Continuing my Epic encounters series my PCs have now found out that the third piece of the artefact they are looking for was stolen from the Githzerai by a legendary Githyanki pirate and taken to his secret base on a hidden mote in the Astral sea. They then went to the base and forced the Githyanki they found there to surrender to them. (amazing and protracted intimidation during combat, forcing the ‘leader’ to surrender just before he was cut down). The remaining Githyanki told the PCs that they were too late and the Legendary Pirate had already left on an audacious and epic mission…
His mission was to travel to the Deep Far Realms and destroy the Elder Brain that served as the psychic connection between the Far Realms and the Middle World. Destroying the Brain would permanently sever the Illithids connection to their home plane and disorientate and weaken their position so that the Githyanki could finally start to drive them back and remove them from the Middle World forever.
As the PCs had been very generous and noble in victory the Githyanki offered them the damaged spelljammer they had in dock, and helped them repair it and learn to operate it. Over a couple of days the PCs also set about crafting magical items that might be handy in the Deep Far Realms. The only problem being that no-one has ever returned from the Deep Far Realms so they weren’t sure exactly what to expect, only that it would probably be a totally alien environment.
Still they set sail for a set of co-ordinates that were sympathetic to the long distance plane shift the ship was capable of and warped out of one reality into another.
At this point I introduced a somewhat familiar sanity system, each PC had a sanity percentage rating equal to 5x Wis with a maximum of 99. The only thing I was tracking with it was when it hit zero. At appropriate times I would ask for percentile rolls against sanity and award sanity loss appropriately. This is to model the PCs minds trying to comprehend an alien reality, and it wasn’t too long before the players didn’t want to succeed at perception or insight checks.
I described the actual environment as being like flying through milk, with subtle ribbons of greys and creams. Visibility was down to about 50ft beyond the air elemental environmental system the spelljammer operates in a deflected bubble around the ship.
Eventually they followed the Pirates rough flight plan to where he was planning a test firing of his weapon. They suddenly flew into clear space and could see a vast destroyed city beneath them with a smoking crater at its centre. Below they could see a few signs of life, but for the most part this place was utterly destroyed. Then 8 shapes started flying out from the ruins straight at them, they attempted to out run them but they were just fast enough to catch up.
These creatures were giant brains with a mass of tentacles flowing out behind them like dreadlocks as they flew, as they go closer these tentacles shifted forwards like a black alien mane and the battle was on.
Notes:
The spell jammer is pretty small, about 25ft wide by 75ft long, it has 2 lightning ballista that are attack +25 vs. Reflex; 4d10+10 lightning damage; standard action to reload.
The spelljammer is operated by a pilot who wears a harness which he can use as a standard action to give new flight commands to the ship, there are 2 control points on the ship that make these commands easier to perform.
The Air Elemental environment bubble extends about 10ft at the bow and 30ft at the stern of the ship (to model deflection while moving), we roughly ruled that anything inside this bubble could move with the ship unless cinematic cool ruled otherwise.
The ship moves at 15 squares a turn the creatures following could spend a full round to move 20, or in other words catch up 5 squares. This was important (and fun) as a lot of the tactics and fun in the battle was pushing the creatures out of the bubble and moving the ship so that they had to catch up.
Encounter:
8x Illithid (true form) Hunter
Illithid (True Form) Hunter Level 25 Skirmisher
Large Aberrant Beast XP 7,000
Initiative +24 Senses Perception +21, darkvision, truesight 10
Mental Torture (psychic) aura 1; All enemies inside aura lose any psychic
resistance; all enemies entering or starting their turn inside aura take 15
psychic damage
HP 228; Bloodied 114
AC 39; Fortitude 36, Reflex 39, Will 38
Immune charm, illusion, sleep;
Resist 30 psychic; Vulnerable 10 thunder
Speed 10 fly (hover)
Tentacle Rake (Standard; at-will) ♦ psychic
Reach 3; attack +30 vs. AC; 2d8+10 +1d8 psychic damage; if Hunter has
combat advantage this attack deals an additional 3d8 psychic damage
Grab and Pull (Standard; at-will) ♦ dominate
Reach 3; attack +28 vs. Reflex; 2d8+10 damage; on hit slide target into
any square adjacent to Hunter and target is grabbed (escape ends); while
grabbed the target treats allies as enemies for the purpose of taking
opportunity attacks (this is considered a domination effect)
Brain Bore (Standard; recharge 
) ♦ grabbed target only
Grabbed target only; attack +28 vs. Fortitude; 5d10+10 damage; on hit
target is stunned (save ends); on miss target takes half damage; if this
attack reduces a target to 0 HPs then it's brain is devoured and dies
instantly
Home Turf
While in the Far Realms Hunter cannot be immobilised or knocked prone
Alignment Evil Languages deep speech
Skills Dungeoneering +21, Insight +21
Str 24 (+19) Dex 30 (+22) Wis 18 (+16)
Con 20 (+17) Int 28 (+21) Cha 26 (+20)
EDIT: I just remembered that I changed the slide effect on Grab and Pull from slide to any square adjacent to pull 2 squares. This was to stop me abusing it as the encounter was about 200ft in the air.
This encounter was truly wonderful. The Hunters were trying to grab their targets and pull them off the ship whilst boring into the PCs brains. The PCs were trying to manoeuvre the ship to keep the Hunters at bay, and at one point fly the ship back under the warlord who was grabbed overboard. Other Grabbed people used teleport or flying to scramble back onboard the ship.
The dominate effect of the Grab and Pull power also became a factor on the cramped deck especially when the paladin did about 60 damage to his ally with an opportunity attack!. It really was a hectic and exciting battle, which saw the spelljammer fly through the smoke rising from the crater as the PCs battled an alien menace. Ultimately they were victorious and didn’t hang around to see what else was about before heading to the Legendary Pirates primary target.
His test firing seemed to have been a success.
His mission was to travel to the Deep Far Realms and destroy the Elder Brain that served as the psychic connection between the Far Realms and the Middle World. Destroying the Brain would permanently sever the Illithids connection to their home plane and disorientate and weaken their position so that the Githyanki could finally start to drive them back and remove them from the Middle World forever.
As the PCs had been very generous and noble in victory the Githyanki offered them the damaged spelljammer they had in dock, and helped them repair it and learn to operate it. Over a couple of days the PCs also set about crafting magical items that might be handy in the Deep Far Realms. The only problem being that no-one has ever returned from the Deep Far Realms so they weren’t sure exactly what to expect, only that it would probably be a totally alien environment.
Still they set sail for a set of co-ordinates that were sympathetic to the long distance plane shift the ship was capable of and warped out of one reality into another.
At this point I introduced a somewhat familiar sanity system, each PC had a sanity percentage rating equal to 5x Wis with a maximum of 99. The only thing I was tracking with it was when it hit zero. At appropriate times I would ask for percentile rolls against sanity and award sanity loss appropriately. This is to model the PCs minds trying to comprehend an alien reality, and it wasn’t too long before the players didn’t want to succeed at perception or insight checks.
I described the actual environment as being like flying through milk, with subtle ribbons of greys and creams. Visibility was down to about 50ft beyond the air elemental environmental system the spelljammer operates in a deflected bubble around the ship.
Eventually they followed the Pirates rough flight plan to where he was planning a test firing of his weapon. They suddenly flew into clear space and could see a vast destroyed city beneath them with a smoking crater at its centre. Below they could see a few signs of life, but for the most part this place was utterly destroyed. Then 8 shapes started flying out from the ruins straight at them, they attempted to out run them but they were just fast enough to catch up.
These creatures were giant brains with a mass of tentacles flowing out behind them like dreadlocks as they flew, as they go closer these tentacles shifted forwards like a black alien mane and the battle was on.
Notes:
The spell jammer is pretty small, about 25ft wide by 75ft long, it has 2 lightning ballista that are attack +25 vs. Reflex; 4d10+10 lightning damage; standard action to reload.
The spelljammer is operated by a pilot who wears a harness which he can use as a standard action to give new flight commands to the ship, there are 2 control points on the ship that make these commands easier to perform.
The Air Elemental environment bubble extends about 10ft at the bow and 30ft at the stern of the ship (to model deflection while moving), we roughly ruled that anything inside this bubble could move with the ship unless cinematic cool ruled otherwise.
The ship moves at 15 squares a turn the creatures following could spend a full round to move 20, or in other words catch up 5 squares. This was important (and fun) as a lot of the tactics and fun in the battle was pushing the creatures out of the bubble and moving the ship so that they had to catch up.
Encounter:
8x Illithid (true form) Hunter
Illithid (True Form) Hunter Level 25 Skirmisher
Large Aberrant Beast XP 7,000
Initiative +24 Senses Perception +21, darkvision, truesight 10
Mental Torture (psychic) aura 1; All enemies inside aura lose any psychic
resistance; all enemies entering or starting their turn inside aura take 15
psychic damage
HP 228; Bloodied 114
AC 39; Fortitude 36, Reflex 39, Will 38
Immune charm, illusion, sleep;
Resist 30 psychic; Vulnerable 10 thunder
Speed 10 fly (hover)
Tentacle Rake (Standard; at-will) ♦ psychicReach 3; attack +30 vs. AC; 2d8+10 +1d8 psychic damage; if Hunter has
combat advantage this attack deals an additional 3d8 psychic damage
Grab and Pull (Standard; at-will) ♦ dominateReach 3; attack +28 vs. Reflex; 2d8+10 damage; on hit slide target into
any square adjacent to Hunter and target is grabbed (escape ends); while
grabbed the target treats allies as enemies for the purpose of taking
opportunity attacks (this is considered a domination effect)
Brain Bore (Standard; recharge ) ♦ grabbed target onlyGrabbed target only; attack +28 vs. Fortitude; 5d10+10 damage; on hit
target is stunned (save ends); on miss target takes half damage; if this
attack reduces a target to 0 HPs then it's brain is devoured and dies
instantly
Home Turf
While in the Far Realms Hunter cannot be immobilised or knocked prone
Alignment Evil Languages deep speech
Skills Dungeoneering +21, Insight +21
Str 24 (+19) Dex 30 (+22) Wis 18 (+16)
Con 20 (+17) Int 28 (+21) Cha 26 (+20)
EDIT: I just remembered that I changed the slide effect on Grab and Pull from slide to any square adjacent to pull 2 squares. This was to stop me abusing it as the encounter was about 200ft in the air.
This encounter was truly wonderful. The Hunters were trying to grab their targets and pull them off the ship whilst boring into the PCs brains. The PCs were trying to manoeuvre the ship to keep the Hunters at bay, and at one point fly the ship back under the warlord who was grabbed overboard. Other Grabbed people used teleport or flying to scramble back onboard the ship.
The dominate effect of the Grab and Pull power also became a factor on the cramped deck especially when the paladin did about 60 damage to his ally with an opportunity attack!. It really was a hectic and exciting battle, which saw the spelljammer fly through the smoke rising from the crater as the PCs battled an alien menace. Ultimately they were victorious and didn’t hang around to see what else was about before heading to the Legendary Pirates primary target.
His test firing seemed to have been a success.
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