Sagiro
Rodent of Uncertain Parentage
This was run #29 of the campaign: “Return to the Beholder's Lair”
I'm sure I'm forgetting lots of stuff as usual; Aravis, if you're reading this, I'd love for you to chime in with your initial impressions of playing the sorcerer, along with what powers you were using.
Tactical notes:
I'm sure I'm forgetting lots of stuff as usual; Aravis, if you're reading this, I'd love for you to chime in with your initial impressions of playing the sorcerer, along with what powers you were using.
Tactical notes:
- We went back into the sewers with a 13-man team – the six in our party, plus a guest playing a fighter, plus a squad of a half-dozen NPC's about as powerful as we were. Piratecat played the guest NPC's.
- Toiva's player has brought in a Chaos Sorcerer, so now we're 4 strikers, a leader and a controller. Today's battle told us nothing about how we'll do without a defender, since Alomir's son guest-starred as the 6th level fighter Garth, whose presence proved pivotal.
- Piratecat intended us to have the fight in the same room as before, but with the added fun of some large tidal blowholes pushing and pulling us around. He also intended that the PC's would go in first, at which point the Beholder would spring a divide-and-conquer trap and proceed to wipe out the NPC's before coming to kill us too.
- In the end, the battle didn't go as planned by anyone – not us, not the monster. I'll try to sum up.
- The beholder had rigged the entrance tunnel to its lair for easy collapse, but we noticed the trap and decided to pre-spring it on purpose. We collapsed the ceiling with all of us still on one side, in a long 15'-wide tunnel. This meant the fight took place in that tunnel, rather than in the glorious battleground with the hanging corpses.
- At first we thought we were doomed, as the thing attacked right after the collapse. After planning on having the fight in a wide open space where we could surround the thing at range, we were stuck in a corridor. We sounded a general retreat, not wanting to fight this melee beast in close quarters again. We figured we'd regroup and rethink our approach.
- Someone managed to hit it with a slowing attack, and we realized we'd be able to get in some attacks while fleeing, if we could keep hampering its movement. Little did we realize how dazzlingly successful that approach would be!
- In the actual fight, the beholder opened up with its brutal scream that did massive damage (20, I think) and dazed most of the party. We collectively failed 4 of our first 5 saves against the dazing, and we were all having flashbacks to the previous dismal showing.
- The Beholder had similar problems; it missed on its first 6 tentacle attacks, which stretching from the previous game made it EIGHTEEN consecutive misses with that attack – and it typically needed only to roll a 10 or higher!
- This combat was all about keeping the beholder slowed/immobilized/restrained while the 13 of us whittled it away at range. We had a number of attacks that did these things, most notably Alchemist's Frost, Sleep, Web, and the critical hit power of the shaman's Summer Growth Totem. Those last two had great synergy, as the Totem kept it restrained while in the Web's area, meaning it was immobilized the following round. We were able to pepper it with ranged attacks while, for at least two of its turns, it couldn't attack any of us. The rogues used Deft Strike to move into dagger-throwing range, attack, and move back out of the 5-square range of the beholder's attacks. Best of all, the monster's powerful recharge-and-instantly-use-Blood-Scream-upon-being-bloodied attack was effectively wasted. Only the shaman Bramble was within range when it went off, and it missed her.
- Having a fighter was huge. For the mid-portion of the combat, he kept it “stuck” quite literally; the beholder couldn't move through or past him, since the corridor was only 15' wide and the monster itself was 10' wide. The constant marking meant it was at -2 to attacks on the rest of us. The fighter also had an attack that guaranteed a push 3 on the beholder, which had the effect of pushing it further into the Webbed area. Neat!
- This was also a fight where a bunch of pluses and minuses really made a big difference. Bramble used War Chieftain's Blessing early on, which gave all of us +2 on all our attacks. She also used Battle Spirits which gave most of our attacks an additional +1. Various powers were giving us combat advantage for another +2. Meanwhile the beholder was at -2 on many attacks due to the fighter's mark, and -2 while it was restrained.
- The “extra squad” did somewhere between 60 and 80 points of damage in total, firing bows every round from the back rank.
- Nice moment – Caldwell used Heal to grant Logan an extra save against his Dazed state, describing it as a “whack to the sciatic nerve” to jar him out of the Daze. It was good for Caldwell to do something, as his miserable die-rolls caused him to miss on pretty much every attack he made – not good for a striker.
- The new sorcerer was more successful. I don't remember the names of most of his powers, but “Dazzling Ray” did some mighty damage.
- Finally, it really made a huge difference that we were fresh for this battle. We blew most of our collective dailies, went hog-wild with Action Points, and had surges a-plenty.
- All in all, another exciting combat that didn't go as anyone expected, and which ended in glorious victory with no new casualties. And for next game we're leveling up to 7th! Huzzah!
