venting - TPC in Dark Lord DDAL 04-14

[da newt]

Spoilers - I'm gonna wank about the boss fight in AL's DDAL 'the Dark Lord' 04-14.

Last night our final encounter in the AL season 4 Curse of Strahd campaign ended in a Total Party Charmed/Killed. We were a fairly inept party of 2 rogues, 1 warlock, 1 paladin, 1 ranger, 1 cleric/warlock, and me - BarBEARian/BM Bugbear. We failed on an epic level due to our piss poor tactics, a narrow stair way, and general lack of aggression / concept of what we needed to do to remove the Evening Glory from Esmae.

The part that spins me up is that Esmae can "Blow a Kiss" as a legendary action at a range of 30' 3x per round that on a successful attack leaves a PC charmed for 24 hrs, with no chance to undo, without ever taking an action to attack.

So I'm first into the room, on the 3rd attempt, I'm charmed and out of the fight. Next round, the Pali enters the room and get's unlucky on the first 'blown kiss' - he's charmed. Next PC into the room (rogue with the locket that can undo the 'possession') is charmed on try #2, and we're fooked with zero chance to do anything. After this it's a simple war of attrition, 1 rogue is unconscious, the ranger is grappled by the charmed Pali, the cleric/warlock is disintegrated, the last standing warlock surrenders.

Esmae and her minions never even had to take an action - we would have been defeated if the only thing she did was blow kisses to charm us.

What could we have done differently to give us any chance to succeed?

[SirGraystone]

"Esmae can’t use the same legendary action twice in the same round."

So while can use her real action kiss three times, she can only use "Blow a kiss" once by round. The kiss (and blow a kiss) needs both an attack rolls and a saving throws to do its effects.

[Man_Over_Game]

Charmed only prevents you from taking direct hostile action against the charmer. You can still contribute in combat for your team. Heck, someone could cast Dispel Magic on themselves to get rid of it. Worst-case scenario, you're on healing potion duty.

[SirGraystone]

Charmed only prevents you from taking direct hostile action against the charmer. You can still contribute in combat for your team. Heck, someone could cast Dispel Magic on themselves to get rid of it. Worst-case scenario, you're on healing potion duty.

Esmae power is a little more then just charmed, she make you in love with her.

[JNAProductions]

Esmae power is a little more then just charmed, she make you in love with her.

What's the exact text of her charm ability?

[SirGraystone]

"Kiss. Melee Spell Attack: +8 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (3d6 + 4) psychic damage and the target must succeed in a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw or be charmed. The charmed target regards Esmae as his or her true love to be heeded and protected, through violence against others if need be. Although the target isn't under Esmae's control, it takes Esmae's requests or actions in the most favorable way it can. Each time Esmae or Esmae's companions do anything harmful to the target, it can repeat the saving throw, ending the effect on itself on a success. Otherwise, the effect lasts 24 hours or until Esmae is destroyed, is on a different plane of existence than the target, or takes a bonus action to end the effect. Esmae heals half of the psychic damage done."

[HolyDraconus]

Here.


Multiattack. Esmae makes three attacks with her Kiss.
Kiss. Melee Spell Attack: +8 to hit, reach 5 ft., one
target. Hit: 14 (3d6 + 4) psychic damage and the target
must succeed in a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw or be
charmed. The charmed target regards Esmae as his or
her true love to be heeded and protected, through
violence against others if need be. Although the target
isn't under Esmae's control, it takes Esmae's requests
or actions in the most favorable way it can. Each time
Esmae or Esmae's companions do anything harmful to
the target, it can repeat the saving throw, ending the
effect on itself on a success. Otherwise, the effect lasts
24 hours or until Esmae is destroyed, is on a different
plane of existence than the target, or takes a bonus
action to end the effect. Esmae heals half of the
psychic damage done.

If she charmed them then yeah, they dead.

[Man_Over_Game]

Here.


Multiattack. Esmae makes three attacks with her Kiss.
Kiss. Melee Spell Attack: +8 to hit, reach 5 ft., one
target. Hit: 14 (3d6 + 4) psychic damage and the target
must succeed in a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw or be
charmed. The charmed target regards Esmae as his or
her true love to be heeded and protected, through
violence against others if need be. Although the target
isn't under Esmae's control, it takes Esmae's requests
or actions in the most favorable way it can. Each time
Esmae or Esmae's companions do anything harmful to
the target, it can repeat the saving throw, ending the
effect on itself on a success. Otherwise, the effect lasts
24 hours or until Esmae is destroyed, is on a different
plane of existence than the target, or takes a bonus
action to end the effect. Esmae heals half of the
psychic damage done.

If she charmed them then yeah, they dead.

Damn, that sucks.

Although, the bolded is relevant. Spam Banishment?

...lol, on allies, if need be.

Hmm...cast Blink and hope she doesn't tell you to dispel it after a Kiss.

[JNAProductions]

"Kiss. Melee Spell Attack: +8 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (3d6 + 4) psychic damage and the target must succeed in a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw or be charmed. The charmed target regards Esmae as his or her true love to be heeded and protected, through violence against others if need be. Although the target isn't under Esmae's control, it takes Esmae's requests or actions in the most favorable way it can. Each time Esmae or Esmae's companions do anything harmful to the target, it can repeat the saving throw, ending the effect on itself on a success. Otherwise, the effect lasts 24 hours or until Esmae is destroyed, is on a different plane of existence than the target, or takes a bonus action to end the effect. Esmae heals half of the psychic damage done."

So... Why didn't you repeat your saves?
And you were all in melee range?

[CheddarChampion]

So... Why didn't you repeat your saves?
And you were all in melee range?

Looks like the legendary action "Blow a Kiss" has a range of 30'.

That said, it looks like:
*One person entered the room each round, against a boss.
*Legendary actions can only be done at the end of another creature's turn, once per turn.
**If only one person was in the room with the boss, how did the boss get multiple legendary actions on the first round?
*(If the rule mentioned is correct) BaK cannot be used more than once per round even with multiple creatures.
*Wouldn't the party get another chance?
**If the boss locks them away somewhere they'd get a chance to escape, right?
**If the boss has minions attack them somewhere else, the party can just fight the minions because they aren't charmed by them.
**If the boss attacks them directly, every time they're damaged they have another saving throw to resist.

OP, what level was everyone?

[stoutstien]

Charm counter/ immunity is always something a party should consider.
Calm emotion is severely underrated.

[Keravath]

"Esmae tries to keep at range and use her spells to great effect. In order to ritual going she must use one action every round for ten rounds while possessed by the Evening Glory, either her own or a legendary action. If she cannot do so, the ritual is disrupted. In addition, she saves her legendary resistance ability for effects that prevent her from casting the ritual, banish her, or exorcise the Evening Glory."

"When the Evening Glory is banished, Esmae loses: all damage immunities, all condition immunities except charmed, blessing of the Mother Night, and two legendary actions per turn. In addition, her kiss no longer heals her."

"Esmae can take 3 legendary actions, choosing from the options below. Only one legendary action option can be used at a time, and only at the end of another creature's turn. Esmae regains spent legendary actions at the start of her turn. Esmae can’t use the same legendary action twice in the same round."

"Blow a Kiss. Esmae moves her speed without provoking opportunity attacks and then uses kissagainst a target within 30 feet. "
"Ritual Casting. Esmae maintains the transformation ritual. "

Esme is a spellcaster with a nasty list of spells including counterspell, dispel magic, fireball, disintegrate and hypnotic pattern. DC is 16 and to hit is +8.

Room 10 has the ritual with Esme. Room 9 is a 10'x20' ante chamber where the staircase ends. I don't see how the staircase would play any role in the encounter in room 10 since you have to fight some animated armor in room 9 before entering room 10.




It is a nasty encounter but the DM messed up by allowing more than one Blow a Kiss usage each turn. I'm also not sure how only one character was able to enter each turn, even with a narrow staircase you can move up one after the other and there is a room before entering the area with Esme where the attack can be staged.

[da newt]

No chance for ST unless Esmae or a companion does damage to you - they didn't. Our direction (once charmed) was to protect her (our true love) at all costs.

If I remember correctly (my memory is far from fool proof), we completed 5 rounds of combat and there were at least 7 kisses blown - I guess if some were normal actions and some were legendary actions, that is all legit, but then again, two of us had the dark gift and therefor disadvantage so ... but no kisses were in melee range.

Honestly, we didn't deserve to prevail. The stairway thwarted us as much as Esmae - in 5 rounds we took out one witch, one thug, and only attacked Esmea once. It was a **** show.

This adventure is optimized for five 8th-level characters. With 6 lvl 10 PC's and and 1 lvl 8/9, we are a "very strong party."

[J-H]

Your party members are also trusted allies. If one of them is down, you can give them a healing potion unless told not to.

I had a not-as-bad situation when a vampire I was running charmed most of the party. The halfling rogue walked up to her and hit on her. With 10 Charisma. Badly. I decided that, arrogant as she was, she slapped him. That broke the charm effect.

This is a time when good RP thinking is part of the solution to a combat problem.

[Zuras]

Yeah, if you had trouble making it up the stairs, you’re not going to do well in that encounter.

In my run-throughs there was significant tension between Esmae fireballing people and charming them, and it became a brutal furball of AoEs.

How many game hours had your party members spent in Barovia? By my first time on that mod my Cleric was well versed in how to break charms (via Banishment, Greater Restoration, pre-cast Protection From Evil and Good, etc.).

[da newt]

Almost weekly sessions from early OCT with a fairly consistent core of PCs (AL so party composition is fluid). Tactically we are far from optimized (more like a bunch of idiots).

Cloud Kill, Evard's Black Tentacles, Disintegrate, Counter Spell, and the numerous Kisses were all the spells I remember being used.

We were so inept, Strahd's Animated Armor was still standing at the top of the stairs at the end of combat.

[JackPhoenix]

Charmed only prevents you from taking direct hostile action against the charmer. You can still contribute in combat for your team. Heck, someone could cast Dispel Magic on themselves to get rid of it. Worst-case scenario, you're on healing potion duty.

Correct, except the Dispel Magic part. You can only dispel spells.

[Keravath]

Almost weekly sessions from early OCT with a fairly consistent core of PCs (AL so party composition is fluid). Tactically we are far from optimized (more like a bunch of idiots).

Cloud Kill, Evard's Black Tentacles, Disintegrate, Counter Spell, and the numerous Kisses were all the spells I remember being used.

We were so inept, Strahd's Animated Armor was still standing at the top of the stairs at the end of combat.

I'm still not sure I understand the layout. Esmae isn't at the top of the stairs, they are in a separate room with a door to get into it. How did you get stuck on the stairs? Did you all just run past the armor one by one in to a room full of bad guys?

Also, Esmae can only use Blow a Kiss once/turn. Her other kiss attack is 5' melee range only and the description specifically says she concentrates on casting spells rather than making melee attacks (though if a character ended up adjacent, I could see her using three melee attacks to neutralize them).

Anyway, it sounds from your description that something might have not been run correctly. I would think a very strong party shouldn't really have that many issues with it even if not run optimally.

[da newt]

As I remember it -

Party of 7, a 5' wide stairway, an animated suit of armor and a witch on the top landing, roll initiative.

Witch goes first, opens door, warns Esmae and all in the adjacent room, CLOUD KILL, we kill the witch, one thug comes out to the landing, suit or armor blocks the door, we can't move fwd (and are hesitant anyway) stuck on the stairs.

Kill the thug, miss the armor a bunch, finally shove armor aside, first PC into room, takes readied actions to the face, blown kiss fails, couple turns of miss the armor a bunch and stuck on stairs, blown kiss fails, concentration for cloud kill moves to a witch, EVARD'S BLACK TENTACLES.

Miss the armor some more, blown kiss succeeds - now my Barbearian is charmed and tasked to defend Esmae, next PC into room, blown kiss succeeds - Pali is on her side too, couple other PCs make it past the armor/cloud/tentacles eventually, try to disrupt the ritual, attempted blown kiss fails.

Rogue #1 gets kissed (he holds the locket and we don't know how it works anyway), rogue #2 is down, ranger takes first attack of the encounter on Esmae, Pali (charmed) grapples Ranger, Cleric-lock takes DISINTEGRATE to the face and is DEAD, Warlock's synaptic static is countered.

At this point the Armor is still up, one thug and 2 witches are in the room with Esmae and untouched (BLUR), Esmae is at full health, 3 PC are charmed, one PC grappled, one bleeding out, one DEAD, the Warlock has no spell slots left and surrenders (it's also past store closing time).

As far as I can tell, the only thing that may have been shady was over use of blown kiss. I know we got through at least 5 rounds of combat and I think there were 5 or 6 blown kisses, but I do think there were 2 the same round twice. Our tactics were poor, we failed the stairs, we were timid and never figured out what to do with the locket (although she would have auto resisted it 3x anyway). We never got close to threatening Esmae.

[Valmark]

What do you mean that concentration on cloudkill passed on another witch? Is that something they specifically can do? 'cause I don't think there's such a rule in 5e.

[da newt]

yes - a special skill of her's

[Valmark]

There were definitely too many kisses, if I understood correctly. Also, from how another user explained the encounter in a spoiler above, it looks like the fight was boosted, no? They said that there is only the armor in the room before the boss. Unless they just didn't say the part where there's a spellcaster in the antechamber that alerts everyone inside.

Does the turn count for the ritual start after you enter the boss room? I can imagine that the witch sent you all in a panic, while if you didn't have the boss smiling at you you could have taken it slightly more leisurely. Like killing the armor first so that you can enter the boss room all together.

Note: I know nothing of Curse of Strahd, but this reminds me of how much I like the berserker's charm immunity.

[BloodSnake'sCha]

In our fight against her I was really angry about how they lower the importance of Evening Glory.

We didn't saw a lot of kisses but that is probably because we entered under darkness and kite her away.

I was really angry about the possibility of using an amulet.

They made a very important deity into something compered to a ghost or a low level fey.

[da newt]

The encounter is written with the Witch and suit of armor posted as guards outside the ritual room at the top of the stairs, and the witch warns Esmae as soon as she sees/hears you (unless you prevent her from taking a turn, or manage to sneak by). For us there were 2 thugs and two witches in the ritual room, and with the warning they were all BLESSED, BLURRED, and buffed w/ 15 THP.

The locket / Morning Glory was disappointing for me too. It was all sort of glossed over so we had no idea how the Locket worked / what it's purpose was, or anything specific about what the Morning Glory's purpose or powers were. It seems it BUFFed Esmea's powers and allows her to complete the ritual to become Tatyana after ten rounds (and if that happens she turns into a bat a flies away).

After reading the MOD, I found this Note:
The characters do not know this but to use the
locket, the character must use an action to present it
forcefully to Esmae and loudly demand the Evening Glory
depart her body. Esmae then must attempt a DC 15 Charisma
saving throw (she has a +8 for CHA ST) to prevent the vestige from being pulled out.
The DC increases by 5 for every attempt made to entrap the
vestige.
Also, Esmae will save her 3 legendary resistances to use to ensure she makes this save. So if she only rolls for a save once, then uses the 3 resistances, on the party's 5th attempt, the locket will remove the Morning Glory, and Esmae loses:
all damage immunities, all condition immunities except
charmed, blessing of the Mother Night, and two
legendary actions per turn. In addition, her kiss no
longer heals her. (Damage Immunities cold, fire, necrotic, poison
Condition Immunities charmed, exhaustion,
frightened, grappled, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned,
prone, restrained, unconscious)

[JackPhoenix]

They made a very important deity into something compered to a ghost or a low level fey.

"Very important deity"? Evening Glory was a sidenote in one of the huge numbers of 3.5 splatbooks. She was mildly creepy, with the necrophilia and all, and never important. This adventure is the only instance where she is of any import.