plecostomus
Adventurer
Finished The Lost City yesterday. My players really enjoyed the Zargon social encounter. Instead of having to give any treasure to him, they outwitted him and evaded a couple attacks to make their escape.
I also had a pinch-hitter for the final floor because of some scheduling uncertainties, and that player has decided to join us for the rest of the adventure.
I said above there's no boss fight on Zargon's floor, but I may have spoken too soon. There is a cultist named Zekrikitch in the chamber above Zargon's who uses the mind flayer statblock. Zekrikitch is CR7, everything else in the dungeon has been CR4 or lower. The players are Level 4 when they find Zekrikitch.
I accidentally killed Zekrikitch with a NPC who critted and then rolled max damage. Had the NPC not been there and had the players not freed her (she was chained to an altar in Zekrikitch's room), I'm not sure I would classify this as a winnable fight, especially if Zekrikitch gets lucky on his Mind Blast recharges.
Worth noting Zekrikitch could not hit anyone with his Tentacles, which means he could never set up for Extract Brain. On the flip side, his Dominate Monster spell, used on the Bard (it's not actually restricted to monsters), was not removed for the entire fight. I'm pretty sure the Bard did more damage to the party than Zekrikitch did, outside of Mind Blast.
So that was a pretty exciting fight until I smoked my own guy. Note that the 5.5 mind flayer has 15 ft of fly speed and the room height here is 20 ft.
Total time on this module was 44 hours for my group of 3 players. We play for 2 hours each week. For the next module we will have a proper 4-player party.
I also had a pinch-hitter for the final floor because of some scheduling uncertainties, and that player has decided to join us for the rest of the adventure.
I said above there's no boss fight on Zargon's floor, but I may have spoken too soon. There is a cultist named Zekrikitch in the chamber above Zargon's who uses the mind flayer statblock. Zekrikitch is CR7, everything else in the dungeon has been CR4 or lower. The players are Level 4 when they find Zekrikitch.
I accidentally killed Zekrikitch with a NPC who critted and then rolled max damage. Had the NPC not been there and had the players not freed her (she was chained to an altar in Zekrikitch's room), I'm not sure I would classify this as a winnable fight, especially if Zekrikitch gets lucky on his Mind Blast recharges.
Worth noting Zekrikitch could not hit anyone with his Tentacles, which means he could never set up for Extract Brain. On the flip side, his Dominate Monster spell, used on the Bard (it's not actually restricted to monsters), was not removed for the entire fight. I'm pretty sure the Bard did more damage to the party than Zekrikitch did, outside of Mind Blast.
So that was a pretty exciting fight until I smoked my own guy. Note that the 5.5 mind flayer has 15 ft of fly speed and the room height here is 20 ft.
Total time on this module was 44 hours for my group of 3 players. We play for 2 hours each week. For the next module we will have a proper 4-player party.
