Help Us Kill Morrus - Just updated 23/03/05

Eccles said:

Bull rushing the githyanki through the negative energy walls isn't a bad idea, but I'm terrified we might give Russ ideas if we start that!!

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What are the odds that he might happen to read this web site?

Not knowing the spells available to the party casters, will limit me but I would go along with the others on this thread, walls of stone iron or force to aid vs the blade barrier. Maybe attempt to shape them in such a way to exclude from combat a big baddy or two until such a time when your ready to ask them to come out and play, at least delay them.

Also what plane is this on? Have these particular enemies been watching your party, or does the sladd dude know you? If so then they probably have a pretty good idea of what the sorcerer is capable of and they may be prepared to counter his spells? They may be aware of your magicals and are planning on doing something to destroy them or make them useless somehow....antimagic field?

If the bad guys are beefed and prepared for you.....the blade barrier should be just the beginning of the bad news...

I hope Morrus isn't reading this. He's had plenty of plotting help from the boards already, sure he doesn't need to read this. Russ, if you're reading this then you're a bad person. And you get a sad smiley:


As for the plane, I think we're still on this settings equivalent of Sigil. We might have crossed some sort of border in our trek to get there, but nothing any of us noticed.

Not sure if they'll know our abilities. We were originally trying to assasinate this Lich Queen at the behest of the Slaadi king. About 24 hours ago in game time, we killed off the Queens leading handmaiden, thinking it was the queen. None of the guards survived. However the handmaiden was a lich, so will have been shuttled back to her phalyctery. She shouldn't have had time to get out and talk about what happened, but I wouldn't place sizable bets on it - even if I had any GP left to bet with.

You've come a long way since I last joined for that single session. I'd probably go straight for the queen. Use a heal on her even, seeing as she's an undead *****. Liches don't have con modifiers, so even their d12 hd is going to be hurt by a heal... too bad you only have one though.

She's also the biggest threat, with the high level save or die spells she probably has.

Rav/ Ron

I wnoder what would happen if you disintegrated the room's support pillars?

Ooh, I like it. Reminds me of when the Cleric used Earthquake to destroy an underground room.

Known facts (metagame potential is high!):

1. Gith Queen is a potentially epic level psionic lich. SR25+
2. Slaad king is what, a fighter? Wielding a spiked chain indicates that.
3. 3 'lesser' gith may be between 14th and 20th level fighters. Armour and big swords doesn't preclude them being psionic, but they're behaving like 'thump-it-mooks'. SR 20+
4. Big scary slaad are big, scary slaad. With reach weapons. Which drain levels. 15 foot reach not impossible. Dunno about SR or other special abilities.
5. I've got a 7th summon, but better things to do with my time. And it's likely to get swapped out for a Heal spell pretty soon. Others have few summons worth a damn.
6. Reliq's animal companion is still available as a resource.
7. Other resources: 3 spellcasters, 2 fighters, 1 archer. Terrain really doesn't suit our archer. Assuming he can't shoot through the walls. Which is possible...
8. 4 members of the party can fly.

Unknown facts:

1. What the heck they want us dead for. Apart from principle. And it's probably the paladin's fault. Something he said to someone...
2. Why the two are working together. The symbol on the door to this place was of both of them. You don't carve masonry unless you've been working together for a long time.
3. Whether either of them could be persuaded to double-cross the other.
4. Whether the Slaad-King has given the phylactery back to his ally. (Pretty likely).
5. Whether the room is indeed rigged to stop teleportation. Or flight. Anti teleportation effects may also nix the Ghostform spell.
6. What else the room can do.
7. How nasty those damn walls are if you run into 'em.
8. Whether the Death Ward will protect the paladin if he starts trying to manoevre through the walls to get the drop on the enemies.
9. If the archer can shoot through the walls. If he can, he can hammer at them whilst they're coming at us. Although damage reduction's going to knacker that.
10. Which direction they're coming from, and how badly they're going to get flanked.
11. If a Wall of Force will will block the moving walls of death (tm).

Conclusions:

1. Scream out at the queen to find out whether the phyllactery has been returned. Chances of bluffing her that he's told us he's done something to it next time she dies? He's chaotic, after all. Plausible.
2. Chances of bluffing her we've sabotaged the phyllactery? Pretty low.
3. Reliq has a chance of walking through the walls. Let's not risk it unless we have to But it could be useful.
4. Reliq should be resistant to the level drain. But not to the big nasty wounds from the weapons.
5. If archer can shoot through walls (or if spells will travel through), and if Walls of Force are available, it's a good idea to let them come in and then trap them at the end of a long corridor.
6. We're going to have to be very careful to make sure that we don't get split up by those darn walls. As long as 'flying over them' isn't an option.

I'm reasonably confident we can take out the 6 thugs. It's the other two I'm worried about...

Someone else's turn.

Eccles said:

Known facts (metagame potential is high!):

1. Gith Queen is a potentially epic level psionic lich. SR25+
2. Slaad king is what, a fighter? Wielding a spiked chain indicates that.
3. 3 'lesser' gith may be between 14th and 20th level fighters. Armour and big swords doesn't preclude them being psionic, but they're behaving like 'thump-it-mooks'. SR 20+
4. Big scary slaad are big, scary slaad. With reach weapons. Which drain levels. 15 foot reach not impossible. Dunno about SR or other special abilities.
5. I've got a 7th summon, but better things to do with my time. And it's likely to get swapped out for a Heal spell pretty soon. Others have few summons worth a damn.
6. Reliq's animal companion is still available as a resource.
7. Other resources: 3 spellcasters, 2 fighters, 1 archer. Terrain really doesn't suit our archer. Assuming he can't shoot through the walls. Which is possible...
8. 4 members of the party can fly.

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That sounds like a pretty fair summing up of what we face. To understate heavily: It doesn't look good.

Eccles said:

Unknown facts:

1. What the heck they want us dead for. Apart from principle. And it's probably the paladin's fault. Something he said to someone...
2. Why the two are working together. The symbol on the door to this place was of both of them. You don't carve masonry unless you've been working together for a long time.
3. Whether either of them could be persuaded to double-cross the other.
4. Whether the Slaad-King has given the phylactery back to his ally. (Pretty likely).
5. Whether the room is indeed rigged to stop teleportation. Or flight. Anti teleportation effects may also nix the Ghostform spell.
6. What else the room can do.
7. How nasty those damn walls are if you run into 'em.
8. Whether the Death Ward will protect the paladin if he starts trying to manoevre through the walls to get the drop on the enemies.
9. If the archer can shoot through the walls. If he can, he can hammer at them whilst they're coming at us. Although damage reduction's going to knacker that.
10. Which direction they're coming from, and how badly they're going to get flanked.
11. If a Wall of Force will will block the moving walls of death (tm).

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There's some good what if there. Paladin fault sounds right to me. I'll feel better blaming someone else for this mess! Although my current theory is that they're both bored, decadent, sadistic and confident of their supreme power. Probably with good reason.

Guess we need to test for teleport lock, flight, arrows and spells. Only 1 way I can think of to do that...

The door carving does indicate some pretty permenant sort of arrangement. Guess the king must spend a fair bit of time here. The coridoor outside would be very hard for the living to cross in any sensible way - energy drain and 5X20D6 of fireballs isn't nice. Wonder if there's a saner way into and out of here?

Testing the strength of their friendship is definitely worth a go.

Thinking about it, we did find her phalyctery in the hands of a Slaad. No matter how close allies we were, I wouldn't entrust my immortal soul/sole weakness into the hands of some sadistic chaos frogmen. We don't even have to take the kings word that it's her phalyctery - after all, the High Priest of Raziel shared that detail with us?

And I wonder if he did give it back?

Eccles said:

Conclusions:

1. Scream out at the queen to find out whether the phyllactery has been returned. Chances of bluffing her that he's told us he's done something to it next time she dies? He's chaotic, after all. Plausible.
2. Chances of bluffing her we've sabotaged the phyllactery? Pretty low.
3. Reliq has a chance of walking through the walls. Let's not risk it unless we have to But it could be useful.
4. Reliq should be resistant to the level drain. But not to the big nasty wounds from the weapons.
5. If archer can shoot through walls (or if spells will travel through), and if Walls of Force are available, it's a good idea to let them come in and then trap them at the end of a long corridor.
6. We're going to have to be very careful to make sure that we don't get split up by those darn walls. As long as 'flying over them' isn't an option.

I'm reasonably confident we can take out the 6 thugs. It's the other two I'm worried about...

Someone else's turn.

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Trapping them sounds good.

Quite right, think we should be able to deal with the thugs. With some good on the spot thinking and some luck it should be hard but doable. The rest is not going to be easy.

Eccles said:

5. I've got a 7th summon, but better things to do with my time. And it's likely to get swapped out for a Heal spell pretty soon.

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What lets you swap for a Heal?

blargney the second said:

I wnoder what would happen if you disintegrated the room's support pillars?

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Thanks! I'm liking that idea. It feels somewhat last resort, unless we could reliably collapse a section of the room...

I'd rather like to disintegrate her throne. That'd amuse me... although I supose it's a shameful waste of spell power.