CotSQ 13 >end
Jan. 23rd, 2004 12:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothLast night we *finally* got around to finishing off 'City of the Spider Queen'. It was sort of an anticlimax, in that the main baddy was killed before getting to act, but there were enough people standing around to at least make the party use up all their spells dealing with it.
And of course, after last time, their entire strategy was based around killing her off before she got to act!
After raising their dead, the party devised a cunning plan to use Irae's Gate against her -- by Gating in the dragon, she'd revealed that her ethereal sanctuary was outside the forbiddance, and since it was on the ethereal plane and not the material plane, that meant that the party would be able to Gate right into her room.
But that wasn't the whole plan. Part B was that May would unleash Mordenkainen's Disjunction on her immediately after the gate opened, stripping her of any protective magic and, hopefully, at least some of her items. Then, in part C, the entire party would rush in and kill her before she knew what was going on.
The attack went off more or less as planned, although she *wasn't* killed during the surprise round. Quite. Conner, who'd opened the gate, was quicker to act than she was, however, and walked up next to her and cast a Time Stop, then spent the next five rounds summoning an army of Celestial Dire Bears and Elder Xorn surrounding her, which of course got to act immediately once the time stop ended, killing not only her by every other enemy in the room.
Except for the Shadow Ambassador, who was present for some unkown reason, who was finished off by Erdann's Flame Strike immediately afterwards (having already been blinded and damaged by a sunbeam). And except for the Mighty Golem, who was standing in a corner guarding the normal entrance to the room, who couldn't reach the actual party without wading through the army of bears and xorn.
Iron Golems can't tumble, so it was forced to fight the summoned critters, who fought it in return -- and it was losing, thanks to a lightning bolt from Abbey's wand that slowed it, and continuous healing of the creatures arrayed against it. But that wasn't the end of it.
A Horrid Wilting came out of nowhere and killed off most of the summoned creatures, and slightly wounded Abbey and May (who had lots of temporary hit points and made their saves; the others weren't affected due to spell resistance), and a lich teleported in and prismatic sprayed everyone, taking out a few more summoned creatures but also not particularly affecting the party.
Conner healed the remaining dire bear holding back the golem, and May used a Wall of Force to trap the lich in a corner of the room. The lich had nothing to bring down the wall of force, so put up his own wall of ice to at least not have the party *watching* him, then started trying to blast through the ethereal stone walls with Chain Lightning. Without much luck.
Then the medusa appeared, through the floor, turning May to stone with her gaze and wounding Abbey with a Forcelance. Attempted retaliation revealed that she was on the material plane, and thus completely invulnerable to the party, since none of them were manifested ghosts.
Of course, two levels down was a portal back to the material plane, which Erdann promptly took, flying around behind her. And May -- once Abbey used a Stone Salve to turn him back to flesh -- knew Ghost Form, which *did* turn him into a manifested ghost, at which point his prismatic spray turned her to stone, and she fell 100 feet and shattered into gravel.
"Oops," May remarked, "There goes more of our treasure. I have to be more careful."
The tower -- which had been repaired, and had cast the earlier Horrid Wilting -- now started casting enervation, even though the party had seen it do that before and it gave away that it had been restored. It got off ONE enervation before May re-disjuncted it. It didn't make it's save this time either.
Then Conner helped his bear finish off the Mighty Golem, and the party gathered around to drop the wall of force, blow up the wall of ice, and rush the lich in the corner, and that was the end of that. There was little loot left after May's rampage, but they gathered what they could... and decided to explore the tower to try to figure out how to get it to stop radiating the negative energy which was causing such trouble in the Dales and impeding their cure spells.
There were a few enemies left in the tower -- a pair of Sanctum Guardians with Death Spears guarding Irae's room, the Flenser abomination in the basement, a negative energy wielding Orb Wraith in the orb itself -- but nothing really threatening, or that lived long enough to do much damage. There was also nothing really apparent about how to destroy the tower, short of earthquaking it into rubble, which could collapse the cavern on it whether or not it worked and so could backfire rather badly.
So the party decided to retire to Irae's sanctum and rest the night, to memorize a divination. The doomsphere came in the night to annoy them, but with the party on guard it was just an annoyance. In the morning, they cast the divination.
"Child of the gods,
within you is a power
with which the darkness is at odds.
It can destroy the tower."
Which was correctly interpreted as meaning that Conner's ability to Turn Undead could be used against the negative energy sphere. His turning ability (already significantly improved by an item of his) was enhanced as much as possible by the rest of the party, and he proceeded to unleash all the positive energy he could channel for the day at the orb, destroying it and ending the field of necromantic magic.
Then they earthquaked the cavern (for good measure) and headed home, victorious, to celebrate their victory.
last session next session, different module
Next, we're planning on playing Bastion of Broken Souls, which is *designed* for characters of their level. City of the Spider Queen was only supposed to bring characters up to 14th... I guess they didn't expect the party to kill EVERYTHING in the module.
And of course, after last time, their entire strategy was based around killing her off before she got to act!
After raising their dead, the party devised a cunning plan to use Irae's Gate against her -- by Gating in the dragon, she'd revealed that her ethereal sanctuary was outside the forbiddance, and since it was on the ethereal plane and not the material plane, that meant that the party would be able to Gate right into her room.
But that wasn't the whole plan. Part B was that May would unleash Mordenkainen's Disjunction on her immediately after the gate opened, stripping her of any protective magic and, hopefully, at least some of her items. Then, in part C, the entire party would rush in and kill her before she knew what was going on.
The attack went off more or less as planned, although she *wasn't* killed during the surprise round. Quite. Conner, who'd opened the gate, was quicker to act than she was, however, and walked up next to her and cast a Time Stop, then spent the next five rounds summoning an army of Celestial Dire Bears and Elder Xorn surrounding her, which of course got to act immediately once the time stop ended, killing not only her by every other enemy in the room.
Except for the Shadow Ambassador, who was present for some unkown reason, who was finished off by Erdann's Flame Strike immediately afterwards (having already been blinded and damaged by a sunbeam). And except for the Mighty Golem, who was standing in a corner guarding the normal entrance to the room, who couldn't reach the actual party without wading through the army of bears and xorn.
Iron Golems can't tumble, so it was forced to fight the summoned critters, who fought it in return -- and it was losing, thanks to a lightning bolt from Abbey's wand that slowed it, and continuous healing of the creatures arrayed against it. But that wasn't the end of it.
A Horrid Wilting came out of nowhere and killed off most of the summoned creatures, and slightly wounded Abbey and May (who had lots of temporary hit points and made their saves; the others weren't affected due to spell resistance), and a lich teleported in and prismatic sprayed everyone, taking out a few more summoned creatures but also not particularly affecting the party.
Conner healed the remaining dire bear holding back the golem, and May used a Wall of Force to trap the lich in a corner of the room. The lich had nothing to bring down the wall of force, so put up his own wall of ice to at least not have the party *watching* him, then started trying to blast through the ethereal stone walls with Chain Lightning. Without much luck.
Then the medusa appeared, through the floor, turning May to stone with her gaze and wounding Abbey with a Forcelance. Attempted retaliation revealed that she was on the material plane, and thus completely invulnerable to the party, since none of them were manifested ghosts.
Of course, two levels down was a portal back to the material plane, which Erdann promptly took, flying around behind her. And May -- once Abbey used a Stone Salve to turn him back to flesh -- knew Ghost Form, which *did* turn him into a manifested ghost, at which point his prismatic spray turned her to stone, and she fell 100 feet and shattered into gravel.
"Oops," May remarked, "There goes more of our treasure. I have to be more careful."
The tower -- which had been repaired, and had cast the earlier Horrid Wilting -- now started casting enervation, even though the party had seen it do that before and it gave away that it had been restored. It got off ONE enervation before May re-disjuncted it. It didn't make it's save this time either.
Then Conner helped his bear finish off the Mighty Golem, and the party gathered around to drop the wall of force, blow up the wall of ice, and rush the lich in the corner, and that was the end of that. There was little loot left after May's rampage, but they gathered what they could... and decided to explore the tower to try to figure out how to get it to stop radiating the negative energy which was causing such trouble in the Dales and impeding their cure spells.
There were a few enemies left in the tower -- a pair of Sanctum Guardians with Death Spears guarding Irae's room, the Flenser abomination in the basement, a negative energy wielding Orb Wraith in the orb itself -- but nothing really threatening, or that lived long enough to do much damage. There was also nothing really apparent about how to destroy the tower, short of earthquaking it into rubble, which could collapse the cavern on it whether or not it worked and so could backfire rather badly.
So the party decided to retire to Irae's sanctum and rest the night, to memorize a divination. The doomsphere came in the night to annoy them, but with the party on guard it was just an annoyance. In the morning, they cast the divination.
"Child of the gods,
within you is a power
with which the darkness is at odds.
It can destroy the tower."
Which was correctly interpreted as meaning that Conner's ability to Turn Undead could be used against the negative energy sphere. His turning ability (already significantly improved by an item of his) was enhanced as much as possible by the rest of the party, and he proceeded to unleash all the positive energy he could channel for the day at the orb, destroying it and ending the field of necromantic magic.
Then they earthquaked the cavern (for good measure) and headed home, victorious, to celebrate their victory.
last session next session, different module
Next, we're planning on playing Bastion of Broken Souls, which is *designed* for characters of their level. City of the Spider Queen was only supposed to bring characters up to 14th... I guess they didn't expect the party to kill EVERYTHING in the module.
