So last week my players completed the Rise of the Runelords AP. After braving the dangers of Xin-Shalast, climbing up the mountain, fighting through the spire and entering the Eye of Avarice, the players were in the biggest fight of their life.
The party consisted of:
- An inquisitor
- A paladin
- A sorcerer
- An oracle.
I made several changes to the Karzoug fight mostly for storyline purposes. I removed the blue dragon and giants and put in Arkhryst (he survived his encounter and made a deal with Karzoug) and an adamantine golem. These two were tied to the players stories. Arkhryst was the sorcerer's ancestor and the source of his white dragon bloodline (that worked too perfectly, I had to use it) and the adamantine golem was powered by the soul of the paladin and inquistor's mother. During the golem siege of Sandpoint, their mother was murdered and their father was captured. Her soul was drawn to Karzoug's runewell but was grabbed before she was consumed. Karzoug used her soul to power the golem in an attempt to mess with their heads during the fight.
I had Karzoug set up a trap for the players when they entered the eye, a Wall of Suppression was waiting for them just as they entered and the walk way up to him had a dimensional lock placed on it.
Combat began and the inquisitor and paladin charged forward. Karzoug Time stopped and buffed himself and put prismatic spheres around the two. The dragon went after the spellcasters and the golem charged her children screaming in pain as she was powerless to stop the construct and was forced to watch.
The paladin tried to escape his sphere and both got petrified in the process while the casters were having trouble with the dragon. The inquisitor tried to use dimension door but then found out about the lock. The look of horror on his face was priceless. He then charged out of the sphere but too was petrified. Karzoug thought he had won and had the golems bring up his new "statue" to be put on display. The sorcerer managed to get a stone to flesh off which resulted in the paladin being closer to Karzoug.
The oracle cast a miracle to restore the party's magical capabilities, (me being one for theatrics explained this as the gods appearing before the players and reaching out and grabbing their hearts and filling them with divine power that restored their magic) once this happened the sorcerer managed to cast stone to flesh on the inquisitor which freed him to join the paladin.
Karzoug then mazed the paladin (which wasn't good for the paladin, only 14 INT) which took him effectively out of the fight. The oracle summoned air elementals to distract the dragon while he tried to keep the party alive.
A few rounds of surviving some nasty level 8 and 9 spells, (Wail of the Banshee, Horrid Wilting) and the paladin's god got fed up with him doing nothing in the maze. (I just didn't want the paladin to be left out, he rolled so well all night, I figured he would only be out for 2 rounds tops, he was out for almost 7) Once the paladin was kicked out of the maze (much to Karzoug's surprise) they ganged up on him and began to assault him. (The inquisitor uses teamwork feats to basically allow them to chain crits but with Ice Body, Karzoug was immune to crits thus rendering their abilities inert)
The dragon, fed up with the oracle's summons attempted to crush the healer, but a well timed nat 20 saving throw allowed her to evade getting crushed. Unfortunately, this left the dragon right next to her, and casting Euphoric Tranquility rendered it harmless. The oracle basically just talked to it for the remainder of the fight and made sure no violent actions were taken against it.
Waves of Exhaustion partially disabled the paladin and inquisitor and karzoug then made a short escape to heal himself. The golem kept the two occupied for a short time while Karzoug recovered. This didn't last long though, as they didn't want to harm their mother, they forced themselves past the golem and charged Karzoug. They got through his mirror images rather easily due to some VERY lucky rolls. They both had managed to gather enough adamantine to make a couple weapons so the stoneskin buff did nothing for him.
Karzoug tried to use mobility to his advantage but even flying didn't help as the players followed him there as well. The last rounded ended with a final strike between the paladin and inquisitor (they use Battle Mind Link) which caused Karzoug to be sliced into three pieces. From here a bright white light enveloped everyone and the dragon and golem were disintegrated and the party restored. (Again, theatrics)
Finding themselves back in the spire, they see the runewell explode with a bright white light and the tower begins to collapse. Using the portal to Xin-Shalast they found earlier they managed to escape. (But not before asking if there was enough time to go and try to drag the gold statue of Karzoug out of there...sigh, no.)
So please tell me what you guys think. Was I too nice, too generous, I'll admit I was rather soft for certain tactics, but I don't think I was too bad.
Sounds pretty epic to me. Personally, as long as you and your players enjoyed the fight and there was just enough stress to make them feel as though they were on the verge of TPK, you were not too soft on them
Oh they were almost in tears when they found out about the wall of suppression. Then when the inquisitor found out about the dimensional lock all he could say was "Are you f!~%ing serious???" then said "Well, screw it! I charge through the sphere."
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Did the players have fun? Check.
Did the players feel challenged? Check.
No further questions, your honor.
Sounds like you did a great job of keeping Karzoug alive, creating a good set of strategies for him to use, forcing the players to use all of their abilities, keeping them on their toes, tying the encounter to their backstories, etc.
And any situation the includes the players "almost in tears" sounds like the right way to me!