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ShortQuests -- Pocket Sized Adventures! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed for 1-2 game sessions.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RangerWickett" data-source="post: 1380696" data-attributes="member: 63">All I know is that I had a high-level shadowdancer (Rogue 9/Ranger 1/Assassin 10/Shadowdancer 1) go up against my 13th level party, and a simple mistake on my part ended up making him a lot weaker than I was envisioning.Basically, they fought him in a forest, with him spider-climbing through the trees, protected with a +45 Hide check and hide in plain sight.  Every round he thought it safe, he'd pop off a poisoned arrow with a +16 bonus, then hide (even with the -20 penalty, he still had a +25 bonus).  Meanwhile, his ghost cohort and ghostly followers kept the group busy (a 15th level rogue ghost who specializes in the longbow and shoots at PCs that have been grappled by swarms of minion ghosts is pretty impressive).Well, the PCs weren't helpless, though.  They'd researched in advance a special 6th level light spell that eliminates all shadows in a 200-ft. area.  No shadows at all.  So this got rid of the Shadowdancer's ability to hide in plain sight for three turns and death attack the PCs, but he could still snipe.Unfortunately, at one point I got a little over-eager.  When the party psion identified the source of spiritual energy that was fueling all the ghosts (the assassin's soul-stealing sword), the group attacked that area.  One warrior PC actually rushed in, and I figured the assassin wanted to scare the group, so he drops out of a tree (free action) and takes three sneak attacks on the warrior, dealing something insane like 6d6+21 from the sword, and +24d6 from the sneak attack, for a total of over 120 points of damage, plus poison.Now, I know the assassin's gonna get beaten up because of this, but I figure he's got 170 hit points, so he can take a round of punishment from the PCs (and he could dimension door away the next round).  Well, he fails a will save against Hold Person.  D'oh.  In hindsight I should've just handwaved that a high-level character would have known to have a ring of freedom of movement, even if I'd forgotten to give him one, but I let him go down.In the next round, the poor bastard is harmed, blasted with a couple searing rays, beaten up by the raging barbarian he nearly killed, and has a sword thrown through him.  (And he still had 2 hit points!)Still, it has taught me two things.  One, Shadowdancers should never bother attacking if the situation is not optimal for them; they can always just run away and fight later when their opponents' defenses are down.  And two, high level characters really really need rings of freedom of movement.</blockquote>

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