I ran a 4e session earlier today.
The previous session the PCs were fighting a Discord Incarnate and its undead friends atop their Thundercloud Tower, which was hovering above the pit inside the Room with No Doors, 10' or so above a flickering portal to the Abyss which was hanging in the air half-way down the pit.
This session began with the continuation of that fight. The Discord Incarnate was getting the better of the PCs - in part because they were holding back, wanting to keep powers in reserve to deal with Lolth and/or Orcus. But they decided to cut loose a bit more, and the tide of the battle fairy quickly turned.
At the end of the fight, all that was left were four angelic mockeries that the Discord Incarnate had summoned. These minions have a burst-on-death ability, and the players' number one priority was to conserve surges. So the paladin decided to bull rush the last of the mockeries and push it over the edge of the tower, so that it would fall 90' or so to the bottom of the pit and explode harmlessly. Now the paladin has winged boots, and so can fall without taking damage, and I offered the player a -2 penalty to the minion's save to go over the edge if the paladin went over with it. He took the offer, and proceeded to tackle the minion over the edge.
The plan worked, in so far as the mockery fell down and exploded without hurting anyone else at the bottom of the pit. But the paladin took two OAs on the way down - one from a spectre that had fled the combat in the previous session, and one from the atropal that was lurking beneath the portal.
The players had been planning to use Mass Cure Serious Wounds to help deal with the healing surge situation, but having the paladin in a combat at the bottom of the pit interfered with that plan. So the invoker/wizard used his Arcane Gate utility to open a portal between the top of the tower and the bottom of the pit. The PCs all ran through it, and the cleric-ranger then used an action point to both cast his Cure spell and cast Cloak of Courage to give everyone temp hit points. Then the fight against the spectre and atropal was on.
It was a short fight. The invoker-wizard used Twist of Fate to confine them both to basic attacks at a -7 penalty for a turn. Playing the atropal, I decided to save my action point for the next round, when I would have a more realistic chance of hitting with my AoE, but I didn't get a second round. The sorcerer/bard used Climactic Chord to give everyone an ultra-buffed free attack, and the atropal was taken down before its turn came around again.
The invoker/wizard realised that it was a godling spawned from the essence of Miska the Wolf-Spider mixed with a fragment of the Rod of Seven Parts, which scattered after being used to kill Miska. He recovered the fragment of the Rod embedded within the atropal, and joined it to the existing fragments of the Rod, making him the last of the PCs to get a +6 implement.
He then studied the portal, while the dwarf fighter/cleric tried to solve the problem of fitting the Thundercloud Tower down the pit. The problem was a stone staircase running around the inside perimeter, which made it impossible to lower the Tower down as far as the portal. Unfortunately, with a roll of 6 or better needed on d20 the player rolled a 4, and so the dwarf took 40-ish points of damage from exertion, but failed to break away enough of the stair with his oversized Mordenkrad. So the sorcerer took up the challenge, changing into a Huge primordial of lightning and thunder (his epic destiny utility power) and using Demonsoul Bolts to blast away at the stone. He succeeded in clearing away enough of the staircase to be able to pilot the Tower down the pit to the level of the portal.
In the meantime, the invoker/wizard had attuned to the portal. At first it was leading to the deepest reaches of the Abyss, where the madness of that plane is located (and it virtually winds back to touch the Astral Sea) - but then when the sorcerer unleashed Demonsoul Bolts its destination changed, to the Demonweb Pits - from where the demonsouls were being channelled. The invoker locked in that destination, and they all boarded the Tower to travel to Lolth's domain. The paladin (via his player) was urging an extended rest, but the others wanted to keep going, and the party had action points all round (from a level 32 combat vs the undead in the Room with No Doors) and over 25 surges between them. That surge number unfortunately got reduced by one each, as the player of the sorcerer rolled poorly on his Arcana check to pilot the Tower through the portal, and they took a mixture of physical damage from the tight squeeze in the pit, and blast-y arcane damage from passing through a portal to the Abyss.
Anticipating the likelihood of an assault on Lolth before I left home for the session, I had packed my copy of Q1, which I now broke out. I also discovered that the module is not very user-friendly for someone who hasn't actually read through it since many years ago. It also has a lot of filler.
One thing that was obvious, however, was that the Tower was too big to fit in the web tunnels. So I described the Tower tearing the webs asunder, leading to souls flowing out of them and into the howling Abyss. The paladin (of the Raven Queen) spoke a prayer, however, to funnel the souls out of the Abyss and into the Shadowfell to cross the Bridge that May be Traversed But Once. (This mysterious place in the Shadowfell used to be guarded by Ometh, a strange exarch of the Raven Queen, but the PCs killed Ometh and the paladin - a Marshall of Letherna - has more-or less taken his place.)
This also had the effect of imposing a -2 penalty on the sorcerer's Demonsoul Bolt attacks, as his supply of demonsouls dwindled.
The players decided that the PCs would use the Tower to tear through the Demonweb to its centre, looking for Lolth. This seemed reasonable, and also meant that we could skip all the filler! The only bit that I could properly remember was the powerful drow in the pyramid room, so as the Tower flew past their door they came out, and the one with sufficient range (a drow archmage with a range 20 venom attack - I was using stats from the MM3 drow entry) took an unsuccessful pot-shot before being blasted in return by the lightning from the base of the Tower.
In my capacity as GM I decided that Lolth had had enough of a bunch of upstarts in a Thundercloud Tower tearing through her realm and thumbing their noses at her most powerful servants, so she manifested herself in the centre of the plane (which I think is lower-case 'I' on the Demonweb Pits map, athough it is not actually marked as such) while reordering the tunnels into a flat plane. She taunted the PCs -especially the drow sorcerer, to whom she had been channelling power all this time, or at least so she claimed - and waited for them to come and assault her. The PCs prepped by casting Cloak of Courage for temp hps, Wrath of the Gods for a +9 damage buff all around, and the paladin Blessed his weapon.
Using a methodology that in retrospect was probably faulty, because it didn't really factor in the travel time for the Tower, I determined that it would take the six drow NPCs 5 rounds to catch up to the Tower and Lolth. The paladin player explained that he wanted to use his control over the flow of souls to create disruptions in the Demonweb to slow them down, and I though that sounded reasonable and so gave the players an extra round. Six rounds to defeat a solo Lolth.
It seemed like that might be hard - the fighter and paladin, for instance, have +31 to hit with their attacks, and her AC is 51. And her other defences are also pretty robust. But it didn't turn out that way, at least for the first half of the fight. Lolth easily won initiative and teleported onto the top of the Tower where the PCs were standing, and launched an effective assault against the drow (still in primordial form) and the invoker/wizard. But then the PCs turns came round.
The sorcerer went first, spending an action point to give himself and all allies +3 to hit until the start of his turn, laying down an auto-damage zone, and then readying his Swords of the Marilith for when the fighter attacked.
The invoker/wizard went next, summoning and detonating his imp (which is the focus for his Devil's Pawn theme) to give Lolth -2 to attack and to defences. This was two minor actions. He then used his action point to attack her with Compel Obedience (an AoE domination power). He rolled a 7, took a reroll (paragon path ability on action point expenditure) to get a 3, but then spent Memories of 1000 Lifetimes plus Insightful Riposte to turn it into a hit.
This meant that Lolth had to use her immediate interrupt power to cancel the effect (I had made a few tweaks to her MM3 stats, and this action denial denial was one of them), which meant she didn't have an immediate action left to dominate someone hitting her. With his regular standard action he then followed up with his Daily save-ends domination attack, but while this hit Lolth was able to take her save immediately (because she's a god) and so shrugged it off.
The cleric-ranger went next. He Quarried her, which grants +1 to hit (Battlefield Archer paragon path), and then rolled a hit with his high level stunning power (25th (?) level cleric daily Word of something-or-other). And she had no immediate action condition-removal left, so the stun took. He then spent his action point to use Fire Storm, hitting her and establishing another auto-damage zone.
The fighter and paladin went next, both hitting and doing large amounts of damage. And the fighter's attack triggered the sorcerer's Swords of the Marilith, which hit with a crit and set up another auto-damage zone. And when one of these attacks bloodied her, the fighter was able to follow up with a Jackal Strike, which also hit.
(At this point attacks were at an effective +8: +3 from the sorcerer, +1 from quarry, +2 from combat advantage for stun, and -2 defences from the exploding imp).
When Lolth's turn came around again, she was down to double-digit hit points, and the auto damage from the three zones dropped her to zero hit points (about 700 points of damage altogether in that first round, from 28th level PCs with no Expertise feats vs a 35th level enemy). We had to finish the session at the point where she transformed into her spider-form. This did succeed in stunning the invoker/wizard, the cleric-ranger and the fighter/cleric, but the latter used an ability to turn the stun into daze. Because it is a fear effect, the paladin was immune (Marshall of Letherna).
The players went through a lot of resources in that first round, so the second phase of the combat might be more difficult, but the invoker/wizard still has tricks up his sleeve - on his next turn he can use his Ring of Wizardry to get back his AoE domination attack, then use Knowledge is Power and Trick of Knowledge (both from the Sage of Ages epic destiny) to get +4 to hit, plus an ability he gets from having the Eye of Vecna in his imp that gives him +10 to hit, to dominate Lolth again, forcing her to burn her immediate action. Thus leaving her open to attack without having her domination to retaliate. And unless she can get off the tower she will be taking over 100 hp a round just from the zones.
The 6 other drow are a level 30 encounter in themselves, but the general assumption is that they won't be a problem as long as Lolth is dealt with.
Next on the list is Orcus, but they will probably try and get an extended rest in before tackling him.
The previous session the PCs were fighting a Discord Incarnate and its undead friends atop their Thundercloud Tower, which was hovering above the pit inside the Room with No Doors, 10' or so above a flickering portal to the Abyss which was hanging in the air half-way down the pit.
This session began with the continuation of that fight. The Discord Incarnate was getting the better of the PCs - in part because they were holding back, wanting to keep powers in reserve to deal with Lolth and/or Orcus. But they decided to cut loose a bit more, and the tide of the battle fairy quickly turned.
At the end of the fight, all that was left were four angelic mockeries that the Discord Incarnate had summoned. These minions have a burst-on-death ability, and the players' number one priority was to conserve surges. So the paladin decided to bull rush the last of the mockeries and push it over the edge of the tower, so that it would fall 90' or so to the bottom of the pit and explode harmlessly. Now the paladin has winged boots, and so can fall without taking damage, and I offered the player a -2 penalty to the minion's save to go over the edge if the paladin went over with it. He took the offer, and proceeded to tackle the minion over the edge.
The plan worked, in so far as the mockery fell down and exploded without hurting anyone else at the bottom of the pit. But the paladin took two OAs on the way down - one from a spectre that had fled the combat in the previous session, and one from the atropal that was lurking beneath the portal.
The players had been planning to use Mass Cure Serious Wounds to help deal with the healing surge situation, but having the paladin in a combat at the bottom of the pit interfered with that plan. So the invoker/wizard used his Arcane Gate utility to open a portal between the top of the tower and the bottom of the pit. The PCs all ran through it, and the cleric-ranger then used an action point to both cast his Cure spell and cast Cloak of Courage to give everyone temp hit points. Then the fight against the spectre and atropal was on.
It was a short fight. The invoker-wizard used Twist of Fate to confine them both to basic attacks at a -7 penalty for a turn. Playing the atropal, I decided to save my action point for the next round, when I would have a more realistic chance of hitting with my AoE, but I didn't get a second round. The sorcerer/bard used Climactic Chord to give everyone an ultra-buffed free attack, and the atropal was taken down before its turn came around again.
The invoker/wizard realised that it was a godling spawned from the essence of Miska the Wolf-Spider mixed with a fragment of the Rod of Seven Parts, which scattered after being used to kill Miska. He recovered the fragment of the Rod embedded within the atropal, and joined it to the existing fragments of the Rod, making him the last of the PCs to get a +6 implement.
He then studied the portal, while the dwarf fighter/cleric tried to solve the problem of fitting the Thundercloud Tower down the pit. The problem was a stone staircase running around the inside perimeter, which made it impossible to lower the Tower down as far as the portal. Unfortunately, with a roll of 6 or better needed on d20 the player rolled a 4, and so the dwarf took 40-ish points of damage from exertion, but failed to break away enough of the stair with his oversized Mordenkrad. So the sorcerer took up the challenge, changing into a Huge primordial of lightning and thunder (his epic destiny utility power) and using Demonsoul Bolts to blast away at the stone. He succeeded in clearing away enough of the staircase to be able to pilot the Tower down the pit to the level of the portal.
In the meantime, the invoker/wizard had attuned to the portal. At first it was leading to the deepest reaches of the Abyss, where the madness of that plane is located (and it virtually winds back to touch the Astral Sea) - but then when the sorcerer unleashed Demonsoul Bolts its destination changed, to the Demonweb Pits - from where the demonsouls were being channelled. The invoker locked in that destination, and they all boarded the Tower to travel to Lolth's domain. The paladin (via his player) was urging an extended rest, but the others wanted to keep going, and the party had action points all round (from a level 32 combat vs the undead in the Room with No Doors) and over 25 surges between them. That surge number unfortunately got reduced by one each, as the player of the sorcerer rolled poorly on his Arcana check to pilot the Tower through the portal, and they took a mixture of physical damage from the tight squeeze in the pit, and blast-y arcane damage from passing through a portal to the Abyss.
Anticipating the likelihood of an assault on Lolth before I left home for the session, I had packed my copy of Q1, which I now broke out. I also discovered that the module is not very user-friendly for someone who hasn't actually read through it since many years ago. It also has a lot of filler.
One thing that was obvious, however, was that the Tower was too big to fit in the web tunnels. So I described the Tower tearing the webs asunder, leading to souls flowing out of them and into the howling Abyss. The paladin (of the Raven Queen) spoke a prayer, however, to funnel the souls out of the Abyss and into the Shadowfell to cross the Bridge that May be Traversed But Once. (This mysterious place in the Shadowfell used to be guarded by Ometh, a strange exarch of the Raven Queen, but the PCs killed Ometh and the paladin - a Marshall of Letherna - has more-or less taken his place.)
This also had the effect of imposing a -2 penalty on the sorcerer's Demonsoul Bolt attacks, as his supply of demonsouls dwindled.
The players decided that the PCs would use the Tower to tear through the Demonweb to its centre, looking for Lolth. This seemed reasonable, and also meant that we could skip all the filler! The only bit that I could properly remember was the powerful drow in the pyramid room, so as the Tower flew past their door they came out, and the one with sufficient range (a drow archmage with a range 20 venom attack - I was using stats from the MM3 drow entry) took an unsuccessful pot-shot before being blasted in return by the lightning from the base of the Tower.
In my capacity as GM I decided that Lolth had had enough of a bunch of upstarts in a Thundercloud Tower tearing through her realm and thumbing their noses at her most powerful servants, so she manifested herself in the centre of the plane (which I think is lower-case 'I' on the Demonweb Pits map, athough it is not actually marked as such) while reordering the tunnels into a flat plane. She taunted the PCs -especially the drow sorcerer, to whom she had been channelling power all this time, or at least so she claimed - and waited for them to come and assault her. The PCs prepped by casting Cloak of Courage for temp hps, Wrath of the Gods for a +9 damage buff all around, and the paladin Blessed his weapon.
Using a methodology that in retrospect was probably faulty, because it didn't really factor in the travel time for the Tower, I determined that it would take the six drow NPCs 5 rounds to catch up to the Tower and Lolth. The paladin player explained that he wanted to use his control over the flow of souls to create disruptions in the Demonweb to slow them down, and I though that sounded reasonable and so gave the players an extra round. Six rounds to defeat a solo Lolth.
It seemed like that might be hard - the fighter and paladin, for instance, have +31 to hit with their attacks, and her AC is 51. And her other defences are also pretty robust. But it didn't turn out that way, at least for the first half of the fight. Lolth easily won initiative and teleported onto the top of the Tower where the PCs were standing, and launched an effective assault against the drow (still in primordial form) and the invoker/wizard. But then the PCs turns came round.
The sorcerer went first, spending an action point to give himself and all allies +3 to hit until the start of his turn, laying down an auto-damage zone, and then readying his Swords of the Marilith for when the fighter attacked.
The invoker/wizard went next, summoning and detonating his imp (which is the focus for his Devil's Pawn theme) to give Lolth -2 to attack and to defences. This was two minor actions. He then used his action point to attack her with Compel Obedience (an AoE domination power). He rolled a 7, took a reroll (paragon path ability on action point expenditure) to get a 3, but then spent Memories of 1000 Lifetimes plus Insightful Riposte to turn it into a hit.
This meant that Lolth had to use her immediate interrupt power to cancel the effect (I had made a few tweaks to her MM3 stats, and this action denial denial was one of them), which meant she didn't have an immediate action left to dominate someone hitting her. With his regular standard action he then followed up with his Daily save-ends domination attack, but while this hit Lolth was able to take her save immediately (because she's a god) and so shrugged it off.
The cleric-ranger went next. He Quarried her, which grants +1 to hit (Battlefield Archer paragon path), and then rolled a hit with his high level stunning power (25th (?) level cleric daily Word of something-or-other). And she had no immediate action condition-removal left, so the stun took. He then spent his action point to use Fire Storm, hitting her and establishing another auto-damage zone.
The fighter and paladin went next, both hitting and doing large amounts of damage. And the fighter's attack triggered the sorcerer's Swords of the Marilith, which hit with a crit and set up another auto-damage zone. And when one of these attacks bloodied her, the fighter was able to follow up with a Jackal Strike, which also hit.
(At this point attacks were at an effective +8: +3 from the sorcerer, +1 from quarry, +2 from combat advantage for stun, and -2 defences from the exploding imp).
When Lolth's turn came around again, she was down to double-digit hit points, and the auto damage from the three zones dropped her to zero hit points (about 700 points of damage altogether in that first round, from 28th level PCs with no Expertise feats vs a 35th level enemy). We had to finish the session at the point where she transformed into her spider-form. This did succeed in stunning the invoker/wizard, the cleric-ranger and the fighter/cleric, but the latter used an ability to turn the stun into daze. Because it is a fear effect, the paladin was immune (Marshall of Letherna).
The players went through a lot of resources in that first round, so the second phase of the combat might be more difficult, but the invoker/wizard still has tricks up his sleeve - on his next turn he can use his Ring of Wizardry to get back his AoE domination attack, then use Knowledge is Power and Trick of Knowledge (both from the Sage of Ages epic destiny) to get +4 to hit, plus an ability he gets from having the Eye of Vecna in his imp that gives him +10 to hit, to dominate Lolth again, forcing her to burn her immediate action. Thus leaving her open to attack without having her domination to retaliate. And unless she can get off the tower she will be taking over 100 hp a round just from the zones.
The 6 other drow are a level 30 encounter in themselves, but the general assumption is that they won't be a problem as long as Lolth is dealt with.
Next on the list is Orcus, but they will probably try and get an extended rest in before tackling him.
