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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Obergnom" data-source="post: 3595853" data-attributes="member: 7145">We just played the encounter... and had a blast. It was brilliant!They just had to pass through, so they tried to get through the cave invisible and spider climbing on the celing of the huge cave, but the troglodytes were warned that they might be coming (their scout went in before, and was detected by a troglodyte wis antenae graft. it had tremorsense), so the mind flayer devised a plan (not willing to let them pass, it wants brains!)It gathered most of its troops and the chuul at the caves exit, hidden in the dark. it then placed the antenae graft trog in the middle of the caves exit (thus the characters were unable to pass by without the trog noticing them)The players did not want to let take the chance of passing by invisible (the Mind Flayer showed its precense before, hoping to lure them out of invisiblity inside the cave, where the balistae trogs could hae helped, they thought it might have means to cancel invis anyway) so they attacked the antena trog.They were not supprised to see more trogs (12 of them) stationed near the exit (where the trogs kept their pack lizards) and a small fight broke out... but when the Chuul arived, they were supprised. The Ranger was able to notice before, something wet had exited the cave. The Mind Flayer had positioned the chuul in the tunnel leading away from the cave, because no invisible creature would have been able to pass by. (Being as wide as the small tunnel)What was even more disturbing though, the mind flayer used the chuul as relay for its mind blast, thus being able to stay at distance. The sorcerer and the druid were instantly stunned... the fighter and the ranger saved. Weird, but, oh well...The fight became better and better, with the goliath desperatly trying to bull rush trough the last three trogs to reach the mind flayer (the others were dead or stunned by the mind blast/the sorcerers color spray) while the ranger was attacked by the chuul. It didn't take the creature a long time to get him into its tentacles, but somehow he was able to resist the paralysis.The Mind Flayer tried to Charm the goliath using its charm monster after drinking a fly potion to stay out of reach of this melee monster. He did not care, and was able to severly wound the mind flayer using his bow... the ranger was finally able to shoot at the mind flayer, as the chuul now tried to get the goliath into its fangs. He was able to wound it even more, so it figured plane shift should be the strategy and disapeared.The surviving  trogs feld into the fungus forest (the stun ended), into the savety provided by their hatchlings. (I prepared a kobold mob using the DMG2 template), I hoped to lure the players there.The Chuul, still undamaged was able to paralyse the goliath and was quickly departing into the deep water hole, where it live. The rest of the party, now "unstunned" followed, tried to rescue the goliath, but they were not fast enough, the chuul disappeared underwater. The Druid (River Spirit Folk) summond a huge shark and followed himself. Trying to kill the wounded chuul and rescue the tank.Meanwhile, the Ranger and the Sorcerer came under fire. I figured, while the "normal" trogs retreated into the fungus forest, hoping for their tribe to survive and knowing that the broodlings might be their best weapon, the balistae trogs would be more like things, shooting at intruders.They did, and with great success. Later in the battle, the sorcerer was in the negative hit points and the ranger crawling to heal him, while the Spirit Hammer summoned by a Hammersphere was able to finish the balistae.At the same time, the chuul was killed by the shark, and the goliath tried to get ot of the water. (they fell to a depth of 120ft)... lukily, the spider climb was still active. Did not have to swim up.After that, the party just wanted to leave the trogs grotto. They were not even able to steal the surviving Trogs pack lizards, as those followed them to save all their belongings. (6 armored ones, 20 MM standards, the femals) Well, I was not able to use the broodling swarm/mob... but it was a fantastic encounter.</blockquote>

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