Help Us Kill Morrus - Just updated 23/03/05

[Eccles]

Yeah. Gamining tonight. Give us 2 or 3 hours and we'll be started.

Darmanicus has arranged for a couple of dictaphones and a bunch of tapes, and therefore I guess he's offering to do a proper write up.

It's a bit of a worry that his email earlier today was already describing this as the last session in the campaign, though...!

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

Very swift update. Just got back from the session and I've got to work tomorrow!

Anyway, it's not good.

We're about 3 rounds into the fight.

Opened up with a bunch of spells:

Fiendish T-Rex kept one of the Slaad busy but is about to drop. Didn't manage a single hit.
Wall of Force - disintegrated by the Slaadi king.
Confusion - laughed at it - everyone has will saves through the roof. (except for a few of us!)
I found out these Slaadi are immune to Sonics. Via a Quickened True Strike and an Empowered Sonic Orb. Doh!
One Slaad is trapped in a Force Cage. Soon to be disintegrated, I guess.
Cleric has been busy casting buffs, circles against evil and healing.
Direct damage has been the only stuff with any noticable effect, and it's not that impressive... They've laughed at firestorms and DB fireballs - and that's the stuff that can actually get through their resistances.

The fighters managed to close inside the pike range of one of the Slaad and have hurt it. They are truly monsterous. Many HP, ACs in the mid 30's, high DR and deal ~60 points of ALL VILE damage per round. Word of Chaos has deafened a couple of us.

The gits are nearly as bad. Soul Knives with a stack of anti spellcaster feats. They've hacked into our Wizard and Cleric, sending their Int and Wis plummeting. We've killed 1 of them...

The Queen is sat in an anti magic field hurling psionics at us. A 20D6 ultrablast hurt. Nearly as much as her dominating our Archer. Then using telekinisis to move him far away from the Circles against evil.

The King hasn't really engaged himself too heavily. Thrown a greater hexblade curse around, then chucked some spells from the cheap seats. Figuring his holy word will kill or paralyze...

The whole place is warded with a lock against ethereal travel and a teleport redirect - not to anywhere nice, I guess. Summons still work though.

To sum up: We've blown through our higher level stuff, resulting in 1 1/2 dead mooks. Most of us are still fairly healthy... apart from the dominated archer.

Current options:

On my next go - try the bluffing.
Teleport lucky dip - into the Queens prison I'm presuming?
Surrender.
TPK.

Seems about the size of it!

Still, it's all good fun and I guess that's what counts!

 

[Slife]

I think that the "psi resistant" gear you got actually is the cursed opposite. Would be just the type of thing he'd do. Experimentally toss the king one of the more easily removed pieces, and then bluff. Either:

A) it's real and the queen can tell that it is, making your bluff better,
B)Real, The queen can't tell, might add a little to the bluff,
C) it's cursed, the queen can tell, perhaps she suspects a triple cross. Might hurt your bluff, might do nothing. The queen can now attack the king psionically, but can't attack your party as well
D) Cursed, queen can't tell, same as B but now your party is better defended and the king isn't.



Oh, and when all else fails have all the characters pray to a diety of their choice. I'm sure I saw some sort of rule on that. You might get lucky and have some divine minions' help.

Or, if that fails too, shout hastur a lot and run. I mean, it can't hurt, can it?

 

[Dpulse303]

Well i enjoyed all of it ,came off pretty good i thought ,only lost 9 points of intelligence.

 

[Eccles]

Well i enjoyed all of it ,came off pretty good i thought ,only lost 9 points of intelligence.

Yeah, but you've turned invisible and left me on one exposed flank. Meaning that in 2 hits time I'll have lost so much Wisdom that I'm not going to be able to cast the one Restoration spell I memorised this morning.

And in 3 hits I'm going to effectively be a 6th level fighter.

Morrus is clearly waiting for us to pull the magical thing out of the bag. Unless he's actually aiming for a party capture. Which I'm not ruling out, but there must've been an easier way...!

And I'm sore tempted to post on the other thread just to tell everyone there that they're going on my list... Even if it means I have to start a list.

 

[azmodean]

Heh, OT as hell, but I just love it when players/characters get pissed off enough to start keeping a list. That lets me know they're really "in the game"

In one game, the DM liked putting jokes on everyone's character sheets. There were two fighters with an intense rivalry going named Kimber and... er, can't remember the other name. But anyway, at one point she had the skill "hating Kimber" on her sheet, with like a +15 bonus. Maybe it was only funny if you were there...

 

[der_kluge]

Heh! This is indeed great. Would you guys let us know what spells you have at your disposal now, and we can formulate a new plan of attack?

 

[Eccles]

OK. Updated spell list:

Domain Spells: Cure Light (Empowered), Cure Moderate (Empowered), Searing Light, Cure Critical (Empowered), Mass Cure Light Wounds (Empowered), Bolt of Glory
0 Level: Detect Magic, Purify Food & Drink, Read Magic.
Level 1: Bless, Detect Undead, Magic Weapon (2), Resurgence (2)
Level 2: Consecrate (2), Silence, Spiritual Weapon, Elation (2)
Level 3: Daylight, Prayer
Level 4: Dimensional Anchor, Restoration
Level 5: Flame Strike, Spell Resistance, Telepathy Block (2)
Level 6: Find the Path
Level 7: Summon Monster VII, Slime Wave

Oh, and I'm down to 2 turning attempts. 2 quickened turns and a heightened spell dealt with that lot...

My wisdom's dropped to 19, and if I get hit again by the villains I'm going to lose the ability to cast the Summon or the Slime Wave. It only goes downhill from there...

And the Slime Wave's got a Ref Negates type of save. Which means there's no point casting it, as the lowest enemy Ref save is +19.

I've got 3 or 4 more Sunbeam shots in hand, but it turns out they'll just dodge the blindness effect. It's going to end up as a "go down fighting" scenario. I hate to sound fatalistic, but I give us 2 rounds before it all starts to look properly belly up...

 

[Eccles]

Oh yeah. And unless we telekinese the archer back across the large room, we can't even flee into whatever hell-hole the teleport redirect will drop us into without sacrificing him. Which is nice. There's running away, and then there's sacrificing the party.

The thing is, we're on a quest to save the forces of good throughout the multiverse, so it would kinda sick if we got wiped out at this stage!

 

[Evilhalfling]

well it sounds like you guys are Fubar'ed did you take any of our suggestions? not that they would have helped much. Honestly, if Sladdi king can disintigrate, putting him in the FC wouldn't have helped. The solid fog might have done something, but I doubt your magic would have effected the queen. Are you guys allowed to read morrus's write up of the battle that is linked to the openng page? He lets a few things slip there.
Cast the restoration next as those mageslayers are ripping you apart, would it be worthwhile for the paladin (w/deathward) to try and grab the archer back? probably not.

Really you folks are toast.
best wishes,

PS I am going to head over and see if Morrus is working on a way to avoid a TPK.
which is what I would be doing at this point. Those mageslayers are ripping you apart, and the Sladdi king has yet to really wade in.