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<blockquote data-quote="Fuzzybear" data-source="post: 9091093" data-attributes="member: 6917259"><p><h3>Up to the Third Floor</h3><p>After a ton of side conversation about whether they would really be taking Clan Millorn after all, it was eventually decided that the party probably shouldn't change their decision after making one at least. As such, Jack stepped up to the controls and began the lift. As the door starts to close, they catch a glimpse of a Ragesian soldier and make eye contact for just a moment before they turn to call out and the door slams shut. Not as far ahead as they thought they would be, the party is now scared that things may not end as well as they hoped for. </p><p></p><p>At the top of the lift, Clan Millorn vanishes off through the tunnels while Rev begins to scout the hallway before them. Not noticing the glyph, nor hearing the skeletons through the walls, Rev steps onto the dispel glyph and immediately loses a buff he was given, though nothing too big. After a moment, noises begin to come through the walls as the skeletons line up shots. Only Winry and Bryn are not surprised, so there is some damage that comes through first. I thought about dropping the wall of fire right away, but I didn't want to cage everyone on the lift, so I wanted at least a couple people to come well into the passageway first to draw the rest of the group out with the fire. Winry ran through the entire upper floor nearly with her feline agility, Myetharia moved up to the passage, and with Jack and Bryn still around as well, the fire is dropped and begins to roast them.</p><p></p><p>The party took the offensive right away and began to attack the visible skeletons, but no one could find the secret doors into the shooting galleries, so they stayed safe. They weren't the most effective though, not only because of their low damage output, but also because very few people stayed around in the flame to be shot at. After a moment of fighting, Grellfin of Clan Millorn pops up from behind the skeleton lines and bashes some down, telling the party to move on and find the controller as the Clan can take care of these. The idea was to get the party to move forward into the dance hall together and engage with Griiat instead.</p><p></p><p>Well, some of the party took the bait, but a beaten up Winry helped to hold the backlines instead. She got crit by a sneak attack and took around 2/3 of her health in one attack to start off the combat, so it could have gone better for the group at the start. Bryn ended up taking 2 rounds of flames as well and was around half health before making it through as well. Rev was the first through into the hall and learned about the controllable gravity first. He took full advantage of it walking up the wall and shooting down from strange angles towards the skeletons in the rear while hiding from view. Everything looked in control until Griiat appeared.</p><p></p><p>Things took a turn as the walls of fire appeared in the dance hall as well, cutting off the way forward. Jack however had different ideas. Rushing into the room and seeing the inquisitor to be partially spectral, he immediately begins the Song of Forms and traps Griiat into the Material Plane, preventing his ability to walk through walls and similar. I decided that this should probably drop his resistances as well, as without that he is effectively a normal humanoid. A few bow shots later and Griiat was bloodied by the time he was summoning a large fire elemental to defend him. I was hopeful that this would crank up the difficulty a bit and keep everyone interested and excited (as some people were getting sick of dealing with skeletons, especially Myetharia when she couldn't get up close and was stuck shooting non-magical bow shots for puny damage), but things were turned on their heads yet again by Jack.</p><p></p><p>On his next turn, Jack casts Wall of Force around the entrance to the Dark Pyre, trapping inside a dome both the fire elemental and Griiat. I tried to have Griiat Overmaster this spell cast, but Jack rolled a natural 20 and couldn't be stopped. Now this became a problem, but probably not for the reasons you may think. Griiat was trapped inside - he has no teleport, he was no longer able to use the Ethereal Plane to move through objects (and couldn't for Wall of Force anyway), cannot dispel it and cannot break it down. The fire elemental no better. But I had really wanted the 2 of them to provide a bit of spice and then die relatively quickly to resolve things for this fight. I knew people were sick of things, but now I had a problematic situation where there are a load of non-threatening skeletons sitting in wall of fire healing against a group of adventurers sitting in Twilight Sanctuary. I don't think any meaningful damage would happen unless people went into the fire, and the skeletons are too stupid to sacrifice themselves in order to try to focus Jack. The problem wasn't my encounter being trivialized, but rather our time being wasted.</p><p></p><p>As such, I made a mistake. I decided that instead of playing it all out, we would just wrap up for the night and pick things up next time with the walls coming down and the minion skeletons dealt with. The problem with this wasn't the result, but that it felt like I was punishing Jack for a good use of a spell by saying the session is over. Oops. I've had to do some apologizing since then and explaining, but in the end everyone has agreed that the correct solution was to not waste an hour of our time mopping up a result that was dealt with and instead move forward to the more interesting parts. As such, next session is going to start with a brief compilation of the group smashing skele-boys, healing up, and then dropping the walls.</p><p></p><h4>Problem solving</h4><p>Now the next part - what to do about Wall of Force. There have been a lot of enemies up until this point that have misty step which would nullify this, but what I don't want is for it to become too common a tactic for making a challenging encounter into 2 trivial ones. As far as I know, the only answers to this are breaking concentration (which requires intelligent enemies and enough firepower remaining to allow it), teleportation, or counterspelling it before it locks in. I plan to do some looking ahead to see what the options are (for instance Rhuarc I believe has Misty step to prevent this), but if anyone else has thoughts on the matter and how to not let it get too common, let me know!</p><p></p><h4>Next time, the truth of the firestorm!</h4></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Fuzzybear, post: 9091093, member: 6917259"] [HEADING=2]Up to the Third Floor[/HEADING] After a ton of side conversation about whether they would really be taking Clan Millorn after all, it was eventually decided that the party probably shouldn't change their decision after making one at least. As such, Jack stepped up to the controls and began the lift. As the door starts to close, they catch a glimpse of a Ragesian soldier and make eye contact for just a moment before they turn to call out and the door slams shut. Not as far ahead as they thought they would be, the party is now scared that things may not end as well as they hoped for. At the top of the lift, Clan Millorn vanishes off through the tunnels while Rev begins to scout the hallway before them. Not noticing the glyph, nor hearing the skeletons through the walls, Rev steps onto the dispel glyph and immediately loses a buff he was given, though nothing too big. After a moment, noises begin to come through the walls as the skeletons line up shots. Only Winry and Bryn are not surprised, so there is some damage that comes through first. I thought about dropping the wall of fire right away, but I didn't want to cage everyone on the lift, so I wanted at least a couple people to come well into the passageway first to draw the rest of the group out with the fire. Winry ran through the entire upper floor nearly with her feline agility, Myetharia moved up to the passage, and with Jack and Bryn still around as well, the fire is dropped and begins to roast them. The party took the offensive right away and began to attack the visible skeletons, but no one could find the secret doors into the shooting galleries, so they stayed safe. They weren't the most effective though, not only because of their low damage output, but also because very few people stayed around in the flame to be shot at. After a moment of fighting, Grellfin of Clan Millorn pops up from behind the skeleton lines and bashes some down, telling the party to move on and find the controller as the Clan can take care of these. The idea was to get the party to move forward into the dance hall together and engage with Griiat instead. Well, some of the party took the bait, but a beaten up Winry helped to hold the backlines instead. She got crit by a sneak attack and took around 2/3 of her health in one attack to start off the combat, so it could have gone better for the group at the start. Bryn ended up taking 2 rounds of flames as well and was around half health before making it through as well. Rev was the first through into the hall and learned about the controllable gravity first. He took full advantage of it walking up the wall and shooting down from strange angles towards the skeletons in the rear while hiding from view. Everything looked in control until Griiat appeared. Things took a turn as the walls of fire appeared in the dance hall as well, cutting off the way forward. Jack however had different ideas. Rushing into the room and seeing the inquisitor to be partially spectral, he immediately begins the Song of Forms and traps Griiat into the Material Plane, preventing his ability to walk through walls and similar. I decided that this should probably drop his resistances as well, as without that he is effectively a normal humanoid. A few bow shots later and Griiat was bloodied by the time he was summoning a large fire elemental to defend him. I was hopeful that this would crank up the difficulty a bit and keep everyone interested and excited (as some people were getting sick of dealing with skeletons, especially Myetharia when she couldn't get up close and was stuck shooting non-magical bow shots for puny damage), but things were turned on their heads yet again by Jack. On his next turn, Jack casts Wall of Force around the entrance to the Dark Pyre, trapping inside a dome both the fire elemental and Griiat. I tried to have Griiat Overmaster this spell cast, but Jack rolled a natural 20 and couldn't be stopped. Now this became a problem, but probably not for the reasons you may think. Griiat was trapped inside - he has no teleport, he was no longer able to use the Ethereal Plane to move through objects (and couldn't for Wall of Force anyway), cannot dispel it and cannot break it down. The fire elemental no better. But I had really wanted the 2 of them to provide a bit of spice and then die relatively quickly to resolve things for this fight. I knew people were sick of things, but now I had a problematic situation where there are a load of non-threatening skeletons sitting in wall of fire healing against a group of adventurers sitting in Twilight Sanctuary. I don't think any meaningful damage would happen unless people went into the fire, and the skeletons are too stupid to sacrifice themselves in order to try to focus Jack. The problem wasn't my encounter being trivialized, but rather our time being wasted. As such, I made a mistake. I decided that instead of playing it all out, we would just wrap up for the night and pick things up next time with the walls coming down and the minion skeletons dealt with. The problem with this wasn't the result, but that it felt like I was punishing Jack for a good use of a spell by saying the session is over. Oops. I've had to do some apologizing since then and explaining, but in the end everyone has agreed that the correct solution was to not waste an hour of our time mopping up a result that was dealt with and instead move forward to the more interesting parts. As such, next session is going to start with a brief compilation of the group smashing skele-boys, healing up, and then dropping the walls. [HEADING=3]Problem solving[/HEADING] Now the next part - what to do about Wall of Force. There have been a lot of enemies up until this point that have misty step which would nullify this, but what I don't want is for it to become too common a tactic for making a challenging encounter into 2 trivial ones. As far as I know, the only answers to this are breaking concentration (which requires intelligent enemies and enough firepower remaining to allow it), teleportation, or counterspelling it before it locks in. I plan to do some looking ahead to see what the options are (for instance Rhuarc I believe has Misty step to prevent this), but if anyone else has thoughts on the matter and how to not let it get too common, let me know! [HEADING=3]Next time, the truth of the firestorm![/HEADING] [/QUOTE]
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