Hammerhead
Explorer
Can't you ever let the party win JD? I swear, DMs these days...
JollyDoc's Age of Worms (Updated 11/30, Epilogue!)
- Thread starter gfunk
- Start date
JollyDoc
Explorer
These things are always easier to judge in retrospect. If I'd played the finale as written, with it taking Kyuss two rounds to emerge, the battle would have been anticlimatic. The League would have punked him before he ever fully emerged. So that I feel comfortable about having left alone. I did lower his AC, to hits, etc as written if the vortex was destroyed. Still, I should have left his feats alone, and his spell selection (ie Mordenkainen's). Yet even without that, he did have Time Stop, and could spontaneously cast any cleric spell, meaning he could Harm himself back to full health multiple times. Difficult to overcome that tactic.
Never fear though. Gfunk's epilogue will give us closure, and a glimpse into what world of the Savage Tide will be like. Stay tuned!
Never fear though. Gfunk's epilogue will give us closure, and a glimpse into what world of the Savage Tide will be like. Stay tuned!
demiurge1138
Inventor of Super-Toast
You know, James Jacobs once mentioned on the Paizo boards that Savage Tide was originally intended to be set in a world where Kyuss won...JollyDoc said:
Demiurge out.
Neverwinter Knight
First Post
Damn! So close - but I agree that the timestop/harm self tactic was the deciding factor in this battle. Even with all the damage the league could do, they were not able to drop Kyuss in one round... 
It seems like your version of the Forgotten Realms is steadily turning into a darker, not-so-jolly place. I'm looking forward to the epilogue to tell us just how much.
Still, what a great ride, JollyDoc! It was a campaign of superlatives - overpowering enemies, amazing PCs, epic battles and brilliant tactics.
gfunk, very sad to hear you're not going to be around for the end of Savage Tide! But hopefully you will provide the group with an interesting character for the start of the campaign.
It seems like your version of the Forgotten Realms is steadily turning into a darker, not-so-jolly place. I'm looking forward to the epilogue to tell us just how much.
Still, what a great ride, JollyDoc! It was a campaign of superlatives - overpowering enemies, amazing PCs, epic battles and brilliant tactics.
gfunk, very sad to hear you're not going to be around for the end of Savage Tide! But hopefully you will provide the group with an interesting character for the start of the campaign.
Joachim
First Post
Even with the Kyuss' instaheal ability, it was really the Disjunction that pushed everything over the edge. If anything was egregious, it was that. The Disjunction in round 2 effectively took out 3 players at the beginning of the fight (and really ended up being the death of Grubber and Mak by removing their AC and save buffs) by the debuffing of about 20 spells coupled with the fact that Kyuss' will save DC to keep magic items was 35. If he had not been allowed access to that we could have collectively done the requisite 660 damage in 1 round, insta-heal or not.
If it makes our readers feel any better, the following was changed (to the best of my knowledge...I don't know if there is more) to make the fight more difficult, in no particular order:
* Removing despair would not lower Kyuss' Divine Rank to 0, which allowed him to cast his divine spells spontaneously (otherwise, he wouldn't have had access to 30 'Heals').
* Destroying the Vortex had no effect on Kyuss' AC/to hit/etc for the first fight session.
* Kyuss' was not forced to spend the first 1 or 2 rounds of combat crawling out of the obelisk.
* Each of the Brood Fiends was given a Rod of Cancellation to destroy the Sphere of Annihilation.
* Kyuss lost a spell that was worthless against us (Energy Drain) which was replaced with the most powerful spell possible against us (Disjunction)
* Kyuss lost a worthless feat for combat (Craft Arms and Armor) in exchange for a powerful epic-level feat (Improved Metamagic), which effectively gave Kyuss the ability to cast many more empowered Time Stops.
All that, and we still annihilated all of his allies (and there were a TON of them) are were almost able to kill him. JD is right...if Kyuss' had been played unchanged then the fight would have been easy. I would not go so far as to have called it anticlimatic, but the League would have won, hands down, no problem, Kyuss is punked. If you went through the math (and I haven't) that fight (if unchanged) was about an EL 30 or so...changed that would go probably go up past 32 or 33.
To be clear, I am not upset about the changes made...well, maybe I am a little bit discouraged about the final outcome, but that is more because of the collective losses of the last two AP's and is not directed at our DM in any way. But, considering how well we have done through a majority of this campaign (drafting the plan that allowed us to punk Dragotha being my crowning achievement) it was a lot of fun. A wise man once said (paraphrasing), "It is not always the destination that matters most; sometimes it is the journey to get there."
As far as Demogorgon goes, JD has promised not to adjust that encounter and let the chips fall where they may, so I feel confident that our intrepid heroes (or more appropiately, anti-heroes) in the Savage Tides will be victorious. Stay tuned!
If it makes our readers feel any better, the following was changed (to the best of my knowledge...I don't know if there is more) to make the fight more difficult, in no particular order:
* Removing despair would not lower Kyuss' Divine Rank to 0, which allowed him to cast his divine spells spontaneously (otherwise, he wouldn't have had access to 30 'Heals').
* Destroying the Vortex had no effect on Kyuss' AC/to hit/etc for the first fight session.
* Kyuss' was not forced to spend the first 1 or 2 rounds of combat crawling out of the obelisk.
* Each of the Brood Fiends was given a Rod of Cancellation to destroy the Sphere of Annihilation.
* Kyuss lost a spell that was worthless against us (Energy Drain) which was replaced with the most powerful spell possible against us (Disjunction)
* Kyuss lost a worthless feat for combat (Craft Arms and Armor) in exchange for a powerful epic-level feat (Improved Metamagic), which effectively gave Kyuss the ability to cast many more empowered Time Stops.
All that, and we still annihilated all of his allies (and there were a TON of them) are were almost able to kill him. JD is right...if Kyuss' had been played unchanged then the fight would have been easy. I would not go so far as to have called it anticlimatic, but the League would have won, hands down, no problem, Kyuss is punked. If you went through the math (and I haven't) that fight (if unchanged) was about an EL 30 or so...changed that would go probably go up past 32 or 33.
To be clear, I am not upset about the changes made...well, maybe I am a little bit discouraged about the final outcome, but that is more because of the collective losses of the last two AP's and is not directed at our DM in any way. But, considering how well we have done through a majority of this campaign (drafting the plan that allowed us to punk Dragotha being my crowning achievement) it was a lot of fun. A wise man once said (paraphrasing), "It is not always the destination that matters most; sometimes it is the journey to get there."
As far as Demogorgon goes, JD has promised not to adjust that encounter and let the chips fall where they may, so I feel confident that our intrepid heroes (or more appropiately, anti-heroes) in the Savage Tides will be victorious. Stay tuned!
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Long-time-reader-first-time-poster here.
As the DM of an Epic game of my own, the thing this proves to me more than any other is the immense value of Spell Stowaway (Time Stop). If the League had had any member with that, Kyuss would not have been able to use his insta-heal tactic, since said League member would be in it with him to negate his spells with countermagic or well-timed attacks (to mention nothing of the fact that said League member would have a shot at personally taking out the nascent god personally). Also, when those League members using the spell did so, there would have been two PCs taking actions in it instead of one.
Believe me, there's a reason why that's the most-sought-after feat among caster types in my game. Okay, the fact that I house-ruled it so Temporal Acceleration and Time Stop "count as each other" for the purposes of that feat helps, but honestly- even just the spellcasters or just the manifesters could join in on Time Stop cascades and the resulting damage is ridiculous. Preventing enemies from using Time Stop tactics against them becomes almost just a nice side bonus in light of that sort of tactic. Of course, I've long been giving the feat to enemies who have the ability to use Time Stop as well.
As the DM of an Epic game of my own, the thing this proves to me more than any other is the immense value of Spell Stowaway (Time Stop). If the League had had any member with that, Kyuss would not have been able to use his insta-heal tactic, since said League member would be in it with him to negate his spells with countermagic or well-timed attacks (to mention nothing of the fact that said League member would have a shot at personally taking out the nascent god personally). Also, when those League members using the spell did so, there would have been two PCs taking actions in it instead of one.
Believe me, there's a reason why that's the most-sought-after feat among caster types in my game. Okay, the fact that I house-ruled it so Temporal Acceleration and Time Stop "count as each other" for the purposes of that feat helps, but honestly- even just the spellcasters or just the manifesters could join in on Time Stop cascades and the resulting damage is ridiculous. Preventing enemies from using Time Stop tactics against them becomes almost just a nice side bonus in light of that sort of tactic. Of course, I've long been giving the feat to enemies who have the ability to use Time Stop as well.
Quartz
Hero
Since when did Harm become Heal for undead? Surely it only heals the amount of damage it would do? (This is a subtle but significant difference).
Anyway, given the changes made, I don't see how the PCs could have won.
Still, an excellent story and you clearly had a lot of fun! Roll on Savage Tide!
Anyway, given the changes made, I don't see how the PCs could have won.
Still, an excellent story and you clearly had a lot of fun! Roll on Savage Tide!
JollyDoc
Explorer
Quartz said:
Technically, Kyuss wasn't undead. He was an ooze with negative energy affinity, and you are right, his use of Harm did not instantly remove all his wounds. It would max at 150 hp, but when you have 3 or 4 rounds of Time Stop and can cast Harm every round, you're healed up nicely by the time Time Stop ends.
JollyDoc
Explorer
Joachim said:
That being said, I will be scaling the adventures in accordance with the guidelines in the sidebars, since I anticipate having 7 players in this game, and o/w the group will not be leveling appropriately. However, I will not alter any NPC in any way, and we shall see what we shall see.
