Help! DM needs some ideas

[smkun]

Ok here is my situation. I am running a modified version of “Heart of Night fang Spire” in my homegrown campaign world. I’ve removed the gorillons and added in more undead under Gulthias’ control. Gulthias also had 3 lieutenants, a beefed up “Redbone” the Wight assassin, a Mummy Cleric and a Wight Fighter. So far the PC’s have managed to kill the fighter and “Redbone”. They have teleported out with their bodies/gear. They have been teleporting in and out (even easier now that they have the Helm of teleportation). They have recovered two parts of the Dragon Key. The way I have been running Gulthias is that he won’t move the key parts due to “tradition” so I have had them heavily guarded. He won’t abandon the Spire and the heart. This attack has been going on for six days now and his resources are getting thinned out. So I need some ideas on what Gulthias could do before the PC’s return again, roughly in about 20 hours from now. Things have been running very well. The PC’s have been having a tough time, it’s been very cinematic and down to the wire on many of the battles. But Gulthias is running out of options!! J

So far he has: Created some undead. Purchased an Iron Golem (which they killed last night) and summoned some minor demons. I wanted to avoid some of the cliché demon summoning etc etc.

Thanks in advance for any advice!!

 

[werk]

He should launch an attack at the party when they are recovering between missions.

 

[smkun]

I had thought of something like that. But if he did counter attack right now it would be a TPK. The cleric is currently turned to stone, the Paladin and Hospitler are out of spells/healing and below 50% hitpoints, the Fighter and Rogue are also below 50% hit points. The only one still in pretty good shape is the Sorcerer. He got knocked out pretty early and healed back to full so he has most of his spells(minus a couple of teleports).

Thanks for the reply, I may still go with something like that.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Well if you don't want a TPK, you can always have the party encounter some of his agents returning from a mission...essentially a random encounter for both sides.

And speaking of random enounters, there's nothing wrong with the party encountering something they or the BBEG accidentally stirred up. Consider the old adventure movie "Journey to the Center of the Earth" (with a young Pat Boone, no less!)- at the end, just as the party is getting ready to go up the volcanic chimney to escape, they accidentally encounter a giant lizard.

Heck...the thing they encounter could even be related to the main storyline. I have no problem envisioning a depleted demon or lich or whatever who originally had "The Whatever" that got your BBEG as powerful as he is now. Stripped of "The Whatever," this once-powerful evil being is but a shadow of its former self- but its still trying to get back what it lost, and will offer the "Help me or DIE!" option to anyone in its path...