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Against the Idol of the Sun: A 5e high-level campaign log
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<blockquote data-quote="J-H" data-source="post: 8952414" data-attributes="member: 7020951"><p><em>Sorry, I forgot I was posting this here as well! Here comes an avalanche of posts</em>. <em> As of posting this (2/28/23) we are within 5 sessions of the end, unless the party dawdles. I'm getting close to finished with the editing process to put this on the DM's Guild.</em></p><p></p><p><strong>Session 4: 1/23/21</strong></p><p></p><p>Arcane trickster & barbarian are out.</p><p>The party decides to finish searching the hex they are in (14.10), and finds a small, sheltered village occupied by the cult of Rodan. This peaceful village in a valley does not seem to worry about attack, and is host to goliaths, yuan-ti, tortles, an old Aarakocra who abandoned Huitzopochtli long ago, and a reclusive drow. </p><p></p><p>Rodan is a kaiju who sleeps atop a volcano a few hexes away (12.09), with the main body of the Rodanites living at the base of the volcano and burning incense and keeping him asleep and happy. There is an obelisk in town with some information, but nobody present in the party could read it, and they didn’t ask for a translation.</p><p></p><p>They spend some time there and get a few more details filled in about what’s nearby, and a warning to not bring their war to the village. The drow worships Vhaeraun, and ends up trading the party the Eyepatch of Teeth (no attunement, wearer can cast Eyebite once per day) for the snake scepter (+1 light hammer, +2d4 poison on hit, adds Poison Spray to cantrip list). This gives the party two items from the Panoply of the Shark; when someone wears both items, they gain blindsight 15’/60’ underwater due to a keen sense of smell. The drow mentions a few Eilistraee worshippers at the volcano town that he doesn’t get along with.</p><p></p><p>The party’s artificer, Malamir, works with the tortle carpenter/artificer in town to make a spider-like cart with legs that can walk, follow the party around, and climb trees. Boston Dynamics, eat your heart out.</p><p></p><p>Teador, the Paladin, has decided he’d rather have his +2 Anyweapon re-attuned, and starts bugging the artificer for a +1 shield repeatedly in character.</p><p></p><p>The kaiju warlock patron is available for any replacement characters as an option, as is the Goliath race and the option to be a lone drow.</p><p></p><p>The group heads southeast on foot, intending to set up some sort of a home base or area where they could stash items. In the next hex, they run into 7 satyrs (could be a PC race, but not from this group), who turn out to be hungry cannibal druids.</p><p></p><p>The druids open with some Call Lightnings and an Erupting Earth (which does pitiful damage), and most of them start wildshaping into Allosaurs (indicating that Allosaurs are present somewhere reasonably close in the campaign world). Heat Metal proves effective (two of them use it), but the bulk of the damage comes from repeated lightning strikes that hurt the paladin pretty badly as they build up. It had (randomly) been raining in the hex, so 4d10 per strike still does about 10 points of damage even on a failed save. Ultimately, the party prevails, with several critical hits providing some sudden splattering. The cleric (Reybella)’s Spiritual Weapon pretty much always hits and does some pretty consistent damage, as does Inflict Wounds.</p><p></p><p>With three down, the other four attempt to run; the Paladin gets back-to-back Sentinel attacks that prevent two of them from running away… the only two that make it out were two who had not turned into Allosaurs early on. 60’ move + dash is a pretty good Escape button.</p><p>This took some time to play out because of the number of dice rolls; tracking HP and status changes back and forth from druid to dino and back went OK, except that my labels on the map need to be bigger. The druids were (by my calculations) CR 5. They may have been better served using some crowd control, but…cannibal druids are going to cast one spell and then try to eat people, not hang back and fling spells while hiding in trees.</p><p></p><p>The next day, the party finds a small abandoned wooden fort (50’x50’) that looks like it was attacked and wrecked at least a few seasons ago. They decide to fix it up some, without repairing the buildings, and use Stone Shape and Fabricate to create a hidden basement tunnel that they can store supplies and stuff in as a home base.</p><p></p><p><strong>Session 5: 2/13/21</strong></p><p></p><p>We’re back! The Arcane Trickster’s player has decided to drop out. Everyone is fine having a replacement, and I am fine running with 6 players, so we’ll probably have a new person next time. Everyone was in favor of implementing the Tasha’s optional class features, which mostly benefited the barbarian and cleric.</p><p></p><p>The group left their hidey-hole behind, along with the big and bulky door the artificer is working on (trying to create a small room/storage area similar to a Genie warlock’s chamber). They head southwest into an area of low-lying mountains, and while passing a pond are attacked (random encounter) by an Ahuitzotl accompanied by two water elementals. The Ahuitzotl is from Aztec/Mesoamerican mythology, and is an ugly, spiky-furred creature about the size of an Irish Wolfhound or Saint Bernard, but with hands instead of paws, a hand on the end of its tail, and the ability to drown people nearby (functionally it’s the poisoned condition, but not poison). I set it at CR 7, AC 17, 108HP, DC 14 on the drowning AOE.</p><p></p><p>It was underwater, so they didn’t have a way to see it coming. I rolled randomly and it ended up popping up next to the Paladin, who of course passed his save against drowning. The water elementals then popped up, and the whole combat took about two rounds. The party did a lot of damage pretty quickly, and the Ahuitzotl did poorly on its attack rolls.</p><p>The random encounter dice have been super in the party’s favor, with never more than one per day. They spend several days searching this and another hex to the northwest, finding some vine ropes left behind somewhere, and a rocky area eroded away by acid, with a +1 adamantine acid dagger at the top. The backstory is that some acid-emitting oozes were here, and someone at one point used the dagger to help escape, the dagger having survived the acid... but the party didn’t put all that together.</p><p></p><p>I clarify some directions, as their search pattern for “The great one” was going to take them right towards an Aarakocra city. They move southwest again, making this the 3rd hex bordering the dragon’s actual hex that they’ve entered!</p><p></p><p>They search for a couple of days and eventually find a hidden yuan-ti camp. Approaching the camp peacefully, they meet with the leader, who refuses to shed light on the “great one” thing – but the Paladin catches him lying. The artificer gets into a discussion about magical theory with the local wizards, who sell wizard stuff – but nothing the party wants. The monk goes and commissions some local-style clothing from some clothing-makers in town. This bit was made up on the spot of course – but the clothing makers are three yuan-ti women sitting under an awning in front of a house. He describes what he wants, and in the conversation, they mention that the trousers are similar to what “our husband wears.” He asks a couple of questions and they respond that of course they’d never let a man go risking himself adventuring, etc., and that he does some of the sewing and tailoring. That’s about when the penny drops and the “one in 10 yuan-ti is born male” fact from a couple of sessions ago really comes together with the realization that their society is basically matriarchal and the men are rare, protected (and also limited as a result), and have multiple wives.</p><p></p><p>The party digs around a bit more with questions on “the great one” and get an answer from the leader that I specifically phrased as “cannot say.” I’m not sure they fully picked up on that implication.</p><p></p><p>They finally head into the hex where Bahadural, the dragon, lives... </p><p>I have some passive rolls pre-done, and Dmitri the barbarian, with his brand new Nature proficiency, noticed that the birds are acting strange, just watching them. The party discusses whether they could be familiars, or controlled by druids, and note that it’s just the birds. They actually talk towards some of the birds, saying they want to talk and meet. A half an hour later, in a more open area of the jungle (for DM ease of use and dragon flight), a booming invisible voice asks what an elf and dwarves are doing in this part of the world. There’s some back and forth in which the party talks about seeking to stop the Aarakocra. Bahadural, the dragon (under Greater Invisibility) asks a few questions, declines to answer theirs, and eventually decides that their goal of killing the Aarakocra leadership and priests is close enough to the deal he has regarding the sword he’s hanging on to. “Fine. Let the test begin.” 90’ cone poison breath, 22d6 damage, Con DC half.</p><p></p><p>The monk had already moved to the side and into the trees during the conversation, so he was out of the way (and immune to poison). Everyone saves except the artificer; the two dwarves take half damage after saving; the artificer’s Unicorn Spear grants resistance to poison and immunity to fear & charm, but he forgot about all this for round one, so he still takes 33 damage.</p><p></p><p>The party all goes before Bahadural (but he’s acted so he gets legendary actions). The monk lands one arrow blindly for 8 damage, and everything else pretty much misses; one Legendary Resistance is burned against a Faerie Fire from the artificer. Everyone passes their save against dragon fear except the artificer, who forgot his immunity. I’m certainly not tracking every item, resistance, and immunity that 5 different 13th level PCs loaded with gear have....</p><p></p><p>The player for the barbarian had a hard stop at 10pm (3 hour session), so we are currently paused after 4 rounds of battle. The dragon is above 50%hp still, the party has burned a substantial number of spell slots, and I think the party is also above 50%hp. Highlights and notes:</p><p>· The monk got bitten in round 2 or 3. My big dragons have “bite and throw” and he failed the opposed athletics check to avoid being caught and thrown to the side (random direction, 1d6x10 feet, 60’). Lucky him, he is immune to fall damage.</p><p>· The paladin figured out that Dispel can target a magical effect, and some quick googling returned results from Enworld & Stackexchange agreeing that you can dispel an invisibility spell within range, even if you don’t know where it is. 4th level spell slot, and Bahadural is visible...I think in round 2.</p><p>· Bless has been cast on everyone twice; lost the first time by a failed Concentration check from a claw or tail attack on the cleric. She also did a mass cure wounds for 33hp healing on 3 characters, and a 4th-level guiding bolt for 30-something damage.</p><p>· The barbarian drank a potion of Enlarge Person that’s been sitting in his inventory for a LONG time (possibly since level 5) and pulled out his halberd, allowing him to engage the dragon, who’s been keeping about 20’ off the ground. Getting bigger put him in range for a tail slap, but he was fine with that.</p><p>· The artificer tanked an entire full attack (3 attacks at +16) from the dragon using Mirror Image and his high AC. The dragon rolled pretty poorly.</p><p>· The monk has been consistently plinking away for 10 to 30 damage per round with his arrows.</p><p>· Once he became visible, the dragon cast Crown of Stars and has been firing one per round for some decent radiant damage. He also cast Hold Monster (3 targets), and everyone saved, and he used his breath weapon again. Everyone saved, had resistance, or both. 22d6, take 16 points of damage is pretty good. The dragon’s been moving around and attacking various targets.</p><p>· The paladin Hasted himself, then on the next round, Misty Stepped onto the dragon’s back, unleashing 3 smite attacks totaling over 100 points of damage. Pretty good! He took a tail slap in retaliation, and then after the barbarian moved up to poke with his halberd, Bahadural used his wing buffet attack; a failed save and the paladin takes damage and is knocked prone, and I have him roll another Dex save to stay on the back of a moving dragon that’s just knocked him off his feet... he rolls a 3 and falls to the ground. His concentration on Haste fails, and he’s down his next round’s actions.</p><p></p><p>Overall, the party has in four-ish rounds done less than 300 hit points in damage. This is not the kind of performance that impresses an ancient dragon and makes it think you are worthy of being handed an artifact that’s being held for the right person/group. They have enough defenses to possibly outlast it, but it’ll be a HP slog. Someone made a comment (maybe out of character) about needing a plan, and he taunted them about wanting to fight the Aarakocra and not even having a plan for dealing with flying enemies.</p><p>He still has two spells left. Originally this was Heal and Fire Storm, but too many Aarakocra use Fire Storm, so I need to swap it out for something else, of 6th level or above. I’m currently contemplating Wall of Thorns, which offers some nice battlefield control + damage.</p><p></p><p>I’m also thinking about him simply deciding that the party is not able to handle killing high priests and divine avatars yet, since they can’t even pose a lethal threat to him in a reasonable timespan, and telling them to go away and come back later. If I do that, I have to walk the line between being contemptuous but not so insulting that they decide that they want to hunt him down (his lair is nearby but requires going underwater to reach, so not easy to find). I want the party to have this sword, but right now, they are simply not meeting the qualifications of “competent enough to be trusted to actually do the job with it and not die.”</p><p></p><p>I think they’re still a bit too confident... trying for a PC kill is possible, but aside from the paladin, everyone’s still fairly high hp, and his average damage per round (excluding legendaries) is only about 60hp (30 to the barbarian). I’d have to land some crowd control first. I do like the idea of him landing in front of someone, eating a full set of attacks, and then just responding with a legendary action Heal on himself. If I do it, it’ll need to be next round, as the paladin is temporarily disabled due to losing Haste.</p><p></p><p>Stopping when we did ended up being good, because it gives me some time to think about this and how I want to handle it.</p><p></p><p>...</p><p>Between-session update:</p><p>We have a new player coming in to replace the Arcane Trickster. It looks like he's making a Goliath Ranger. Still no primary caster except the life cleric!</p><p></p><p>I constructed a better metric for "Is the party worthy of this item?"</p><p></p><p>They must be:</p><p>Openly be willing to declare that they are against Huitzopochtli. success</p><p>Have at least one previous noteworthy achievement. success</p><p>Able to survive a battle with him. undetermined</p><p>Able to injure him consistently and persistently – if they can’t keep up with a single dragon, how can they handle multiple flying priests and champions? currently a failure, <100hp/round average is not enough for high-end combat</p><p>Be able to reach a difficult target through stealth or mobility (teleportation, stealth, or high speed) for melee attacks. Too inconsistent currently. The only PC who has managed to attack pretty much every round is the monk using his longbow.</p><p>If they are not worthy, he may kill or eat one or more until they flee, if they do not do so when told that they have failed the test.</p><p></p><p>I have swapped out Fire Storm for Wall of Thorns on Bahadural's entry. I let Legendary creatures cast a leveled spell at a cost of two Legendary actions. The dragon is currently a little ways away from most of the party.</p><p>My current plan is to have him cast Wall of Thorns between himself and the party, and then say something like this:</p><p></p><p>"A band of five adventurers from a far off-land, claiming to have slain a powerful being and now to be opposed to Huitzopochtli. It had the ring of fate about it. Maybe the bargain would finally be done, and I could expect my reward soon.</p><p></p><p>But no, you are not worthy. You are too likely to fail. Leave, or I will start eating you, and will add the items you bear to my hoard."</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="J-H, post: 8952414, member: 7020951"] [I]Sorry, I forgot I was posting this here as well! Here comes an avalanche of posts[/I]. [I] As of posting this (2/28/23) we are within 5 sessions of the end, unless the party dawdles. I'm getting close to finished with the editing process to put this on the DM's Guild.[/I] [B]Session 4: 1/23/21[/B] Arcane trickster & barbarian are out. The party decides to finish searching the hex they are in (14.10), and finds a small, sheltered village occupied by the cult of Rodan. This peaceful village in a valley does not seem to worry about attack, and is host to goliaths, yuan-ti, tortles, an old Aarakocra who abandoned Huitzopochtli long ago, and a reclusive drow. Rodan is a kaiju who sleeps atop a volcano a few hexes away (12.09), with the main body of the Rodanites living at the base of the volcano and burning incense and keeping him asleep and happy. There is an obelisk in town with some information, but nobody present in the party could read it, and they didn’t ask for a translation. They spend some time there and get a few more details filled in about what’s nearby, and a warning to not bring their war to the village. The drow worships Vhaeraun, and ends up trading the party the Eyepatch of Teeth (no attunement, wearer can cast Eyebite once per day) for the snake scepter (+1 light hammer, +2d4 poison on hit, adds Poison Spray to cantrip list). This gives the party two items from the Panoply of the Shark; when someone wears both items, they gain blindsight 15’/60’ underwater due to a keen sense of smell. The drow mentions a few Eilistraee worshippers at the volcano town that he doesn’t get along with. The party’s artificer, Malamir, works with the tortle carpenter/artificer in town to make a spider-like cart with legs that can walk, follow the party around, and climb trees. Boston Dynamics, eat your heart out. Teador, the Paladin, has decided he’d rather have his +2 Anyweapon re-attuned, and starts bugging the artificer for a +1 shield repeatedly in character. The kaiju warlock patron is available for any replacement characters as an option, as is the Goliath race and the option to be a lone drow. The group heads southeast on foot, intending to set up some sort of a home base or area where they could stash items. In the next hex, they run into 7 satyrs (could be a PC race, but not from this group), who turn out to be hungry cannibal druids. The druids open with some Call Lightnings and an Erupting Earth (which does pitiful damage), and most of them start wildshaping into Allosaurs (indicating that Allosaurs are present somewhere reasonably close in the campaign world). Heat Metal proves effective (two of them use it), but the bulk of the damage comes from repeated lightning strikes that hurt the paladin pretty badly as they build up. It had (randomly) been raining in the hex, so 4d10 per strike still does about 10 points of damage even on a failed save. Ultimately, the party prevails, with several critical hits providing some sudden splattering. The cleric (Reybella)’s Spiritual Weapon pretty much always hits and does some pretty consistent damage, as does Inflict Wounds. With three down, the other four attempt to run; the Paladin gets back-to-back Sentinel attacks that prevent two of them from running away… the only two that make it out were two who had not turned into Allosaurs early on. 60’ move + dash is a pretty good Escape button. This took some time to play out because of the number of dice rolls; tracking HP and status changes back and forth from druid to dino and back went OK, except that my labels on the map need to be bigger. The druids were (by my calculations) CR 5. They may have been better served using some crowd control, but…cannibal druids are going to cast one spell and then try to eat people, not hang back and fling spells while hiding in trees. The next day, the party finds a small abandoned wooden fort (50’x50’) that looks like it was attacked and wrecked at least a few seasons ago. They decide to fix it up some, without repairing the buildings, and use Stone Shape and Fabricate to create a hidden basement tunnel that they can store supplies and stuff in as a home base. [B]Session 5: 2/13/21[/B] We’re back! The Arcane Trickster’s player has decided to drop out. Everyone is fine having a replacement, and I am fine running with 6 players, so we’ll probably have a new person next time. Everyone was in favor of implementing the Tasha’s optional class features, which mostly benefited the barbarian and cleric. The group left their hidey-hole behind, along with the big and bulky door the artificer is working on (trying to create a small room/storage area similar to a Genie warlock’s chamber). They head southwest into an area of low-lying mountains, and while passing a pond are attacked (random encounter) by an Ahuitzotl accompanied by two water elementals. The Ahuitzotl is from Aztec/Mesoamerican mythology, and is an ugly, spiky-furred creature about the size of an Irish Wolfhound or Saint Bernard, but with hands instead of paws, a hand on the end of its tail, and the ability to drown people nearby (functionally it’s the poisoned condition, but not poison). I set it at CR 7, AC 17, 108HP, DC 14 on the drowning AOE. It was underwater, so they didn’t have a way to see it coming. I rolled randomly and it ended up popping up next to the Paladin, who of course passed his save against drowning. The water elementals then popped up, and the whole combat took about two rounds. The party did a lot of damage pretty quickly, and the Ahuitzotl did poorly on its attack rolls. The random encounter dice have been super in the party’s favor, with never more than one per day. They spend several days searching this and another hex to the northwest, finding some vine ropes left behind somewhere, and a rocky area eroded away by acid, with a +1 adamantine acid dagger at the top. The backstory is that some acid-emitting oozes were here, and someone at one point used the dagger to help escape, the dagger having survived the acid... but the party didn’t put all that together. I clarify some directions, as their search pattern for “The great one” was going to take them right towards an Aarakocra city. They move southwest again, making this the 3rd hex bordering the dragon’s actual hex that they’ve entered! They search for a couple of days and eventually find a hidden yuan-ti camp. Approaching the camp peacefully, they meet with the leader, who refuses to shed light on the “great one” thing – but the Paladin catches him lying. The artificer gets into a discussion about magical theory with the local wizards, who sell wizard stuff – but nothing the party wants. The monk goes and commissions some local-style clothing from some clothing-makers in town. This bit was made up on the spot of course – but the clothing makers are three yuan-ti women sitting under an awning in front of a house. He describes what he wants, and in the conversation, they mention that the trousers are similar to what “our husband wears.” He asks a couple of questions and they respond that of course they’d never let a man go risking himself adventuring, etc., and that he does some of the sewing and tailoring. That’s about when the penny drops and the “one in 10 yuan-ti is born male” fact from a couple of sessions ago really comes together with the realization that their society is basically matriarchal and the men are rare, protected (and also limited as a result), and have multiple wives. The party digs around a bit more with questions on “the great one” and get an answer from the leader that I specifically phrased as “cannot say.” I’m not sure they fully picked up on that implication. They finally head into the hex where Bahadural, the dragon, lives... I have some passive rolls pre-done, and Dmitri the barbarian, with his brand new Nature proficiency, noticed that the birds are acting strange, just watching them. The party discusses whether they could be familiars, or controlled by druids, and note that it’s just the birds. They actually talk towards some of the birds, saying they want to talk and meet. A half an hour later, in a more open area of the jungle (for DM ease of use and dragon flight), a booming invisible voice asks what an elf and dwarves are doing in this part of the world. There’s some back and forth in which the party talks about seeking to stop the Aarakocra. Bahadural, the dragon (under Greater Invisibility) asks a few questions, declines to answer theirs, and eventually decides that their goal of killing the Aarakocra leadership and priests is close enough to the deal he has regarding the sword he’s hanging on to. “Fine. Let the test begin.” 90’ cone poison breath, 22d6 damage, Con DC half. The monk had already moved to the side and into the trees during the conversation, so he was out of the way (and immune to poison). Everyone saves except the artificer; the two dwarves take half damage after saving; the artificer’s Unicorn Spear grants resistance to poison and immunity to fear & charm, but he forgot about all this for round one, so he still takes 33 damage. The party all goes before Bahadural (but he’s acted so he gets legendary actions). The monk lands one arrow blindly for 8 damage, and everything else pretty much misses; one Legendary Resistance is burned against a Faerie Fire from the artificer. Everyone passes their save against dragon fear except the artificer, who forgot his immunity. I’m certainly not tracking every item, resistance, and immunity that 5 different 13th level PCs loaded with gear have.... The player for the barbarian had a hard stop at 10pm (3 hour session), so we are currently paused after 4 rounds of battle. The dragon is above 50%hp still, the party has burned a substantial number of spell slots, and I think the party is also above 50%hp. Highlights and notes: · The monk got bitten in round 2 or 3. My big dragons have “bite and throw” and he failed the opposed athletics check to avoid being caught and thrown to the side (random direction, 1d6x10 feet, 60’). Lucky him, he is immune to fall damage. · The paladin figured out that Dispel can target a magical effect, and some quick googling returned results from Enworld & Stackexchange agreeing that you can dispel an invisibility spell within range, even if you don’t know where it is. 4th level spell slot, and Bahadural is visible...I think in round 2. · Bless has been cast on everyone twice; lost the first time by a failed Concentration check from a claw or tail attack on the cleric. She also did a mass cure wounds for 33hp healing on 3 characters, and a 4th-level guiding bolt for 30-something damage. · The barbarian drank a potion of Enlarge Person that’s been sitting in his inventory for a LONG time (possibly since level 5) and pulled out his halberd, allowing him to engage the dragon, who’s been keeping about 20’ off the ground. Getting bigger put him in range for a tail slap, but he was fine with that. · The artificer tanked an entire full attack (3 attacks at +16) from the dragon using Mirror Image and his high AC. The dragon rolled pretty poorly. · The monk has been consistently plinking away for 10 to 30 damage per round with his arrows. · Once he became visible, the dragon cast Crown of Stars and has been firing one per round for some decent radiant damage. He also cast Hold Monster (3 targets), and everyone saved, and he used his breath weapon again. Everyone saved, had resistance, or both. 22d6, take 16 points of damage is pretty good. The dragon’s been moving around and attacking various targets. · The paladin Hasted himself, then on the next round, Misty Stepped onto the dragon’s back, unleashing 3 smite attacks totaling over 100 points of damage. Pretty good! He took a tail slap in retaliation, and then after the barbarian moved up to poke with his halberd, Bahadural used his wing buffet attack; a failed save and the paladin takes damage and is knocked prone, and I have him roll another Dex save to stay on the back of a moving dragon that’s just knocked him off his feet... he rolls a 3 and falls to the ground. His concentration on Haste fails, and he’s down his next round’s actions. Overall, the party has in four-ish rounds done less than 300 hit points in damage. This is not the kind of performance that impresses an ancient dragon and makes it think you are worthy of being handed an artifact that’s being held for the right person/group. They have enough defenses to possibly outlast it, but it’ll be a HP slog. Someone made a comment (maybe out of character) about needing a plan, and he taunted them about wanting to fight the Aarakocra and not even having a plan for dealing with flying enemies. He still has two spells left. Originally this was Heal and Fire Storm, but too many Aarakocra use Fire Storm, so I need to swap it out for something else, of 6th level or above. I’m currently contemplating Wall of Thorns, which offers some nice battlefield control + damage. I’m also thinking about him simply deciding that the party is not able to handle killing high priests and divine avatars yet, since they can’t even pose a lethal threat to him in a reasonable timespan, and telling them to go away and come back later. If I do that, I have to walk the line between being contemptuous but not so insulting that they decide that they want to hunt him down (his lair is nearby but requires going underwater to reach, so not easy to find). I want the party to have this sword, but right now, they are simply not meeting the qualifications of “competent enough to be trusted to actually do the job with it and not die.” I think they’re still a bit too confident... trying for a PC kill is possible, but aside from the paladin, everyone’s still fairly high hp, and his average damage per round (excluding legendaries) is only about 60hp (30 to the barbarian). I’d have to land some crowd control first. I do like the idea of him landing in front of someone, eating a full set of attacks, and then just responding with a legendary action Heal on himself. If I do it, it’ll need to be next round, as the paladin is temporarily disabled due to losing Haste. Stopping when we did ended up being good, because it gives me some time to think about this and how I want to handle it. ... Between-session update: We have a new player coming in to replace the Arcane Trickster. It looks like he's making a Goliath Ranger. Still no primary caster except the life cleric! I constructed a better metric for "Is the party worthy of this item?" They must be: Openly be willing to declare that they are against Huitzopochtli. success Have at least one previous noteworthy achievement. success Able to survive a battle with him. undetermined Able to injure him consistently and persistently – if they can’t keep up with a single dragon, how can they handle multiple flying priests and champions? currently a failure, <100hp/round average is not enough for high-end combat Be able to reach a difficult target through stealth or mobility (teleportation, stealth, or high speed) for melee attacks. Too inconsistent currently. The only PC who has managed to attack pretty much every round is the monk using his longbow. If they are not worthy, he may kill or eat one or more until they flee, if they do not do so when told that they have failed the test. I have swapped out Fire Storm for Wall of Thorns on Bahadural's entry. I let Legendary creatures cast a leveled spell at a cost of two Legendary actions. The dragon is currently a little ways away from most of the party. My current plan is to have him cast Wall of Thorns between himself and the party, and then say something like this: "A band of five adventurers from a far off-land, claiming to have slain a powerful being and now to be opposed to Huitzopochtli. It had the ring of fate about it. Maybe the bargain would finally be done, and I could expect my reward soon. But no, you are not worthy. You are too likely to fail. Leave, or I will start eating you, and will add the items you bear to my hoard." [/QUOTE]
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Against the Idol of the Sun: A 5e high-level campaign log
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