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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Not a Decepticon" data-source="post: 9687055" data-attributes="member: 7020527">The Necrotic Ritual, Level 12 party of 4[SPOILER="The text"]thgis fight happenned after I've run more higher-level Castle Amber for the group, to...mixed result. The party felt the adventure was too detached from overall campaign and goals. I felt a need to get them back into being engageg and excited, focus on their own goals and wants and try to show consequences the past adventure had on present (this is Mystara campaign, where Castle Amber is originally from)The party:Hsiao (Owlfolk) Armorer ArtificerHuman Necromancy Wizard/Undead Warlock (refered to as Wizard)Elf Hexblade Warlock, wielder of Blackrazor, THE BlackrazorLupin (dog people), wielder of Whelm, the legendary hammerEach one with NPC sidekick, raging from Sea Elf warrior with Wave the legendary trident to a Goblin givign everyone help action.During the adventre, Hexblade got dragged into Shadowfell, and the party got sent to a portal at the edge of a high cliff, where they could get her back. To their surprise, they found there a "Sad Necromancer", a tragic villain they ran into in the past, whom Wizard was very interested in. Necromancer was flying on a Drolem (flesh golem made of Dragon parts), while surrounded by army of skeletons, ghouls and undead giants, lead by undead Medusa. She was, in fact, they old enemy/ally the party left to die with her pet Displacer Beast. Necromancer ressurected them as one abomination (modified Maralith with signature Medusa and Displacer Beast abilities), and made his right-hand. Necromancer was there condoning a ritual to summon a Nightwalker under his command. Wizard and Artificer put their minds together and I told them they could hijack this ritual to get Hexblade back. But it would require someone to attune to the ritual and defeat Necromancer in battle of wills (opposed Arcana rolls, made at disadvantage if you took damage since your last round) for multiple turns, during which if either one of them would perish, the portal would go off like a nuke. Wizard volunteered.As the fight begun, in the portal appeared two trapped figures - Hexblade and a Nightwalker. A Nightwalker with special trait, that made Shadows spawn off its body whenever it took damage. Neither could for now leave the portal, so they were fighting. Wizard was struggling with Necromancer, trying to talk him down before realizing, from subtle clues and good rolls, that Necromancer is scared to stop and talk because someone far worse is making him do all of this and also watching him. Barbarian was happy to be able to whack some Giants with Whelm and Artificer realzied his long D&D dream of grappling a Dragon, basically throwing the Drolem over his shoulder and make it fall to the ground. Then in the middle of combat, over head of each of the PCs a werewolf teleported and tried to grab them, proclaiming that "Malachie du Marais sends his regards" - a clear indicator during their visit in Castle Amber, the party made a powerful enemy. At one point one of Werewolves grabbed Artificer into grapple and jumped with him off the cliff!Why it worked:I gave the combat multiple objectives - keep Hexblade alive against a Nightwalker and Shadows and defeat Necromancer and stop his ritual without killing him. This satisfied Wizard's desire to return to that plot and get more social element into combat. Isolating Hexblade made the party less prone to NOVA everything, since she is party's main damage dealer. Multiple unique enemies (giants, taken from Bigby's, Drolem and Maralith-Medusa-Displacer monstrosity) kept the combat away from being just exchange of attack rolls. Drolem helped Artificer realzie one of his player goals by knocking a "dragon" off the sky. Werewolves added extra variety and helped connecting the past adventure with the present. I consider it one of most entertaining combats I've run and am proud I managed avoid my biggest bane of running 5e - PC's focusing fire on the boss and ignoring everything else. In fact, I do not think they hit Necromancer even once and later took him prisoner to interrogate in safe place.[/SPOILER]One of my favorite sessions.</blockquote>

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