll go with that. Thanks!
I have updated the document with a new statblock for the Groaning Gate guardians, and some changes to the encounter setup.
Before I return to City of Locusts, I'm thinking about updating a few more creatures in Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth, and maybe even create a statblock that represents a jailer demon to give some variety to the prison encounters.
Any chance you will be redoing Noctiula's stat block?
Input from the Scorizscar fight:
2 Paladins of Iomedae, one part oracle for AC, and wielding Radiance, the other riding a pegasus. Both have legendary weapon
Suboptimal Cleric of Sheylin, plays a fox because it seemed like a fun thing to do
Tiefling Wizard with more mythic points than Hercules
Started with having them spot several destroyed caravans, playing up huge bite marks and a lot of acid melting. In the end they heard the woundwyrm in the distance one evening, and decided to make their way over their in hoped it would be asleep during they day.
No one managed a Knowledge check high enough to know it was a woundwyrm, the closest they got was acid breathing dragon that might have been corrupted by the abyssal energies of the worldwound.
They buffed up on the outside, aware of some sort of spacial anomalies floating around, sparks flying once in a while (energies associated with the warping effect)
Upon entering the cave both paladins and the pegasus got teleported to the left, while the wizard landed next to the shed skin of a silver dragon, while the cleric ended up bottom right.
Right off the bat, pegasus and wizard got stoned (hue hue hue), one paladin saved, and the other got temp HP.
It was a further round before the dragon emerged, and the group had moved somewhat together towards the middle. Divine bond and radiance lighting up.
Cleric failed a caster level check against the stone effect, and the oracadin had moved further away from the rideadin owing to impossible speed. (I had made all the ground inside the cave difficult terrain due to debris from all sorts of spoils of war.
Then Scorizscar appeared out of her pocket realm and full attacked the rideadin for a considerable amount of damage, almost enough to one-shot him, and grappled.
The oracadin turned and almost managed back to join the fight, getting just close enough to get hit by a bite AOO.
next round, still no luck getting the wizard unstoned, and iirc the cleric got some nausea or stunned or something.
rideadin caught a major break when Scorizscar rolled 1 on her third attack, which stopped all following attacks.
oracadin managed to hit on two attacks, activated foe-biting, litany of righteousness (which I forgot needed to beat SR)and managed a great deal of damage. I can't remember if that was her first damage, but I quickly doubled her HP to 450 just to stay alive one more round.
In the end the oracadin critted, almost killing Scorizscar, making the dragon forget about killing the rideadin and focusing all her attacks on her would be killer, putting him in the ground. then the wizard got better through Break Enchantment and tried a dimension door that took off a lot of HP, before he got sick or stunned again.
The rideadin managed a hit that killed Scorizscar, got him sprayed with acid almost at zero, and the following round he became confused and knocked himself out...
The cleric managed to raise the oracadin before being disintegrated, and the wizard turned back to stone.
So yeah - a great session!
I will say that this is a very fluid group with all from 4 to 7 players in attendance, so their friends will probably happen upon them come next session, including their other cleric who is far from suboptimal, but still too late for breath of life.
(I also made it clear to the fox that if he felt like playing a different character, I would be fine with that.)
My comments
I must say that what I most enjoyed about this encounter was the random effects along with the dispel at the beginning. It was enough to fool my players into thinking they couldn't re-buff because it would get stripped from them again and again.
Another lovely detail was the acid coming off Scorizscar on each hit with a weapon, that caused a lot of concern from the melee.
So if I could get a wish in, more of the encounter/terrain difficulties, and not only boosting the bad guys. Making for more tactical fighting where you need to know what might happen in the locales you will be fighting.
I guess fighting in the Abyss would be a great place to introduce more warp wave effects.
Thanks again for your work Sc8rpi8n_mjd!
@Illius,
I may do it in the future (I have some ideas), but right now I have more important statblocks to work on. Is there any particular reason why you need her updated? I'm just curious :-)
@friluftshund,
Nice fight, thanks for sharing the details!
Two paladins in the group? that's tough...
I agree with you that combats should have more environmental effects. In this particular case, Scorizscar's origin opened up some nice possibilities. Usually I update a statblock, and when I get close to that particular combat I start thinking about changes in the encounter setup, or adding some effects to improve it.
I anticipate Nocticula being called in as an ally against either of the other Demon Lords, and updated stats would be nice. :)
Scorpion, do you have any ideas on what to do for a built up Xanthir? Since my players had ignored all the worms squirming off as Xanthir actually being killed, I'm trying to decide how to build him up for a unique Worm-that-Rides-a-Dragon that you run into in Book 6.
Let's give him a guardian dragon Made from the very maggots of the lake that is a part of him! I mean that the creature " is " him, and he gains hp bonus equal to that creatures.
Lets make the roof of the threshold a demiplane (only way to enter the tower) with wang, 3 raspers, and the dragon. Till the dragon is alive, xanthir can pop up from it when destroyed (like a resurection each round) If the dragon is blown up, xanthir can jump in and gain some ex hp kyuss like feature!I know is contorted, but is a 20/10 situation, and since Pcs are gonna have with them a phoenix and a silver dragon, you have to be mad!
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@Lochar,
Well I don't know if Xanthir will survive in my game (we are in the Ivory Sanctum right now), so I haven't really thought about making him tougher.
The first thing of course would be to give him more levels and tiers, but you already know that :-)
Then you can add some sort of aura/embrace attack that allows him to do a lot of damage to a character and has additional effects (worm infestation, ability drain, etc). The worms should keep gnawing at the PC even if he goes beyond Vang's reach. That should give a nasty surprise to the melee characters that think he's an easy target.
Giving him back the old epic WtW "+20 insight bonus to AC" modifier would go a long way to make his AC competitive. You can also give him additional hit points to represent the tougher worms that form his body. This can include something to avoid taking extra damage when hit by area damaging effects. Give him immunity to mind-affecting effects.
If you want an interesting mount, I suggest using a wormdrake (Dungeon magazine #134), it is a wormlike dragon creature that has interesting attacks and can even cast gate as a sp-like ability 1/day. It can also summon worms and other nasty things. It is CR 20, if you need a tougher version just add some hit dice/advanced template until you get what you need.
You can find the stats already converted to Pathfinder in my
Campaign Update: Yesterday I had another session with my group, and finally we started the Ivory Sanctum. There is little to comment, since we only played the combat against the brazen bull and started another against 4 scions of Baphomet. It was getting late so we stopped mid-combat.
The brazen bull lasted for a good 3 rounds, and did some damage by pouncing on the inquisitor and the paladin's mount. It was close to use swallow whole in the last round, but died before that. I also tried to petrify Arueshalae at the start of combat but failed. It forced the paladin and the inquisitor to spend 3 uses of mythic power each, so I consider the combat a success as a warm-up for what is to come.
Today I discovered that the bull's attack bonuses were off by 8 points, so of course that made the battle easier :-( I've updated and uploaded the document with the correct bonuses.
Then the group explored the wall and found the portcullis. Two scions teleported near them and used mythic vital strike to do two solid hits. The other two scions casted unholy blights that caused little damage, but combined with the previous blows, forced the paladin and the cleric to use channels. Then the sorceress and Arueshalae (using the staff) casted dimension door to appear a few squares behind the minotaurs and bypass the portcullis... that's where we left the game.
Here's a report on my party's fight with Pyralisia. An absolutely brutal fight. Combat lasted 8 rounds, and at the end, 3 of the 4 players were unconscious. I think this is the closest we've come to a TPK!
Preliminaries: I boosted Pyralisia's HPs in the usual way, giving her 1,023 HP. Following suggestions, I weakened her by removing the Channel Power boost to her spell-like abilities, and had the party face Pyralisia alone (instead of with the Devastator).
Pyralisia started off exposing the party to her Shroud of Flame, unleashing an Augmented Mythic Meteor Swarm and Quickened Mythic Chain Lightning, and from then on hit the party with a pair of blasting spell-like abilities every turn (for 4 blasts a round with Dual Initiative). The party quickly moved to the far corners of the room to make it hard for Pryalisia to target more than one of them, but Pyralisia was still able to hit everyone in the room with Mythic Fire Storms, and aimed her smaller-range spells (usually Delayed Blast Fireballs) at particular PCs.
The party had a hard time hurting her. The Paladin initially tried to use Fleet Warrior to full attack, but quickly realized that the damage she took every time she hit was too much to handle, and had to intentionally miss with the rest of her melee attacks. After the party separated into different corners of the room, they started firing at Pyralisia with ranged weapons, but Pyralisia's AC was too high to hit. Then the sorcerer had the bright idea of casting Greater Invisibility and Quickened Greater Invisibility spells on the party, which (coupled with their Mind Blanks) allowed them to target Pyralisia's flat-footed AC, which made a big difference. But this had the downside of making them invisible to the cleric too, who wasn't able to target them with her Heal spells anymore...
On the fourth round the sorcerer was down to 8 HP, and had to retreat back through the portal to drink some potions. At the end of that round, the ranger finally managed to down Pyralisia, but the sorcerer wasn't around to disintegrate Pyralisia's remains to stop her from resurrecting... A fully-powered Pyralisia re-appeared a round later, opening with another Augmented Mythic Meteor Swarm and swift Mythic Fire Storm, reducing the paladin to fine ash. The cleric was able to use Relentless Healing to bring the Paladin back to life, but Pyralisia then used two consecutive turns of blasting to drop both the paladin and cleric unconscious (both using Absorb Blow to avoid being killed). And Pyralisia dropped the sorcerer unconscious a round later when the sorcerer flew back in to re-join the fight.
In stark contrast to the other players (who were all unconscious) the ranger was doing pretty well---Improved Evasion is amazing in fights like this. Pyralisia was able to do some damage to the ranger when she failed reflex saves, but she wasn't able to do it quite fast enough, and Pyralisia went down for a second and final time in the eighth round, having dropped the ranger to 98 HP.
@Porridge,
That was quite the battle, man! they won't forget her in a while, that's for sure!
Did your players got any negative levels from the corrupting flames? Did she repelled any spell back to the group?
I suppose improved evasion helped her avoid those nasty cold spells.
After your report I think I'll modify the statblock, removing dual initiative and giving her amazing initiative instead. That way, she can have additional actions if she needs them, but will only cast two channeled power spell-like abilities in a round.
Thank you again for providing these fantastic write-ups of the battles.
That was quite the battle, man! they won't forget her in a while, that's for sure!
That's for sure!
Pyralisia's resurrection definitely amped up the difficulty of this fight for them. If the sorcerer had somehow managed to stick around (and stay alive) long enough to disintegrate her remains, the party could've wrapped things up in 4 challenging but not deadly rounds. (On the other hand, if a cruel DM decides to have her mythically resurrect even if her remains are disintegrated, then the party is gonna face some pain...)
Did your players got any negative levels from the corrupting flames?
Yeah, quite a few. All of them except the paladin had Death Ward up, so these were only "virtual" negative levels, and the paladin's will saves were high enough to prevent her from getting any. (The fact that these were Charisma-based saves made them a lot tougher than usual for the cleric and ranger, but a lot easier for the sorcerer and paladin.) But everyone other than the paladin ended the fight with 6-10 virtual negative levels. And if anyone had tried to stick with melee attacks, I'm sure they would have gotten a lot more.
I suppose improved evasion helped her avoid those nasty cold spells.
(Just to be clear, I was talking about the ranger's Improved Evasion being awesome, not Pyralisia's! I don't think the party managed to cast any cold spells at Pyralisia...)
Did she repelled any spell back to the group?
I don't think the party tried casting any offensive spells at her :/ ... the sorcerer spent all of the time that she was conscious casting buff spells on the party.
Because the party were warned that they were going to face a number of mythic combats in a row, the sorcerer has been a lot more careful with her mythic power and spellpower uses than usual. (So far, I think the locust encounter is the only one she's used blasting spells in.) But I expect the big guns to come out soon, when the party faces Aponavicius...
Thank you again for providing these fantastic write-ups of the battles.
My pleasure!
@Porridge,
Yeah, I understood you when mentioning the ranger's improved evasion. It's just that I supposed the PCs would throw their best cold attacks at her, and since you didn't mentioned it I assumed she made the saves :-)
When you say Charisma-based saves you mean Will saves? Because the Charisma thing only affects the monster DC (how you calculate it), not the players.
When you say Charisma-based saves you mean Will saves? Because the Charisma thing only affects the monster DC (how you calculate it), not the players.
Whoops... I misread that. (In fact, I think I've been consistently reading these the wrong way...) Thanks for the correction!
I have included a statblock for Orengofta, the mythic nalfeshnee in Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth. It is basically an advanced version of Ibaheniel, with a new ability and some changes to the others.
I have suggested an encounter for his throne room, but you can easily customize it with different types of demons.
Yeah, I suppose so. That's no problem in my game since I don't allow Beyond Morality.
An updated statblock for Verbovezzor has been added to the document.
Hehe, I'm not sure how useful these two last statblocks will be, since both of them have a roleplaying scene tied to them.
I suppose having better stats can come in handy in case someone pisses them off while talking :-)
(A couple possible typos? (i) Aponavicius's tail slap damage is listed as "2d6+6 plus grab" when coupled with her weapon attacks, and "2d6+5" when coupled with slam attacks. Should these both be the same? (ii) Aponavicius's slam damage is listed as "1d8+12", but her Str is 36. Should this be "1d8+13"?)
Yeah, those were typos. I have fixed them and uploaded the document.
Thank you for pointing them out, Porridge.
Another creature has been added to the document: the Pool of Ultimate Ending.
Just a quick note: remember that Extraordinary paralysis effects are not stopped by freedom of movement, since they are not magical. I have removed all the additional text that actually made the ability confusing and less powerful than that of a standard crystal ooze (because the last part about turning it into a Supernatural ability makes it magical and allows FoM to sop it). Now it's just a standard (Ex) paralysis effect.
Another creature has been added to the document: the Pool of Ultimate Ending.
Just a quick note: remember that Extraordinary paralysis effects are not stopped by freedom of movement, since they are not magical. I have removed all the additional text that actually made the ability confusing and less powerful than that of a standard crystal ooze (because the last part about turning it into a Supernatural ability makes it magical and allows FoM to sop it). Now it's just a standard (Ex) paralysis effect.
Umm...just a question. Why would it being non-magical stop Fom? FoM implies that it would work vs non magical effects too.
Unless this has been answered in a FAQ somewhere.
@Seannoss,
My personal interpretation is that FoM doesn't help with non-magical effects. There are a few threads around here that talk about this issue. Here is one of them in case you want to take a look at the discussion:
I've made the mistake of writing my personal opinion as if it were a general rule, sorry about that. Unfortunately I cannot edit my post now.
For those that allow FoM to apply to non-magical effects, I suggest keeping the text for "potent paralysis" as written in the adventure, so the paralysis effect can be useful to the monster.
@Lochar,
Thanks, I've fixed it.
No prob, was just wondering if I'd missed something about FoM or extraordinary abilities.
Out of curiosity, were you thinking of doing anything with the Yearning House in book 6?
(If not, I might just cut it, and have either the Son of Shax or Shaorhaz be the keeper of the Nyhandrian Chisel. Or I might just have everyone in the Yearning House come out against the PCs in a single horde, to get it over with quickly...)
Here's a report on my player's fight with Graveknight Staunton, the Devastator, and (eventually) Aponavicius. It was a challenging fight, lasting 9/18 rounds (9 rounds of combat, and 9 rounds of waiting for opponents to return from Maze spells), with two player deaths.
Staunton's spells were left blank, so I filled them in as follows:
- 4th: Greater Invisibility, King's Castle, Litany of Vengeance, Litany of Madness, Slay Living, Inflict Serious Wounds
- 3rd: Blade of Dark Triumph, Deadly Juggernaut, Dispel Magic, Accursed Glare, Burst of Speed, Vampiric Touch
- 2nd: Corruption Resistance, Resist Energy, Weapon of Awe, Litany of Defense x3, Fire of Entanglement
- 1st: Linebreaker, Divine Favor, Hero's Defiance, Litany of Sloth, Grace, Liberating Command, Knight's Calling
The Fight: The Devastator and Staunton won initiative, and started with a Blasphemy and Devastating Blast, respectively. My players got lucky with their saves, though, and their Rings of Inner Fortitude minimized the ability score damage/drain.
The players then charged in to attack Staunton; both the Devastator and Staunton got in some nasty attacks of opportunity. On the next turn the Devastator and Staunton full attacked the paladin, killing her, the sorcerer Mazed the Devastator, and the ranger dropped Staunton.
The party had a couple rounds to heal up and get the paladin standing before the Devastator re-appeared (using a mythic surge after a high roll to make the int check to escape), and the party engaged the Devastator. A round later, Aponavicius emerged and joined the fight. Boosted by the Devastator's Aura of Corruption, and loaded up with critical boosting feats, Aponavicius demolished the paladin, doing over 400HP of damage. But the sorcerer was able to Maze the Devastator again, the cleric used Relentless Healing and pair of Heal spells to get the paladin back on her feet, and the party was able to take down Aponavicius (no longer boosted by the Aura of Corruption) in a couple rounds. Aponavicius was able to use swift Mythic Heals to stay standing a little longer than usual, but being an evil outsider really hurts in this campaign...
Then the party healed up again and waited for the Devastator to return. It finally managed to escape the Maze in the 17th round. It got wailed on a bit, and dropped the cleric unconscious with a single full attack (those Soul Rays are nasty!), but the paladin, ranger and sorcerer (using massive Magic Missiles) were able to take it out before it could drop anyone else.
The thing that really struck me about this fight was how powerful Maze is. By casting this judiciously, the sorcerer was able to ensure that the party didn't have to face more than one opponent at a time, which made this fight a lot easier. I guess I kind of knew Maze was a game changer, but I hadn't really seen my players use it this effectively before.
The fight was still challenging (the paladin did die twice!). But having a couple of rounds to wait and heal up between opponents made this fight seem almost relaxed in comparison to the party's terrifying fights with Azrivauxus, the grappling locusts, and Pyralisia.
My slow-xp-track players have now hit L19/T9. Just one more level until they get their 20th-level capstone abilities...
@Porridge,
Well I have some ideas but honestly I consider it the weakest part of the adventure, so I left it for the end.
Here you have my suggestions:
- Basically everything except sister perversion and lady anemora is cannon fodder. You can use my updated stats for the slimy demodand but I doubt it will make much of a difference.
- Don't use Nocticula as suggested. Make her possess one of the mythic succubus instead of sister perversion, so your players don't kill her in one round after their talk with Nocticula. Sister perversion should flee to the Silk Embrace (so she is encountered with Anemora) as soon as possible when the players storm the brothel, using the magic mirror.
- Upgrade Sister P. adding two more bard levels and applying the advanced template. Then change at least one of her trickster path abilities for Inspire minions (and possibly Ghostly Performance). Now you can put some ancient apocalypse locusts in Anemora's den and they will get a nice competence bonus from Sister P.'s song (+4 instead of +2).
You can give her an additional trickster tier, so she can have another tier 3 ability (mirror dodge and vanishing move are nice).
Since Seraptis demons have a nice damaging grapple ability (wich should do 4d6+16, BTW), give her tenacious grapple and maybe even the ability to do full damage with her claws even while using a manufactured weapon. Upgrade her gaze attack DC, counting bard levels (DC 31).
- Upgrade Anemora, giving her the advanced template and some additional aberration hit dice (she already has CL 20 with cleric spells). Consider giving her some inherent bonuses to 3-4 stats (+4/+5). Her final CR should be 25 or close to it.
- Put additional enemies in the encounter. To make things easier, I suggest some ancient apocalypse locusts. A nasty demonic insect/vermin would be nice (mythic bebilith?)
About the fight: Judging from your report I think you did very good. Terendelev has maze, so make sure to repay them in kind when the time comes :-)
Did you use the gate or mythic fireball spell-like abilities that Staunton has? Do you think Aponavicius lived up to her reputation? and more importantly, did your players have fun vanquishing her?
I'm surprised to hear about maze being a challenge. I've read other people complain about how easy it is to counter, and it relies on a saving throw. I doubt my PCs would have been bothered by it and that's at 13th level.
The spell doesn't have a saving throw, only SR and that's usually easy to overcome. If the enemy doesn't have a good Int bonus, that DC 20 Intelligence check can be very hard.
I've seen the spell remove enemies for quite a few rounds, and turn an otherwise hard combat into a much easier challenge, unless the affected target has access to plane shift or find the path.
oops...true enough. That says how often I use it. Still, just a mythic point and the target is freed.
Still, just a mythic point and the target is freed.
Aw, man, did I miss something? What were you thinking of here?
Freedom spell. Its ninth level but if your PCs were 18th then it was possible.
With Freedom, the only limitation is that you cannot use it to free yourself from the maze, another character has to do it:
"To free a creature from imprisonment or maze, you must know its name and background, and you must cast this spell at the spot where it was entombed or banished into the maze."
So one of your partners can go and cast it at the spot where you disappeared into the maze.
The only other option is to use wild arcana or inspired spell to cast plane shift, but that doesn't return you to the same spot.
Find the Path is not an option since they errataed wild arcana/inspired spell, because the casting time is 3 rounds and those abilities only allow standard action or less.
Did you use the gate or mythic fireball spell-like abilities that Staunton has?
No, I didn't. The Mythic Fireball looked nasty, but Staunton's Devastating Blast looked nastier, so I used that first, and he didn't get a chance to use another ranged attack before the party engaged in melee...
At the time I was torn about the Gate spell---the spell talks about having to pay something in order to get the Gated creature to help you, and Staunton didn't have anything to pay up with, so I decided not to use it. In hindsight, maybe that was silly---I could have just ruled that he has some contacts or an already-agreed-upon contract with a powerful outsider, and had him Gate something in... oh well.
Do you think Aponavicius lived up to her reputation? and more importantly, did your players have fun vanquishing her?
She was pretty nasty, especially during the one round in which she got to attack when the Devastator was still around. (The 400 HP of damage she dealt to the Paladin was after the party used Divine Interference to negate a crit, and the Paladin used her Jingasa of the Fortunate Soldier to negate another. Without that, she would have done about 550 HP of damage---too much for even Relentless Healing to help with.)
That said, I'm not sure the players thought she much more challenging than the Devastator or Staunton. And it would have been nice to have her last another round or two to really make her feel a notch tougher than the other two. If I could do it again, I might go back and give her something that allowed her to diminish the damage from the player's critical hits (both the paladin and the ranger have Mythic Improved Critical and crit on 15-20s). Maybe add Heavy Fortification to her breastplate, or give her a scroll of Mythic Stoneskin, or something... That combined with her ability to cast swift Mythic Heals would probably have allowed her to last 1-2 more rounds.
Terendelev has maze, so make sure to repay them in kind when the time comes :-)
Will do!
Hmm, true. But it would make a lot more sense to be able to cast the spell on yourself too.
And my PCs had mythic plane shift too as they were worried about banishing effects already. But groups will vary at high levels.