A Most Epic Boss Fight

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Persimmon
Ulthal
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Joined: Thu Mar 02, 2017 5:11 am

A Most Epic Boss Fight

Post by Persimmon »

So last night I ran my group through an original adventure I wrote wherein the party was tasked with discovering the secret behind the recent disappearances of a number of young elves from the elven realm of Briarwold. The trail eventually led them to a dark cabin deep in the forest where a sinister high priest of Shub-Niggurath who had previously been cast out of the Druidic Circle was preparing to sacrifice the elven virgins up to his dark god.

The party had followed the trail without incident and initially dispatched the ungern guards. But things got bogged down when they had to tangle with a willow man & a green hag. This slowed them down enough for the boss and his other minions to join the fray and a truly epic battle ensued. By the time it was over, there was only one party member, an elven ranger, who was still fully conscious. Out of the party of seven, three were dead, and three others were effectively out of combat at 0 hit points, having been brought back to that level by their allies after grievous injuries in the midst of combat. To their credit, the players refused to abandon the elven children to the cultists even when it looked like they were going to be beaten. Luckily, just before she died, the party's wizard remembered that she had a flesh to stone scroll which amazingly worked on the evil cleric, who rolled a 3 on his save. Prior to that, he had shrugged off pretty much all the magic they hurled at him, being of higher level (10) than they were (around 6 on average).

In fact the scaling of the Siege Engine in this respect really changes combat dynamics in ways that traditional D&D doesn't because of the CL being tied to caster level. When the villain came out and literally blasted through the whole party with Splinterwind as he emerged from his cabin, they knew they were in trouble.

And, in the end, there was no one handy with a raise dead or resurrection spell, so they opted for reincarnation, cast by the druids. Unfortunately two of the three deceased failed their Con checks to survive the transformation. The third, who was the aforementioned wizard, was reincarnated as a black bear, but I think I'm going to make her a were bear, as that will be a cooler result given her sacrifice and will keep her in the party.
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Buttmonkey
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Re: A Most Epic Boss Fight

Post by Buttmonkey »

Sounds like a great adventure. And the werebear idea is interesting. The monster description in M&T looks workable for a PC afflicted with lycanthropy. The write up says in bear form the character will lose some of its human mentality and will have difficulty distinguishing friend from foe. You may want to require some sort of check for the PC to avoid chewing on its fellow party members. I suggest not letting the PC add level to the check; otherwise, it will cease to be a meaningful limitation as the PC levels up. The limitation that the PC can only change form once per day will make for interesting decisions.
tylermo wrote:Your efforts are greatly appreciated, Buttmonkey. Can't believe I said that with a straight face.

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