Duboris
2014-04-14, 09:12 AM
So, here's how this works. My players have just come into possession, after a long, grueling entrance into an awful, awful necromantic castle, of a lot of gold. Every corridor has had a haunt, and every haunt a backstory, and it's slowly coming into play for them what the original castle had, as far as events are concerned.
The Castle is ran by an Evil Necromancer named Naggarad, who has, instead of seeking Lichdom, achieved immortality instead. He has lived for quite a long time, and as a result, his stats have gone up according to the venerable rules, a total of +4 to all of those mind-based stats. He's a total monster of a character, and that's ignoring the fact that with all his funds he's managed to Wish all of his stats up to the greatest potential, minus his strength and whatnot.
He's the epitome of wizard, here, and is going to be a cruel bastard to deal with when they arrive to him. Luckily they're only level 7, and after a series of cruel events, have found themselves deep under the castle on the doorstep of what is referred to as the "Alchemical Foundry"
The place is literally a Necromancer's playground, or an Alchemist with interest in the undead and body splicing and whatnot. It's essentially a long-forgotten experimental room that Naggarad has turned a blind eye too to see what comes out of it.
---- Now hold on ----
The players have come into possession of a ton of gold, and a freaky merchant, who happens to be an alchemist pretending to be a wizard, has just loaded them down with quite the score of fancy magical weapons. Every player essentially had 14,000 gold to work with, while one of the players loaned 4000 of his money to the wizard.
The bard is now in possession of a rapier named "Cloud Whisper" and happens to be a +1 Lightning Burst Rapier.
The ranger gained a Seeking +1 Composite Longbow (+2 Str)
The list goes on, but those are the 2 heavy hitting bits, minus a Fighter optimized to wield a 2 handed Greataxe with impunity.
Everyone is pretty vulnerable to will saves, so I try to stay away from those, but the Alchemist has informed them up front that they're going into a new kind of place, with living, smart people. Not just a room full of mobile dead bodies.
The Group is 7 players strong, and all of them are level 7. Let me give you the rundown on their class and archetypes.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Rogue 3 Fighter 4 - Two Weapon Fighting Flanker that has an Acrobatics that's out of this world. Very stealthy, and quite good at landing hits. Happens to also be the scout. One of the less squishy members of the party.
Ninja 7 - May as well not even be there. Has a stealth score that's stupidly high and every feat she has has gone towards making it higher. Has a +19 stealth score. Not the highest it could be, but that's because when she wants to make sure someone dies, she spends a ki point and fills them full of +11 to hit 4d6 Shurikens. She even just got deadly aim...
Ranger 6 Rogue 1 - Doesn't miss with his composite longbow ever, and has every long range feat that makes sense to have at this level. Rapid Shot, Many shot, Point Blank, he's your typical "Pew Pew" ranger, and he just got a damage boost from the bow. I thank god that he didn't get something with an effect on it. Too bad he can hit anything that shimmers now...
Cleric 3 - Fighter 4 - The word Milk tank is strong with this one. He's got so much armor class that I can't bear to look at him, and frankly he's got some of the better saves. What I have learned however is that a small jump is enough to stop him in his tracks entirely, because his dexterity based skills, swim checks, and climbing checks, are all terrible. His touch AC is adorable, however. Hits fairly often, uses his buffs, and happens to have a Constitution of 22, which made my liver stop functioning for a moment. (We rolled D20's for stats, and rerolled anything that wasn't above 7.)
Fighter 7 - Uses a Greataxe. Has Power Attack, Cleave, Furious Focus, that sort of thing. Doesn't ever miss, and never hits softly at any point. Has the s%!#tiest saves in the group, and I've considered throwing in an enchantment room just to send her against the room and make the local wizard waste a Dispel Magic on her. That aside, her armor class isn't the most amazing thing in the world but her constitution almost rivals the dwarf. She's also got climb and swim checks that make me tear up in sadness, because this woman could literally wrestle a typhoon.
Wizard 7 - The saddest existence in the party that isn't the bard. His favored school is illusion which, surprise surprise, doesn't work that well against undead. However he's rather stoked for the alchemist foundry because of the fact that there are actually quite a lot of things in the room that have blood in their veins that isn't sour milk. Good for him. He's rather optimized with a 20 intelligence, and his lowest save is remarkably high, going so far as to be a 20 as a result of Spell Focus. To make things worse he has a Less Rod of Intensified Spell. Rather squishy with low saves in regards to anything that isn't will, however, and never prepares mage armor...
Bard 7 - The kind of bard that likes to get up and personal with the enemies, but focused a large number of his spells on Enchantment and buffs. Just recently he's gained a few that actually do damage, but they're minor at best. Nothing too threatening. Low AC, remarkable will save that isn't too impressive, and actually has the third highest health in the party as a result of his build.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The thing here is that there are 7 of them, and that means, to provide a fight that's good for them, It would have to be a remarkably high combat rating to throw at level 7 players.
The average combat rating of any single 1 of my players is currently +1 as a result of their gear. Maybe even +2 in some cases. The Dwarf Cleric is definitely a +2. The Dwarf alone could be considered a CR 9 encounter because of his ridiculous AC, but just as easy, he could be charmed and grappled, and whatnot.
7 Level 7 players. That means that their APL is 8, but with their gear, their APL is 9. This means that an epic encounter is a CR 12, which I will not be throwing at them for fear of complete destruction.
I will, however, not have any issue throwing a CR 11 encounter at them, as I do sincerely believe they can handle it with only sustaining a few cuts and bruises, but I've a plan to make them seriously question that idea. That said, this is going to be very rough for them.
Within the Foundry there are 5 major encounters, with 3 encounters involving traps I haven't managed to put together quite yet.
Encounter 1 is against a small gathering of the workers, who get taken completely by surprise. Essentially they're all Fighter 2 Alchemist 5 characters with feats that focus on throwing and whatnot. Making the bombs land properly and all that jazz. Every single one of them focuses on making acid bombs, however, and the "Head" alchemist will drink a Mutagen as soon as even one of the alchemists fall. The Head Alchemist is a level 8 pure Alchemist.
So that's 3 Cr 7s, and a Cr 8 to come out at an odd sort of Cr 9 Combat that could potentially be 10.
---
The Next encounter has the potential to begin during the start of the original encounter, assuming the players allow one of the alchemists to properly flee, they will activate an Alchemical Golem in the distance of the next chamber. If the players do stop the worker, it'll begin functioning the instant they enter the chamber. The golem is full strength, and comes to life rather angry. It makes it a point to to rain chemical explosive down on whoever seems to have the lowest touch AC, or whoever is too close to each other.
As an added addition to the fight, the Golem constantly shifts the element it spews from, and changes color accordingly.
The Golem shifts between being super cold, super heated, bulbously acidic, and super charged. This translates to having Improved damage reduction, a heat aura, a consequence to being attacked, and the effect of Haste.
It switches the effect every time it is struck, but can't change more than once a round.
The Aura of fire does 2d6 fire damage with an 18 fortitude save to half that damage. (Range 30)
The Aura of Electricity puts it under the effects of haste, allowing it to effectively full attack with it's slams and then attack again with one, or throw a bomb twice.
The Aura of Ice produces a 1d6 damage Aura with an 18 fortitude save to half that damage. (Range 30)
The Acidic effect causes a spray of 2d6 acid damage to spray in a cone in front of it every time it is struck, causing all present players to roll an 18 Reflex save to avoid it.
The Golem retains all of it's original effects including the ones listed.
---
The Third encounter is against a re-occuring boss, an Antipaladin in the service of Naggarad that reveres death and decay as a deity that can't be stopped. He serves Naggarad because of Naggarad's triumph over death, though he secretly harbors the motif of killing him once he finds the power. The fact that Naggarad has defeated Death and gained Immortality, however, has stumped his growth in his beliefs and as a result he no longer gains strength from the faith he once had.
The Antipaladin's name is Ark'tor, who wields a rather wicked dagger and Longsword, making use of his battle expertise to Disarm those that use rather large weapons, such as the fighter, and Smiting Good those that he feels he'll have difficulty hitting. His Longsword is a +1 Bane (Human) longsword, and his Dagger is a +1 Keen. He fights with a religious zeal, and has use of Quickened Channeling, allowing him to bombard the room with negative energy, as well as touch of corruption (Fatigue) whoever might be in front of him. This can prove especially deadly to people that think it wise to crowd him.
He is not against the idea of expending 4 uses of his Touch of corruption ability if it means hitting the entire party with his negative energy twice. He has a Charisma of 20, but only because of his headband.
Given the chance, after he's been wounded below half, 2 easier alchemists will rush into the room, where he will make it a point to flee if at all possible. The person he Smites good will likely not be able to harm him, and he makes it a point to pull no punches, in regards to the smiting of multiple people at once.
Should he flee successfully, he will not return until after the foundry, using the elevator for which he has a key for. He will make it a point to warn both wizards ahead of the player's arrival, if the Chemical golem isn't dispatched swiftly.
---
The Fourth Combat is especially taxing on the players in that it is a fight against 2 level 8 wizards, a Evoker and a Conjurer, both of which sit atop large pillars out of melee range and welcome their new guests. One speaks of their fine features and the other speaks of their experiment plans, but eventually both stand up and proceed to bombard them. Both begin the fight by fighting in remarkable coordination, one casting wind wall and the other casting protection from arrows and magic missile.
The Conjurer spends his turns summoning creatures to fight against the player, while the other bombards them with various orb spells. The conjurer will be the one who casts the various protective buffs, but neither of them wish to harm the local equipment, so they will actually make it a point to pull the more destructive, collateral spells.
The Conjurer has a feat Progression that Consists of Improved Initiative, Toughness, Spell Focus (Conjuration) and Augment Summoning
The Evoker has a feat Progression that Consists of Improved Initiative, Spell Focus (Evocation) (Replacing Scribe Scroll via Houserule), Spell Specialization (Lightning Orb), Dodge
The conjurer has more constitution, and the evoker has a higher armor class. Both are equally difficult to kill.
----
The Fifth combat is far simpler and is more of a laugh than anything else. What do you guys think of it? Too difficult? Instagib ahoy? Help me out.
**Edit**
The Golem won't be picking people off based on anything, actually, because it's mindless. Though the Dwarf of the party will very likely run up to it and he does have the easiest touch AC to get around. The golem is one of the first creatures that's completely capable of hitting him with very little problem.
The Antipaladin is level 10, and is Human. His feat Progression is Combat Expertise, Improved Disarm, Greater Disarm, Two Weapon Fighting, and Quickened Channel, as well as Toughness.
The Alchemists are all geared towards throwing bombs, but won't be throwing anything that can directly harm the nearby equipment, though players that stray too far from it will be bombarded.
The Castle is ran by an Evil Necromancer named Naggarad, who has, instead of seeking Lichdom, achieved immortality instead. He has lived for quite a long time, and as a result, his stats have gone up according to the venerable rules, a total of +4 to all of those mind-based stats. He's a total monster of a character, and that's ignoring the fact that with all his funds he's managed to Wish all of his stats up to the greatest potential, minus his strength and whatnot.
He's the epitome of wizard, here, and is going to be a cruel bastard to deal with when they arrive to him. Luckily they're only level 7, and after a series of cruel events, have found themselves deep under the castle on the doorstep of what is referred to as the "Alchemical Foundry"
The place is literally a Necromancer's playground, or an Alchemist with interest in the undead and body splicing and whatnot. It's essentially a long-forgotten experimental room that Naggarad has turned a blind eye too to see what comes out of it.
---- Now hold on ----
The players have come into possession of a ton of gold, and a freaky merchant, who happens to be an alchemist pretending to be a wizard, has just loaded them down with quite the score of fancy magical weapons. Every player essentially had 14,000 gold to work with, while one of the players loaned 4000 of his money to the wizard.
The bard is now in possession of a rapier named "Cloud Whisper" and happens to be a +1 Lightning Burst Rapier.
The ranger gained a Seeking +1 Composite Longbow (+2 Str)
The list goes on, but those are the 2 heavy hitting bits, minus a Fighter optimized to wield a 2 handed Greataxe with impunity.
Everyone is pretty vulnerable to will saves, so I try to stay away from those, but the Alchemist has informed them up front that they're going into a new kind of place, with living, smart people. Not just a room full of mobile dead bodies.
The Group is 7 players strong, and all of them are level 7. Let me give you the rundown on their class and archetypes.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Rogue 3 Fighter 4 - Two Weapon Fighting Flanker that has an Acrobatics that's out of this world. Very stealthy, and quite good at landing hits. Happens to also be the scout. One of the less squishy members of the party.
Ninja 7 - May as well not even be there. Has a stealth score that's stupidly high and every feat she has has gone towards making it higher. Has a +19 stealth score. Not the highest it could be, but that's because when she wants to make sure someone dies, she spends a ki point and fills them full of +11 to hit 4d6 Shurikens. She even just got deadly aim...
Ranger 6 Rogue 1 - Doesn't miss with his composite longbow ever, and has every long range feat that makes sense to have at this level. Rapid Shot, Many shot, Point Blank, he's your typical "Pew Pew" ranger, and he just got a damage boost from the bow. I thank god that he didn't get something with an effect on it. Too bad he can hit anything that shimmers now...
Cleric 3 - Fighter 4 - The word Milk tank is strong with this one. He's got so much armor class that I can't bear to look at him, and frankly he's got some of the better saves. What I have learned however is that a small jump is enough to stop him in his tracks entirely, because his dexterity based skills, swim checks, and climbing checks, are all terrible. His touch AC is adorable, however. Hits fairly often, uses his buffs, and happens to have a Constitution of 22, which made my liver stop functioning for a moment. (We rolled D20's for stats, and rerolled anything that wasn't above 7.)
Fighter 7 - Uses a Greataxe. Has Power Attack, Cleave, Furious Focus, that sort of thing. Doesn't ever miss, and never hits softly at any point. Has the s%!#tiest saves in the group, and I've considered throwing in an enchantment room just to send her against the room and make the local wizard waste a Dispel Magic on her. That aside, her armor class isn't the most amazing thing in the world but her constitution almost rivals the dwarf. She's also got climb and swim checks that make me tear up in sadness, because this woman could literally wrestle a typhoon.
Wizard 7 - The saddest existence in the party that isn't the bard. His favored school is illusion which, surprise surprise, doesn't work that well against undead. However he's rather stoked for the alchemist foundry because of the fact that there are actually quite a lot of things in the room that have blood in their veins that isn't sour milk. Good for him. He's rather optimized with a 20 intelligence, and his lowest save is remarkably high, going so far as to be a 20 as a result of Spell Focus. To make things worse he has a Less Rod of Intensified Spell. Rather squishy with low saves in regards to anything that isn't will, however, and never prepares mage armor...
Bard 7 - The kind of bard that likes to get up and personal with the enemies, but focused a large number of his spells on Enchantment and buffs. Just recently he's gained a few that actually do damage, but they're minor at best. Nothing too threatening. Low AC, remarkable will save that isn't too impressive, and actually has the third highest health in the party as a result of his build.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The thing here is that there are 7 of them, and that means, to provide a fight that's good for them, It would have to be a remarkably high combat rating to throw at level 7 players.
The average combat rating of any single 1 of my players is currently +1 as a result of their gear. Maybe even +2 in some cases. The Dwarf Cleric is definitely a +2. The Dwarf alone could be considered a CR 9 encounter because of his ridiculous AC, but just as easy, he could be charmed and grappled, and whatnot.
7 Level 7 players. That means that their APL is 8, but with their gear, their APL is 9. This means that an epic encounter is a CR 12, which I will not be throwing at them for fear of complete destruction.
I will, however, not have any issue throwing a CR 11 encounter at them, as I do sincerely believe they can handle it with only sustaining a few cuts and bruises, but I've a plan to make them seriously question that idea. That said, this is going to be very rough for them.
Within the Foundry there are 5 major encounters, with 3 encounters involving traps I haven't managed to put together quite yet.
Encounter 1 is against a small gathering of the workers, who get taken completely by surprise. Essentially they're all Fighter 2 Alchemist 5 characters with feats that focus on throwing and whatnot. Making the bombs land properly and all that jazz. Every single one of them focuses on making acid bombs, however, and the "Head" alchemist will drink a Mutagen as soon as even one of the alchemists fall. The Head Alchemist is a level 8 pure Alchemist.
So that's 3 Cr 7s, and a Cr 8 to come out at an odd sort of Cr 9 Combat that could potentially be 10.
---
The Next encounter has the potential to begin during the start of the original encounter, assuming the players allow one of the alchemists to properly flee, they will activate an Alchemical Golem in the distance of the next chamber. If the players do stop the worker, it'll begin functioning the instant they enter the chamber. The golem is full strength, and comes to life rather angry. It makes it a point to to rain chemical explosive down on whoever seems to have the lowest touch AC, or whoever is too close to each other.
As an added addition to the fight, the Golem constantly shifts the element it spews from, and changes color accordingly.
The Golem shifts between being super cold, super heated, bulbously acidic, and super charged. This translates to having Improved damage reduction, a heat aura, a consequence to being attacked, and the effect of Haste.
It switches the effect every time it is struck, but can't change more than once a round.
The Aura of fire does 2d6 fire damage with an 18 fortitude save to half that damage. (Range 30)
The Aura of Electricity puts it under the effects of haste, allowing it to effectively full attack with it's slams and then attack again with one, or throw a bomb twice.
The Aura of Ice produces a 1d6 damage Aura with an 18 fortitude save to half that damage. (Range 30)
The Acidic effect causes a spray of 2d6 acid damage to spray in a cone in front of it every time it is struck, causing all present players to roll an 18 Reflex save to avoid it.
The Golem retains all of it's original effects including the ones listed.
---
The Third encounter is against a re-occuring boss, an Antipaladin in the service of Naggarad that reveres death and decay as a deity that can't be stopped. He serves Naggarad because of Naggarad's triumph over death, though he secretly harbors the motif of killing him once he finds the power. The fact that Naggarad has defeated Death and gained Immortality, however, has stumped his growth in his beliefs and as a result he no longer gains strength from the faith he once had.
The Antipaladin's name is Ark'tor, who wields a rather wicked dagger and Longsword, making use of his battle expertise to Disarm those that use rather large weapons, such as the fighter, and Smiting Good those that he feels he'll have difficulty hitting. His Longsword is a +1 Bane (Human) longsword, and his Dagger is a +1 Keen. He fights with a religious zeal, and has use of Quickened Channeling, allowing him to bombard the room with negative energy, as well as touch of corruption (Fatigue) whoever might be in front of him. This can prove especially deadly to people that think it wise to crowd him.
He is not against the idea of expending 4 uses of his Touch of corruption ability if it means hitting the entire party with his negative energy twice. He has a Charisma of 20, but only because of his headband.
Given the chance, after he's been wounded below half, 2 easier alchemists will rush into the room, where he will make it a point to flee if at all possible. The person he Smites good will likely not be able to harm him, and he makes it a point to pull no punches, in regards to the smiting of multiple people at once.
Should he flee successfully, he will not return until after the foundry, using the elevator for which he has a key for. He will make it a point to warn both wizards ahead of the player's arrival, if the Chemical golem isn't dispatched swiftly.
---
The Fourth Combat is especially taxing on the players in that it is a fight against 2 level 8 wizards, a Evoker and a Conjurer, both of which sit atop large pillars out of melee range and welcome their new guests. One speaks of their fine features and the other speaks of their experiment plans, but eventually both stand up and proceed to bombard them. Both begin the fight by fighting in remarkable coordination, one casting wind wall and the other casting protection from arrows and magic missile.
The Conjurer spends his turns summoning creatures to fight against the player, while the other bombards them with various orb spells. The conjurer will be the one who casts the various protective buffs, but neither of them wish to harm the local equipment, so they will actually make it a point to pull the more destructive, collateral spells.
The Conjurer has a feat Progression that Consists of Improved Initiative, Toughness, Spell Focus (Conjuration) and Augment Summoning
The Evoker has a feat Progression that Consists of Improved Initiative, Spell Focus (Evocation) (Replacing Scribe Scroll via Houserule), Spell Specialization (Lightning Orb), Dodge
The conjurer has more constitution, and the evoker has a higher armor class. Both are equally difficult to kill.
----
The Fifth combat is far simpler and is more of a laugh than anything else. What do you guys think of it? Too difficult? Instagib ahoy? Help me out.
**Edit**
The Golem won't be picking people off based on anything, actually, because it's mindless. Though the Dwarf of the party will very likely run up to it and he does have the easiest touch AC to get around. The golem is one of the first creatures that's completely capable of hitting him with very little problem.
The Antipaladin is level 10, and is Human. His feat Progression is Combat Expertise, Improved Disarm, Greater Disarm, Two Weapon Fighting, and Quickened Channel, as well as Toughness.
The Alchemists are all geared towards throwing bombs, but won't be throwing anything that can directly harm the nearby equipment, though players that stray too far from it will be bombarded.