The Tomb of Amun-Re

[Wolfgar]

Mar 8, 2010 15:06:04 GMT -5 Ginger said:

How broad was the ledge overlooking the pineapple room? If we could hide out there, it would be defensible. Bad guys couldn't see up, and you'd just jostle the trees to drop exploding pineapple bombs on anyone you saw.

The room is a 3" octagon. I think the pool is 1" across, leaving roughly a 1" ledge. However, that room has 5 entrances (not including the lion's mouth through which the water runs) - from the jungle room, the passage at the top, the passage behind the waterfall, and two doors. So I don't think it is very defensible. Also I don't think we should retreat. I would hate to have to fight him again to cross this room.

[Wolfgar]

Mar 8, 2010 15:08:51 GMT -5 venger said:

ALSO- Basil and Kazan are first and second in the marching order until such time as I'm convinced they aren't total cowards.

Kazan has been in the front the whole time so no change there. I would hardly call Basil a coward for standing up there taking damage while everyone else ineffectively tried to make it up the stairs.

In the end the problem is that we can't coordinate amongst our characters since we have different ideas on the best way to handle each situation. In hindsight there are always better ways to run a combat.

I don't know if it is beneficial in discussing what we could have done instead.

[Ginger]

I think we just need to think back to the Company of the Blue Sun stuff when we had to deal with fly spells when fighting demons/etc. It was always a challenge, and we just tried to create a system for it. Given the composition of the party, the system should be for Morvan to cast Fly on Rennslaer and for Basil and Kazan to take care of themselves.

And remember, offense is the best defense. It's just ridiculous that he wasn't hit with a magic missile every round before Basil could get into combat.

[Wolfgar]

I won't agree with that statement. We alerted him to our presence by failing to open the door the first round. So he had at least one round to prepare. He would have had a shield or minor globe spell up if he were a normal magic user. Or had a brooch of shielding. Once Rensslaer was stopped by the clay guys in the first round we were sitting ducks. I assumed everyone would fall back so we could coordinate some spells.

[Dead Greyhawk]

The shelf/landing in the pineapple room is about 5 feet wide and doesn't have a railing on it.

Kazan definitely saw Munafik sail by in the aqueduct after the jungle room.

Morvan thinks that if we have to retreat to find a more hidden/secure place to try to rest, we should memorize a bunch of fly spells (he'll be able to do 2 once he sleeps) so that we can just buzz over the landings. When Alfred flew up to the hand, none of the magical traps went off.

If we really need a place to totally hole up, one of the passageways in the maze would do it too. Protected by the mists and difficult to track through (I assume).

[venger]

Mar 8, 2010 15:44:10 GMT -5 Wolfgar said:

Kazan has been in the front the whole time so no change there. I would hardly call Basil a coward for standing up there taking damage while everyone else ineffectively tried to make it up the stairs.

In the end the problem is that we can't coordinate amongst our characters since we have different ideas on the best way to handle each situation. In hindsight there are always better ways to run a combat.

I don't know if it is beneficial in discussing what we could have done instead.

Zinc, Morvan and Rensslaer ate a fireball because all our guys with flying dithered at the back of the party, casting protective spells (PROTECTION FROM LIGHTNING?) and dropping their backpacks which they never recovered and Moonface should steal.. That's my issue.

[Ginger]

Now, maybe it's just my 3 lost magic items talking, but you guys need to trust that the supporting characters, Zinc and Morvan, will produce the defensive spells while you guys go on full out attack. I could have cast Prayer, etc on people, but I can't do that when there's no one between me and the big bad evil guy.

[Wolfgar]

Most of the time this is fine. But against a high level spellcaster I am going to choose Minor Globe over Prayer or PfE. If I stayed where I was there was little chance of getting Minor Globe up at the same time he is dropping fireballs and barrages of magic missile.

Lee - can you summarize everyone's actions for the first 5 rounds of the combat?

[venger]

As I remember it--

Round 1:

Rensslaer charges Munafik and is stopped.
Zinc moves into the room.
Kazan casts magic missile at Munafik.
Munafik casts magic missile at Rensslaer.
Alfred splits fire (at Munafik)
Morvan doesn't know what's going on.
Basil punts.

Round 2:

Kazan retreats behind the door. (OMG cast magic missile!)
Rensslaer defends against the mudmen that can't be slain.
Zinc begins casting prayer.
Morvan moves into the room.
Munafik drops a fireball on us. (OMG Zinc stop failing your saves - fireball, lightning bolt, petrification!)
Alfred shoots a mudman. (OMG shoot the spellcaster!!)
Basil casts Protection from Lightning. (OMG you have save of 2 and 120HP, soak up a lightning bolt for the team!!)

Round 3:

Zinc barely up, casting cure serious... (OMG, 7 segment casting time)
Rensslaer down.
Morvan down.
Munafik magic missiles Zinc to unconsciousness.
Basil drops his backpack and begins poetics. (OMG)
Kazan casts Minor Globe. (at this point, OK fine, but still)
Alfred flies over to Munafik and gets smacked down by the hand. (new guy was so right)

Round 4:

Kazan takes the round to transform into a harpy or something.
Basil changes into a blue jay.
Everyone else is unconscious.
Munafik laughs at our incompetence.

Round 5:

Kazan and Basil fly in to attack Munafik.
Flim is binding wounds on Morvan.

[Ginger]

In Round 2, Rennslaer attacked the mudmen, "killing" them and creating 2 more. Agreed that everyone screwed up in Round 2. Rennslaer was probably right to attack the guys in front of him, since there wasn't much of another option. I was hoping to get a prayer off before everyone got too far away. In hindsight, blowing the horn was the much better option.

But the fight would have been over quickly if Kazan had done an extra MM in round 2. Once Morvan was in the room, Morvan could have cast for the next 2 rounds, while Kazan, Basil and Alfred got into Munafic's face.

[venger]

Really? I thought Rensslaer charged Munafik and was stopped by these mudmen, so Dana gave me the option to use the attack on them or be stymied. Of course I took the attack and that is when the one split into two.

Aside from the opening rounds being epic fail, the other main problem I had in this fight was our two specialized fighters (Basil and Kazan) not just mopping the floor with Munafik.

Alternate specialized rounds disrupting Munafik's spells and on the off-rounds (and even with with the second specialized attack) you hit the big hand.

[Ginger]

Even better! That means everyone did the wrong thing on round 2! Defending was stupid. Should have blown your horn of goodness or done anything else. With your massive AC, defending is a waste. The extra +2 on saves for everyone would have been very helpful.

[Wolfgar]

Kazan was rapidly losing hit points from being struck by the hand and the idea of capturing or throwing Munafik into the water had not been suggested. Once it was clear that Munafik wasn't being hurt I thought it better to help the downed party members (not knowing Flam with binding wounds). If I had thought of it I would have thrown Munafik directly into the water when I charged and grappled him. We would have been done in round 6 with only the hand to attend to.

[Mr. Trommer]

The major point that in my mind that has been not been said, was the individual decision to open the door before anybody else was ready. Had the collective decision to enter the room, rather than rest had been agreed upon, preparation spells and dropping backpacks could have been done before the door was opened.

Since I am used as a meat shield I won't waste my transformations on a whim. It is not in the best intrest of my character. I would have been standing there with everyone else "sucking up a fireball" with the team. Had I done that I would not have lasted long enough up on the platform to keep taking the pounding from the hand. I'm not going to "suck up" spell damage when I don't have to.

[Ginger]

Mar 10, 2010 10:00:07 GMT -5 Mr. Trommer said:

The major point that in my mind that has been not been said, was the individual decision to open the door before anybody else was ready.

It's cause we all just assume Rennslaer is going to do crazy/stupid things outside of combat.

And the "But Josh told me to do it, blame him!" defense was really hilarious.

[Ginger]

Mar 10, 2010 9:02:05 GMT -5 Wolfgar said:

Kazan was rapidly losing hit points from being struck by the hand and the idea of capturing or throwing Munafik into the water had not been suggested. Once it was clear that Munafik wasn't being hurt I thought it better to help the downed party members (not knowing Flam with binding wounds). If I had thought of it I would have thrown Munafik directly into the water when I charged and grappled him. We would have been done in round 6 with only the hand to attend to.

Agreed, I thought this was fine. And I totally understand that it's easy for me to criticize since I spent the whole fight on the ground.

[venger]

Mar 10, 2010 10:00:07 GMT -5 Mr. Trommer said:

The major point that in my mind that has been not been said, was the individual decision to open the door before anybody else was ready. Had the collective decision to enter the room, rather than rest had been agreed upon, preparation spells and dropping backpacks could have been done before the door was opened.

Everybody was ready, we were debating resting but we still hadn't -fought- anything that week so in my mind we were pressing on.

And that is totally specious. Not once in my memory have we ever cast defensive spells and dropped backpacks before opening a door we don't know what's behind. They weren't even trapped...

This place is full of over-the-top inscriptions about doom and such.

And there's no possible way we could have known there'd be an 11th level magic-user (why is the high priest a magic-user?) sitting behind the door.

Josh sure as heck wouldn't have wasted two rounds of his Minor Globe while I rolled 5's to open the door. And nobody would have dropped their backpack.

[Ginger]

Rule of thumb for going forward:
When we're debating whether to rest, until we've settled the argument don't open a door that says "Be prepared before you come inside for a hard fight!"

Agreed?

[venger]

Fair enough. In an effort to be more lawful, Rensslaer will be deferring to the party leader (Zinc) as long as he is decisive. And not animating the dead as much... grumble...

[Wolfgar]

Agreed.

Now can we make a decision about where to rest? I vote for staying where we are and taking appropriate countermeasures including:

• Morvan and Kazan switch out all first level magic user spells for magic missile
  
• cast wyvern watch on the door behind the dais every eight hours
  
• spike the doors at the far end of the room
  
• pull the hand from its mooring in case it reanimates
  

Here is a thought that I don't know if it is useful but maybe someone can build on it. We could clog up the water from the spring and use the water as a barrier. I could use Enlarge to cause something to fill a bottleneck temporarily. At the rate of flow of the spring it should rapidly build up behind that point. The only places where that might work are the lion's mouth in the palm tree room or the waterfall in the room behind the dais.

[Ginger]

It might be useful to figure out a way to shift the column of water in the back room so shoots into the doorway. Maybe using some of the rubble from the arm to shunt the water away from the hole?

[Dead Greyhawk]

Hi all,

Basil may get called into work in the morning. If he does, we won't be playing. He'll know by 10. If the game is canceled, I'll post here and give everyone a call. If you don't hear from me, game's still on. If anyone's changed their phone number recently, please send it to me.

Thanks.

[Dead Greyhawk]

Basil didn't get called into work. The game is still on. See you this afternoon.