Well, after eight months of mostly weekly sessions, my group has finally completed Red Hand of Doom.

 

Prior to last night's session, the short-handed (but not underhanded) PCs had met defeat at the hands of the Aspect of Tiamat. But since only 4 of the 6 PCs were present, we agreed to redo the fight, picking up with the PCs opening the portal to Azar Kul's sanctuary.

After a couple weeks of cancelations due to players having other commitments, we had all six show for the final confrontation.

Though the players had an inkling of what they might be facing, I managed to switch things up a bit by using some of the Wyrmlord's spells that he hadn't used in the previous attempt.

The opening of the portal to the Ethereal fane required the lighting of 5 chromatic candles on the altar (using the Dragon Shrine map), which would then transform each of the magic circles into portals. The one closest to the altar would transport a creature from the ethereal to the material, while the one closest to the exit provided transport to the ethereal plane. Each candle would stay lit for 6 rounds. I ruled that lighting a candle took a move action, and the party gathered around the ethereal portal as the swordsage stood by the altar to light the candles.

Three rounds later, the portal was opened, and the PCs rushed through. This time, they ignored the sneaky minions of the Wyrmlord, pushing straight for the hobgoblin cleric. But as they closed in on the half-dragon, they ran into his antilife shell barrier, preventing any of the PCs from getting close. But then to further confound the PCs, the Wyrmlord used mislead to get away from behind the altar, moving along the edge of the hall to get closer to the warlock hanging out in back (the only one who could potentially see invisible creatures). I had added a ring of spell turning to the hobgoblin, to counter the warlock's voracious dispel for a couple of rounds, allowing the significant number of buff spells to be relevant through the beginning of the fight.

The Wyrmlord led with confusion, but all the PCs made their saves (two PCs needed action points to do so),

The spawn, meanwhile, whittled away at the shifter and the daggerspell shaper, sniping from behind statues and skirmishing around the middle of the map. Once the illusory double of the Wyrmlord was dispelled, the chainfighter (who couldn't see the Wyrmlord at the time) decided to move over to attack one of the spawn - but moved right through the magic circle closest to the altar! Since the portals were still open until the end of that round, he was transported back to the material plane, essentially self-dissmissing. Of course, then the portals closed and he needed to go re-light the candles to get back into the fight.

The warlock finally regained his see the unseen, allowing him to see the invisible wyrmlord. He then stepped back from the attacking spawn and quaffed an invis potion of his own (potions are move actions in my games). That action saved his life, as the wyrmlord (who couldn't move to hit creatures in melee without dispelling his antilife shell) blasted a searing light at the space the warlock was standing, and critted! the 53 points of damage would have been enough to kill the warlock, but the invisibility provided a 50% miss chance, and he missed!

The cleric, who had kept up righteous wrath for most of the fight, managed to kill off one of the spawn, and the chainfighter finally rejoined the group and critted another with a full power attack, slaying it outright. The last of the spawn fell to a series of sneak attacks from the daggerspell shaper.

After that, the swordsage and daggerspell shaper moved in to flank and deal significant damage, forcing the Wyrmlord to step back and use his heal scroll. But even that wasn't enough to save him. The voracious dispelling from the warlock had been tearing through his hit points (he had somewhere around 40 levels of spells up), and after a few rounds had peeled off all he cleric's spells. Once the antilife shell was down, it was only a matter of time before the cleric was overcome. No lucky crits this time were able to step the tide, and his life ended when an elder mountain hammer from the swordsage liberated him from his last hit points.

The fight had moved into the blue dragon shrine room, so many of the PCs were behind a wall when the Aspect appeared. It flew down and opened up with a blast of acid, following up the next round with a cone of cold (the PCs had protected themselves against fire and electricity using mass resist energy). The daggerspell shaper dropped - down, but not out - while the party scattered to avoid getting caught in another cone. The chainfighter moved up to block the dragon's path, hoping to stave off the creature for at least a couple rounds while the rest of the party got into position.

But the reason the PCs won this fight happened in the first two rounds - the kleric blasted the aspect with a moon bolt - a 4th level cleric spell that did 3d4 Strength damage, DC 19 Fort save for half. The aspect needed only a 3 to make the save, and instead rolled a 2. 10 Strength damage coming right up. This dropped all its attacks and damage by 5, which meant that in the crucial engagement round it had a slim chance to take out a PC with a full attack, since it couldn't hit reliably anymore. It tried hitting the severely wounded chainfighter, needing only two hits to knock him down, but only hit once. The next round, the chainfighter swung for the fences, using Power Attack all the way. Combined with additional strikes from the swordsage and shifter, with the chainfighter's last swing he was able to wrap the chain around all the necks of the Aspect, jump up on its back, and choke the aspect to death, leia vs. jabba style.

All that was left was the looting of the bodies.

So there you have it. One mega-adventure down. I hope you readers enjoyed the thread - and I encourage you all to run or play the Red Hand of Doom. We had alot of fun, despite the significant PC mortality rate. Next up, the PCs plan to take an Expedition to a certain Castle Ravenloft... I'll let you know how that goes.