gallagher
2011-04-26, 12:46 AM
i'd like to start by apologizing for the poor grammar and rambling nature of this post. i am a little overtired and very excited after finishing this session
so while playing city of the spider queen, our DM made an overpowered homebrew boss-style battle, who gave us extra money and allowed us to do things like prestige on both sides.
we are a party that consisted of a sorc//cleric, a swift hunter//dervish, a guy who was duel wielding on one side and was a beguiler on the other, a frenzied berserker//loremaster (dont know what class she took before loremaster, and isnt a charge-oriented build), and me, a cloistered cleric/radiant servant of pelor//fighter/ranger/holy liberator.
what we knew going in: we were going to be fighting SOMETHING SCARY in a room that we had to hit a portal to go to, and in it were 8 pillars and 5 switches.
the something scary turned out to be an aspect of lolth of some sort. a stronger, scarier, and much more brutal version of those things that look like a centaur, but a spider instead of a horse.
the pillars: there were 8 pillars, each of which gave the guy a nasty buff. for example, one gave the spider man +20 divine bonus to AC, one gave him +15 to all saves, one gave him +20 universal elemental resistance. we could deactivate them by moving a level behind each pillar, each of which took 2 full round actions. for every 2 that we deactivated, the guy lost one of the buffs he cast on himself (true seeing, freedom of movement, and two others)
the switches: each switch corresponded to a type of damage: acid, electric, fire, frost, and sonic. whatever switch was on, the spider was immune to that type of damage, and the entire room got hit by an escalating amount of that damage. for instance, if the fire switch was turned on, the first round we would all take 2d4 fire damage, the next one 4d4, then 8, 16, and so on. the amount of damage would reset when the elemental type switched
we didnt know at the start how long it would take to deactivate the pillars, and we didnt know at first which pillar gave him what. all we knew was the pillars gave him power, and how the switches worked. but we felt like we could take him, as we are all pretty savvy of how our characters work.
our plan was simple enough, we had the sorc/cleric switch the elements when damage got too high, and the other 4 of us divided the pillars between us to try and deactivate them quickly, and then once we got our 2, we would start attacking the spider.
unfortunately, here is how it went
what happened up until our first party member died: we found out that the description for each pillar and what it did was written in dwarven above each pillar. problem: only party member that speaks dwarven or had any access to it was the frenzied berserker, who frenzied when we teleported into the room and got hit with a fireball, so we couldnt actually read the descriptions, and had to hope for the best. we found out how long it took to move levers, and given the 2 full round actions bit, we were going to have to survive a bit longer than we had thought. the dual wielder//beguiler was the first to get a switch to move, and thus was immediately targeted by the spider, who killed him with a ferocious bite, a strong poison, and then a full attack of daggers and another bite. that was one party member down.
note that now 3 levers were unaccounted for, as the frenzied berserker hadnt gotten any and the beguiler had only gotten one.
how we lost our second and third party members:
well the spider caught onto our little game of switching the elements before the damage got too high, and sent a disintegration at the sorc//cleric. he failed his fortitude save, and turned to dust. by that point, however, i had deactivated the switch that gave him the huge AC, and the FB had started to lay on the damage. the room was small enough that unfortunately there was little charging that could be done.
the second guy died after hitting a third switch, and upon that the spider sent a prismatic ray at him, and got sent to a different plane. we are pretty sure it was one of the hells. there wasnt a way to be certain at the time, but its lolth. thats kind of how evil deities work.
and until the end of combat!
now it was two guys left, me and the FB. we had deactivated all but one pillar, the FB was giving the spider headaches, and as we were at the other end of the room and couldnt reach the switches without great cost, damage started to accumulate from the room. i finally ran to switch it to acid damage with 2 hitpoints left, and gave myself an empowered Heal. i then join melee.
i had no attack spells left, we were kind of cornered, and this spider was looking like it was healthy enough that we were going to be party wiped. the frenzied berserker and i decide that no, today melee was going to prevail. the berserker full attacks, i smite evil, and the spider throws a disintegrate at the berserker. we thought she would be ok, as she had a high fort save. turns out that 5d6 is still enough to put her below 0, and turned to ash. i am all that is left with one smite evil
WHICH CRIT, and i roll enough to kill it on my last one.
so wow, i am excited. i go up a level and everyone else has to regen characters. there were a few more ups and downs, as i had to heal myself a couple times. the spider didnt have to move so much as it was huge and could reach a lot of the room. the spider had somewhere above 500 hitpoints, and the FB did well over 400 of it. i had hit it with a few debuffs when inbetween pillars.
so while playing city of the spider queen, our DM made an overpowered homebrew boss-style battle, who gave us extra money and allowed us to do things like prestige on both sides.
we are a party that consisted of a sorc//cleric, a swift hunter//dervish, a guy who was duel wielding on one side and was a beguiler on the other, a frenzied berserker//loremaster (dont know what class she took before loremaster, and isnt a charge-oriented build), and me, a cloistered cleric/radiant servant of pelor//fighter/ranger/holy liberator.
what we knew going in: we were going to be fighting SOMETHING SCARY in a room that we had to hit a portal to go to, and in it were 8 pillars and 5 switches.
the something scary turned out to be an aspect of lolth of some sort. a stronger, scarier, and much more brutal version of those things that look like a centaur, but a spider instead of a horse.
the pillars: there were 8 pillars, each of which gave the guy a nasty buff. for example, one gave the spider man +20 divine bonus to AC, one gave him +15 to all saves, one gave him +20 universal elemental resistance. we could deactivate them by moving a level behind each pillar, each of which took 2 full round actions. for every 2 that we deactivated, the guy lost one of the buffs he cast on himself (true seeing, freedom of movement, and two others)
the switches: each switch corresponded to a type of damage: acid, electric, fire, frost, and sonic. whatever switch was on, the spider was immune to that type of damage, and the entire room got hit by an escalating amount of that damage. for instance, if the fire switch was turned on, the first round we would all take 2d4 fire damage, the next one 4d4, then 8, 16, and so on. the amount of damage would reset when the elemental type switched
we didnt know at the start how long it would take to deactivate the pillars, and we didnt know at first which pillar gave him what. all we knew was the pillars gave him power, and how the switches worked. but we felt like we could take him, as we are all pretty savvy of how our characters work.
our plan was simple enough, we had the sorc/cleric switch the elements when damage got too high, and the other 4 of us divided the pillars between us to try and deactivate them quickly, and then once we got our 2, we would start attacking the spider.
unfortunately, here is how it went
what happened up until our first party member died: we found out that the description for each pillar and what it did was written in dwarven above each pillar. problem: only party member that speaks dwarven or had any access to it was the frenzied berserker, who frenzied when we teleported into the room and got hit with a fireball, so we couldnt actually read the descriptions, and had to hope for the best. we found out how long it took to move levers, and given the 2 full round actions bit, we were going to have to survive a bit longer than we had thought. the dual wielder//beguiler was the first to get a switch to move, and thus was immediately targeted by the spider, who killed him with a ferocious bite, a strong poison, and then a full attack of daggers and another bite. that was one party member down.
note that now 3 levers were unaccounted for, as the frenzied berserker hadnt gotten any and the beguiler had only gotten one.
how we lost our second and third party members:
well the spider caught onto our little game of switching the elements before the damage got too high, and sent a disintegration at the sorc//cleric. he failed his fortitude save, and turned to dust. by that point, however, i had deactivated the switch that gave him the huge AC, and the FB had started to lay on the damage. the room was small enough that unfortunately there was little charging that could be done.
the second guy died after hitting a third switch, and upon that the spider sent a prismatic ray at him, and got sent to a different plane. we are pretty sure it was one of the hells. there wasnt a way to be certain at the time, but its lolth. thats kind of how evil deities work.
and until the end of combat!
now it was two guys left, me and the FB. we had deactivated all but one pillar, the FB was giving the spider headaches, and as we were at the other end of the room and couldnt reach the switches without great cost, damage started to accumulate from the room. i finally ran to switch it to acid damage with 2 hitpoints left, and gave myself an empowered Heal. i then join melee.
i had no attack spells left, we were kind of cornered, and this spider was looking like it was healthy enough that we were going to be party wiped. the frenzied berserker and i decide that no, today melee was going to prevail. the berserker full attacks, i smite evil, and the spider throws a disintegrate at the berserker. we thought she would be ok, as she had a high fort save. turns out that 5d6 is still enough to put her below 0, and turned to ash. i am all that is left with one smite evil
WHICH CRIT, and i roll enough to kill it on my last one.
so wow, i am excited. i go up a level and everyone else has to regen characters. there were a few more ups and downs, as i had to heal myself a couple times. the spider didnt have to move so much as it was huge and could reach a lot of the room. the spider had somewhere above 500 hitpoints, and the FB did well over 400 of it. i had hit it with a few debuffs when inbetween pillars.