Eccles said:
Known facts (metagame potential is high!):
1. Gith Queen is a potentially epic level psionic lich. SR25+
2. Slaad king is what, a fighter? Wielding a spiked chain indicates that.
3. 3 'lesser' gith may be between 14th and 20th level fighters. Armour and big swords doesn't preclude them being psionic, but they're behaving like 'thump-it-mooks'. SR 20+
4. Big scary slaad are big, scary slaad. With reach weapons. Which drain levels. 15 foot reach not impossible. Dunno about SR or other special abilities.
5. I've got a 7th summon, but better things to do with my time. And it's likely to get swapped out for a Heal spell pretty soon. Others have few summons worth a damn.
6. Reliq's animal companion is still available as a resource.
7. Other resources: 3 spellcasters, 2 fighters, 1 archer. Terrain really doesn't suit our archer. Assuming he can't shoot through the walls. Which is possible...
8. 4 members of the party can fly.
That sounds like a pretty fair summing up of what we face. To understate heavily: It doesn't look good.
Eccles said:
Unknown facts:
1. What the heck they want us dead for. Apart from principle. And it's probably the paladin's fault. Something he said to someone...
2. Why the two are working together. The symbol on the door to this place was of both of them. You don't carve masonry unless you've been working together for a long time.
3. Whether either of them could be persuaded to double-cross the other.
4. Whether the Slaad-King has given the phylactery back to his ally. (Pretty likely).
5. Whether the room is indeed rigged to stop teleportation. Or flight. Anti teleportation effects may also nix the Ghostform spell.
6. What else the room can do.
7. How nasty those damn walls are if you run into 'em.
8. Whether the Death Ward will protect the paladin if he starts trying to manoevre through the walls to get the drop on the enemies.
9. If the archer can shoot through the walls. If he can, he can hammer at them whilst they're coming at us. Although damage reduction's going to knacker that.
10. Which direction they're coming from, and how badly they're going to get flanked.
11. If a Wall of Force will will block the moving walls of death (tm).
There's some good what if there. Paladin fault sounds right to me. I'll feel better blaming someone else for this mess! Although my current theory is that they're both bored, decadent, sadistic and confident of their supreme power. Probably with good reason.
Guess we need to test for teleport lock, flight, arrows and spells. Only 1 way I can think of to do that...
The door carving does indicate some pretty permenant sort of arrangement. Guess the king must spend a fair bit of time here. The coridoor outside would be very hard for the living to cross in any sensible way - energy drain and 5X20D6 of fireballs isn't nice. Wonder if there's a saner way into and out of here?
Testing the strength of their friendship is definitely worth a go.
Thinking about it, we did find her phalyctery in the hands of a Slaad. No matter how close allies we were, I wouldn't entrust my immortal soul/sole weakness into the hands of some sadistic chaos frogmen. We don't even have to take the kings word that it's her phalyctery - after all, the High Priest of Raziel shared that detail with us?
And I wonder if he did give it back?
Eccles said:
Conclusions:
1. Scream out at the queen to find out whether the phyllactery has been returned. Chances of bluffing her that he's told us he's done something to it next time she dies? He's chaotic, after all. Plausible.
2. Chances of bluffing her we've sabotaged the phyllactery? Pretty low.
3. Reliq has a chance of walking through the walls. Let's not risk it unless we have to But it could be useful.
4. Reliq should be resistant to the level drain. But not to the big nasty wounds from the weapons.
5. If archer can shoot through walls (or if spells will travel through), and if Walls of Force are available, it's a good idea to let them come in and then trap them at the end of a long corridor.
6. We're going to have to be very careful to make sure that we don't get split up by those darn walls. As long as 'flying over them' isn't an option.
I'm reasonably confident we can take out the 6 thugs. It's the other two I'm worried about...
Someone else's turn.
Trapping them sounds good.
Quite right, think we should be able to deal with the thugs. With some good on the spot thinking and some luck it should be hard but doable. The rest is not going to be easy.