In my session yesterday the party reached 22nd level. I think in my earier post when I said the PCs were 6000 XP short I miscalculated - it was more like 9000. And the fight with the temple of Lolth took more than a whole 3 hour session in itself - as I said to my players, warm up your dice-rolling arms for this one because they're not going to get much rest!
Anyway, the PCs butchered the temple without mercy. It was long, it was bloody, it was 26th level overall (against a 21st level party of 5) but they came through with around 20 surges used, and probably 2 dailies each as well. The opponents were mostly levelled-up, and MM3-ed, from Demon Queen's Enclave, but I had also put a frost giant in there (an allusion to broader plot elements in the game that the players can pick up on if they want to) as well as an ogre (whom I classify as Giants - the 4e rules are a bit back-and-forth on this) and the dwarven PC was taken over by his giant-slaying mordenkrad artefact ("Overwhelm") and went nuts but got both kills.
The PCs then went to try and track down Zirithian, the drow vampire who is resposible for the crisis in Phaervorul. They therefore invaded his (former) home, defeating his vampiric offsider Lareen (who after an initial readied action went down before her first turn came up in the initiatitve sequence), many vampire spawn and a couple of insubstantial undead. This 22nd level fight was very, very different from the temple one - I think maybe 2 surges were used, and perhaps one daily power because the circumstances were right.
The session ended with the PCs searching the house. They found the portal to the pocket plane where Zirithian is located (I am cutting out the Deadhold sequence that is in P2 - the gating sphere that is in the pocket plane of floating slabs will lead straight into the ziggurat, via the skill challenge); they also found a ring on the dead vampire's finger. The paladin recognised it as a ring of death, dedicated to Orcus. When the player asked if the ring could be turned to serve the Raven Queen, I said that it could. In the fiction, this meant wrestling with Orcus - when I asked the player if Tillen (the paladin) was ready to spiritually confront Orcus and try and best him, he replied without skipping a beat "I relish the opportunity!" Mechanically, I indicated that success would require a DC 36 Religion check (ie Hard lvel 22). His Religion starts at +16, so his prospects weren't good. He got a +2 from assistance from the ranger-cleric and the invoker, both of whom also serve the Raven Queen - still not really enough. I asked him if he wanted to call on Pazrael, who had earlier offered him a +5 boon in any future confrontation with Orcus - at first he was hesitant, but I increased the temptation by telling him what the ring would convert to if he succeeded, namely, a Ring of Tenacious Will (and he is a CHA-paladin). So he decided to go for it.
The invoker was pretty worried by this trafficking with demons, though, and so his book imp called upon its patron (Levistus, "The Master Trapped in Ice") to block Pazrael's influence and add his own boon. In a conflict of Religion between invoker and paladin there really is no contest (with the invoker's bonus being +36), and so this blocked the +5 from Pazrael and turned it into a +2 from the Hells.
The roll was not very good - a 4, I think, which with the +22 went to 26, or one short of a Medium level 22 DC. I let the player spend an Action Point for +2 to tip it over the threshold, and then applied costs of success: 4d12+12 fire damage from Levistus's channelled power, and 4d12+12 psychic damage from Pazrael's fury at having his influence blocked (luckily the paladin is a tiefling, which reduced the fire damage). So he turned the ring to the Raven Queen's purposes, but it burns him also, reminding him of Levistus's role in the process. It is unlikely that anyone else in the party could wear it to any effect (though the CHA sorcerer would dearly like it!).
This was the conclusion of the session, but it seems likely that more of these cosmological conflicts will play out over the course of epic tier.
Anyway, the PCs butchered the temple without mercy. It was long, it was bloody, it was 26th level overall (against a 21st level party of 5) but they came through with around 20 surges used, and probably 2 dailies each as well. The opponents were mostly levelled-up, and MM3-ed, from Demon Queen's Enclave, but I had also put a frost giant in there (an allusion to broader plot elements in the game that the players can pick up on if they want to) as well as an ogre (whom I classify as Giants - the 4e rules are a bit back-and-forth on this) and the dwarven PC was taken over by his giant-slaying mordenkrad artefact ("Overwhelm") and went nuts but got both kills.
The PCs then went to try and track down Zirithian, the drow vampire who is resposible for the crisis in Phaervorul. They therefore invaded his (former) home, defeating his vampiric offsider Lareen (who after an initial readied action went down before her first turn came up in the initiatitve sequence), many vampire spawn and a couple of insubstantial undead. This 22nd level fight was very, very different from the temple one - I think maybe 2 surges were used, and perhaps one daily power because the circumstances were right.
The session ended with the PCs searching the house. They found the portal to the pocket plane where Zirithian is located (I am cutting out the Deadhold sequence that is in P2 - the gating sphere that is in the pocket plane of floating slabs will lead straight into the ziggurat, via the skill challenge); they also found a ring on the dead vampire's finger. The paladin recognised it as a ring of death, dedicated to Orcus. When the player asked if the ring could be turned to serve the Raven Queen, I said that it could. In the fiction, this meant wrestling with Orcus - when I asked the player if Tillen (the paladin) was ready to spiritually confront Orcus and try and best him, he replied without skipping a beat "I relish the opportunity!" Mechanically, I indicated that success would require a DC 36 Religion check (ie Hard lvel 22). His Religion starts at +16, so his prospects weren't good. He got a +2 from assistance from the ranger-cleric and the invoker, both of whom also serve the Raven Queen - still not really enough. I asked him if he wanted to call on Pazrael, who had earlier offered him a +5 boon in any future confrontation with Orcus - at first he was hesitant, but I increased the temptation by telling him what the ring would convert to if he succeeded, namely, a Ring of Tenacious Will (and he is a CHA-paladin). So he decided to go for it.
The invoker was pretty worried by this trafficking with demons, though, and so his book imp called upon its patron (Levistus, "The Master Trapped in Ice") to block Pazrael's influence and add his own boon. In a conflict of Religion between invoker and paladin there really is no contest (with the invoker's bonus being +36), and so this blocked the +5 from Pazrael and turned it into a +2 from the Hells.
The roll was not very good - a 4, I think, which with the +22 went to 26, or one short of a Medium level 22 DC. I let the player spend an Action Point for +2 to tip it over the threshold, and then applied costs of success: 4d12+12 fire damage from Levistus's channelled power, and 4d12+12 psychic damage from Pazrael's fury at having his influence blocked (luckily the paladin is a tiefling, which reduced the fire damage). So he turned the ring to the Raven Queen's purposes, but it burns him also, reminding him of Levistus's role in the process. It is unlikely that anyone else in the party could wear it to any effect (though the CHA sorcerer would dearly like it!).
This was the conclusion of the session, but it seems likely that more of these cosmological conflicts will play out over the course of epic tier.
