Alena, Halfling Priest of Lathander, Canon Party Run: Windspear Hills, Part 2
In our most recent session I came face to face with my arch nemesis: the hobgoblin shaman in the northeast corner of Firkraag's entrance hall.
Once upon a time I attempted a blind solo no reload of Improved Anvil. That went surprisingly well. My character, a F/M/C, also named Alena, survived encounter after encounter against ludicrously souped up foes. Since the Improved Anvil world didn't have an experience cap, and it offered outrageously powerful items, balanced for outrageously powerful enemies, my F/M/C was by far the most powerful character I'd ever operated. She made it to +9 million XP without a reload. Impressive. Then she died. She died in Firkraag's Maze. And no: it wasn't Samia, or Conster, or Firkraag that killed her. It was that hobgoblin. Hold Person is a dangerous spell. It doesn't matter who casts it. If you don't take it seriously it can kill you. 9 Million XP can't help you if you can't move.
My mistake, in my F/M/Cs case, was that I lazily tried to disrupt instead of countering the threat. Something similar happened this morning. I had Nalia toss a fireball, expecting it would kill the shaman or at least disrupt his spell. It didn't work. Minsc, who had the Spear of the Unicorn in his inventory was safe. Jaheira, wielding Belm, was not. We could have tossed her Harmony but moving items between character during combat always felt icky to me. Poor Jaheira was Held.
Fortunately for her she wasn't alone. Aerie loves casting Remove Paralysis. She won't let her friends be hurt.
With the hobgoblins down, it was time to face Ruhk. Since I didn't know what to expect from Ruhk in v35, I decided to unveil our secret weapon: Aerie the Tank of Doom.
Aerie isn't ready to become the ToD yet- not really. She needs more spell slots and she needs more spells. Spell Shield, Spell Deflection, ProMW, Fireshield: Red, Blade Barrier are all part of the ToD formula and Aerie doesn't have any of those yet. But Ruhk is a rhakshasa. They wield normal weapons and favor Evocation spells, not Abjuration magicks. This will be a lesser version of the ToD, but it should be enough for Ruhk.
First, a scouting mission. There he is, with his kamikaze kobolds.
Aerie's buffs were Pro Evil, Resist Fear, Chaotic Commands, Free Action, Death Ward, Pro Fire, Pro Electricity, Pro Magic Energy, Resist Fire/Cold, Protection from Normal Weapons, Fireshield: Blue, Mirror Image, Blur, Stoneskins, Improved Invisibility, Minor Spell Deflection, MGoI, Spell Immunity: A, Spell Immunity: D. That should cover anything Ruhk is likely to try, with the exception of Cloudkill and Death Fog. It should also cover most of the things that Ruhk could try but probably won't. Without Spell Shield, plus a Spell Shield Trigger, plus a Spell Shield in the book, this is all dicey and precarious, but Ruhk doesn't detect the invisible, so Aerie can always vanish if it all falls apart.
Aerie could handle this alone, I'm sure. Fortunately she didn't need to. Yosh, get some traps down. Jaheira, summon a fire elemental. Alena, a skellie and an aerial servant. Everyone else, hang back and wait. Your time will come. Be ready.
We opened by sending an invisible fire elemental in to draw out the kamikaze kobolds. Hurdle one has been cleared. It's time for the ToD to make the scene.
When Aerie is in ToD mode I like to give her Ages or Everard's Morningstar, depending on the situation. In this case she was wielding Mauler's Arm. We don't have Everard's Morningstar yet, and I prefer to keep Ages in Alena's hands.
Now that the fire immune fire elemental has taken care of the kamikaze kobolds, it's time to send in the magic resistant, normal weapon immune Fleshie, along with the aerial servant. There's something wrong with the animation here, but Ruhk has deployed his Cloudkill. That's a threat to Aerie, but she has Zone of Sweet Air in her book.
By now Aerie has drawn out most of Ruhk's spells, with the aid of the summons. They've made progress on Ruhk's Stoneskins, too. It's now time for phase two of the plan: lure Ruhk to the party, passing over Yoshi's traps along the way. That Spell Ineffective it from Yoshi's Special Snare. The Hold Effect has a level associated with it. Whatever. We don't need to Hold him. We need to keep him moving.
And there we are. Have fun with that, Ruhk. Aerie, her ProNW and Stoneskins spent, is in retreat mode now, but she's done her job. Nice work, ToD. We look forward to seeing the full fledged version down the road.
Minsc was vaguely jealous, seeing his witch play hero, but his turn was coming. Meet Minsc, Vampire Hunter Extraordinaire.
Shield of Harmony + Amulet of Power + Oil of Speed + Azuredge. Down they go, one by one.
The key is ours.
We're ready to meet Samia.
Best,
A.
