Lucan Stellos (Whisper of the Vampire's Blade) [Archive] - Wizards Community

Lucan Stellos (Whisper of the Vampire's Blade) [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Jancarius
08-19-06, 08:21 AM My group stay out. Aleko, you can be here, but Dustbunny and Socrates stay out.

Anyway, so I have upcoming my player's second encounter with Lucan Stelllos. By this I mean I ran the module once before with two of the 4 players in the current party. They haven't shut up about how insanely hard the fight is to the other two players (which has made them understandably wary of going after this guy). And they're not wrong. I said it the first time I was prepping this, Lucan is a TPK waiting to happen. As I see it, if both parties prepare to the max, here's what will happen.

Lucan enters the Ziggurat, and mist forms to the top. The party enters, expends resources clearing the ziggurat to get to Lucan. Depending on the result of the divine caster's knowledge (religion) they may (or may not) have protection from evil up when they enter Lucan's room. They will almost certainly have undead bane on the fighter's sword and probably as many armor buffs as the Artificer can manage, which I figure amounts to about a 23-27 AC, depending. Lucan dominates the fighter (who has about 3 times the HP of everyone else. The party consists of a Warforged fighter, a human water shugenja, a Valenar warmage, and a human artificer who buffs the hell out of the warforged, as he should), whose AC is now being used against the party. Rather than order the warforged to kill her friends (something that my players would DEFINANTLY and reasonably argue might justify a secondary save. Though I say that depends somewhat from character to character), he orders the fighter to protect him from harm. This allows the fighter to use non-lethal means to disable the rest of hte party, but she wouldn't be able to interfere with Lucan's attacks against the party. The warmage will open with a scorching ray for 4d6+4 damage, presuming he hits Lucan's touch AC (which is decently high). The artificer, if the party plays it smart, will have used all his infusions already, except maybe a few for Repair damage spells, and will probably go on the offense with whatever scrolls he has left at this point. So, let's say he throws out a fireball or lightning bolt. Since they are under-caster level scrolls, that's another 4d6 (I think. I may be misremembering the Artificer formula). So Lucan is subject to 8d6+4 damage in the initial round, presuming the Warmage hits his spell and Lucan fails to evasion (yeah right... seen his Reflex save?), which on average damage is 31, reducing Lucan to 23 HP. The warforged then probably grapples either the Warmage or the Shugenja (who probably will spend his turn either trying to land a Cure Moderate on Lucan, which if succesfull, would do 2d8+8 (augmented healing feat) for an average of another 16 damage).
Round two
Lucan has two choices. Depending on how much damage he did (or didn't) take in round 1, he can move in and use his slam attack on the warmage. This adds 10 temp HP to him, in addtion to the 5 fast healing that procs on his turn. Further, it gives the warmage a -2 to all his rolls, and takes out this 2nd level spell slots, weakening his damage heavily. If he did take a lot of damage in the first round, he can go to mist form and go down the shaft. By the time the party gets there, he'll be back at full (and they still have their dominated fighter to deal with. That fighter hits pretty hard, and most of them have in the 25-35 HP range). If the warmage gets hit by the slam option, he has to either cast defensivly or back up and fire a magic missile for 2d4+6 points of damage. However, the next hit will finish him off if the Shugenja doesn't use lesser restoration on him. The artificer again doesn't have many options if the fighter is under the control of Lucan except to go on the offense with scrolls again. Not sure what he'll prepare for this encounter.
Round Three
Lucan almost certainly has taken over 50% of his HP so far if the players aren't rolling poorly, and would probably retreat at that point. However, if this isn't the case, the warmage or shugenja are the next targets of the slam attack. If the shugenja takes this hit, he is similarly out of 2nd level spell slots, denying the party the ability to use Lesser Restoration, not to mention the fact that the actual damage of the slam attack is pretty good.

Once Lucan retreats, he'll almost certainly go to a point where he can use his Children of the Night power to call 2d6 wolves and blood drain them all for all the Con their worth. This puts him at a LOT of temporary HP (presuming he didn't have time to do this before the ziggurat) . So at that point, the party is probably at 50% strength, at BEST (this again presumes they find someway to stop the fighter from disabling them at Lucan's telepathic command), and Lucan is now at full or better strength. Lucan can take his time, engaging them for a round or two at a time, and retreating. He regains full HP in about a minute, whereas the party has a limited number of cure spells, scrolls, and potions, and the energy drain is fatal on the second hit (meaning he two shots anyone but the warforged).

Now, on the other hand, let's look if things go more the party's way. The party casts Protection from evil on all members. This blocks the dominate and gives -2 to Lucan to hit them. If they also carry mirrors or holy symbols (and they argue garlic, but the phrase area heavily laced with garlic doesn't seem to constitute a necklace of it) he can't engage them in melee. The artificer is certainly putting undead bane on the warforged's sword, so it'll be +2 more to hit and and an addtional +2d6 damage. I believe her strength is about 18-20, and the artificer can Bull strength her so that brings it to 22-24. She uses a +1 tangat 1handed, so that's 1d10 (I believe that's Tangat damage)+7(or 8)+2d6, for an average of 19 damage (7 of it typeless damage ot undead and not subject to DR). The already have vials of silversheen which they didn't sell, probably courtesy of my 2 players that have played before insisting on keeping it, so it's reasonable to assume the fighter at least will be passing Lucan's DR.

Oh, it's worth mentioning Grilsha is still alive and with Lucan at this point in the game (they're about to chase him to the airship), and I think she may make it to the end. So if she doesn't try and talk Lucan down (they don't say much about her personality except that she loves her brother), that's a L6 sorcereres ontop of the L6 vamprie rogue badass.

Party's favor scenario, round 1
Lucan attempts to dominate the warforged, finds out she's immune. Lucan essentially forfeits his action this round, except his move action, which he might use to get up on the wall. The warmage uses scorching ray for 4d6+4 (average 18 damage). The artificer uses a similar scroll for another 18 (presuming both hit. Worth mentioning that I gave the warmage 3/4ths BAB to make it more comparable to the overpowered Duskblade class), bringing down Lucan 36 HP in the first round. Shugenja probably takes a standard action to brandish his holy symbol to repel Lucan

Round 2
Unable to attack the shugenja, Lucan attacks the warmage and regains 5 hp from Fast healing (of 36 taken, meaning he's got 31 damage left). Warmage takes the hit, loses access to 2nd level spells. Warforged hits Lucan (+13 to hit can hit even his AC consistently) for 1d10+8+2d6 (average 20), and that leaves Lucan with 3 HP. The warmage, shugenja, or artificer can basically finish him off with any hit. Lucan goes to mist form at 0 HP, and they track him down to that coffin in the bottom within an hour easily and execute or stake him.

I want to find somewhere between these two scenarios where Lucan doesn't completely wipe out the party, but doesn't get his ass handed to him either. Suggestions?

Hmm, that's not how I wanted that to look. How do I put all the text in the little box?
Bluebrush
08-19-06, 10:55 AM Use the sblock tag for the spoiler box.

Consider allowing Lucan to hold off on totally killing the party. Which isn't to say he's going to wuss out and surrender or anything, just that he won't risk capture by engaging a prepared party (Or possibly prepared party) unless he needs to.
If Lucan needs to retreat, maybe he can escape to an area beind the collapsed walls, which he previously scouted out.

If things go south for either side, well, kick in the door!
Have the Karrnathi Dark Cabinet or the Order of the Emerald Claw show up to capture Lucan and carry him home in their portable coffin.
Though think of a follow up for this in advance. Will the players have lost? Or will there be a chance to daringly snag/swap the coffin in transit?
Korhal_IV
08-19-06, 01:12 PM Having played through that fight, I don't think the situation's as bleak as you make it out to be. First off, while blood draining the Children of the Night is a nifty idea, I don't think I've ever seen it used that way before. Since this fight will be difficult enough, how about we say the dark pact of a vampire doesn't let them do that? :)
Secondly, have you considered the possibility that the warforged fighter is *immune* to the vampire's gaze attack? The Dominate effect works just like the "dominate person" spell - which doesn't work on warforged, because, as living constructs, they don't count as people. Dominate Monster would work, but not Dominate Person. Assuming Lucan is aware of this, and that I'm not crit-failing my Knowledge(rules) check, this changes his tactics considerably. :)
Jancarius
08-20-06, 01:34 AM Having played through that fight, I don't think the situation's as bleak as you make it out to be. First off, while blood draining the Children of the Night is a nifty idea, I don't think I've ever seen it used that way before. Since this fight will be difficult enough, how about we say the dark pact of a vampire doesn't let them do that? :)
Secondly, have you considered the possibility that the warforged fighter is *immune* to the vampire's gaze attack? The Dominate effect works just like the "dominate person" spell - which doesn't work on warforged, because, as living constructs, they don't count as people. Dominate Monster would work, but not Dominate Person. Assuming Lucan is aware of this, and that I'm not crit-failing my Knowledge(rules) check, this changes his tactics considerably. :)
Are they immune? I've always thought that warforged were living enough to be subject to such spells as charm/dominate/hold person?

Regarding the kicki n the door idea, I do like that one. To be honest, I've been rereading the Hellsing manga lately, and having a Paladin of the Silver flame, a Sir Alexander Anderson, show up and whup Lucan's ass in event of an emergancy did appeal to me somewhat, but also struck me as a little too deus ex machina.
The White Sorcerer
08-20-06, 04:35 AM Are they immune? I've always thought that warforged were living enough to be subject to such spells as charm/dominate/hold person?
Yes, they are immune, since (whatever) person spells only affect humanoids, which warforged are not.
Korhal_IV
08-20-06, 04:40 AM Are they immune? I've always thought that warforged were living enough to be subject to such spells as charm/dominate/hold person?

Regarding the kicki n the door idea, I do like that one. To be honest, I've been rereading the Hellsing manga lately, and having a Paladin of the Silver flame, a Sir Alexander Anderson, show up and whup Lucan's ass in event of an emergancy did appeal to me somewhat, but also struck me as a little too deus ex machina.

Surprise, surprise. :) It also makes the warforged immune to such helpful buffs as Enlarge/Reduce Person, though.

IMO, I hate the idea of NPCs saving PCs (though you may have the storytelling skills to pull it off and not make it sound cheesy). If I were you, I'd just fudge it so that Lucan lasts long enough to be challenging, but doesn't win.

Btw, I haven't heard of a single group yet that didn't murder Grilsha in some horrible way - she usually bites it on the airship, actually. If she lives, she may provide the added oomph that Lucan needs without being able to Dominate the warforged.
Jancarius
08-20-06, 10:27 PM Surprise, surprise. :) It also makes the warforged immune to such helpful buffs as Enlarge/Reduce Person, though.

IMO, I hate the idea of NPCs saving PCs (though you may have the storytelling skills to pull it off and not make it sound cheesy). If I were you, I'd just fudge it so that Lucan lasts long enough to be challenging, but doesn't win.

Btw, I haven't heard of a single group yet that didn't murder Grilsha in some horrible way - she usually bites it on the airship, actually. If she lives, she may provide the added oomph that Lucan needs without being able to Dominate the warforged.
Yeah, the last time, they shot her out of the air as they were fleeing from the masquerade.
Onatar
08-21-06, 12:30 AM Surprise, surprise. :) It also makes the warforged immune to such helpful buffs as Enlarge/Reduce Person, though.

IMO, I hate the idea of NPCs saving PCs (though you may have the storytelling skills to pull it off and not make it sound cheesy). If I were you, I'd just fudge it so that Lucan lasts long enough to be challenging, but doesn't win.

Btw, I haven't heard of a single group yet that didn't murder Grilsha in some horrible way - she usually bites it on the airship, actually. If she lives, she may provide the added oomph that Lucan needs without being able to Dominate the warforged.
Our group accually captured her and turned her over to the authorities.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Jancarius 08-19-06, 08:21 AM	My group stay out. Aleko, you can be here, but Dustbunny and Socrates stay out. Anyway, so I have upcoming my player's second encounter with Lucan Stelllos. By this I mean I ran the module once before with two of the 4 players in the current party. They haven't shut up about how insanely hard the fight is to the other two players (which has made them understandably wary of going after this guy). And they're not wrong. I said it the first time I was prepping this, Lucan is a TPK waiting to happen. As I see it, if both parties prepare to the max, here's what will happen. Lucan enters the Ziggurat, and mist forms to the top. The party enters, expends resources clearing the ziggurat to get to Lucan. Depending on the result of the divine caster's knowledge (religion) they may (or may not) have protection from evil up when they enter Lucan's room. They will almost certainly have undead bane on the fighter's sword and probably as many armor buffs as the Artificer can manage, which I figure amounts to about a 23-27 AC, depending. Lucan dominates the fighter (who has about 3 times the HP of everyone else. The party consists of a Warforged fighter, a human water shugenja, a Valenar warmage, and a human artificer who buffs the hell out of the warforged, as he should), whose AC is now being used against the party. Rather than order the warforged to kill her friends (something that my players would DEFINANTLY and reasonably argue might justify a secondary save. Though I say that depends somewhat from character to character), he orders the fighter to protect him from harm. This allows the fighter to use non-lethal means to disable the rest of hte party, but she wouldn't be able to interfere with Lucan's attacks against the party. The warmage will open with a scorching ray for 4d6+4 damage, presuming he hits Lucan's touch AC (which is decently high). The artificer, if the party plays it smart, will have used all his infusions already, except maybe a few for Repair damage spells, and will probably go on the offense with whatever scrolls he has left at this point. So, let's say he throws out a fireball or lightning bolt. Since they are under-caster level scrolls, that's another 4d6 (I think. I may be misremembering the Artificer formula). So Lucan is subject to 8d6+4 damage in the initial round, presuming the Warmage hits his spell and Lucan fails to evasion (yeah right... seen his Reflex save?), which on average damage is 31, reducing Lucan to 23 HP. The warforged then probably grapples either the Warmage or the Shugenja (who probably will spend his turn either trying to land a Cure Moderate on Lucan, which if succesfull, would do 2d8+8 (augmented healing feat) for an average of another 16 damage). Round two Lucan has two choices. Depending on how much damage he did (or didn't) take in round 1, he can move in and use his slam attack on the warmage. This adds 10 temp HP to him, in addtion to the 5 fast healing that procs on his turn. Further, it gives the warmage a -2 to all his rolls, and takes out this 2nd level spell slots, weakening his damage heavily. If he did take a lot of damage in the first round, he can go to mist form and go down the shaft. By the time the party gets there, he'll be back at full (and they still have their dominated fighter to deal with. That fighter hits pretty hard, and most of them have in the 25-35 HP range). If the warmage gets hit by the slam option, he has to either cast defensivly or back up and fire a magic missile for 2d4+6 points of damage. However, the next hit will finish him off if the Shugenja doesn't use lesser restoration on him. The artificer again doesn't have many options if the fighter is under the control of Lucan except to go on the offense with scrolls again. Not sure what he'll prepare for this encounter. Round Three Lucan almost certainly has taken over 50% of his HP so far if the players aren't rolling poorly, and would probably retreat at that point. However, if this isn't the case, the warmage or shugenja are the next targets of the slam attack. If the shugenja takes this hit, he is similarly out of 2nd level spell slots, denying the party the ability to use Lesser Restoration, not to mention the fact that the actual damage of the slam attack is pretty good. Once Lucan retreats, he'll almost certainly go to a point where he can use his Children of the Night power to call 2d6 wolves and blood drain them all for all the Con their worth. This puts him at a LOT of temporary HP (presuming he didn't have time to do this before the ziggurat) . So at that point, the party is probably at 50% strength, at BEST (this again presumes they find someway to stop the fighter from disabling them at Lucan's telepathic command), and Lucan is now at full or better strength. Lucan can take his time, engaging them for a round or two at a time, and retreating. He regains full HP in about a minute, whereas the party has a limited number of cure spells, scrolls, and potions, and the energy drain is fatal on the second hit (meaning he two shots anyone but the warforged). Now, on the other hand, let's look if things go more the party's way. The party casts Protection from evil on all members. This blocks the dominate and gives -2 to Lucan to hit them. If they also carry mirrors or holy symbols (and they argue garlic, but the phrase area heavily laced with garlic doesn't seem to constitute a necklace of it) he can't engage them in melee. The artificer is certainly putting undead bane on the warforged's sword, so it'll be +2 more to hit and and an addtional +2d6 damage. I believe her strength is about 18-20, and the artificer can Bull strength her so that brings it to 22-24. She uses a +1 tangat 1handed, so that's 1d10 (I believe that's Tangat damage)+7(or 8)+2d6, for an average of 19 damage (7 of it typeless damage ot undead and not subject to DR). The already have vials of silversheen which they didn't sell, probably courtesy of my 2 players that have played before insisting on keeping it, so it's reasonable to assume the fighter at least will be passing Lucan's DR. Oh, it's worth mentioning Grilsha is still alive and with Lucan at this point in the game (they're about to chase him to the airship), and I think she may make it to the end. So if she doesn't try and talk Lucan down (they don't say much about her personality except that she loves her brother), that's a L6 sorcereres ontop of the L6 vamprie rogue badass. Party's favor scenario, round 1 Lucan attempts to dominate the warforged, finds out she's immune. Lucan essentially forfeits his action this round, except his move action, which he might use to get up on the wall. The warmage uses scorching ray for 4d6+4 (average 18 damage). The artificer uses a similar scroll for another 18 (presuming both hit. Worth mentioning that I gave the warmage 3/4ths BAB to make it more comparable to the overpowered Duskblade class), bringing down Lucan 36 HP in the first round. Shugenja probably takes a standard action to brandish his holy symbol to repel Lucan Round 2 Unable to attack the shugenja, Lucan attacks the warmage and regains 5 hp from Fast healing (of 36 taken, meaning he's got 31 damage left). Warmage takes the hit, loses access to 2nd level spells. Warforged hits Lucan (+13 to hit can hit even his AC consistently) for 1d10+8+2d6 (average 20), and that leaves Lucan with 3 HP. The warmage, shugenja, or artificer can basically finish him off with any hit. Lucan goes to mist form at 0 HP, and they track him down to that coffin in the bottom within an hour easily and execute or stake him. I want to find somewhere between these two scenarios where Lucan doesn't completely wipe out the party, but doesn't get his ass handed to him either. Suggestions? Hmm, that's not how I wanted that to look. How do I put all the text in the little box?
Bluebrush 08-19-06, 10:55 AM	Use the sblock tag for the spoiler box. Consider allowing Lucan to hold off on totally killing the party. Which isn't to say he's going to wuss out and surrender or anything, just that he won't risk capture by engaging a prepared party (Or possibly prepared party) unless he needs to. If Lucan needs to retreat, maybe he can escape to an area beind the collapsed walls, which he previously scouted out. If things go south for either side, well, kick in the door! Have the Karrnathi Dark Cabinet or the Order of the Emerald Claw show up to capture Lucan and carry him home in their portable coffin. Though think of a follow up for this in advance. Will the players have lost? Or will there be a chance to daringly snag/swap the coffin in transit?
Korhal_IV 08-19-06, 01:12 PM	Having played through that fight, I don't think the situation's as bleak as you make it out to be. First off, while blood draining the Children of the Night is a nifty idea, I don't think I've ever seen it used that way before. Since this fight will be difficult enough, how about we say the dark pact of a vampire doesn't let them do that? :) Secondly, have you considered the possibility that the warforged fighter is immune to the vampire's gaze attack? The Dominate effect works just like the "dominate person" spell - which doesn't work on warforged, because, as living constructs, they don't count as people. Dominate Monster would work, but not Dominate Person. Assuming Lucan is aware of this, and that I'm not crit-failing my Knowledge(rules) check, this changes his tactics considerably. :)
Jancarius 08-20-06, 01:34 AM	Having played through that fight, I don't think the situation's as bleak as you make it out to be. First off, while blood draining the Children of the Night is a nifty idea, I don't think I've ever seen it used that way before. Since this fight will be difficult enough, how about we say the dark pact of a vampire doesn't let them do that? :) Secondly, have you considered the possibility that the warforged fighter is immune to the vampire's gaze attack? The Dominate effect works just like the "dominate person" spell - which doesn't work on warforged, because, as living constructs, they don't count as people. Dominate Monster would work, but not Dominate Person. Assuming Lucan is aware of this, and that I'm not crit-failing my Knowledge(rules) check, this changes his tactics considerably. :) Are they immune? I've always thought that warforged were living enough to be subject to such spells as charm/dominate/hold person? Regarding the kicki n the door idea, I do like that one. To be honest, I've been rereading the Hellsing manga lately, and having a Paladin of the Silver flame, a Sir Alexander Anderson, show up and whup Lucan's ass in event of an emergancy did appeal to me somewhat, but also struck me as a little too deus ex machina.
The White Sorcerer 08-20-06, 04:35 AM	Are they immune? I've always thought that warforged were living enough to be subject to such spells as charm/dominate/hold person? Yes, they are immune, since (whatever) person spells only affect humanoids, which warforged are not.
Korhal_IV 08-20-06, 04:40 AM	Are they immune? I've always thought that warforged were living enough to be subject to such spells as charm/dominate/hold person? Regarding the kicki n the door idea, I do like that one. To be honest, I've been rereading the Hellsing manga lately, and having a Paladin of the Silver flame, a Sir Alexander Anderson, show up and whup Lucan's ass in event of an emergancy did appeal to me somewhat, but also struck me as a little too deus ex machina. Surprise, surprise. :) It also makes the warforged immune to such helpful buffs as Enlarge/Reduce Person, though. IMO, I hate the idea of NPCs saving PCs (though you may have the storytelling skills to pull it off and not make it sound cheesy). If I were you, I'd just fudge it so that Lucan lasts long enough to be challenging, but doesn't win. Btw, I haven't heard of a single group yet that didn't murder Grilsha in some horrible way - she usually bites it on the airship, actually. If she lives, she may provide the added oomph that Lucan needs without being able to Dominate the warforged.
Jancarius 08-20-06, 10:27 PM	Surprise, surprise. :) It also makes the warforged immune to such helpful buffs as Enlarge/Reduce Person, though. IMO, I hate the idea of NPCs saving PCs (though you may have the storytelling skills to pull it off and not make it sound cheesy). If I were you, I'd just fudge it so that Lucan lasts long enough to be challenging, but doesn't win. Btw, I haven't heard of a single group yet that didn't murder Grilsha in some horrible way - she usually bites it on the airship, actually. If she lives, she may provide the added oomph that Lucan needs without being able to Dominate the warforged. Yeah, the last time, they shot her out of the air as they were fleeing from the masquerade.
Onatar 08-21-06, 12:30 AM	Surprise, surprise. :) It also makes the warforged immune to such helpful buffs as Enlarge/Reduce Person, though. IMO, I hate the idea of NPCs saving PCs (though you may have the storytelling skills to pull it off and not make it sound cheesy). If I were you, I'd just fudge it so that Lucan lasts long enough to be challenging, but doesn't win. Btw, I haven't heard of a single group yet that didn't murder Grilsha in some horrible way - she usually bites it on the airship, actually. If she lives, she may provide the added oomph that Lucan needs without being able to Dominate the warforged. Our group accually captured her and turned her over to the authorities.