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Message: <blockquote data-quote="aboyd" data-source="post: 5034741" data-attributes="member: 44797">So, I'm juggling the <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-3rd-edition-rules/268974-what-happens-if-you-ignore-plague-spirits.html" target="_blank">effects of the apocalypse</a>, and I need some opinions.My players decided to head straight into the devil's lair, so to speak.  This was portrayed to them as horrifically stupid and almost certain death -- I even gave the cleric a warning from his god to flee flee flee.  I imagined in my mind that at this point, epic characters had to take over and even they would likely fail.  So certainly, the 7th & 8th level PCs would be rather ineffective.Yet they went to it.  I felt that since this was ill-advised and surely a TPK, I wouldn't hold back.  I let them get deep into the storm before surrounding them on all sides with 39 CR 6 Storm Spirits.  In addition, as they began to engage these spirits they realized that I had been describing them all along their journey, every time I referred to the "strangely moving storm clouds."  Suddenly it dawned on the players that the 39 in front of them were merely a small unit of what was likely thousands of Storm Spirits on all sides.Anyway, 5 spirits got surprise and used lightning strikes, but no PCs died.  I assumed on the first full round that everyone would be killed before the round ended.  However, one player managed to gather everyone within 10' of him, and then he cast Invisibility Sphere.  I nodded, completely missing what he'd done, and stood up from my seat.  I proceeded to walk around the table to an open spot, and said with a wistful look on my face, "I'm sorry guys, but this is probably going to be a TPK."  I then started counting off spaces as I moved the first of the 39 spirits in for the kill.The player says, "How do they know where to attack?  We all just disappeared."Suddenly I realized what the player had done.  The invisibility hadn't even registered.  I started looking up the elemental traits of these spirits in the back of the Monster Manual, just to see if they had a way to see invisibility.  They don't.  At this point I'm thinking the player probably held off death for a round, but even that was surprising.  So instead of having the spirits attack, I moved all 39 into a swirling storm around where the players appeared to be.  My thinking was that they would begin swarming through the area where the PCs once stood, attempting to ram anything hidden there.  But I didn't do that right away.  I should have.In round 2, the players surprised me again by casting rope trick twice, getting the entire group of 10 into safety.  I didn't realize they had that spell.  They had leveled up, and they had fairly and legitimately posted their new spells online, but I had been lazy and not checked.So now I've got my spirits diving through the spaces, but the PCs are now not only invisible, they are also actually gone.  The PCs stay like this for hours, including an invisible re-casting of the rope tricks to make doubly sure that the spirits have moved on.At this point they go on to have additional encounters and implausibly survive.  But I'm stuck on this encounter.  Frankly, I think it's brilliant, and I want to award something big.  However, I'm having a very difficult time awarding them full XP for "defeating" 39 spirits who are even now just waiting for the PCs to come back.One player has suggested that they receive full XP for defeating all 5,000 or so Storm Spirits that are in the skies, as they technically did manage to get past all of them.What can I do that will say, "You did something awesome and this should seem like a good reward," without giving them inappropriate amounts of XP?(Also, as an aside, these spirits can cast Fog Cloud, which they have used to fog in an entire city.  My problem is that the spirits themselves don't seem to have a way to see through it (they have elemental traits, very much like air elementals).  So they cast it and then basically their prey can use the cloud as cover to escape.  So stupid.  Why would a Storm Spirit ever cast it if it works against them?  I could use advice on how to use Fog Cloud effectively.)</blockquote>

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