So today the PCs finally faced off against a powerful lich they've been trying to defeat for a long time. They thought they had destroyed him in a previous adventure but in reality had only killed a servitor they thought was him. Today was the finale, the big battle that's been a year in real time coming. A side note necessary to understand the insanity...
Long ago, we switched initiative from how it's normally done. We still do individual initiative each round, rolled. However, we changed it where we start from 10 and count down to 1. So whoever rolls a 10 gets to go first, whoever rolls a 1 goes last in each round, etc. If I remember correctly, we did that to correct a player or two who consistently got distracted during the games. So I remember saying"
"I'm gonna do initiative like a countdown...10, 9, 8, 7...and whoever misses his turn/initiative as we count down loses their action that round."
It worked. And I've been doing it like that ever since. Anyway, the big battle comes up as the lich is opening a gate to the Negative Material Plane in the depths of his castle. The PCs (a priest/paladin of Horus, an elven wizard, an elven ranger, a gnome thief and another elven ranger) ended up reaching the massive room where the gate was in time to interrupt the lich and ensure combat would take place. The room was filled with zombies (enhanced via the embalm spell), skeletons (enhanced with the transmute bone to iron spell, some crypt servants and a few skeletal archers (a new monster of mine, they have arrows of wounding). The PCs ended up summoning a fire elemental, a divine minion of Horus and a goddamned phoenix! Now this was a VERY tough 20th level wizard and they're all between 10th and 14th level. EVERY initiative, the lich rolled high (good, meaning he goes first), and the PCs rolled low (bad, they go last). The lich rolled (remember, I'm counting down where 10 goes first) - 10, 9, 9, 10, 10 for the first 5 rounds and half the PCs rolled 1's and 2's. Even the summoned help rolled low! The freaking lich made ALL his saving throws and even made a successful magic resistance roll of 5% for his damned robe of the arch-magi!
The Dice Gods definitely seemed to be using massive bless spells for the villains tonight!
The PCs only won because the priest was able to dispel the time stop spell the lich had put on himself, so he didn't complete the 2nd and 3rd spell he was prepping while time was stopped. He cast chain lightning, which would have killed the entire damned party at that point, but luckily the priest/paladin's holy sword made its magic resistance and killed the spell. They eventually destroyed the lich, then handed his body to the fire elemental to take back with him to the Elemental Plane of Fire.
So in the end, a great victory after a long battle!
Too bad the players/PCs don't know about the lich's phylactery, which is safely well hidden.
Current game craziness!
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Current game craziness!
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- Halaster Blackcloak
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One of the very few lucky rolls the PCs enjoyed.
It was just insane though - I roll initiative out in front of everyone so they can see I'm up front. Just avoids any arguments, and I've done it that way forever. Unless it's something the PCs aren't supposed to know, I don't care about rolling out in the open. And the damned lich rolled 10, 9, 9, 10...going first in each round!
It was just insane though - I roll initiative out in front of everyone so they can see I'm up front. Just avoids any arguments, and I've done it that way forever. Unless it's something the PCs aren't supposed to know, I don't care about rolling out in the open. And the damned lich rolled 10, 9, 9, 10...going first in each round!
The Back In Print Project - Where AD&D Lives Forever!
You're like me. I always roll out in the open, just to show i am not fudging..Halaster Blackcloak wrote:One of the very few lucky rolls the PCs enjoyed.
It was just insane though - I roll initiative out in front of everyone so they can see I'm up front. Just avoids any arguments, and I've done it that way forever. Unless it's something the PCs aren't supposed to know, I don't care about rolling out in the open. And the damned lich rolled 10, 9, 9, 10...going first in each round!
It's not who you kill, but how they die!