Trial of Echoed Souls 4e - Rhuarc

Hello all... Tonight I am running what I hope is the final encounter with Rhuarc and I thought I would share my write up here.

The encounter set-up is exceedingly adjusted to my particular group, so I won't flesh it out all here.

Rhuarc's last stand will be in the cave along with a recently summoned an up-leveled Kashyk.. and a "Field of Everflame " instead of the Shreikers. It should be interesting

[SBLOCK]Rhuarc WoBS Adv 7 Level 17 Elite Skirmisher
Medium shadow humanoid XP 3,200
Initiative +17 Senses Perception +18; darkvision
HP 316; Bloodied 158
AC 31; Fortitude 27; Reflex 33; Will 31
Resist 20 fire, 15 poison
Saving Throws +2
Speed 6
Action Points 1

Black Scimitar Strike (at-will; standard) • Weapon
The Black Scimitar has the Ghost Touch enhancement
+23 vs AC; 2d8 + 7 damage and 5 ongoing psychic damage. First failed save, increase to 10 ongoing. Second failed save: target loses one
healing surge and this effect is ended.

Hand Crossbow (at-will; standard) • Poison, Weapon
Ranged 10/20; +22 vs AC; 2d8 + 7 poison damage

Double Attack (at-will; standard) • Poison, Weapon
The Rhuarc makes a Scimitar or hand crossbow attack, shifts up to 2 squares, then makes another Scimitar or hand crossbow attack.

Stinging Bolt (recharge 5 6; standard) • Poison, Weapon
Requires hand crossbow; ranged 10/20; +22 vs AC; 3d8 + 7 poison damage, and ongoing 10 poison damage (save ends). First Failed Save:
Increase the ongoing poison damage by 5

Combat Advantage
Rhuarc deals 2d6 extra damage on melee and ranged attacks against any target it has combat advantage against.

Shadow Step (at-will; move)
Rhuarc moves up to 4 squares, gains a +4 bonus to AC against opportunity attacks, and gains combat advantage against any target that it
ends its move adjacent to.

Stealth Shift (at-will; immediate reaction, when an attack misses Rhuarc and he is hidden from the attacker)
Rhuarc shifts 1 square.

Cloud of Darkness (encounter; minor)
Close burst 1 (close burst 2 while bloodied); this power creates a cloud of darkness that remains in place until the end of the Rhuarc's next
turn. The cloud blocks line of sight for all creatures except Rhuarc. Any creature entirely within the cloud (except the Rhuarc) is blinded until it
exits.

Call to the Shadow (at-will; standard)
Rhuarc’s cloud of darkness power recharges, and the Rhuarc uses it immediately.

Summon Tragedies (recharge 6; minor) • Summoning, Weapon
Rhuarc summons 1d4+1 Tragedies to fight for him from the Black Scimitar, which appear adjacent to him.

Slippery Mind and Free Movement (at-will; no action)
At the start of Rhuarc's turn, he may attempt to save against any mental compulsion effect to include domintation, and ongoing damage
from psychic attacks. He may also attempt a save with a +2 bonus against being immobilized, restrained, or slowed.

Alignment Evil Languages Common, Elven
Skills Acrobatics +20, Athletics +15, Dungeoneering +18, Intimidate +13, Stealth +22, Thievery +20
Str 15 (+10) Dex 25 (+15) Wis 20 (+13)
Con 14 (+10) Int 15 (+10) Cha 17 (+11)
Equipment Crossbow Bolts (20), Hand Crossbow, Leather Armor,
Black Scimitar: Blackshroud Weapon +4 (Lvl 20)
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Its a bit late to ask for improvements.. I will try to post the future encounters with enough time to get some feedback

Intriguing design. I can imagine he'd be frustrating as hell to get hands on, but as a one-time challenge of "can you defeat the assassin who slew the emperor" it should be cool.

What's with the 'summoning tragedies'? The one that shows up in adventure 2 obviously wouldn't be even a speedbump to a level 15+ party.

I hope it went well.

The Tragedies are reskinned Oblivion Wraiths, which might cause this guy to tip the scale into TPK land but my group has two anti-undead focused characters.

As it turns out, early spring is a bad time for scheduling games and I only had 3 players show up.. so the encounter is stalled until next month. Good side, this means I can get some feedback. Bad side... its going to another month before I get to this encounter


Sometimes a once-a-month game is frustrating like you wouldn't beleive!

The encounter sequence is actually a series of combats and skill challenges, he is designed to be able to escape at each of the trapped sites. So far the group has gone through the Black Widows {and talked thier way out of it}, went to the Forge and a very lucky/paranoid player happened to look up and roll 34 on his perception check.. spotting Rhuarc as he triggered the main trap.
That was a messy/good encounter.. I had the Tragedies in the Forge and Rhuarc mainly just watched.
The team passed the Skill Challenge to follow him to the Hallows were they are going to battle many undead to race Rhuarc to the Torch that is stashed in a mausoleum.
Assuming Rhuarc survives that encounter, the final encounter will be at the cave. He is doing a very good job of portraying a nasty assassin and the players have a healthy respect for his ability to cause damage... altho he really hasn't actually attacked them yet

Just followup on my game, last session the team went through the Hallows encounter. Below is a tweaked version, adjusted due to a mistake I made with using the Ghouls as written.

My group chose the limited invisibilty option and kinda stealthed there way through.. kinda. It didn't work out exactly as they planned

Note: My group has 7 PCs and 3 Leaders.. so my encounter build is a bit heavy.

Hallows:

[SBLOCK]

The entire Hallows is surrounded by twin Magic Circles. The outer ring blocks all creatures of 15th level or lower..
which means that the PCs can push through the circle and take 25 force damage. Doing this will break the circle.

The inner ring blocks all undead creatures of 20th level and lower and the PCs can pass it uninterupted. They can also break that circle if they want.


Rhuarc is seen racing to a center mauseleum, trying to reach what appears to be the torch on a coffin that is 80 squares in.
Hungry ghouls suddenly block his path and he diverts to a
nearby mauseluem. He moves through the mausoleum doors and closes them on the hungry ghouls that chase him there.

The mauseluem he enters is 60 squares away from the nearest edge of the magic circle.

Then to make it interesting:

The PC's will be able to see roiling Insanity Mist geysers, 10 of them spouting each turn in a random location
I used small d6's and tossed them into the battlefield. Each turn a geyser got incremented until it reached '6' on the dice, when it exploded. I re-rolled the d6's into empty areas of the battlefield after it blew... with results of a '6' going off right away.

The other thing to add to the entertainment is to give the PCs the option of using a ritual that does one of the following things for the encounter:
1> Limited Invisibility to undead, the PCs are invisible to any undead further than 10 squares away for the duration of the encounter.
2> Divine protection, the PCs get temp hit points equal to the ritual casters religion check
3> Divine vengeance, the PCs gain a the following power: At will immediate interupt, when hit by a melee attack the PC may make a melee basic attack. This attack deals radiant damage

Enemies:
9 Abyssal Ghouls, modded to inflict Slow instead of Paralyse
3 Wight Life Eaters (upleveled to 14th)
1 Charnal Hound
2 Wailing Ghosts (Banshees)


Insanity Mist Geyser Level 18 Blaster
Hazard XP 400
A geyser of necrotic energy explodes from the ground.
Hazard: The geyser becomes active when triggered.
Thereafter, it attacks every round on its initiative.
Perception
✦ DC 31: The character detects the geyser before moving
within 6 squares of it.
Additional Skill: Religion or Dungeoneering
✦ DC 27: The character recognizes the danger of the geyser
before moving within 6 squares of it.
Initiative +3
Trigger
The geyser rolls initiative when one or more characters move
within 6 squares of it.
Attack
Standard Action Close burst 3
Targets: Creatures in burst
Attack: +14 vs. Reflex
Special: Undead within the burst gain 10 temp hit points and deal an additional +1D6 poison damage on their next melee attack.
Hit: 3D10+ 6 necrotic and poison damage and followup.
Followup: +12 vs. Fortitude.
Hit: Dazed (save ends).
Miss: Half damage.


Countermeasure
✦ A character in the burst can minimize the damage of
the geyser with a DC 26 Acrobatics check made as an
immediate interrupt before the geyser’s attack. With a
successful check, the character takes half damage if the
geyser hits and no damage if it misses.


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Update: the final battle against Rhuarc played out tonight... and it went very well.. but man are 4e characters resiliant!

It was the 5th combat encounter of the day and I barely got the PCs down to half healing surges. Only one PC went down, and that was with 2 of the 3 leaders out for the night.
I did run almost everyone out of Dailies and Encounters by the end.. which is what Rhuarc had planned. He stepped in later into the battle after sniping from the side. But the Rogue handed him some serious damage.. Walking wounded followed by a fatal strike.. damn near killed Rhuarc by himself.

It was an epic, grand battle.. with a level of grit and danger. Rhuarc had Kashyk and three Tragedies to fight with him, along with an Everflame blaster trap.
What really tipped the tide was an early activation of the defenders bracers which gave him resist 10 versus the Bearded Devils ongoing damage for the encounter. Without that, the defender would have been down for the count and Kashyk open to cause hate and pain to the rest of the team.

It also didn't help that I had two round in which *every* bad guy attack missed. Which was mind-blowing as Rhuarc could hit the Rogue on a 7 or better.....

Anyway, it was all good. Looking forward to running the Trial at the monestry next session.