Aotrs Commander
2010-07-19, 05:44 PM
I just finished running the single most complicated encounter I have - and probably ever will - run! I feel that both me and my players deserve a few bragging rights to mark the occasion.
The encounter was part of my conversion of Dragon Mountain from a 10th level AD&D adventure to a 16-Epic level 3.5 adventure. The battle was a staged ambush by Clan Blood on the PCs. In the original, Clan Blood was said to have one of the most spellcasters of all the clans. When I wrote the module up, I took that and ran with it! It resulted in becoming a spell-caster-heavy, brutal encounter, one that I was sure I could actually challenge the PCs with. (And rightly so!) It's probably the single most difficult encounter of the module (and probably the hardest fight the Orbslayers will ever have).
Running it was a challenge, to say the least! (It took me about three hours to do the prep-work setting all the pre-buffs up for the Kobolds, not counting the time it took me to generate the actual characters!) It was an epic battle, that took us four sessions (so about eight hours!) to complete.
The protagonists:
The Orb Slayers:
Sir Conrad the Wizard (Mostly human (long story...) Wizard 17 with his micro-dragon cohort)
Sir Melchiah Turel (Tiefling (homebrew +0 LA) Ranger 6/Fighter 8/Deepwodd Sniper 2/Crusader 1)
Sir Vanda (Human Fighter 17)
Lady Gabrielle (Human Monk 17) Yes, as in that Gabrielle, of Xena fame (or at least her clone...)
Sir Drobar (Barely Human (don't ask...) Rogue 17)
Sir Telermar Mandis (Human Cleric 17)
Verses:
The religous fervour of Clan Blood!
(Carandese Kobolds all; mechanically identical to normal Kobolds except they are Goblinoids and not draconic.)
Clan Blood's mighty chief: Galatak (Cleric 20)
One Warlock 16
Four Cleric 3/Egoist 3/Psychic Theurge 8
Two Dread Necromancer 13, plus their Quasit familiars and 144 zombie rats (and four summoned Wyvern Zombies)
Four Ardent 13s
Ten Cleric 13s
Two Sergeants (Divine Mind 12)
Two Sergeants (Kobold Crusader 8/Blackguard 4)
Ten Crusader 10s
and fifteen more-or-less superflouous Fighter 8s (who ended up being archery support and, not being specialist archers, not being very good at it!)
The Battle:
The Orbslayers wandered into a huge amphitheatre, with an alter in the middle and four entrances at the cardinal directions. While they prodded the alter and wondered who it was too, Clan Blood made their frantic buff preparations out of sight. Then they threw open all four doors and rolled down the oil barrels, as well as released the jets of oil to flood the lower portion of the chamber. Then the battle started in earnest.
Wisely, the Orbslayers fell back to the entrance they'd come in, out of the now flaming oil. Their retreat was cut off early on by Galatak dropping a Blade Barrier behind them. This meant that Clan Blood were forced to close in (the Clan being deployed more-or-less evenly at each of the four doors), and meant that a lot of the spellcasters had to spend precious time moving into Close range (the room was about 150' or so in diameter). Telemar's first action was probably the single best move in the entire battle, casting Sublime Revelry. This had the effect of reducing melee and ranged damage to half and, equally as important, stymied half of the various psions mind-attack powers (to my dismay!)
It was a very bitter and hard-fought battle, with several of the party going down and up, and nearly as many from the enemy (who had Heal galore themselves!) Gabrielle was an absolute menance, deftly enlarging herself and proceeding to trip the poor charging crusaders - and anyone else unfortunate to get close - and pummelling them to bits. Given the obcene amounts of kit the Orbslayers had, that extra -4 to attack also meant that the meleers were pretty much negated.
The climax of the first session was, at the end of the round, the flying, invisible Warlock knocking out Vanda's Sublime Revelry with a Ravenous Dispellling and Galatax hitting him with a sucessful Dominate Monster.
Fortunately - for them, more's the pity! - Telemar, whose action was just ahead of Vanda's manged to Dispel it the next week.
Melchiah, as usual, did horrendous amounts of damage, managing at one point to floor Galatax, even through his Stoneskin! This earned him four maxed-out Energy Rays from the furious Ardents; one missed - three hit. He has a paltry SR 15 from some item or another, which he finally remembered to use. I rolled - and got a 1! Because of their level (13) one of the silly sods actually failed to hurt him! Actually, this was good for Melchiah, as 26D6+26 was enough to take him down; 39D6+39 would have killed him! (Obviously, we use death at - 1/2 hit points, not -10. At this level ten hits is literally nothing.) Once they got him back up, his effectiveness was a bit stymied towards the end, when Telermar and one of the Clerics put up Wall of Fire and Wall of Lightning (for differing reasons), effectively hemming the party in. Arrows, of course, do not do well going through (as they take fire damage - at least that's how we play it) and he wasn't willing to risk his highly expensive returning arrows!
He did get to use his +4 Heal check at the last though, when as the last two Ardents got nasty and desparate, and spammed Energy Wave in sucession on the party, knocking out both Telermar and Conrad, the only other two members of the party stuck between two elemental walls and the Blade Barrier...
They finally took Galatax down at the end of last week, and the surviving divine casters had actually ran out of heals! Just to make sure though, Drobar took the AoO to coup de grace him...better safe than sorry...
Conrad's most amsuing moment was using Reverse Gravity, causing half the Ardents and several clerics to slam into the ceiling. (To my utter delight, and to the praise of the module author, the cross-section picture on the room was in scal with the map; making calculating damage a snap.) The Ardents, not being daft, used Immovability to dig into the ceiling, while the one Psychic Theurge carefully levitated down; just in time for Gabby to run up and smack him to death.
Vanda, as usual, spent most of the combat slicing the poor fools unfortunate to get close enough to him to bloody ribbons.
The man (or in this case equivilent thereof) of the match award, however, has to go to Snowball, Conrad's micro (good-aligned) White Dragon. Trapped outside the Blade Barrier with one of the Psychic Theurges, she held him off for most of the ten rounds of the combat. Not at all bad, for saying she's only 12 HD and only her bite could penetrate the Kobolds DR 6/Good from Righteous Might. Fortunately for her, the Theurges were set up for melee-buff and support, and didn't have any offenseive spells worth speaking of. Still, only her stupidly hgh Ac of 45 saved her (and the theurge was attacking at +33/+33/+28/+23 and D4+17 damage...) And even then, only Sublime Revelry saved her skin! That theurge was the last one to go down, actually; once the rest of the threats died, Gabby and Melchaih rushed through the Blade Barrier, both having Evasion and stupid reflex saves (Melchiah's Evasion from a ring). They took him out in short order; though not before, to my great amusement, for the first time in the combat Gabby actually failed to trip and got knocked flat!
The "most usless worm" award has to go to the Kobold fighters. As 8th level generic Kobolds, not the Archer or melee specialists I've been mostly using, they were best in melee, but ended but being fire support from the entrances. Five of them died when Telemar blinded most of the east flank with a Sunburst. The others desultorily fired at Conrad, until they realised that Reverse Arrows is not funny when you're on D6+2 damage... They spent the rest of the combat shooting at targets of opportunity; sadly, mainly Gabby, whose insane AC, plus her Deflect Arrows meant she barely notied. Then, when those Walls came up, they were reduced to literally cheering on the survivors! In the penultimate round, they actaully managed to hit Drod...once. Despite him being only AC 29 and them being on +18/+13... Then, as the last Ardent went down, and Telermar dropped a Blade Barrier on five of them, they decided discretion was the better part of valour and ran like buggery.
Conclusion
It was an amazingly tense fight. I admit, with this many casters, I did have to hold back on going for the kill from the get-go. Otherwise, it would have been a curb stomp (it's the BBEG v party problem only in reverse). I got a few Destructions off (all unsucessful!), but I didn't, for example, hit ten off simultaneously, nor in the end, did I use some of Galatax's worst area-effect spells. The rationale being, to start with, he and Clan Blood underestimated the Orbslayers. He was actually just about to cast Mass Harm on his next action - which by this point would have been very, very bad for the PCs, when he was finally killed. (Sigh. So close!) That said, he was buffed up for getting to smacking range. With various spells; he was on +39/+39/+34/+29/+24 (D6+20+D6 Fire, 19-20) with his Flaming Shortspear +4!
I wasn't trying for a TPK, of course, merely a very serious challenge. I didn't really play to the hilt with anyone until the last minute, though, when the Ardents started getting nasty (now that they were actually in range...) Also, with that many NPCs to control, I erred on speed and easily resolved action in most cases!
It was a grand experiment, and much fun was had by all. Everyone contributed - a lot - and it was a great and memorable fight. I've probably not covered half of the stuff that happened! It's not an experiment I think I shall repeat, mind - it was a bit too complex, even for me! (We managed, like two rounds each in the first two sessions; until the PCs had slaughtered the bit count down!)
So, aside from praising my awesome DMing skills (or shuddering at the sadnitude of same...), there is another point to this thread. Believe it or not!
To ask the question: what's the most difficult and complex enounter you folks have ever had, as a player or a DM? (In any system. Heck, any wargame, this encounter's nearly big enough to qualify!)
Can any one top this grand extravagander?
(Would anyone even want to so insane as to want to try?)
The encounter was part of my conversion of Dragon Mountain from a 10th level AD&D adventure to a 16-Epic level 3.5 adventure. The battle was a staged ambush by Clan Blood on the PCs. In the original, Clan Blood was said to have one of the most spellcasters of all the clans. When I wrote the module up, I took that and ran with it! It resulted in becoming a spell-caster-heavy, brutal encounter, one that I was sure I could actually challenge the PCs with. (And rightly so!) It's probably the single most difficult encounter of the module (and probably the hardest fight the Orbslayers will ever have).
Running it was a challenge, to say the least! (It took me about three hours to do the prep-work setting all the pre-buffs up for the Kobolds, not counting the time it took me to generate the actual characters!) It was an epic battle, that took us four sessions (so about eight hours!) to complete.
The protagonists:
The Orb Slayers:
Sir Conrad the Wizard (Mostly human (long story...) Wizard 17 with his micro-dragon cohort)
Sir Melchiah Turel (Tiefling (homebrew +0 LA) Ranger 6/Fighter 8/Deepwodd Sniper 2/Crusader 1)
Sir Vanda (Human Fighter 17)
Lady Gabrielle (Human Monk 17) Yes, as in that Gabrielle, of Xena fame (or at least her clone...)
Sir Drobar (Barely Human (don't ask...) Rogue 17)
Sir Telermar Mandis (Human Cleric 17)
Verses:
The religous fervour of Clan Blood!
(Carandese Kobolds all; mechanically identical to normal Kobolds except they are Goblinoids and not draconic.)
Clan Blood's mighty chief: Galatak (Cleric 20)
One Warlock 16
Four Cleric 3/Egoist 3/Psychic Theurge 8
Two Dread Necromancer 13, plus their Quasit familiars and 144 zombie rats (and four summoned Wyvern Zombies)
Four Ardent 13s
Ten Cleric 13s
Two Sergeants (Divine Mind 12)
Two Sergeants (Kobold Crusader 8/Blackguard 4)
Ten Crusader 10s
and fifteen more-or-less superflouous Fighter 8s (who ended up being archery support and, not being specialist archers, not being very good at it!)
The Battle:
The Orbslayers wandered into a huge amphitheatre, with an alter in the middle and four entrances at the cardinal directions. While they prodded the alter and wondered who it was too, Clan Blood made their frantic buff preparations out of sight. Then they threw open all four doors and rolled down the oil barrels, as well as released the jets of oil to flood the lower portion of the chamber. Then the battle started in earnest.
Wisely, the Orbslayers fell back to the entrance they'd come in, out of the now flaming oil. Their retreat was cut off early on by Galatak dropping a Blade Barrier behind them. This meant that Clan Blood were forced to close in (the Clan being deployed more-or-less evenly at each of the four doors), and meant that a lot of the spellcasters had to spend precious time moving into Close range (the room was about 150' or so in diameter). Telemar's first action was probably the single best move in the entire battle, casting Sublime Revelry. This had the effect of reducing melee and ranged damage to half and, equally as important, stymied half of the various psions mind-attack powers (to my dismay!)
It was a very bitter and hard-fought battle, with several of the party going down and up, and nearly as many from the enemy (who had Heal galore themselves!) Gabrielle was an absolute menance, deftly enlarging herself and proceeding to trip the poor charging crusaders - and anyone else unfortunate to get close - and pummelling them to bits. Given the obcene amounts of kit the Orbslayers had, that extra -4 to attack also meant that the meleers were pretty much negated.
The climax of the first session was, at the end of the round, the flying, invisible Warlock knocking out Vanda's Sublime Revelry with a Ravenous Dispellling and Galatax hitting him with a sucessful Dominate Monster.
Fortunately - for them, more's the pity! - Telemar, whose action was just ahead of Vanda's manged to Dispel it the next week.
Melchiah, as usual, did horrendous amounts of damage, managing at one point to floor Galatax, even through his Stoneskin! This earned him four maxed-out Energy Rays from the furious Ardents; one missed - three hit. He has a paltry SR 15 from some item or another, which he finally remembered to use. I rolled - and got a 1! Because of their level (13) one of the silly sods actually failed to hurt him! Actually, this was good for Melchiah, as 26D6+26 was enough to take him down; 39D6+39 would have killed him! (Obviously, we use death at - 1/2 hit points, not -10. At this level ten hits is literally nothing.) Once they got him back up, his effectiveness was a bit stymied towards the end, when Telermar and one of the Clerics put up Wall of Fire and Wall of Lightning (for differing reasons), effectively hemming the party in. Arrows, of course, do not do well going through (as they take fire damage - at least that's how we play it) and he wasn't willing to risk his highly expensive returning arrows!
He did get to use his +4 Heal check at the last though, when as the last two Ardents got nasty and desparate, and spammed Energy Wave in sucession on the party, knocking out both Telermar and Conrad, the only other two members of the party stuck between two elemental walls and the Blade Barrier...
They finally took Galatax down at the end of last week, and the surviving divine casters had actually ran out of heals! Just to make sure though, Drobar took the AoO to coup de grace him...better safe than sorry...
Conrad's most amsuing moment was using Reverse Gravity, causing half the Ardents and several clerics to slam into the ceiling. (To my utter delight, and to the praise of the module author, the cross-section picture on the room was in scal with the map; making calculating damage a snap.) The Ardents, not being daft, used Immovability to dig into the ceiling, while the one Psychic Theurge carefully levitated down; just in time for Gabby to run up and smack him to death.
Vanda, as usual, spent most of the combat slicing the poor fools unfortunate to get close enough to him to bloody ribbons.
The man (or in this case equivilent thereof) of the match award, however, has to go to Snowball, Conrad's micro (good-aligned) White Dragon. Trapped outside the Blade Barrier with one of the Psychic Theurges, she held him off for most of the ten rounds of the combat. Not at all bad, for saying she's only 12 HD and only her bite could penetrate the Kobolds DR 6/Good from Righteous Might. Fortunately for her, the Theurges were set up for melee-buff and support, and didn't have any offenseive spells worth speaking of. Still, only her stupidly hgh Ac of 45 saved her (and the theurge was attacking at +33/+33/+28/+23 and D4+17 damage...) And even then, only Sublime Revelry saved her skin! That theurge was the last one to go down, actually; once the rest of the threats died, Gabby and Melchaih rushed through the Blade Barrier, both having Evasion and stupid reflex saves (Melchiah's Evasion from a ring). They took him out in short order; though not before, to my great amusement, for the first time in the combat Gabby actually failed to trip and got knocked flat!
The "most usless worm" award has to go to the Kobold fighters. As 8th level generic Kobolds, not the Archer or melee specialists I've been mostly using, they were best in melee, but ended but being fire support from the entrances. Five of them died when Telemar blinded most of the east flank with a Sunburst. The others desultorily fired at Conrad, until they realised that Reverse Arrows is not funny when you're on D6+2 damage... They spent the rest of the combat shooting at targets of opportunity; sadly, mainly Gabby, whose insane AC, plus her Deflect Arrows meant she barely notied. Then, when those Walls came up, they were reduced to literally cheering on the survivors! In the penultimate round, they actaully managed to hit Drod...once. Despite him being only AC 29 and them being on +18/+13... Then, as the last Ardent went down, and Telermar dropped a Blade Barrier on five of them, they decided discretion was the better part of valour and ran like buggery.
Conclusion
It was an amazingly tense fight. I admit, with this many casters, I did have to hold back on going for the kill from the get-go. Otherwise, it would have been a curb stomp (it's the BBEG v party problem only in reverse). I got a few Destructions off (all unsucessful!), but I didn't, for example, hit ten off simultaneously, nor in the end, did I use some of Galatax's worst area-effect spells. The rationale being, to start with, he and Clan Blood underestimated the Orbslayers. He was actually just about to cast Mass Harm on his next action - which by this point would have been very, very bad for the PCs, when he was finally killed. (Sigh. So close!) That said, he was buffed up for getting to smacking range. With various spells; he was on +39/+39/+34/+29/+24 (D6+20+D6 Fire, 19-20) with his Flaming Shortspear +4!
I wasn't trying for a TPK, of course, merely a very serious challenge. I didn't really play to the hilt with anyone until the last minute, though, when the Ardents started getting nasty (now that they were actually in range...) Also, with that many NPCs to control, I erred on speed and easily resolved action in most cases!
It was a grand experiment, and much fun was had by all. Everyone contributed - a lot - and it was a great and memorable fight. I've probably not covered half of the stuff that happened! It's not an experiment I think I shall repeat, mind - it was a bit too complex, even for me! (We managed, like two rounds each in the first two sessions; until the PCs had slaughtered the bit count down!)
So, aside from praising my awesome DMing skills (or shuddering at the sadnitude of same...), there is another point to this thread. Believe it or not!
To ask the question: what's the most difficult and complex enounter you folks have ever had, as a player or a DM? (In any system. Heck, any wargame, this encounter's nearly big enough to qualify!)
Can any one top this grand extravagander?
(Would anyone even want to so insane as to want to try?)