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

[der_kluge]

well it sounds like you guys are Fubar'ed did you take any of our suggestions?

Well, it looks like, from the story, they didn't really take the suggestions, but that's ok. They're not screwed yet. I can't recall if the cleric was being attacked immediately, or not. One thing in they're favor is that they're largely undamaged.

If I were the cleric, I'd immediately cast prayer. Those +1s for everyone, and -1s for the enemy are gonna make a big difference. Next round, toss up that spiritual weapon - an extra attack is always handy to have around. I don't think I'd sacrifice the restoration until the gith are out of my high, otherwise you'll just need another one.

I agree. The slime wave is probably a last resort kind of spell. I'd only toss that if you've got a round to spare. The summon monster VII is going to come in handy, but if you're currently getting attacked, it's far too risky. Save that one if you manage to get the Gith off of you.

 

[Shoren]

Just a thought, can the Consecrate Spells be used to counter the negative energy?

 

[The_Warlock]

Ok, doesn't look good (of course that's what my PCs said when the Very Old Green dragon appeared - and they killed her without even a death - though there were a couple whack-a-PC healing events).

Suggestions:
Summon something, ANYTHING, to keep those mageslayers off you.

Use the Slime wave while you still have the stats to cast it - it doesn't allow SR, and a 1 on a reflex save is still a failure, even for a Slaad and gith mageslayers, and that would screw them out of hit points fast. Really, if you are boned, might as well try it.

Is the archer dominated and IN the queens anti-magic field? If not - get somebody over there and either cast a protection from evil on him, or subdue his woodsy butt. If you can't reliably restore him to your team, putting him down gently at least means he ain't on their side.

Wait, what is Telepathy Block? Does that block ANY telepathic intrusion into a mind? If so, can you put it on the ranger to stop the "telepathic"
commands the Gith is giving him? If yes...do it, you sure need a missile silo more than they do.

I absolutely agree with the prayer casting, and any other group buffs, if you can't reliably affect your enemies with spells, affect yourselves.

Also, anything you can do to keep the Slaad King from seeing you seems to be a good thing. If he can't target you, he can't disintegrate you.

On a side note, if you could summon a templated mind flayer, they are CR 8, you'd have to find a +1 CR template to fit them in on you summon sevens. Or an elemental - something with high Con, high DR to soak more damage for you.

Anybody got Polymorph? 3.5 rules grant you the type (egads!!), so turn into a treant (plant creature) or something else that is inherently resistant to mental attacks like an Ooze of some sort (I've always like black puddings, since if you hit you get a chance to ruin certain types of materials outside the normal modus operandi of "Character didn't fails save, items are hunky dory")

That's all I got...

 

[Jdvn1]

Just a thought, can the Consecrate Spells be used to counter the negative energy?

I don't think it works that way.

And welcome to the boards!

 

[Toras]

A few minor tips, if I may. Things may look bleak but I think it might still swing your way
1)Those gith have got to die. I can not stress this enough. That ability damage will cripple your main advantage (magic) and ruin the effectiveness of those casters. If this means the tanks catch some vile damage from the frog men of doom, that is the price your going to have to pay if you want to have a shot. Once they are ex-gith, you can restore and get your casting effectiveness back.

2) Get your archer back. After making the gith dead this is high on the list, as it shifts the numerical advantage back on to your side. Paladin is the most likely candidate, have him bullrush the archer out of the antimagic and regroup as best you can (as of now, the two of them are joined at the hip)

3) If you've managed to make it to this, it means your shifting things in your favor. Continue this with Summons. These will throw some fodder the slaads way, leaving you a little time to catch your breath and maneuver.

4)Try to avoid engaging the slaadi in direct combat (except for the king, who will hopefully stay on the side lines for as long as possible) Try pour on the direct damage (focus on one at a time). Only engage in terms of two or three. Summons help here as well. (Shambling mounds, etc.)

5)Fighters to your places. Double and triple teaming the litch queen at this staged with melee stomping is definitely the way to go. The casters (and what summons that survive), can engage the king slaad and hopefully last until the day is one.

6)Skip to this step if things have gone completely done the sewer.
-Bluffing could work, especially if you can kill the gith, as this weakens the Queens position strongly. (Convince the King that A. All his troops are alive B. Her bodyguard isn't C. With her dead, he can easily rule the Gith through fear.)
-Unconventional Tactics (What's the break DC for Gith bones in a grapple? Can I gouge out her eyes? Wrestle the Slaadi into bag, turn bag inside out and destroy. Make the litch drink holy water, etc. ) The less he can see them coming the better.
-Prison (yeah giving up sucks, but prison breaks are easier than back from the dead breaks)
-Divine Intervension. I know the old 3.0 divine book had rules for it, but not sure if 3.5 does. If not, just pray really really hard.
-Portalable hole + Haversack (two extra dimensional spaces = bad things or Astral rift/escape area)

That's all I got for right now. Hope things turn out well.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

We've used quite a number of the suggestions from this thread... Divide and conquer the 'mooks', forcecages, walls of force, confusion, summoning... it's messy! Saving the bluff as a near final gambit...

Ah well, what did I expect. Just the mooks would be an exceptionally tough fight. Never mind their leaders!


I could try hooking the archer back with my own telekinisis, which is what the queen used. Unfortunately we buffed his Will save to the point where it's fairly unlikely to work with my DCs

I'd neglected Solid Fog - needs to come out and play. I'll dump one on the king, queen and archer. If nothing else, it'll provide some distraction. Either that or the mage slayers... If they've not got freedom of movement or gusts of wind, it'll delay for a while.

I'll try some D4+1 summons - they're weak, but might distract for a round or two.

Guess the priority is to stop the mage slayers hitting our cleric.

Portalable hole + Haversack (two extra dimensional spaces = bad things or Astral rift/escape area)

I think this one came up as a halfway serious suggestion just before we started the session... Getting more serious by the minute

As far as unconventional goes, I wonder if we could steal the Kings Crown - it reputedly offers total immunity to psionics... for whatever that's worth!

Rather than just surrender, I'd be tempted to find out where her teleport redirect goes - just from curiosity.

 

[Voodoo]

If you solid fog the 2 reamining gith and the paladin can charge over and get the archer inside a working protection from evil, the balance between the kings forces and queens forces suddenly becomes very one sided. With a good bluff it might be enough to get the queen to attack the king or, if he is immune to psionics, to retreat.

The Antimagic Field is going to screw with the effectiveness of summoning a Red Slaad to attack the queen. Other options might be to summon an Avoral Guardinal if the archer is outside the antimagic field, it could put up a Magic Circle vs Evil and get the archer back on side.

Do the summoning things out of place rules only apply to Conjuration (summoning)? What about Conjuration (creation)? OK this is a bit of a blag, but things are looking desperate at this point. You could summon a Djinni and get it to use its Major creation spell-like. As far as I can tell things created by Major creation arn't effected by anti magic once they've been made (i could be very wrong here, anyone care to comment?) a 20 cubic-ft block of adamanantine above the throne sounds good about now.

The other characters spell lists would be good, also any scrolls, potions and bits of magical tat might be worth listing, who knows we might be able to save you with a Qualls Feather Token

 

[Seeten]

This is some fun stuff.

The Slaad King has been kept busy with disintegrating force walls and such, and thats a fine way to tie him up. I'd keep tying him up, after I killed or permanently disabled all ability drainers.

Samurai and Paladin need to get into melee with gith and tear them up. They will, if left alone, make even more of a mess of the casters.

Someone needs to protect that archer.

 

[Darmanicus]

Morrus is clearly waiting for us to pull the magical thing out of the bag.

I already did that, all 5 of ya, reckon I coulda done better with the rangers bag o' tricks!

BtW with regards to whoever said we've ignored their tactics, we might of missed one or two tricks such as Solid Fog etc however I had 2 Slaad on me in one round, Ozric had 1 Gith whilst the other two got shots in straight away. The area we are fighting in is not that large and has no real cover to take advantage of. I've hit the Slaadi melee mook about 6 times and four of those were smites with one critical and he's STILL breathing, (so far we've calculated at least 220 damage just by me on that one Slaad.......it's a monster, literally!!!

As we've also mentioned, their saves are absolutely astronomical. We know for a fact that the Gith have 15HD and I'm sure it's the same for the Slaad so basically we're fighting an equal level party AND the king and queen who are epic for sure, (20d6 Ultrablast from the queen, Disintegrates for the king).

I agree with the idea of definitely stopping the Gith however I'm virtually the only thing in the way of the two Slaad and our casters, (apart from walls and a soon to be dead T-Rex).

I think I'm gonna try to get me tiger out, it should work since I'm right next to the Slaad and they cannot hit me with those damn pikes, (for some reason Russ has either forgot that he can use their natural attacks on me or they just don't deign me as anything more than a minor inconvenience!).

I'm hacking away at the write up for Tuesday at the moment so please be patient as I can only do it at work. Hopefully I should be fully online in the next two months. At the latest I'll have it posted by next Tuesday.

 

[Moorcrys]

I would throw up a solid fog, or hell even an obscuring mist (or an illusion of an obscuring mist), as close to that lich queen (and if possible the slaad king) and her throne as possible. It will force the archer to move out of her immediate area of influence to get good shots at you (and possibly back into your spheres of protection). It may force her or the king to at least spend a round getting rid of the effect or enhancing vision to see through it -- so it has a good shot of at least ruining their attacks for a round and buying you a small amount of time to try and kill those mage-slayers. They're going to crush you -- you need your spells or you're screwed.

Moorcrys