Player tactics help needed.... (Epic-Level game)

Hey all,

I am currently playing in a Epic Level Forgotten Realms 3.5 game. I need help on tactics versus the (current) big, bad, evil NPC (both roleplaying and combat). I am not quite certain what to do with/to him.

Cast List:
Half-celestial paladin of Tyr
Half-celestial druid
Elven archer
Human psion (3.0 version, as the 3.5 book is not out yet)
Human 2-weapon Dex fighter/Devoted Defender (affectionally called The Fop)
Human sorcerer/dragon disciple
Human cleric of Sune - name: Desiree (my character)
The current NPC is an human bard/Loremaster, and we have NPC Fop2 that we picked up last game session (don't know how long he is going to be around yet - see below).

Nemesis:
Vincent, Desiree's ex-fiance. He died in my character history. Imagine my surprise when he showed up several years after his death, wanting to renew the relationship.
He is an epic-level mage/archmage, and a Worm That Walks from the Epic Level Handbook (one word: eewww).

Additional Info:
In the Forgotten Realms, Sune is the Goddess of Beauty and Love.
Tyr is the God of Justice.
We are all ranging from 21st to 24th character level.
My character is High Priestess of her own temple.

Story thus far: (optional read)
I've attempted to edit this for clarity. The full history is at http://www.angelfire.com/retro/goddess_fa/roleplaying/DesireeHistory.html.

My character Desiree was engaged to a Count (Vincent). He died in a magical accident, and could not be raised from the dead magically (I tried). After his death, Desiree was... 'comforted' by 2 of his rivals (not at the same time, get your mind out of the gutter).

About 5 years after his death, the followers of the Sune who attended her temple began to lose their beauty (minuses to CHA). While praying for Sune to discover what has happened to the faithful, her ex-fiance showed up, cowled and robed. He spoke of how Desiree had once loved him, and was once engaged to marry him - and of his wish to renew that courtship and have her once again. But when he extended his robed arm to her, bits of grave earth and several maggots dropped from his sleeve. She naturally showed revulsion to his suggestion and spurned him - and he grew angry. He said that the curse he had placed on her temple would continue, and "that both she and the worshippers of Sune that attended her church would know what it was like to be feared and reviled for their appearance".

That is all backstory. She met up with the group by petitioning a temple of Tyr for help (they introduced her to the paladin). The PCs tracked Vincent down to one of his old residences. There, they encountered several people from a very powerful planar mercenary company that had been hired to protect him (and, according to comments made by them, not hired by him, but for him). We battle. We get our butts handed to us. We barely escape, half of our party unconscious, but not yet dead, the paladin's holy sword (the weapon ability, not a Holy Avenger) shattered by the blackguard that was with the mercenaries (who was ecstatically using Sunder). Vincent never shows his face (not that he really has one anymore).

We take a break and go get the paladin's Holy Avenger (epic version). (His god kindly sent him a vision. ) While preparing to go take on ex-fiance and group again, Desiree gets a message from her church that the curse is now starting to affect the priests. (uh-oh...)

We track them down to the mercenary companies fortress on the Astral Plane. Fortunately, the bulk of the forces are leaving for an assignment as we arrive. We sneak into the fortress and confront mercenaries and, this time, Vincent. After a bit of dialog (in which time Vincent reveals that the two rivals Desiree had a fling with were the same two who had him murdered, and calls Desiree several grandmother-offending things), we get attacked - with two Disjunctions. One from each of the mages. Eck.

The Fop loses all of his equipment. The paladin loses everything except his Holy Avenger. everyone else loses a few things, but are still in the running (actually, so is the paladin and The Fop, but that's beside the point). Fop2, who is one of the mercenaries, and didn't want to fight us (or, rather, Desiree) in the first encounter (yea for a 39 CHA) finds his fellows' tactics dishonorable and switches sides. (Thus his mention in the Cast List, above).

Tough battle - several PCs are badly wounded, The Fop dies taking a blow for Desiree, Desiree fails a saving throw against a save-or-die spell from one of the mages, Fop2 dies avenging her death (but succeeds in doing so). The archer and psion manage to trap Vincent inside of a portable hole (amusing) and grab the downed PCs, the druid Plane Shifts everyone to Mount Celestia. Portable hole is opened to turn the celestials lose on Vincent - but he has already Plane Shifted out of it. Everyone gets raised and healed. (Several PCs are still short magic items, however).

So, what now? How do we take on this villan?

Edit: Forgot to add one rather interesting little detail:
During the last battle (see above), Vincent was ranting quite a bit (calling Desiree some very un-Eric's-Grandmother-friendly things, for one) and one of the things he said was that maybe Sune herself turned away from the temple and its problems, because of my pride and vanity. He asked me how many of the followers, priests and priestess afflicted had hidden themselves away to curse Sune for forsaking them. Desiree knows that the answer is all that have been thus afflicted so far. He then said that if she would marry him, he would remove the curse after the marriage was consumated (eeeewwwwww!!!!). This after he greeted her with: "So the faithless *bleep* returns to me." Go figure...

I believe the players who lost equipment need to find some new magic items. This can be worked into a quest to find out more information about Vincent. The other PCs could help their allies, or perhaps arrange a deal to have assistance in exchange for performing the quest. Even the Forgotten Realms setting, Epic Level Wizards are fairly rare. Perhaps Vincent has some enemies or allies that the players should look up. These actions can provide for a great deal of adventuring and role playing fun. (Vincent could not have reached high level without annoying someone. So there may even be a few NPCs the PCs do not like who might have common cause in defeating him.)

As for defeating a Worm that Walks, you need to ensure that none of the maggots gets away. Possibly casting a very thin wall of force on the floor and walls at the start of the next combat might work. Or a prismatic wall cast horizontally.

I would also suggest that there may be ways to make the maggots move in a a certain direction. A creeping doom spell would be a way to take out the maggots as well.

It would also help to get a drop on Vincent and the mages. Perhaps provide a useful distraction and strike while they are busy with the distraction. Possible PC allies could provide the distraction, while the group closes in for the kill.

You said that several of the maggots dropped from Vincent's sleave. Perhaps they discorporated and are now infecting the priests and priestesses at your character's Temple.

I hope this helps, sorry if it seems a bit disjointed. It's pretty late here.

William Ronald said:

I believe the players who lost equipment need to find some new magic items.

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Working on it...

William Ronald said:

Perhaps Vincent has some enemies or allies that the players should look up. These actions can provide for a great deal of adventuring and role playing fun.

Click to expand...

Checking that out this next game session... however, it looks like he is now cleaning house. The 2 rivals that Desiree dated after his death, who happened to be 2 of his biggest rivals (over little ol' me! - they lost the original courtship of Desiree ) are both already dead.

William Ronald said:

As for defeating a Worm that Walks, you need to ensure that none of the maggots gets away. Possibly casting a very thin wall of force on the floor and walls at the start of the next combat might work. Or a prismatic wall cast horizontally.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, we do not have a mage - and both of those spells can only be cast vertically, per the spell. I was thinking of damaging him enough to discorporate, then Fire Storming the area... but I am not sure that would work. We'd have to be far too quick and lucky to make sure that not even one gets away.

William Ronald said:

I would also suggest that there may be ways to make the maggots move in a a certain direction. A creeping doom spell would be a way to take out the maggots as well.

Click to expand...

We were hesitant to use Creeping Doom because of the affinity for vermin the Worm That Walks has... and, like the Fire Storm idea, we'd have to be quick.

William Ronald said:

It would also help to get a drop on Vincent and the mages. Perhaps provide a useful distraction and strike while they are busy with the distraction. Possible PC allies could provide the distraction, while the group closes in for the kill.

Click to expand...

Well, there was only 1 other mage besides Vincent, and he died last fight (in the Story So Far, he was the one who killed Desiree with a save-or-die spell and Fop2 took him out - but ended up dieing from the mage's protections).

The problem is that we didn't do a clean sweep of Vincent and his lackeys. Vincent escaped, as did the epic-level monk who was one of the mercenaries (well... technically, we grabbed Vincent and the bodies and Plane Shifted away from the battlefield, but close enough). Unfortunately, Vincent got away, which leaves him free to get more reinforcements - and, the mercenaries' comments about the one that hired them to guard Vincent were not comforting to the players - nor was the DM's evil grin when asked about it.

William Ronald said:

You said that several of the maggots dropped from Vincent's sleave. Perhaps they discorporated and are now infecting the priests and priestesses at your character's Temple.

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I never thought of that....

Also, during the last battle, Vincent was ranting quite a bit (calling Desiree some very un-Eric's-Grandmother-friendly things, among other things) and one of the things he said was that maybe Sune herself turned away from the temple and its problems, because of my pride and vanity. He asked me how many of the followers, priests and priestess afflicted had hidden themselves away to curse Sune for forsaking them. Desiree knows that the answer is all that have been thus afflicted so far.

William Ronald said:

I hope this helps, sorry if it seems a bit disjointed. It's pretty late here.

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Yes, thank you for replying!!!!!!!!

*bump*

I know it's long, but the background part is pretty optional.... I still need advice!

Its a bit hard to suggest what you should use, I only have 1 epic character and she's a wizard.
For her opening round it would involve a quicked Dim-Anchor on WtW + a defensive spell so she dosnt get nuked herself.
2nd round would probably involve a quickened and chained disintergrate under his feet and an intensified acid fog down the hole for him to play in.
3rd round, keep the bastard down the hole, giggle at the screaming...
(she's a firm believer in making BBEG's die like a punk)

Is there anything in your casters arsenal of spells that could mimic those effects, you need a dimensional anchor, it both stops the punk getting away and if need be, lets you bail out without getting followed.

What the rest of the party could concentrate on is killing off his minions in the next encounter, the main spell casters in the group are the only ones who can take out the WtW.
Noticing that most of them are either templated PC's I'd immediatly start looking for spells that give NO Save and NO Spell resistance, particually some of the bigger and uglier conjuration effects.
If not, buy some scrolls.

Thresher said:

Its a bit hard to suggest what you should use, I only have 1 epic character and she's a wizard.
For her opening round it would involve a quicked Dim-Anchor on WtW + a defensive spell so she dosnt get nuked herself.
2nd round would probably involve a quickened and chained disintergrate under his feet and an intensified acid fog down the hole for him to play in.
3rd round, keep the bastard down the hole, giggle at the screaming...
(she's a firm believer in making BBEG's die like a punk)

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I love this!

Thresher said:

What the rest of the party could concentrate on is killing off his minions in the next encounter, the main spell casters in the group are the only ones who can take out the WtW.
Noticing that most of them are either templated PC's I'd immediatly start looking for spells that give NO Save and NO Spell resistance, particually some of the bigger and uglier conjuration effects.
If not, buy some scrolls.

Click to expand...

That's what we ended up thinking we're going to be doing. Some of the players had a short little brain-storming session sans DM yesterday.

Thanks for everyone who replied!