Dao Warlock sounds fun!
We had a session last night that seemed like it was going well enough, until everything went down in flames in the last few minutes.
We are climbing a tower in a city that's infested with undead. We have info that there's some sort of Necromancer at the top of the tower. We just reached the 3rd level, via a teleportation crystal. This floor is a 40' diameter completely open room with teleportation crystals at the south end (from the lower floor) and north end (presumably it leads further up). It's dark, and there are some shadowy figures moving around. We decide to dash to the other crystal and see if we can get to the next floor. The crystal doesn't work, and a bunch of Ghosts and Shadows appear and attack us.
So we didn't really have a lot of options, but that's fine, we have a big fight. The fight lasts the entire session. Most of our abilities do low amounts of damage or none, and they are all immune to confusion somehow. The Ghosts are able to attack, cause fear, and fade out of existence most turns. (I think the DM was running them wrong, but whatever). The Druid loses a turn to fear, and the Ranger is quickly losing his strength to the Shadow's attacks. Still, we're steadily taking out the enemies and there are only three left. On their last round, they outright kill the Ranger by reducing his strength score to 0, and possess the Druid. I decided to use Rope Trick to stall for time while we figured out how to un-possess the Druid, which was a super bad move I guess. The possessed Druid uses the teleporter that we came in through to teleport back to the tower entrance and flees. The remaining Shadows kill the Ranger's wolf (I'm not sure if it's unconscious or dead) We're informed that the Ranger is going to transform into a shadow in 4 hours. Session over.
My plan for next time is to go after the possessed Druid and try to knock her unconscious without killing her. Our Warlock couldn't make it yesterday, but he should be back next week and he can help with that. I'm going to send my Homunculus to seek out a Cleric or Paladin who can cast funeral rites using the Ceremony spell to prevent the Ranger from turning into a Shadow. We have some allies in the city, so hopefully that will be a possibility. The Ranger can only resurrect his wolf if he acts within one hour, so the wolf may be lost. He can summon a new beast, but he is attached to this one for story reasons, so that's a bummer. Maybe we'll find a high level cleric who can resurrect both, or maybe I can bring it back with Cure Wounds if it's just unconscious.
The DM was delighted with how things went and was laughing and talking about how great it was. The Ranger and Druid players were clearly super unhappy. I'm kind of annoyed that he gave these monsters a bunch of arbitrary abilities like lightning and magical piercing immunity, multiple actions per turn, and made them immune to confusion. Also, I regret not casting Web on the Druid to keep her where she was. I thought the fight was basically over and wasn't ready for things to go south so quickly.
We had a session last night that seemed like it was going well enough, until everything went down in flames in the last few minutes.
We are climbing a tower in a city that's infested with undead. We have info that there's some sort of Necromancer at the top of the tower. We just reached the 3rd level, via a teleportation crystal. This floor is a 40' diameter completely open room with teleportation crystals at the south end (from the lower floor) and north end (presumably it leads further up). It's dark, and there are some shadowy figures moving around. We decide to dash to the other crystal and see if we can get to the next floor. The crystal doesn't work, and a bunch of Ghosts and Shadows appear and attack us.
So we didn't really have a lot of options, but that's fine, we have a big fight. The fight lasts the entire session. Most of our abilities do low amounts of damage or none, and they are all immune to confusion somehow. The Ghosts are able to attack, cause fear, and fade out of existence most turns. (I think the DM was running them wrong, but whatever). The Druid loses a turn to fear, and the Ranger is quickly losing his strength to the Shadow's attacks. Still, we're steadily taking out the enemies and there are only three left. On their last round, they outright kill the Ranger by reducing his strength score to 0, and possess the Druid. I decided to use Rope Trick to stall for time while we figured out how to un-possess the Druid, which was a super bad move I guess. The possessed Druid uses the teleporter that we came in through to teleport back to the tower entrance and flees. The remaining Shadows kill the Ranger's wolf (I'm not sure if it's unconscious or dead) We're informed that the Ranger is going to transform into a shadow in 4 hours. Session over.
My plan for next time is to go after the possessed Druid and try to knock her unconscious without killing her. Our Warlock couldn't make it yesterday, but he should be back next week and he can help with that. I'm going to send my Homunculus to seek out a Cleric or Paladin who can cast funeral rites using the Ceremony spell to prevent the Ranger from turning into a Shadow. We have some allies in the city, so hopefully that will be a possibility. The Ranger can only resurrect his wolf if he acts within one hour, so the wolf may be lost. He can summon a new beast, but he is attached to this one for story reasons, so that's a bummer. Maybe we'll find a high level cleric who can resurrect both, or maybe I can bring it back with Cure Wounds if it's just unconscious.
The DM was delighted with how things went and was laughing and talking about how great it was. The Ranger and Druid players were clearly super unhappy. I'm kind of annoyed that he gave these monsters a bunch of arbitrary abilities like lightning and magical piercing immunity, multiple actions per turn, and made them immune to confusion. Also, I regret not casting Web on the Druid to keep her where she was. I thought the fight was basically over and wasn't ready for things to go south so quickly.