Latest COTSQ Session & Strategy Question for DMs Out There (SPOILERS!)

[Archade]

A few days ago my PCs made an abortive attempt at hitting the House Morcane level, and after one round of realizing a Forbiddance spell was in place, and there were vampires waiting for them, they ran like hell.

Well, last night's session, the Hunter-Killer Team came looking for the hooligans that trashed their home over the last couple of days, and found the party just outside the crypt entrance, hoping to ambush any drow raiding parties. It was ugly.

- Susztam created a minor image of a spellguard casting a spell of invisibility, and then turning invisible. The party went nuts looking for the invisible wizard.

- the Two quth-maren ran all over the Daggerdale Militia. Yugh.

- Zedarr killed the party paladin, and trashed the rest of the militia, taking heavy arrow fire before going down.

- Velasta flame struck the paladin, and attempted to slay living on the barbarian, but the barbarian decided that her 'arm filled with bad magic just had to go'.

What I found totally dangerous was Susztam. He turned invisible, lined up the party, and cast shadow evocation of a lightning bolt, messing them up. Then he cast improved invisiblity, fly, and ran around hitting the party with hypnotic pattern, enervation, vampire touch, and finally, found the hiding halfling rogue, and cast suggestion: 'you're safe hiding in this dusty, old, abandoned crypt - why don't you take a nap?'. While he was doing this, he had created a persistent image of a keening spirit rising from the body of the dead priestess - wasting a lot of time and ammunition on it. Sadly, hthe rogue rolled a 1 on his Will Save, and got gacked in his sleep. Susztam is one nasty opponent if played with a little strategy.

So here's my question; Susztam slit the rogue's throat, and teleported back home with the body and his stuff. The HKT is dead, and he's got his own agenda. Would he wait in his room for the party to come get him? Would he go hunting on his own? Could he use the adventurers to his own advantage? I'm looking for ideas here ...

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

Now that's some good tactics.

I don't think he'd wait in his room. He might try to divide the party, either by picking off one member at time, or getting them to split for some reason. What about more images of their halfling returning as a vampire--they might waste resources on that, allowing Susztam to take out more PCs. Hmmmm...... (1) image of halfling as vampire, (2) charm on barbarian, (3) barbarian moves to halfling to provide super-sized blood feast for "halfling vampire" and as the party deals with this problem (a barbarian they think is dominated), Susztam takes someone else out. Then departs, to try another trick later.

My group has been stopming through the module, so I've been re-reading and try to play the bad guys smarter. But I did have a moment of RBDM joy at the last session. In the ooze cult secret altar, the party decided that absolutely had to have the shiny purple thing at the bottom of the acid pool. The Trumpet Archon jumped in and took 10d6 acid damage. Even with his Resist Elements: Acid he took a lot of damage, and another 10d6 on the second round as he climbed out of the pool. Sometimes, players are their own worst enemies.

 

[Archade]

Hey Barendd!

Looks like you're only one session behind me! My guys hit the ooze alter two weeks ago. Unfortunately, they weren't familiar with ooze traits, and after the first round of hacking, there were five black puddings! It dissolved the other rogue in the party (who's now come back as a Githzeri Fighter/Rogue, who's Rakkama got pasted in Manezene, but that's another story).

Since you're right about where I am, here's my quandry; what's Susztam going to get out of killing the surfacers? I imagine Velasta and Dorina have politicial leverage to get the Inverted Tower to send a wizard with the Hunter Killer Team, and Solom would tell Susztam he has to go, and Susztam would go grudgingly. He dreams of usurping Solom, and is no slouch in the wizard department, but won't try anything when Solom is watching him.

Here's a couple of thoughts:

- I like the vampire halfling ruse! What I'm thinking is Susztam would take the corpse to Velina, get info on the party via Speak with Dead, and then Animate Dead the corpse as a Zombie, which Susztam can cast an illusion on to look like a vampire, and maybe pump it up with a Stoneskin and mage armor, and keep him around as a bodyguard, or give him to Velina as a new toy.

- Susztam could try to convince the party to kill Solom - tricky, but sneaky, can could get him the archmage job.

- Susztam could try to hunt the party down, and kill them one by one, but I keep asking 'why would he be interested in doing that'?

Any other ideas?

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

OK, even better uses for the halfling's corpse. See, my problem is that I would never think to use "Speak With Dead" to get info. Big "duh!" to me.

You're right--Susztam doesn't really get anything out of just killing them (except gear).

So, is Susztam powerful enough to keep up the illusion and have it interact with the party? 'Cause if he can....the halfling should ask the party to get revenge for the one who killed him--Solom! In this scenario, it doesn't have to be a vampire--it could just be a ghost asking for revenge. OK, even better. He can use permanent image to make an image of the halfling appear. Now, if you stop concentrating, the image remains static. So, I say (assuming the party does not know how the halfling died):

1. Make a permanent image of the halfling as a statue (as if he was turned to stone--horrible grimace on face, etc.), somewhere the party will run into it.
2. The statue "comes to life" (when Susztam is around) to beg party to seek revenge.
3. The statue returns to "statue form" when Susztam needs to leave, or after a few minutes (it could even tell them that it can only manifest for a short time each day).
4. Naturally, the party has been asked to walk into Solom's lair and kill him.
5. Perhaps the statue even gives them a clue about an item that will help them. Susztam plants the item where the party can get it easily, because the "halfling" has told them how to bypass the trap/guardian that guards it. For example, the "halfling" could tell them how to bypass the 'Guards and Wards' trap ("I heard him utter a password, which was '------'"), which lets them catch Solom off guard and he directs them the whereabouts of a magic item that can help (wand of magic missiles, for example--never misses and helps "nickel & dime" the opponent to death; it could be hidden in a secret compartment, also password protected, in the empty student room).

The beauty of all this--the party thinks you (the DM) are "throwing them a bone" and helping them. And you're just being a RBDM.

As the battle progresses, if the party is not doing well and Susztam can turn the tide, well he can just pop in and finish off Solom and drive off the party (maybe with just a snide "leave before I kill you, too"). If they're not doing well, they won't stick around to fight a second powerful wizard.

And then, the halfling can thank them for their help and send them off on another quest--to restore his soul or something. And they're just working for Susztam. Kind of permanently. Collecting rare spell components, etc.

Now, you have a long-term enemy--which they don't even know about. Much later, Susztam could resurface, thank them for all their help, and leave the animated halfling corpse as a memento.

Hmmmm. Now I've to find a way to work some of this into my game.


[edit - remove quoted text to save space]

 

[Celtavian]

re

Those are some nasty tactics Archade. Nicely done.

 

[Atridis]

- Susztam created a minor image of a spellguard casting a spell of invisibility, and then turning invisible. The party went nuts looking for the invisible wizard.


I have no idea what COTSQ is, but that's the best second-best laugh I've had in days. I have to use that sometime.

in return, I pass along a trap that's in a similar vein (I don't remember where I saw it, but it stung my players pretty good): the party all get trapped in a room, when stone slabs (like doors on Star Trek) block all the exits. next to one of the doors is a very obvious button (Spot DC-1). a disembodied voice begins to count down from ten (I did it in German, just for effect). if anyone pushes the button, the countdown pauses and then starts again from the beginning, backwards from ten. the party can push this button as many times as they wish, allowing them to find a way out. when the countdown reaches zero...

...the doors open.

obviously, this trap requires that your players have the right sense of humor.

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

I have no idea what COTSQ is, but that's the best second-best laugh I've had in days. I have to use that sometime.

That's the "City of the Spider Queen" module from WotC.

 

[Archade]

Thanks for the Kudos guys!

Well, last session was mostly the wizard spending a few days to decipher spells and transcribe them into his spellbook (teleport), while the cleric wind walked to Hillsfar to sell the loot they had accumulated thus far (totalling a take of 50,000gp when everything was said and done), and shopping for some new stuff.

They reincarnated the paladin as a Fire Genasi, so he decided to retire. That player rolled up a juvenile Stone Giant escaped from the underdark to replace his PC. The dead halfling rogue was replaced by a human Sorcerer/Alienist.

All they got accomplished was greater dispelling the forbiddance and unhallow in House Morcane, bursting in, and killing the vampires (with the cleric's cohort, a monk who was enlarged, divine favor-ed, and disruptive weapon-ed), using silver arrows from a magic bow, and magic rather than brute force, with not a single scratch for the good guys. Nice job on the PCs part.

So, I decided that Suzstam dropped the halfling's body off to Dorina (who used speak with dead to get the names of the party, and is now trying to scry them on a daily basis but no success yet), and has gone back to the inverted tower to contemplate how to use the party against Solom. One option he has is to create an illusion of the halfling ghost moaning in horror as the Archmage tortures his soul, but he's waiting a few days, so he can identify all the halfling's gear, which he did *not* turn over to Dorina.

Archade / Mad Morty Rackham

PS - Y'know, I'm thinking it would be fun at GenCon to run a marathon COTSQ 3.5 game in part or in whole, with people who had never played it before. Whaddaya think?

"Every pirate is a little bit crazy. You, though, are more than just a little bit. You have the good fortune of having a good name, since Rackham (pronounced RACKem, not rack-ham) is one of the coolest sounding surnames for a pirate. Arr! "

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

PS - Y'know, I'm thinking it would be fun at GenCon to run a marathon COTSQ 3.5 game in part or in whole, with people who had never played it before. Whaddaya think?
[/I]

Which part would you run? It's so large, there are several portions that could take up an entire weekend of play.