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Skyscraper
Sergeant
659 Posts
    
Montreal
 | | 02/02/2007 11:48 AM |
| Hi,
My PCs are now in a large castle that has been attacked by a group called the Zealots. The battle is mostly over, and the Zealots have won, although there's not many of them left. Thus, no guards are left anymore, but some people are moving around still (the odd survivor here and there). Several combats have occurred including some important ones, and the PCs have no spells left and are about at 80% HPs on average. The group is comprised of:
Fighter 3 - cleric 3
Cleric 6
Fighter 6
Rogue 6 - fighter 1
They're now in a dark and damp basement of the castle having a very large storage room with columns and crates lying about. In this room, there is also an illusionary wall of fire (that illuminates the area near to it of course) which leads to a corridor concealing a secret door leading in turn to the castle's treasure room. The PCs are there now, and they'll probably shortly find an artifact sceptre that everyone is looking for (the sceptre is the reason why the castle was attacked).
One group that wants the artifact are a pair of drow, namely a ranger (lvl 8 ) specialized in two-weapon fighting (no scimitars, don't bust my balls over him  ) equipped with swords, a bow, boots of striding and springing and a silken rope (he has use rope maxed out), and a rogue (lvl 8 ) equipped with a wand of web and a wand of scorching rays plus other stuff. The drow are neither part of the attackers or the defenders, but they're already been spotted in the castle by the PCs before the attack started. So you have four groups all working against one another: the defenders, the attacking Zealots, the two drow and the PCs.
So now, the PCs will leave the treasure room with the artifact, and i was hoping to have the drow ambush them in the large storage room. However, i'm afraid i'll kill them all if i do so. Two level 8 drow (each CR 9, thus EL 11) are quite strong for four weakened level 6 PCs. They were initially five, but two level 7 PCs died and a single level 6 PC replaced him. This was a very deadly adventure, and i hope that no more PCs will die. However, i want the drow to try to get the artifact as it would make sense that they would.
Any suggestions on how i should run this encounter? I have a few ideas, but none are entirely to my taste up to now. Clear surprise by the drow might be leathal.
Thanks for any ideas,
Sky
p.s.: posted to both hordelings and MM. | |
The wise man doubts often. The ignorant, sometimes. The fool, never. | |
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gss_000
Commander
3204 Posts
Baltimore, MD
| | 02/02/2007 2:18 PM |
| Well, one solution might be habe a three or four way fight. I think the best way to pull this off is to have the drow be attcked outside of the room and the PCs come out and decide to engage (which would be silly) or flee (the smart choice). Sicne everyone is looking for the artifact, everyone is an enemy. Now, it might be a running chase out of the castle, but there you go.
The only problem is that wand of web will just wreck any PC actions. If I wanted something that another group had and I had an excellent way to block of escape routes and possibly capture the item, I'd use it first and often. That's going to be a very tricky situation to work around. | |
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Oryan77
Sergeant
950 Posts
| | 02/02/2007 5:44 PM |
| It sounds like you've been pretty brutal on the PC's and they are now backed into a corner. When I do this to my group, I usually cut them some slack to balance everything and give them a fair chance to survive while they are low on resources. So you might need to fumble your own tactics a bit.
If the PC's are weakened...can't the Drow also be weakened? They could be lower on HP's due to defending themselves from squads from the other teams.
Drow are pretty cocky & confident people. These guys probably think the PC's are weaklings compared to them. So maybe the storage room battle can be more of a stealthy fight. Have the weakened Drow split up in the room and look around for the PC's. Fumble a listen roll & let the Rogue hear someone moving in the storage room. This would give the PC's the chance to hide themselves and ambush the stealthy intruder. When they spot the lone Drow, let them get the jump on him and beat him up a bit. Then get your Drow ambush by using the 2nd Drow. He'll drop down from above and help his comrade kill these pests.
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Skyscraper
Sergeant
659 Posts
Montreal
| | 02/03/2007 10:09 AM |
| Thanks for the ideas guys.
In the end, i had the drow fight off some of the Zealots before the PCs left the treasure room area, so the PCs actually knew something was wrong due to the corpses on the ground when they arrived in the storage area. The PC rogue managed to spot the drow ranger on an improbable roll, so they weren't completely off guard when the drow rogue let off a web into the party when they were all bundled up together. Two out of the four PCs still were out for the entire fight due to the web. (The cleric and the fighter.)
The rogue managed to escape the web and started using his bow on the drow, while the fighter-cleric moved in for melee.
Both drow had few max HPs as it was (i rolled badly) and i put them at about 75% of their max HP also. A couple of arrows and one major attack by the fighter-cleric later, the drow rogue was down at 4 HP and the drow ranger was at 27. The drow ranger charged in to help the drow rogue: with his boots of striding and springing, i made his tumble check look like aireal manoeuver for a nifty fly-in attack that successfully hit. Next round he proceeded with his 4-attack full-round action and landed a crit on the fighter cleric, who went down to... 1 HP! The badly wounded drow rogue retreated under cover from the ranger, and tried to throw a scorching ray on the fighter-cleric, but she missed her use magic device check. Next round, before the drow ranger could react, the PC rogue and the fighter cleric combined their attacks to take him down to -2 HPs, and the drow rogue fled, using another web to help her escape.
It was a nice short combat, but i feel it lacked a bit of spice restrospectively. I never found the proper angle to approach it to make it interesting, but at least i managed to not kill any PC 
Sky
p.s.: for the record, the two PC deaths that occurred in this castle are two out of the three PC deaths that occurred during our entire 2 years of playing this campaign. I really don't wish to kill anyone, but sometimes it happens. (Says the wolf to the sheep ;-P ) | |
The wise man doubts often. The ignorant, sometimes. The fool, never. | |
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gss_000
Commander
3204 Posts
Baltimore, MD
| | 02/03/2007 10:08 PM |
| I find sometimes a DM has a skewed view of combats. I bet it was tense for the PCs even if you didn't see it. Or do you define spice in another way?
At least now you have a reoccuring villain if you want to have one. | |
Completed trades: blackthorne, Drakkengi,Thorgrin, Ironfist Boulderbender x2, ckissee, nasamonkey, Username, Star, Ace13 x3, emontedodger x2, Drconveyor, church, Joeyb, Sir Bozak The Damned, Xeromod, the other guy x2, Qucalion of Celene, Dagaron x2, berus316, qillan_dvra, AshloreDarkShadow
For further info go to My Reference Thread and Trade Interface
Champion of Radiant Sevant | |
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Autoxdsm
Sergeant
814 Posts
Myrtle Beach, SC
| | 02/11/2007 12:54 PM |
| That sounds awesome to me I wish we ran stuff like this in my area! I have hundreds of minis I am just using for Skirmish play  ...hopefully we can start a serious campaign one day. | |
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Desert of Desolation Called Shot: Medium Brown Dragon
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