Lair Assault: Attack of the Tyrantclaw

[keterys]

There's no action indicating how to activate the music box. A DM is well within their rights to rule it can be done as part of a short rest. At least, for now.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I ran this Lair Assault twice. I might get to run it again, but the group I run for played Guardmore Abbey this week, instead.

As with Talon of Umberlee, they lost interest once they had defeated it. For some reason - probably only because the program was new - they kept coming back to Dawn Titan, demolishing it in several creative ways and reaping most of the available awards.

One player brought up the Pixie Music Box, an incautiously written quasi-magic item for Heroes of the Feywild. I told him if he wanted to put himself down for "Island of Dreadfully Easy" he could, but I wasn't going to bother running through that. So, they proceeded without that particular trick. The took a lot of boxes and a couple of turrets and stacked them completely around hyacinth. They popped a Hunter's Mist around her, and the pacifist cleric initiated a Stream of Life with her.

I switched up the monster/dino assignments, having the waves come in descending order of speed, and swapping the Storm Sorcerers with the Reavers, so they were on flying dinos and showed up first. I had them approach from wall side of the map. The players hadn't placed anyone/thing on the towers, so I had the casters disembark on the towers, and the pterodactyls start trying to snatch PCs and drop them in the tar, while the. The casters dropped their AEs on the square above Hyacinth, destroying most of the boxes and damaging a turret. There others arrived in waves, Tricertops, then minions, finally anklysaurs.

With Hyacinth in a Stalker's Mist, I damaged her mainly with the few AEs the orcs and dinos had, including the casters' bloodied re-charge. At the top of the 4th round, the Cleric decided to re-vive the Wizard rather than topping off Hyacinth, and I manage to beat her down with the anklysaurs' AEs, a lucky shot or two and a Savage Demise from a Pummeler before the end of the round.

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Second session, the party layered Stalkers Mist and a Warden Power that created cover (somethingorother Life) around Hyacinth, and healed her more thoroughly.

I varied the approach and tactics (the Casters stood off at 30 altitude and dropped lightning for the first round or two). And stopped attacking Hyacinth in round 4 so she'd start round 5 at full hps (it was debateable whether damage carried over from her to the T-Rex, but I thought it'd be fun if it theoretically did, and the party's 'success' meant facing a full-power T-Rex).

One PC died (dropped in tar), but they kept Hyacinth alive long enough to turn into a T-Rex. They quickly bloodied the other Dinos which fled, and beat down the T-Rex with some difficulty but no further fatalities.

 

[TheWriterFantastic™]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Zuche
Before I report this week's results (and head off to run it again), does anyone have a suggestion for easier ways to keep everything on the map straight before it's turned over? It can get crazy with a party of six that likes to use a lot of crates and zones, especially if they opted to play on nightmare mode. Tracking damage to crates could also be a hassle, but having the players look after that works best.

We had a polycarbonate sheet over the map. So when it was time we lifted the sheet up just enough to pull out and flip over the map.
We did it that way 4 times and it worked great.

We've been doing the same thing since Encounters, realizing completely by accident during the 1st session of Forge of the Dawn Titan that we could just lift the plexiglass instead of going through the hassle of noting where everything was on the map pre-flip (we used it mostly to mark any zones from power effects before that). Since we have a limited time slot, lifting the whole battlefield to just flip the map underneath saves us from wasting time replacing everything halfway through...

 

[Zuche]

You do have the miniature erasable map, right?; I jotted down on mine where Hyacinth, the crates, and the turrets were at the start; at the end of round 4, I added the PCs and NPCs.

I'm sorry to say I'm a bit too heavy-handed with writing utensils to manage that. Still, photocopying the sheet and recording things on that works. Thanks. The polycarbonate sheet is also a good idea, but I'm not sure how practical it would be for the tables I've been using.

Only one player could make it on Saturday, but it gave me time to review his designs. (Some people need a lot of help with feat selection. Some need a reminder to never let the character builder select feats for them.) We resume Thursday.

Any suggestions for proper handling of a nine square area cage they found in Dragon (414, I think)? I've already pointed out that Hyacinth needs to be in contact with the foundation around the obelisk, so they're looking to use it as an extra wall against dinosaurs. As long as it follows the guidelines for object hit points and damage reduction, their efforts to bump its break DC don't worry me that much.

 

[jester_gl]

Another failed attempt from the group I DM for in a little store. This time only 3 persons showed up, so I removed a dinosaur per wave and decided to go easy on them. They surrounded Hyacinth with crates and got 2 turret in area they would have difficulty covering. The hunter used an area burst 2 difficult terrain for enemies and prevent charge, which was useful to prevent those death attack charges.

The only heal they had from a multiclass was used on Hyacinth, but she still died at the start of the 4th round, killed by a minion. The hunter was safely camped on top of the wall and finished at full hp, the fighter was pushed around alot and he will be rolling a dwarf next time instead of a mule, and the pixie ranger failed to hit almost every single time.

I also destroyed all 8 crates.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Before I report this week's results (and head off to run it again), does anyone have a suggestion for easier ways to keep everything on the map straight before it's turned over?

One of my players had a tablet with a camera, and just took a picture of the map. Worked pretty well, the screen was only a little smaller than the we-erase mini-map you're supposed to use.

 

[Sentack]

I'm looking forward to running this in the next couple weeks for a couple different groups and I'm hoping it's going to be an honest challenge this time.

I ran the second one (Talon) and the player destroyed that one so easily it wasn't funny. I had 5 nearly identical Drow Rangers made by one player at my table and they all just twin-striked everything to death so easily it didn't matter. They are going to try the same character concept this time around. I'm hoping that this encounter will be a far bigger challenge then last time.

 

[Matt James]

I'm looking forward to running this in the next couple weeks for a couple different groups and I'm hoping it's going to be an honest challenge this time.

I ran the second one (Talon) and the player destroyed that one so easily it wasn't funny. I had 5 nearly identical Drow Rangers made by one player at my table and they all just twin-striked everything to death so easily it didn't matter. They are going to try the same character concept this time around. I'm hoping that this encounter will be a far bigger challenge then last time.

This one should be more challenging. Let me know how it goes.

 

[Zuche]

Rough luck for tonight's group: the last creature to act in the fourth round did just enough damage to finish Hyacinth off. They had a weak start, but they rallied pretty well in that fourth round, cutting off most avenues of attack and laying down a field that prevented anything from charging the dryad, save for down two very narrow lanes. The invoker/cleric hybrid had conjurations that could have prevented that last attack, but he overlooked my one window of opportunity for that last creature, underestimating how far the ankylosaur could move that turn. Instead, he used his standard action to bloody all of the remaining dinosaurs.

They had one surgeless healing power that would have made all the difference if it had been used earlier, but the player didn't realize their ward had only one healing surge until she spent it. Another unlucky break came because their resourceful warlord forgot to mention the damage bonus he granted to their barbarian when she spent her action point, as it would have been enough to kill the creature that would then go on to kill Hyacinth.

With a bit more practice working together, this group of PCs could probably hold it together until at least the 5th round. A few more tweaks might see them through until the end.

 

[jelmore]

This one should be more challenging. Let me know how it goes.

BTW, Matt, thanks for writing this adventure in the first place.

I love the theme and could easily use a tweaked version in a home game. Finally, a reason to buy and use dinosaur minis! You've made my Fiendish Tyrannosaur happy.