Alena, Halfling Priest of Lathander, Canon Party Run: The Planar Sphere Revisited- Practice, Practice
When I run parties I like to have a set of game plans, a playbook if you will. In recent episodes, Alena and her team have been working out plays and practicing them. Our most recent stop was the Planar Sphere, where we worked Alena’s new L7 into one of our now standard game plans, Sticky Business.
First, we had to take care of the golems. We left them earlier because they were more trouble than they were worth. Now they're practice and free XP. Since golems are such unusual enemies, we couldn’t deploy a generic plan here. Instead we had to tailor something just for them. Sounds good, said Alena. She now has a spell that’s perfect for the job.
Our approach to the first golem batch harkened back to the early Aerie rules all strategies. We sent Aerie up ahead, with summons as her vanguard, in this case fire elementals. Once Aerie and the summons established a defensive line, we started bringing others into the action. Here we see Jaheira's fire elemental engaging the golems, while Aerie advances, forming a secondary line. That protection furnished Alena the opportunity to cast, in this case the newly acquired Firestorm.
Aerie is Melfing here, because why not, but the elementals and Firestorm were more than enough.
No injuries here, no attacks on party members at all.
Same strategy for golem batch two. The only distinction here is that we used Fleshy and Mr. Efreeti as our advanced line since the golems were too close to our entrance point. Once again, no attacks against party members.
On to the final batch. This time Jaheira's fire elemental are leading the way again. Since Alena only has one L7, we couldn't use Firestorm. Instead we used physical attacks. Aerie, is melfing. Jaheira is leveraging Belm's speed factor 0. Minsc will soon use his range 2 weapon. In my view, everyone should have a range 2 weapons, just like everyone should have a non-magical weapon.
Once again, no incoming attacks. Well done, everyone.
Finally, we had a chance to try Sticky Business. Note that at current levels this plan is only suited for melee enemies. Once Alena's level is higher, and we have our Limited Wish baby globes, we could consider using it against mixed groups but I doubt I'll proceed with that.
Anyhoo, the lizard men are our test subjects wish them luck. And, yes, Jaheira, that was entirely too much buffing, but we need to practice our order and synchronization to maximize our full buff time.
Let's begin. We start invisible. Aerie and Haer'Dalis, the characters that we want to draw aggro break first, opening with Web sequencers.
The party fans out forming a defensive perimeter around Alena, granting her the space to cast her Firestorm. Naturally, all party members are running FA and ProFire.
With the room suited to a triangular formation, we let the arcane protected characters handle the sides individually while the relatively vulnerable characters, Minsc and Jaheira team up. Jaheira, with her shield and skins draws ago. Minsc, with his FoA flanks, hoping to apply slow, reducing pressure on his teammate, Jaheira. If you're wondering why Minsc isn't running his MIs it's because of a bug. Ilbratha MI is subject to a magic resistance check. In this case it didn't pass. I need to fix that. All in all, I'd call this a successful practice session. Alena should have had her Blade Barrier up, though.
These practice battles have helped us identify gaps in Aerie and Haer'Dalis's spell books. Haer'Dalis needs MMM, obviously. Less obviously, Aerie needs Luck. There will be fights when it makes sense for Aerie and Haer'Dalis to have emergency Luck + MI sequencers. Haer'Dalis knows both spells already. Aerie doesn't. We need to fix that. The next thing I need to do is take a moment to work out, on paper, our optimal spell slot allocation and buff order practices, factoring in spell durations, II untargettability and spell defenses. I'll do that this evening. Once I've worked out the order, we'll spend a few game days resting and rebuffing. We're not leaving for Spellhold until we're ready.
Best,
A.
