Well, they're not all dead yet...
We managed to get through 4 rounds of combat. Since each round had over 20 combatants, that's not too bad. Sadly, 4 hurricanes missed at least one turn because it took me a while to notice that they weren't in the initiative order. Too many moving parts, divided across 2 combats.
Up on the pinnacle, Freyja and Silaqui initially faced 2 hurricanes and a priest, with 2 more hurricanes joining in. One hurricane concentrated on stealing the hippogriff, in order to trap them on the roof. It took three skill checks before he could persuade it to take off. Freyja was occupied with fighting two more. Silaqui softened up the roof party with a few Scorching Ray spells and switched to fighting. She's a bladesinger with an AC of 20 and Freyja is a raging barbarian, so they're actually doing okay -- down to two half-dead hurricanes and a priest, since the hippogriff thief is out of it. The priest is letting the hurricanes handle things. He doesn't have any good ranged attacks, nothing that won't mess up his own guys. If they fall, he'll probably use Gaseous Form to escape to the stables, which have some giant vultures on standby.
The other combat was the frontal assault on the drawbridge. Thoril was the only one in the entry hall; the rest of them were outside using ranged attacks, but Su'uvarax parked his 315 pounds at the end of the drawbridge to keep it open. My strategy here was to get the drawbridge closed again. The downstairs priest cast a Dust Devil on the drawbridge. Thoril decided early on to withdraw but couldn't clear the drawbridge. The hurricanes have tons of movement, so they all popped out, cast Thunderwave, and popped back into hiding. Unfortunately, Thoril fell over from a thunderwave. Then he took damage from yet another Thunderwave (failed death save), rolled badly for a failed death save, and then took damage from the Dust Devil (failed death save). I offered Will a chance to save him, but the concept wasn't working out and he wants to try a samurai instead. Most likely I'll have him looking for the missing delegation, since that element isn't getting much attention yet. It would also be nice to give him a connection to the Knights of Samular, so someone could recognize the lich in the earth temple.
The hurricanes managed to clear the drawbridge and started to raise it. Su'uvarax slowed it by hanging off the end, and then Maendir shot the guy working the gears and it fell back open. Truth ventured inside the tower and Su'uvarax followed him, so the hurricanes started hauling it up again. This is making it hard for the outside group to get lines of attack. Truth got dropped but Liliandra used Healing Word to get him conscious again. She's out of spells, though. Zook used Misty Step to close and then blinded a couple of guys using him Gem of Brightness. Currently the downstairs group has Truth and Su'uvarax, both well below half, inside the drawbridge facing two guys with a handful of HP, one full strength hurricane and a priest who's above half. Zook, Liliandra and Maendir are outside; Zook is undamaged while the other two are down about half.
So things could get dire for the downstairs team, unless Freyja and Silaqui are able to join them in the next round, or they find a way to get the drawbridge back down. It's about halfway closed now, but that's enough to cut off the ranged attacks. Still, I'm impressed they've managed to make this much progress -- it's the party's third combat of the day and they were seriously outnumbered: 2 priests, 10 hurricanes, a knight and an initiate (two more initiates are in the stables, guarding the vultures). I've got a band of aarakocra as backup if things take a turn for the worse.
Of course, now they're going to expect to survive deadly encounters on a regular basis. Sigh.
No comments:
Post a Comment