Hmm.
My current original campaign draws greatly on the second Corum trilogy by Michael Moorcock(The Bull and the Spear, The Oak and the Ram, The Sword and the Stallion). In the last session, I threw them against Hew Argech, once a valourous human fighter 11, but now corrupted by the Fhoi Myore into a strange part-plant creature. (AC 31, 109 hp, DR 10/slashing, Resist cold 10, improved Str, Con, reduced Dex).
The trick with this encounter that his mount was actually *stronger* than the rider, being part of the corruption process. (Str 30, AC 31, 200 hp, etc.) My party of six 8th level PCs encountered Hew Argech and slew him after a fairly tough fight.
At this point, the "horse" began to drag away Hew Argech's body. The PCs decided to fight the horse.
This is where things went wrong. In the next 12 rounds of combat, three PCs were driven to negative hit points (and healed to low levels of positive hit points) and one PC and the druid's animal companion were slain.
At any point during the combat, if they'd *stopped* attacking the horse, it would have resumed dragging away its rider's body. At the end, that's what they eventually did, but it almost needed a TPK to get the point into them. (They had managed to reduce the "horse" to 50 hp, but three of the remaining PCs were at <10 hp).
So, how would your group have dealt with this situation? I was giving clues as to how healthy the horse was. ("It's hardly damaged!" "Congratulations, you've removed 25% of its hit points!", etc.) Hitting the horse was really, really hard, etc.
Cheers!
My current original campaign draws greatly on the second Corum trilogy by Michael Moorcock(The Bull and the Spear, The Oak and the Ram, The Sword and the Stallion). In the last session, I threw them against Hew Argech, once a valourous human fighter 11, but now corrupted by the Fhoi Myore into a strange part-plant creature. (AC 31, 109 hp, DR 10/slashing, Resist cold 10, improved Str, Con, reduced Dex).
The trick with this encounter that his mount was actually *stronger* than the rider, being part of the corruption process. (Str 30, AC 31, 200 hp, etc.) My party of six 8th level PCs encountered Hew Argech and slew him after a fairly tough fight.
At this point, the "horse" began to drag away Hew Argech's body. The PCs decided to fight the horse.
This is where things went wrong. In the next 12 rounds of combat, three PCs were driven to negative hit points (and healed to low levels of positive hit points) and one PC and the druid's animal companion were slain.
At any point during the combat, if they'd *stopped* attacking the horse, it would have resumed dragging away its rider's body. At the end, that's what they eventually did, but it almost needed a TPK to get the point into them. (They had managed to reduce the "horse" to 50 hp, but three of the remaining PCs were at <10 hp).
So, how would your group have dealt with this situation? I was giving clues as to how healthy the horse was. ("It's hardly damaged!" "Congratulations, you've removed 25% of its hit points!", etc.) Hitting the horse was really, really hard, etc.
Cheers!
