Argent Silvermage said:
Yes. Up until now only Elizabeth and her shiny friend knew.
Glyf is very freaked out about this. Not that she's a changling but he feels a bit betrayed that she couldn't confide in him.
What the characters do and don't know is a point of conjecture, right now. While Aushanna DID call Astrid a changeling, it's not clear how many really took her at her word.
Concerning the fight: Let me be candid. The problem here is that, judging from my research, the party should really have been 7th level in this fight, not 6th. A number of 4th level spells would have been a big help to stop her. Overall, it's a poorly conceived battle, in that it is pretty much unavoidable and difficult if not impossible to evade once begun. The Blue Tyger Legion never leaves it's own behind if it can avoid it. I softballed Aushanna and they knew it, but in my mind it was inappropriate to do otherwise. Why?
Let's be clear, here....Aushanna is a CR 9 advanced Erinyes who is introduced in an environment designed to heighten her lethality and that is virtually unpredictable by the party's actions. The party figured out that something was going to be summoned, but assumed (based on the whips) that it couldn't be THAT powerful. Aushanna isn't an eggshell with a hammer...she's just a hammer. And with the ability to Rapid Shot at +16, she was doing 4 flaming arrows a turn. Only two or three party members could survive a sustained barrage from her, and not likely for two rounds. In my mind, any fight that is conceived of with the almost certainty that all but the luckiest party will lose at least one character (at least, at these levels, where raise dead and resurrections are problematic) is a poor design.
So why did I let Aushanna stand as it was. A couple of things: first, I underestimated the power of Unholy Blight and the fact that she can cast it at will (as opposed to once a day). Second, I softballed the fight, but it would downright insulting to retcon it, in my mind. The players want a challenge, they just want it to be fair. Someone attempted to bargain with Aushanna early on, but he wasn't the Charisma monkey, and it failed miserably. Astrid, on the other hand (once un-charmed), wielded a Good-aspected halberd and rolled a 29 on her Intimidate. Aushanna backed down....she is Evil, after all, and a lawful devil working for a Chaotic deity...which frankly doesn't make much sense.
Suffice it to say I'll be reviewing the rest of the module a little more closely, to make sure I get the results I'm looking for, since it's clear that the module is nastier than I wanted. It's easy for a DM to make an unwinnable situation...it takes work to make a challenging one. Which isn't to say the rest of the module will be a cake-walk...just that I don't want it to be an unescapable death-trap.
