Phantasmic Six {4} - monks party (2nd and final update)
A combination of being beaten down by a long run and a bit of cheating by the AI led to the monks final stand this morning.
Back in Athkatla they returned Renfeld and gave Prebek & Sanasha no chance to react. After watching Xzar get assassinated they punished Lucette. Also in the locality some pirates got the treatment.
After picking up Mae'Var's quests they came across an ambush on the way to the Temple. The mage was stunned immediately and they managed to finish off the thieves without casualties although they suffered a few backstabs. They paid Gaelan Bayle to get a ring upgrade (can't use the AoP) before using stealth to attack Rayic's house. He provided an opportunity for a free attack by trying to cast detect invisible, but was neither killed nor stunned immediately and disappeared. The monks immediately ran downstairs before sending one of their number back up to try and get Rayic to appear again - but he saved them the trouble when a devastating skull trap sequencer suddenly turned 4 of the portraits grey while Spook was looking around the room upstairs. Chimera only survived thanks to the BoIB and immediately ran up after Spook. This time Rayic did not follow and the 2 of them stealthed out to find a temple - they were carrying just enough for 4 raise deads and a greater restoration. Back again and Rayic proved to have been nearly dead - a couple of magic missiles penetrating his stoneskins to finish him off.
At the guild house Mae'Var failed to detect the incoming attack quickly enough and when the priest was also stunned moments later the battle was all but over. Reporting their success to Renal got everyone to level 10.
Shortly after that I made a mistake by not resting fully before leaving the area. The intention was to stealth through the city, but Tanova and colleagues appeared and the party ran - straight into an ambush. Fortunately monk speed allowed them to run away before the mage's chaos could strike them.
Back at the Bridge District they went to sort out the Rune Assassins. Stealth attacks killed their support troops before the main combat. A critical backstab almost killed Spook, but they didn't last long after that. The monks also sorted out the kidnappers before going to pick up the pantaloons.
To get their reputation back they returned to Trademeet - on the way finding that ambushers are starting to become wary of them. At Trademeet I thought Blackblood would provide a good troll-killing weapon, but it had problems in killing spirit trolls and the party had another death there when I tried to micro-manage a fight against 3 constantly disappearing enemies at close quarters. With Wraith also dead and only 1 of the 3 spirit trolls gone (killed by the efreeti) the others tried to make a run for it, but Spirit got trapped picking up equipment from the bodies and had to use a potion of invisibility to escape.
Back again, putting down the spirit trolls with a fresh party was no trouble at all, but several tries with Blackblood failed to kill them and eventually I resorted to the efreeti again. Using that is not really ideal with this relatively low HP party as it is not fully controllable in this installation and having it cast a fireball in the middle of the wounded party would be bad news. Moving on past some spiders the party found Blackblood was also ineffective against spectral trolls. Sodding that for a game of soldiers they went to buy the Sword of Flame in the Promenade before coming back for another try. That sword made the difference and the monks quickly progressed through the remaining trolls.
The earth elemental is not particularly dangerous in the absence of aTweaks and everyone had a +2 weapon to take it down quickly. The myconids proved more of a problem when summons died quickly (the efreeti refusing to cast the requested fireballs) and Chimera was then confused. Three characters took invulnerability potions, but they didn't provide complete protection and meanwhile Chimera refused to be drawn away from the main combat. Eventually he did recover, but by then 2 of the others were confused. Rather than risk the whole party being sucked in again Phantom and Spirit were left to their fate and the others recovered their equipment after the myconids disappeared.
Back again, the remaining spore colonies failed to summon any more myconids - 3 of them succumbing to horror. Belm was recovered, though it's only a very marginal upgrade for monks, on the way to deal with a final group of druids. That looked like being a comfortable victory with both Dalok and the shadow druid being stunned by an initial stealth attack. However, that didn't prevent the shadow druid from casting insect plague!
Initially I wondered if that was due to a shape change, but the druid's icon was stuck in the same position as at the time of stunning (and therefore he wasn't actually immune to stun). Dalok had been stunned with the first blow, but the druid was only stunned in the second round of attacks and should have been out of action for a minimum of another round (and dead well before that). I can only assume therefore that the insect plague was scripted, though why that should be done I can't imagine.
The insect plague led to further tragedy when I saw Wraith was low on HPs and initially turned her to run. However, she would have died soon anyway of the insect damage, so I brought her back into melee to see if she could get a stun on the adherent before she died. The adherent though got a critical on her and she not only died, but was chunked. I must admit that wasn't a great surprise. I was suspicious that the fact that poison was active when the last monk was chunked was a factor and had considered that insects might perform the same function - effectively trying to apply damage to a dead character and chunking them in the process. The fact that I tested that theory in combat probably reflects that the run was starting to feel like hard work
. I let the party finish that combat on auto-attacks, but will retire them there.
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