With my players' permission, I'm going to share some of their edited email discussions before the game (with real names changed to ENW screen names). I think the strategizing is interesting. I'm tossing it in a sblock, though, 'cause it's long and not everyone will care about it.
[sblock]
Sagiro:
Can we avoid a TPK? Maybe. Maybe not. But let's talk about the situation we're in.
Alomir and I were discussing this last week, and both of us had independently come to the conclusion that we're in big trouble -- partly due to our atrocious die rolls, but also because we've been fighting on the monster's best terms. Basically (IIRC), the beholder gets free, devastating attacks on anyone close to it, every round, on our turns. AND, on it's turn it has some kind of burst tentacle attack. Basically it thrives on being close to all of us at once, which is bad because that's also how *we* thrive -- surrounding a foe and beating on it with melee. In this battle, having three melee strikers and a melee defender is working to our extreme disadvantage, and we're badly losing the war of attrition.
We're out of dailies. Bramble has little-to-no healing left to give. Caldwell has no healing left he can even receive. I'm not sure if Toiva has any paladin healing left, or if Logan has used his 1/day warlord heal, but regardless, we're already at our dregs and badly beat up. (Cobalt may actually be in the best shape -- he's taken almost no damage, still has his second wind, a healing potion, and a magic item that will let him spend a surge as a minor.)
We've got three basic options:
1. Stick around and try to win
2. Flee for our lives without trying to save the survivor
3. Flee for our lives but rescue the survivor
If we opt for the first of these -- a dubious proposition, but one which Cobalt will enthusiastically espouse -- I think our only hope is to scatter into as wide a ring around the creature as possible. If it's only damaging one of us per round, we have a chance, even though the rogue strikers will be doing crap damage with thrown daggers. (Bramble can mitigate this by using her at-will that grants one ally combat advantage each round.) Toiva is, logically, the person to engage the monster, though I'd feel better if she had ways to use her surges on herself. Perhaps she and Cobalt can try trading off who's close.
Anyway, scattering will cost us one round more of OA pain, but nothing worse than we'll suffer by staying clumped in its aura of tentacles.
If we opt for the rescue, it still makes sense for Toiva and/or Cobalt to distract and engage the monster while the others search for and free the victim. I'm not sure how we manage to out-pace the monster if it chases us while we're loaded down with a body -- Kevin, how far will we need to travel back the way we came, before we reach a place where the beholder won't fit?
I'm open to other suggestions, tactical observations, and resources your character has that I'm not considering.
Piratecat:
To be clear: Gullet the beholder gets free attacks on everyone within 10' at the start of its turn, and it gets up to three bite attacks on its turn as well. It possibly has other special powers that it hasn't yet needed to use. The attacks on your turn came from opportunity attacks when you moved close to it without shifting. It's averaging somewhere around 15+ points of damage per attack; not too much actual damage, but the extra necrotic damage that comes with being bit by an undead blood-sucking beholder is deadly. It isn't bloodied, and really hasn't been hurt badly due to abysmal rolls.
The room has about a 20' ceiling, with dozens of drained and crackly bodies (about 60 lbs. each) dangling from heavy chains attached to the ceiling. Moving into one of these spaces is difficult terrain. I'm letting you shift through them, though, due to the swinging nature of the bodies. Gullet is currently hovering 2 squares away from a 15' diameter well in the floor of the cave. It's unclear how deep the well goes down.. it certainly isn't filled up to the brim with the water that constantly drains into it. If you were to turn and flee, you'd need to run about 50' to get to a spot where the beholder would have to squeeze through, and another few hundred feet before there's a side pipe that it can't fit through. (This is how Logan escaped from it previously.) It's unclear if there are other entrances or exits to the old smuggling cave.
There's definitely someone still alive in there; Nuntle and Eli are on their way to go and look for him, and have disengaged from the combat. Toiva, Logan and Cobalt are dangerously close; Bramble and Stron are at a distance. It can destroy Bramble's spirit companion with one hit of an eye tentacle.
Blackjack:
> If we opt for the rescue, it still makes sense for Toiva and/or Cobalt to distract and engage the monster while the others search for and free the victim.
FWIW, I'd already started doing this when we called for the night.
Aravis:
Toiva will not opt for number 2. I do not think we can succeed at number 1. So, I think number 3 is the only option.
My suggestion is the following:
Logan and Cobalt disengage and use their daily utility that gives someone a surge, if not already used, to allow Toiva to get a couple of surges in. Toiva will use her second wind.
Toiva will attempt to lead Gullet up on side of the cavern towards the back by using her challenge. Cobalt and Logan will provide a flank behind which Nuntle and Eli can get the body out. Bramble and Stron can provide distance artillery.
Once Nuntle and Eli have the body out of the room, we withdraw to the best of our ability to do so.
It is possible that if Cobalt helps Toiva this will work better, but the key here is that we have to get Gullet further towards the back of the cavern.
KidCthulhu:
Stron has small but effective boom at-wills that work just fine from a
distance. He's out of dailies and encounter spells.
Alomir:
This is from memory, but I think it's pretty accurate; here are Logan's currently available options:
* inspiring word - let someone use a healing surge, with 2d6 additional hp healed
* downward spiral - daily, knocks opponent prone
* action point
* one tethercord
* teleport-when-hit, a la Cape of the Mountebank
* blade vault - bonus damage
Logan is at 25 HP, and I believe he's right next to the bad guy; however, using my inspiring word on Toiva seems like the right call.
Question: should Logan make one last attempt to do serious damage before we call it quits? If I roll decently (i.e., above the 3s we've been seeing), I can do 40-50 points of damage and knock the thing prone - if that doesn't bloody him, then we know for sure that we need to get out of there.
Who has the remaining alchemist's frost, and the other tethercord? Slowing the beholder down would be a good thing.
Aravis:
Ah crap. I totally forgot about using the tethercords. Yes, that is critical to our escaping.
Sagiro:
Once we've decided to flee (with prisoner) instead of fight, the problem space becomes much different -- and generally simpler.
At this point, NO actions should be spent simply doing damage to the beholder. Every action should be an attempt to achieve one or more of the following goals:
- Finding and cutting down the still-alive prisoner
- Distracting the Beholder from interfering with that rescue
- Positioning ourselves so that the Beholder can only attack one of us at a time
- Restricting the movement of the Beholder
- Force-moving the Beholder to our advantage, in terms of rescuing and fleeing.
- Flee! Aieeeeeee!
To that end, we have (collectively):
- 5 Tethercords which limit a target's movement
- Cobalt has an Alchemical Frost, which slows(?) things
- Logan and Cobalt each have dailies which automatically knock the target prone for a round, which will slow its movement
- (You fill in anything you have left in this spot)
- The ability to improvise. I think this is one of those situations where we should be making vigorous use of the "Do Something Cool" power -- like swinging on the chains and just kicking the damn thing away from other party members, for instance, or throwing lit sunrods at its central eye (er... does it have a central eye?) to blind it. We don't care about damage, just states that hinder its movement or its ability to damage us while we effect our escape.
If Toiva runs out of hit points and has to drop back, I think Cobalt becomes the ad-hoc defender -- he's at full health, has plenty of Surges, and can trigger three of those surges himself (Magic item, Second Wind, Healing Potion). Logan should use his Warlord healing ability on the nearly-dead Toiva at the earliest opportunity.
Anyone have further/better suggestions as to tactics?
Blackjack:
> - Restricting the movement of the Beholder
Tethercord a hanging body to the floor; this will create a fixed column. If memory serves, the bodies are fairly tightly-packed, and the beholder is large -- larger than the gaps between the bodies. By strategically creating these fixed columns, we can either trap the beholder in a corner, or at least prevent it from following us out the door.
Sagiro:
I don't have the text in front of me, but I think Tethercords target creatures, not objects. A 'corded creature gets a normal save to escape, and remember that the beholder, assuming it's a "solo," gets a +5 bonus to saves.
If Kevin allows us to target objects with them, that would at least be more reliable, since our chances of *hitting* the beholder aren't great. I'd guess that even if the beholder can smash past a body corded to the floor, it would be still slowed down while doing so.
(We may also be conflating our Tethercords with our Sovereign Glue, which almost certainly doesn't work on creatures, but which might be better at reliably attaching objects to floors. The main problem with the Glue is that it effectively takes a whole round to use -- you have to hold the two glued objects together until the *end* of your next turn.)
Blackjack:
> I don't have the text in front of me, but I think Tethercords target creatures, not objects.
I don't see why you couldn't use one on an object, though. What, it's an item that only sticks to living things?
Piratecat:
I don't mind you using the tethercord on objects! You may have some considerations, though.
a. if they were adhered to the ground, "targeted creature cannot move more than 3 squares from its 'stuck' square (save ends)" means that the beholder could presumably just push the corpses aside, since they'd have 15' of play.
b. the beholder is large (10' diameter) and fairly massive; that'd makes it easier to trap him, but he's probably fairly strong (and can fly)
c. the corpses themselves are dessicated, mostly, and not as durable as a regular body.
Then again, a religion or dungeoneering check will tell you that most of the damage the beholder is doing is necrotic damage, something not particularly good for ripping apart objects instead of just killing them. Maybe it's a toss-up.
Alomir:
"Cannot move more than 3 squares"? Well, those things must be pretty darn stretchy - meaning that I don't think 'cording a body to the floor is going to do much to slow the beholder down.
KidCthulhu:
I miss the plan of "mass haste, fireball, fireball, flamestrike, PE burst".
Aravis:
No, it won't. I think that if we use the tethercords and alchemists frost, they will have to be used directly on the beholder. If even 1 or 2 out of the 6 of them causes a 1 round slow down at the correct time, that could provide the escape time we need.
I am starting to feel better about Toiva's chance of surviving...well, you know, I have raised her chances from 10% to 15%...
[/sblock]
I'll also add stats for Nuntle the cloakmaker. Giving the PCs a minion as a sidekick was kind of cool in my opinion; they needed to think about keeping him alive, just as they would a real non-combatant, but he was still able to substantially contribute.
Nuntle, Human Grey Guard recruit Level 6 Minion
Medium natural humanoid XP 63
Initiative +10 Senses Perception +5
HP 1; a missed attack never damages a minion.
AC 22; Fortitude 19; Reflex 19; Will 18
Speed 6
m Long sword (standard; at-will) • Weapon
+10 vs AC; 4 damage
r Thrown dagger (standard; at-will) • Weapon
+10 vs AC; 4 damage
Cower Behind Allies
Nuntle gains a +2 power bonus to all defenses while at least two other allies are within 5 squares of him.
Make a Damn Fine Cloak
Nuntle is a great tailor, and really makes good cloaks. He wishes that was going to help save him.
Alignment Good Languages Common
Str 13 (+4) Dex 20 (+8) Wis 14 (+5)
Con 15 (+5) Int 11 (+3) Cha 10 (+3)
Equipment Longsword, 2 daggers, really nice cloak