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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rel" data-source="post: 939760" data-attributes="member: 99">Retrospectively (and remember, this fight took place over a year ago), there were a number of factors running against the party in this battle.  The primary one was that they lacked really thorough intelligence about their enemy.This was primarily because their normal method of having Speaks fly over in bird form for an extensive scout of the compound would have aroused too much suspicion among the Dark Druids.  They knew he was around, knew he was a Druid and used the same technique themselves.If I recall correctly, they discussed the option of trying to ambush individual Dark Druids as they went off on their "shopping trips" further south in the Darkwood to harvest Gnolls and Ogres to augment their undead army.  That idea was discarded because they could probably only do it successfully once and it would put the whole camp on guard against them.  They figured it was better to attack with more or less total surprise.They largely achieved that goal and Speaks dropping two Briar Webs into the camp before the Dark Druids did anything really helped.  Unfortunately, there were a pair of Dark Druids in bird form always on watch at one side of the compound.  Those are the ones who immediately went after Speaks.The other two characters made (in my opinion) a substantial tactical error in splitting up.  The plan was always for Speaks to stay overhead doing "crowd control" while the others wreaked havoc inside the camp.  But Raven and Scar really couldn't support each other much because Scar was inside the pavillion and Raven was outside and they couldn't even see each other.In their defense, they had no idea the shadows were going to be there.  They stayed beneath the earth during the daytime, but were always ready to come to the call of their master, the Dark Druid leader (that rod is pretty nasty).  The attack of the shadows and the resulting strength drain had (and will continue to have) a very large impact on the flow of the battle.  By this point in the fight, the Dark Druid leader would probably have been dead if Scar's blows were landing at full force.On the plus side, Raven did manage to get a fairly successful turn off against the Shadows at a critical moment.  As he has explained before, his low Charisma tends to work against him in that department.  But they really needed a break and the dice were kind.  It was a really great moment in the session because the players were all obviously starting to think, "I'm not sure any of us are going to live through this, much less vanquish the Dark Druids."  After the turning of the shadows, they could see a tiny light at the end of the tunnel.As far as the Dark Druids (They're all Blighters in case you haven't figured it out yet) spells go, yes, they are quite unpleasant.  Fortunately for the party they were fairly well protected against fire which guarded them against the Flame Strikes and Burning Hands (Blighters can use Burning Hands every round as a spell-like ability) for the most part.In any event, this was always set up to be the pivotal battle of the campaign (the Battle of Hrongar's Hill was much larger and probably at least as important, but didn't hinge solely on the actions of the PC's) and I could hardly have asked for a more intense and exciting outcome.  It gets even better.</blockquote>

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