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Message: <blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 7431100" data-attributes="member: 97077">Yet more illumination fun at Friday's Planescape session:I mentioned upthread about a situation that may unfold wherein the PCs were crossing a massive, crater-ridden platform on the Infinite Staircase while a crazed sorceress perched high above them on the stairs lobbed fiery death upon them. That situation came to pass.The PCs started to make their way across when the sorceress revealed herself by casting a fireball centered on the party. Robert Bob Roberts, the hillbilly wizard, counterspelled it at which point the party broken in various directions as that was his last 3rd-level spell slot of the day. The fast-movers Skaldi (a wolf totem barbarian) and Chungus (who has boots of striding and springing) moved as fast as possible toward the staircase from where the sorceress was attacking. Fireballs rained down on some party members still on the platform who had light sources, badly damaging Robert Bob Roberts, Bo Low (the insane dwarf clown bard), and Wanda Curelight, their NPC priestess ally.Skaldi was immolated as he charged up the stairs toward the sorceress, which would have meant his death and reduction to ash if he hadn't saved on his next turn. But just as he, Chungus and even the Harmonium fighter Malcer got close, the sorceress dimension door'ed up to a higher platform completely out of reach of the PCs - but still within range for her to blast them with long-range fire bolts (thanks to her metamagic). The party began to regroup on the main platform as she tagged anyone in the light with fire bolts. It was at this point, low on hit points and resources, that the PCs figured out that they needed to douse their lights if they wanted to survive. So they did. This meant about half the party was bumbling around in the dark making their way up another platform in an effort to get out of range; the other half of the party had darkvision. On that platform they ran afoul of a goliath blackguard possessed by a shadow demon, accompanied by scary quasits. This tied up some of the party, but Chungus, unhindered due to his magic boots and darkvision, started making a run toward where he thought the sorceress might be, taking a circuitous route to get there. This meant going through the lair of two vrocks who were protecting an egg, so now Chungus was being chased and harried by a vrock on his way to the sorceress while the rest of the party battled the blackguard and quasits. All in darkness so as not to draw the attacks of the sorceress!Eventually, Chungus made his way up to the sorceress, charged her down and grappled her, stuffing one of his filthy socks in her gob so she couldn't cast verbal spells, but not before she nearly blew him off the (220') platform with a gust of wind spell. Shortly thereafter, he tossed her off the platform and she died from the fall. The party breathed a sigh of relief and sparked up torches and light spells so they could then deal more handily with the other threats they ran into!Anyway, a combination of terrain, a long-range monster, and darkness (which both helped and hindered the PCs) made for quite a harrowing moment this past session. Illumination is a great way to introduce additional difficulty and tactics into challenges.</blockquote>

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