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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Riastlin" data-source="post: 5661747" data-attributes="member: 94022">Well, finally ran Cal today against the party and she more than proved her worth.First, a little background:[sblock]The party is 13th level and trapped in a town in the Shadowfell due to a curse that was laid upon it by a "gypsy" (a.k.a. Cal who appears to be in league with Orcus -- for now).  The townspeople can no longer die and will occasionally turn undead after being knocked to 0 hp.  This, combined with the ravens that were turned into undead ravens has proven to be a major insult to the Raven Queen who has essentially barred anyone from trying to leave the town.  The party was working on breaking the curse when they "lost" (i.e. fired off into the mists) the MacGuffins that were necessary to break the curse (long story).  At any rate, Cal has come back to town (still disguised as an old crone) in an attempt to siphon more power from the Raven Queen.[/sblock]So next was the setup:Cal has captured 5 of the Raven Queen's servants and is busy sacrificing them on altars dedicated to Orcus.  The party has tracked her to the clearing with the altars.  The altars make burst attacks once around dealing damage based on the number of altars still active.  Minor action religion checks to "cleanse" them, another minor action religion check to make them attack Cal.  I gave Cal the ability to create a dense fog around the clearing so as to force the party to come in a bit closer, but placed a few trees around to give them some options (the ranger in particular likes to climb trees and shoot from cover).  Cal:I only modified her slightly.  The change I made was to make each of her heads a different color, and to change the energy types on her attacks accordingly.  I went with black, green and blue, with the fourth head being white (I figure the red head will be a symbol of her ultimate ascension -- into an epic monster).  The Combat Out:Cal was primarily looking to get bloodied.  Once she became bloodied, if the fight was not going her way, she was ready to take flight and run away (albeit with a new head).  The Fight:This one was brutal and largely over before it began.  The group was missing one player, so I toned the damage on the altars down a bit but still wanted them in there to make them take different actions.  Nobody beat Cal's primary initiative and she opened up with her breath attack since the party was kind enough to get into standard fireball formation.  She hit everyone, including a crit on the ranger.  The paladin then went and headed for an altar rather than trying to hit Cal.  This would prove costly since the paladin didn't mark her.  The ranger then went next, hit Cal twice, action pointed, and hit her again, landing two dailies (as I recall) on her. Cal's next head was up next and seeing as how the ranger had just done over 100 points of damage, she sought revenge.  The bite hit for over 30 damage and slid the ranger into a necrotic zone that dealt 10 more.  An action point was spent and another bite knocked the ranger unconscious.  the altars fired off next and the ranger was outright killed as she was only a few hp away from death after the bite.  At that point the party was down to 2 defenders and a controller and the fight was pretty much over.  I actually thought at one point that the party might not manage to bloody Cal, though they finally did at the end when it was down to just the invoker.Fortunately, I had prepared another out for this particular scenario and rather than killing the PCs I had the Raven Queen intervene since they were in essence, trying to help her out.  As immediate interrupts when they would have been killed, the Raven Queen teleported them to Latherna and the party will now be in service (i.e. obligated to fulfill a quest) to the Raven Queen.Thoughts on the battle:As it turned out, I probably should have just done away with the altars altogether when the one player couldn't make it.  I hate having my solos fight alone though.  There were, in my opinion, two key errors in the beginning of the battle (1. the paladin not marking and 2.  the ranger using her movement to get to the other side of the clearing (though still well within Cal's range) rather than heading for a tree).  Things likely would have been much different if either of those two choices had been different.That being said though, I will just say that DMs should be careful with Cal as she can be really nasty in a hurry.  I still believe she is very much a fair fight (particularly when her draconic intelligence is used), but a little bad luck can turn the tide quickly.  There was a combination of low rolls by the party and particularly high rolls by Cal that really contributed as well, though to be honest, when the ranger went down in the first round, it was still pretty much over.All in all I still think this will prove to be a good experience and encounter for the entire group as it did teach them a lesson in humility.  It had been a while since they were really all that close to a bad result and I think this will hopefully make the story turn in an interesting direction.  They definitely have a new favorite enemy which was, of course, a big part of the point.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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