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Message: <blockquote data-quote="THEMNGMNT" data-source="post: 8023505" data-attributes="member: 6809274">Session 91 of my mashup of Storm King's Thunder and Tyranny of Dragons/Scales of War/whatever. The player characters are trying to destroy Manshoon and all his clones because the Zhentarim is responsible for the giant raids across the North. This is the epic climax and I've split it into three adventures occurring simultaneously. The main attack on the true Manshoon is being handled by the PCs. The other two missions are in the hands of NPC allies that the players will control.In this episode, the characters have teleported into the laboratory where Manshoon's clones are created and held in statsis. One PC is a 15th level elf arcane trickster rogue. All the other players were playing 11th level NPC allies: a drow blood hunter, a human assassin rogue, and an elf archfey warlock.They were all disguised as Zhentarim. I kept forgetting they were in disguise and had foes attack when they probably should not have. Major DM fail. It started from the moment they popped into the laboratory's teleportation room when they were attacked by flesh golems and a brain in a jar.The laboratory had a few big reveals. Forty sessions ago, the characters had fought Zhentarim agents in Waterdeep--and they discovered those agents were actually clones when the characters saw their duplicates patrolling the laboratory. They also discovered that the laboratory has a self-destruct mechanism in case the clones ever gain independent thought and rebel. They eventually arrived at the main chamber where the clones are held in stasis.The chamber was a huge circular room with a descending shaft in the middle. Looking down the shaft, the characters saw literally thousands of clones in glass tubes. Guarding the shaft was a beholder with a rider. Initiative was rolled.In all my years of D&D I've never fought a beholder, either as a DM or player. And, it turned out, neither had any of my players. So this was fun. Beholders are actually solid solo monsters because they fire 6 eye rays per round--and each ray can take out a PC. Eventually players are going to fail their saving throw. The assassin rogue leaped onto the back of the beholder and knocked off the rider into the shaft (but the rider was saved by the beholder's telekinetic ray and soon rejoined the fight). However, the rogue was knocked out by the sleep ray--twice. The archfey warlock was hit by the petrification ray and, failing multiple saving throws, was turned to stone. Then the warlock was hit by the distintegration ray and turned to dust. "Huh," said that player, "I've never been killed before." At that point I thought a TPK was a real possibility but eventually the PCs rallied, defeating the beholder and its rider.I expect one more session in the laboratory and I've got a doozy of a twist up my sleeve.</blockquote>

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