Motorskills
Explorer
Well that went.....places.
So the party (L11 x 7) was packing up in the feast hall of the Shrine to Annam. They were all set to oust WormBlod and Fryst, his recently-intelligent Adult White Dragon, from the Great Worm tribe. Credit to our druid, he proposed to use Windwalk, turns the whole party in gas, and they can get to the Great Worm clanhold very quickly, and without cold damage.
Our gridded floorplan can just about fit the whole of the Statue Room with 5x5 squares....that room is 280 x 280
As they were leaving the druid (highest PP) spots that the portal is open. they chit chat a bit and then a storm giantess walks out, and they give each other verbal.
The party doesn't recognise her as Iymrith (no idea why they didn't twig, we had just spent an hour recapping! )
She demands they leave this holy place, they give her grief. It kicks off almost immediately. At 7:1, the storm giantess goes down pretty fast, even with Foresight pre-loaded.
At that point she transforms into the Ancient Blue. This DOES take them by surprise. I is a happy DM.
So I had done a bit of research...trying to find out just how big an Ancient Blue actually is. Couldn't find much online, there were a few references to Ancient Red. However that kinda matched my guesstimate, so I went with my original plan.
Head: 20L x 20W (15' reach)
Body: 80L x 40W (15' reach, wings and claws)
Tail: 80L x 20W (20' reach, and see below)
So I had cut-outs for the three segments. This thing was ENORMOUS.
I sent the relevant PCs flying when she expanded into their space.
I gave her 4 Portent points (made four players roll them for me in secret, write down the number and sign it - all the better for the blamestorming later )
I treated the regular tail attack like the whip-pierce thing that the Alien Queen had, very evocative as a Legendary Action. Same damage as the book, but piercing.
I added another attack style - Tail Sweep - the tail can move 90 degrees, and everyone in the "cone" is hit. Same damage as the book, but bludgeoning, and a chance to get knocked thrown out of the cone and knocked prone (similar to the Legendary Wing attack).
The battle itself took a long time, and I needed to cheat hard all the way through.
I started off with giving her the standard HP, but by the end she had 750HP.
They countered a lot of her spells, and she quickly ran out of Legendary resists.
Her Contingency spell failed, as did her attempt to escape.
Wasn't looking at all good for Team Blue.
It was then that I revealed my Plan C (or maybe it was Plan E by that point).
The party "woke up" back in the Feast Hall, with everything exactly as it was before the fight.
A quick chat with the Oracle revealed that this had all been all a Foretell Future spell / ritual / something cast by Iymrth - she is an Omen-Reader after all - thanks [MENTION=6801060]Demetrios1453[/MENTION].
The Oracle gave them the same play-through as Imyrith had received.
So Iymrith knows all the about the party...and how massive a threat they are.
But she doesn't know that they know....
****
I already announced that I will be tweaking some of [her] stuff before another such fight. Principally with seven or eight bad (good!) guys beating on her she needs more Reactions / more Legendary Actions, and maybe more Legendary Resists, something along those lines.
I really like the Tail Sweep, very evocative, I'll probably make it a Legendary Action costing 2 points.
I also didn't use her Portents to proper effect, my bad (especially as I actually have a Portent Wizard in AL).
Her breath weapon is super nasty of course.
***
So after that, they executed their original plan to hit the Great Worm clan, with the ShaWoman Noori leading the way.
I kinda messed this whole thing up, but I'll figure it out, and I don't think the players realised how nonsense it all was.
Short version, they killed the dragon (who had been receiving insights from Iymrith and passing them onto Wormblod), and Wormblod. This allowed the true totem of the clan to be released (the Couatl). I'll patch the backstory when we next meet up in a few weeks, but the idea is that the party are now the heroes / saviours of the Great Worm tribe. Something like that.
So the deal was that the ShaWoman would give them the giant relic, which they now have. So they can use the shield to "fuel" the conch. I'm guessing they will head straight to Maelstrom, before Iymrith jumps them for real, but they have options in the desert, and also high above Parnast (Blagothkus as a straight swap for Sansuri).
***
Lessons learned...still working on that. But it's a damn long list.
So the party (L11 x 7) was packing up in the feast hall of the Shrine to Annam. They were all set to oust WormBlod and Fryst, his recently-intelligent Adult White Dragon, from the Great Worm tribe. Credit to our druid, he proposed to use Windwalk, turns the whole party in gas, and they can get to the Great Worm clanhold very quickly, and without cold damage.
Our gridded floorplan can just about fit the whole of the Statue Room with 5x5 squares....that room is 280 x 280
As they were leaving the druid (highest PP) spots that the portal is open. they chit chat a bit and then a storm giantess walks out, and they give each other verbal.
The party doesn't recognise her as Iymrith (no idea why they didn't twig, we had just spent an hour recapping! )
She demands they leave this holy place, they give her grief. It kicks off almost immediately. At 7:1, the storm giantess goes down pretty fast, even with Foresight pre-loaded.
At that point she transforms into the Ancient Blue. This DOES take them by surprise. I is a happy DM.
So I had done a bit of research...trying to find out just how big an Ancient Blue actually is. Couldn't find much online, there were a few references to Ancient Red. However that kinda matched my guesstimate, so I went with my original plan.
Head: 20L x 20W (15' reach)
Body: 80L x 40W (15' reach, wings and claws)
Tail: 80L x 20W (20' reach, and see below)
So I had cut-outs for the three segments. This thing was ENORMOUS.
I sent the relevant PCs flying when she expanded into their space.
I gave her 4 Portent points (made four players roll them for me in secret, write down the number and sign it - all the better for the blamestorming later )
I treated the regular tail attack like the whip-pierce thing that the Alien Queen had, very evocative as a Legendary Action. Same damage as the book, but piercing.
I added another attack style - Tail Sweep - the tail can move 90 degrees, and everyone in the "cone" is hit. Same damage as the book, but bludgeoning, and a chance to get knocked thrown out of the cone and knocked prone (similar to the Legendary Wing attack).
The battle itself took a long time, and I needed to cheat hard all the way through.
I started off with giving her the standard HP, but by the end she had 750HP.
They countered a lot of her spells, and she quickly ran out of Legendary resists.
Her Contingency spell failed, as did her attempt to escape.
Wasn't looking at all good for Team Blue.
It was then that I revealed my Plan C (or maybe it was Plan E by that point).
The party "woke up" back in the Feast Hall, with everything exactly as it was before the fight.
A quick chat with the Oracle revealed that this had all been all a Foretell Future spell / ritual / something cast by Iymrth - she is an Omen-Reader after all - thanks [MENTION=6801060]Demetrios1453[/MENTION].
The Oracle gave them the same play-through as Imyrith had received.
So Iymrith knows all the about the party...and how massive a threat they are.
But she doesn't know that they know....
****
I already announced that I will be tweaking some of [her] stuff before another such fight. Principally with seven or eight bad (good!) guys beating on her she needs more Reactions / more Legendary Actions, and maybe more Legendary Resists, something along those lines.
I really like the Tail Sweep, very evocative, I'll probably make it a Legendary Action costing 2 points.
I also didn't use her Portents to proper effect, my bad (especially as I actually have a Portent Wizard in AL).
Her breath weapon is super nasty of course.
***
So after that, they executed their original plan to hit the Great Worm clan, with the ShaWoman Noori leading the way.
I kinda messed this whole thing up, but I'll figure it out, and I don't think the players realised how nonsense it all was.
Short version, they killed the dragon (who had been receiving insights from Iymrith and passing them onto Wormblod), and Wormblod. This allowed the true totem of the clan to be released (the Couatl). I'll patch the backstory when we next meet up in a few weeks, but the idea is that the party are now the heroes / saviours of the Great Worm tribe. Something like that.
So the deal was that the ShaWoman would give them the giant relic, which they now have. So they can use the shield to "fuel" the conch. I'm guessing they will head straight to Maelstrom, before Iymrith jumps them for real, but they have options in the desert, and also high above Parnast (Blagothkus as a straight swap for Sansuri).
***
Lessons learned...still working on that. But it's a damn long list.