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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?)

AslanCross
2010-07-19, 06:11 PM
I wouldn't want to top it. :smalleek:

Aotrs Commander
2010-07-19, 06:13 PM
I wouldn't want to top it. :smalleek:

I don't blame you!

It was one of those things, (like oh so many in my DMing career!), that just Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time...!

The Glyphstone
2010-07-19, 06:53 PM
That's....what CR again?:smallfrown:

Great story anyways.

Aotrs Commander
2010-07-19, 07:05 PM
That's....what CR again?:smallfrown:

Great story anyways.

And this is why I don't bother trying to calculate EL for my encounters!

My "normal" encouters will usually have a dozen or so character class of various stripes in a similar sort of level range (i.e., higher-than-PCs boss(es) with equal-or-a-bit-lower support and lower-than-the -PCs melee and ranged fire support, sometimes with skirmishers to boot.) The EL system has a little cry when I write encounters... (I use CR soley as a "this is how much XP they get".)

By-the-by, they got about 9100XP each from that encounter and the previous one(about 800 of that from the latter), and that may at my usual rate of 1/2 normal XP for combats!

Don't ask how much kit they got. Really. Just...don't. I don't want to think about it...! *shudders*

arguskos
2010-07-19, 07:14 PM
YOU CONVERTED IT?!?! I WANT THIS CONVERSION!!

Seriously, is your conversion in an easily portable form of any kind? I LOOOOOVE Dragon Mountain and haven't managed to get around to converting it myself (other projects, like sleeping sometime, keep getting in the way).

Also, yes, I remember the amphitheater fight with an entire clan, quite brutal. Sounds like it was an excellent time had by all, which is always awesome. Good on ya!

Milskidasith
2010-07-19, 07:48 PM
I never got the concept of running monsters that could easily kill the PCs, then playing them badly so the PCs win. If you're running a dozen characters the same level as the PCs, I'd get annoyed that I was basically being DM fiated to win every encounter.*

*I consider having high int/wis opponents act in a stupid way based on information they should have available to be fiat. Yes, it's technically in the rules for a Wizard 20 to cast Magic Missile at the party while they're tearing through the equally stupid support, but if he's threatened, he and his support should be dropping save or dies.

calar
2010-07-19, 07:54 PM
Oy, I bet you had fun controlling THAT many NPCs. Must've taken forever.

imp_fireball
2010-07-19, 08:05 PM
*I consider having high int/wis opponents act in a stupid way based on information they should have available to be fiat. Yes, it's technically in the rules for a Wizard 20 to cast Magic Missile at the party while they're tearing through the equally stupid support, but if he's threatened, he and his support should be dropping save or dies.

Well it all depends. It's a trope that BBEGs (or even 'dragons' or powerful mooks) are arrogant enough that they always feel like 'testing' the PCs and placing them in some part of a game instead of just shooting them. It isn't breaking the fourth wall. Take a look at Xykon, ie.

He doesn't let loose the TPKing MitD, even when his plans are ruined during the first encounter with OotS. True trope dedication.

Milskidasith
2010-07-19, 08:19 PM
Well it all depends. It's a trope that BBEGs (or even 'dragons' or powerful mooks) are arrogant enough that they always feel like 'testing' the PCs and placing them in some part of a game instead of just shooting them. It isn't breaking the fourth wall. Take a look at Xykon, ie.

He doesn't let loose the TPKing MitD, even when his plans are ruined during the first encounter with OotS. True trope dedication.

Xykon killed Roy when he felt he was actually threatened. Easily.

Your example seems rather invalid. I don't want to get into an argument about it, but there's a big difference between an intentionally dramatic character who recognizes he's a villain in a comic (and still decided to just kill somebody when he felt threatened; only in the first encounter did he actually not try to kill the PCs as soon as possible), and a group of twelve people just as strong as the PCs all throwing around weak spells while their allies get slaughtered, which seemed to be what happened with this encounter and the other encounters he talked about.

Runestar
2010-07-19, 08:28 PM
Your post has captured so well why I both adore and abhor high lv gameplay.

The options available to both sides are indeed plentiful, but with that comes complexity, which in turn can make combat drag out for a very long period of time.

Biggest offender - dispel wars. Nothing is more annoying to the DM than him spending all that time lovingly statting his npcs up and factoring in the benefits of their buffs prior to the encounter, only to have to re-calculate their stats ingame when the PCs open up with chain dispel. Plus, PCs are usually so thick with buffs that they are nigh impossible to hurt without first attempting to dispel them anyways. :smallfurious:

noggenfogger
2010-07-19, 08:36 PM
I'd be interested in that conversion too.

Aotrs Commander
2010-07-20, 04:15 AM
I never got the concept of running monsters that could easily kill the PCs, then playing them badly so the PCs win. If you're running a dozen characters the same level as the PCs, I'd get annoyed that I was basically being DM fiated to win every encounter.

You'd probably hate my games, then, since I frequently throw +50% level enemies at the PCs and I have a policy that I don't usually (permenently) kill characters unless they do something stupid (before they have access to Raise Dead; after that, it's all good) and I don't, flat-out, TPK1. This last is mainly because I am the primary DM of two groups (both of which have at least one member in common) and I have to write all my stuff in advance. I treat my characters as if they were the protagonists is some ongoing series. You are fairly sure, for example, that SG-1 are all gong to make it week to week,but that doesn't kill the tension every episode. And that is the level I work on. A TPK would waste so much time it isn't funny. I work on a basis of credible threat; when I'm actually running behind the screen, I don't ever say I won't kill them. In my games, so long as the players are worried, and concentrating on not being killed, I find I don't have to actually kill them.
(Beleiving (or at least outright stating, in or out-of-charcter that you don't think I'll kill you is a very good way to actually get killed.) Perforce, when I'm a player, I always consider the DM is prepared to kill us an act accordingly.

That's just the way we play, which really isn't everyone's cup of tea.

(I occasionally fudge my dice behind the screen (not so much at this level, mind; the Orblasyers really don't need any help at all!) as well which I know drives some people berserk. *shrug* Not my problem...)



As a general note, though, under normal circumstances, at this level, I honestly don't have to hold back at all, nor do I. The only reason I did here was the sheer number of spellcasters. As you can wipe out anything easily with any massed amount of damage. Ten Destructions might not have killed the PCs by failed saves, but the 100D6 damage would have. (Ditto for massed Energy Wave attacks, had the ardents ever got into a position to do so.)

To be fair, though the PC's skillful battlefield control and the Kobold's dployment meant I really didn't have to hold back much, in the end. There were just a couple of occasions (and I do mean, like two over the course of ten rounds) where I realised a Blood-to-Water from Galatax wwould be too much. But Galatax was a crush 'em-in- melee-type anyway (otherwise, why spend all that time buffing up?), so it didn't actually matter.

But a fair chunk of the time, the clerics weren't in much of a position to be doing that, as they were too busy healing and de-blinding and the ardents running around (and being blinded, or re-buffing) and it was only towards the end they got into position where a) they could actually launch area effect attacks and not hit their own side b) were in range. They did get through a good 100 of their 191PP, though!




YOU CONVERTED IT?!?! I WANT THIS CONVERSION!!

Seriously, is your conversion in an easily portable form of any kind? I LOOOOOVE Dragon Mountain and haven't managed to get around to converting it myself (other projects, like sleeping sometime, keep getting in the way).

Also, yes, I remember the amphitheater fight with an entire clan, quite brutal. Sounds like it was an excellent time had by all, which is always awesome. Good on ya!

I do have the stats (and such) in Word format. (The actual quest is the boxed set, so to run it, you'd actually have to have the module.) That said, be aware of the following notes:

1) It runs to over a hundred pages.

2) The stats are done to our houserules; most notably, fighters get feats every level. (Most everything else you probably wouldn't need to worry about.)

3) Because the Orbslayers came from other AD&D module which I hadn't bothered with WBL with, I didn't bother with it here; and to keep up with the PCs, the Kobolds have got shed loads of kit, so be aware WBL is not even remotely close! (I flat-out told the PCs they can't have Epic level kit, even though they might be able to afford it by the end of the adventure!)

4) I utilised the full breadth of my 3.5 books; all the completes, XPH, ToB (plus Falling Star and Unquiet Twlight homebrew schools), SpC, Relics & Rituals, Hyperconcious, Untapped Potential, plus my own homebrew stuff. (I actually made it a point to use at least one of every class I had (save archivist and Comple Warrior Samurai) I had access to.)

5) The power-level of the game is high. Almost everything in the game had the base "munchkin" array of 18,16,14,12,10,8, for example.

6) The set-up and reason for the quest is specific to the my PCs, not that's that really a huge issue.

I can certainly supply anyone whose interested with all the relevant data (including the spell reference lists, so you can dig out what spell's from where), but just be aware that it's a large amount of documentation! (That 100 pages is just the quest!)

(Someone did ask once, so I have a short list of what docs you'd need, pretty much...)



1Or rather, the players have never done something so unimaginably stupid as to warrent a TPK.

kjones
2010-07-20, 09:21 AM
This sounds substantially more insane than the 12-player 10th-level session I once ran, but about as insane as the 6v6 10th level PvP session I once ran.

Dr Bwaa
2010-07-20, 10:03 AM
Sounds like a lot of fun! That is more complicated (but shorter!) than one of my favorite encounters I've ever played-- I will describe it (BRIEFLY) in allegory. The campaign is set in the DM's homebrew world, but so that you understand what we did easily, assume that we (high-level Enemies of the State and known terrorists (despite our Good alignments and intentions, we are PCs after all)) have just arrived in Vatican City, and we have only one night to spend here before we need to get the heck outta dodge.

The things we(as a party; not everyone did the same stuff) accomplished:
1. Seduced the Pope/replaced his current concubine
2a. Broke into the Vatican
2b. Broke into the Vatican again
3. Fixed the whole city's sewer system (see 2a)
4. Ransacked the Vatican's library (stole most of it)
5. Concluded business with the Mafia by breaking out a dangerous member from maximum-security prison (paid a debt to an inevitable by breaking another one (a highly-advanced Marut with a sphere of annihilation in its chest) out of its special Stasis Field dungeon under the cathedral) (simultaneous with 4)
6. Killed the Pope (simultaneous with 4 and 5)
7. Killed a high-level mage, a powerful monk, and the mage's four young apprentices (on the escape from 6)
8. Killed a party of angels (actually devils/demons but they were working for the church and shapeshifted/disguised as angels so I'm going with the action perceived by the populace).
9. Stole the Pope's hat (actually part of his staff, which was a special set item for one of the party) (reason for 6)

This was all conducted in one marathon 14-hour session. It's probably one of the best encounters I've ever had.

arguskos
2010-07-20, 10:56 AM
I do have the stats (and such) in Word format. (The actual quest is the boxed set, so to run it, you'd actually have to have the module.) That said, be aware of the following notes:
I need to find a new copy anyways (parents threw out mine X_X).


1) It runs to over a hundred pages.
Ok.


2) The stats are done to our houserules; most notably, fighters get feats every level. (Most everything else you probably wouldn't need to worry about.)
Include those so I know what I need to know and ok.


3) Because the Orbslayers came from other AD&D module which I hadn't bothered with WBL with, I didn't bother with it here; and to keep up with the PCs, the Kobolds have got shed loads of kit, so be aware WBL is not even remotely close! (I flat-out told the PCs they can't have Epic level kit, even though they might be able to afford it by the end of the adventure!)
I can alter that on the fly, I'm good at that, so ok.


4) I utilised the full breadth of my 3.5 books; all the completes, XPH, ToB (plus Falling Star and Unquiet Twlight homebrew schools), SpC, Relics & Rituals, Hyperconcious, Untapped Potential, plus my own homebrew stuff. (I actually made it a point to use at least one of every class I had (save archivist and Comple Warrior Samurai) I had access to.)
I have more books than that, actually, so this isn't an issue. :smallcool:


5) The power-level of the game is high. Almost everything in the game had the base "munchkin" array of 18,16,14,12,10,8, for example.
Also, not a worry.


6) The set-up and reason for the quest is specific to the my PCs, not that's that really a huge issue.
You said it. :smallamused:


I can certainly supply anyone whose interested with all the relevant data (including the spell reference lists, so you can dig out what spell's from where), but just be aware that it's a large amount of documentation! (That 100 pages is just the quest!)
I wouldn't mind terribly.


(Someone did ask once, so I have a short list of what docs you'd need, pretty much...)
Sounds like a plan.

If you'd PM me about this, we'll discuss transfer. :smallwink:

Also, many thanks sir. I appreciate this.

monkey3
2010-07-20, 12:49 PM
We had 2 separate long-weekend gaming sessions in my history. Both were AD&D, and both were battles between two large 10th+ level armies. It was us defending the town vs. the bad guy invaders. We had to break out the Battle System rules for that. Raise your hand if you remember them :)

The 8 or so of us would sleep in the the DM's house for the 3 days. We played or ate when we were awake. It was something only single could do, and it was one of the highlights of my (too) long gaming life.

AvatarZero
2010-07-20, 02:32 PM
An eight hour encounter. Wow.

Part of me feels like it would have been more intense if it had all been done in one sitting, but then again, who could concentrate on the same thing for eight hours straight?