Zyrxog successfully fended off my group of six (Duskblade, Scout, Paladin of Tyr, Cleric x 2 of Tyr, and Focused Conjuror). He locked down the Scout (their only significant ranged damage dealer) with stun, and counter-spelled the conjuror's dispel magic to keep levitating. When he was close to killing three party members with lightning and fireballs, the conjuror Dimension Doored the stunned members away, and the rest ran away. Since Zyrxog's success depended on staying away from melee (all three unstunned party members have powerful melee attacks and high Will saves/immunities), Zyrxog chose not to pursue into the low ceiling areas.
Any ideas about what Zyrxog should do next? His lair has important info leading to the next module; how do I get this to the players? The notes say he defends the tadpoles to the death, but he isn't stupid. All of his allies and minions are dead, but I'm thinking he's desperate enough that he might come to the surface to Dominate some WaterDeep City Guard or others residents to defend his lair in the short term.
Second skullboy's idea, keeping in mind the mind flayer's enormous ego. The AP and module aren't really clear on who other members of the Unseen are (Telakin's clique), but I would imagine that Xyrxog would not only have ties to them but also to the agents of Kyuss in the next module, giving you a plethora of options for enemies to supplement a street-side assault by Xyrxog. I would give him the option of escaping, forcing your PCs to track down a potential arch-nemesis before he gets out of hand.
Ideas for Allies in the Attack:
-Spawn of Kyuss
-Unclassed Avolakia (you never actually fight any of these in the AP)
-Charmed Adventurers
-Doppelganger Assassins
Yeah, I'd agree that it's reasonable for Zyrxog to come after the party on their home turf, trying to strike back at them before they return. If they defeat him, they'll almost certainly head back to his lair to finish looting.
I had a similar situation in my campaign, however when he retaliated, he almost caused a TPK. I've got a big write-up of it in this thread: http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2qah2?Zyrxog-Recurring-Villain
That does however hinge on your party being interested in investigating the games for their own reasons, however, and it may seem forced if you push them towards it, and it just so happens to be where they need to be to progress the plot.
That's a great story Jam Falcon! There a couple ideas I can use from it. I still have a couple weeks before we play again (holiday hiatus), so I'm still finalizing my plans.
Thanks, I'm glad it can help!
So I wrapped up HoHR two nights ago. Zyrzog, Elaxan, and 3 rogue mercenaries attacked the group as they came downstairs from their room at the inn. He had all his buffs up, and they only had their daily buffs or those with durations of 1 hour per level (they were headed back to his lair).
His initial attack wasn't as powerful as I hoped. Even though they didn't have a Mass Conviction buff up, I stunned only 1 of 6, instead of the 4 of 6 I stunned in the lair (when they had Mass Conviction running). Elaxan moved in and get a nice sneak attack on the paladin/Fist of Tyr. The rogues then fired their human bane arrows at the paladin, but all missed.
Zyrzog got off one empowered lightning bolt on half the party, but then lost his standard actions to nausea from a Cloud of Bewilderment. He tried to use his move action to fly up out of harms way outside the inn, but an Enlarge Personed Duskblade tore him out of the sky with his now 20' long Glaive.
Meanwhile, my Zyrxog escaped as well—the party destroyed the tadpole pool during the fight, removing any incentive to linger, so he plane shifted to the Positive Energy Plane.
He's pretty much alone, so he's gonna head to the Ethereal Plane soon and recruit a gang of xill for maximum ambush potential.
Because the party took his escape very personally (three friends were killed during HoHR, and one didn't get better), I'm probably going to have him come back and kill Eligos. He wants to investigate the Age of Worms as well—he actually offered to let the party live and serve him if they'd help him look into Raknian's dangerous schemes and work out more about the Age of Worms—so he'll copy Eligos's notes and leave the originals on the guy's body with underlined portions for the party to find. Just to be an a@&~~!%.