| Bjørn Røyrvik |
The penultimate session and still nothing but fighting. The fight that was oh so rudely interrupted by unstable Internet access last week was finished - the PCs' Spell Resistance stopping most of the stuff the serpentfolk casters tried. Things still took a while because the snakes were buffed to the gills and their saves were good enough to handle most stuff that came their way. Then it was time for the Emperor of Scales and the two iron golems. The EoS wasn't too bad. The most he did was manage to confuse a couple of people before dying to spells and sword, and the golems were controlled in short order. The PCs then descended to the lowest level of the Sanctum and killed the marilith and the hollow serpent, giving Vyr-Azul and the others time to buff. We had about 40 minutes left of the normal session by this time but we all knew the battle would take longer than that so we put it off for next time, which if we are lucky will be this weekend.
I had a clever way to ensure that the PCs were not only high enough level for the encounter but also had sufficient magic left (they were out of most of their high-level spells now and I kind of watn to avoid a TPK) but this was contingent on them actually wanting to release and talk to the frozen cyclops. I had managed to convince them to release Aveshai but then they decided to ignore the living wealth of information from aeons past about the ancient master race, and instead use him as a dumb meat shield.
This is kind of odd because normally my players will be all over talking to NPCs.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
We are done! Woohoo!! Hey nonny nonny!
Since Izzie's player was unable to play this coming Wednesday we managed to play on Saturday. This was a good thing because we got started almost on time at four and played until ten with few interruptions, unlike the usual start-ostensibly-at-six-but-usually-more-like-seven-and-end-at-10. This was a good thing since the final encounter took most of the time. A slight recton to ensure my players had the level and spells they needed to face the upgraded encounters. This may seem like cheating, and to an extend it is, but looking back on things I should have made myself clearer when I exptected my players to do things and once I had put all the work into upgrading the final encounter I didn't want to downgrade it again.
The rest of the encounters of this level were placed in the final room, and Vyr-Azul was bumped to 17th level on the reasoning that it's a sad thing if the high priest of a Mystaran Immortal can't cast 9th level spells, and I tweaked his spell choices to be a bit better agains the PCs. Sargogen the Lord of Coils was also added, as was the succubus from the Fortress, as well as Kesteh (sp?) and a bunch of temple guards. Sargogen because he seemed too fun and powerful not to use.
The fight started well enough with Alex Phantasmal Killing the succubus and the golems and planetar moving in. The dumb serpentfolk fighter engaged the golems and the smart one moves to attack a PC. The rest of the PCs cast a few buffs. Vyr-Azul went last but starts strongly with an Overwhelming Presence, ordering the monkeys to kneel in the soon-to-come presence of Ydersius. The twins fail their save and do as ordered - they are used to kneeling to commanding voices at home. Sargogen is conveniently in range of Cath and coups de grace her. Fortunately Izzie has memorized Limited Wish and uses it to cast Breath of Life. A few blasts from the temple guards fail to affect the heroes but the PCs return blasts do some damage. Vyr-Azul's Implosion fails to penetrate spell resistance, which I was both relieved and annoyed at.
The fight goes mostly well. A couple of lucky Mazes put the two serpentfolk fighters out of comission long enough for the PCs to handle the temple guards and Vyr-Azul, who didn't manage to impress beyond his initial spell. Much of this was me allowing Alex to take the spell Prismatic Eye, which is a very good 2e spell that is basically an Arcane Eye that can do a color spray every round. VA failed almost every Will save against it and was basically stun-locked the rest of the fight. His AC and SR stopped some stuff but not enough. Sargogen proved to be a tougher opponent when he came back. Very high AC, SR of 35 and lots of HP, he did a lot of damage, Mirror Image and Heal being vey useful in keeping people alive. He went down, however, after killing the golems and the planetar and hurting other PCs quite a bit. The degenerate fighter didn't make it back before the rest of the story was over.
Ydersius was almost a let-down compared to how tough Sargogen was. He failed to penetrate SR when he used his SLAs (I rolled rather poorly) and his bites were focused on summoned celestials. He was tough and resilient but ultimately didn't kill anyone. The fact that Duncan got in two Disintegrates in a row against him didn't hurt (two nat 1s in a row on big Y's saves), and the PCs twigged to the need to decapitate him very quickly.
The aftermath was rushed through since it was late-ish. The remaining serpentfolk fighter was handled off-screen, and the PCs leveled to 17th and decided to go their seperate ways. The twins went home to mommy to get some R&R. Phaendar decided that adventuring was far less fun than it sounds and went home to the Thunder Rift to stay. Izzie spent some time in the big library they found and stole or copied all the books. Duncan and Alex decided to stick together and hang around town some more. There was bound to be more interesting stuff to find, and being the rulers of cities with as fun benefits as these two was appealing. Alex and/or Duncan might make a return as a challenger to Arlynith. Both have a bone to pick with her. Izzie and Ravi did give Arly two of the last three Wishes she needs for her Staff of Wishes (which due to a lab accident is now a Rod of Wishes that functions like a staff). Duncan, the last wizard of the group, did NOT feel like giving Arly a Wish.
I did a lot of stuff wrong with this adventure and it made the entire experience less fun than it should have been.
Final verdict C-. Bonus points for tying in with the general serpentfolk theme I've had for quite some time now in various adventures, malus points for failing to tell my players the extent of my grand vision and just assuming they can read my mind.
So now we will play a quick WanG adventure before moving on to Mummy's Mask, the final adventure in Ranya's Quest for Immortality.
Thanks for reading.
