# Adimarchus is the Devil



## JollyDoc (Jan 4, 2005)

First, and foremost...if you are a regular reader of my SH, and don't want to see any spoilers, then STOP READING NOW!  I intentionally did not post this under my NPC's only thread, because I wanted a broader response from other DM's.  The purpose of this thread is as follows:  Who out there has run the final Shackled City adventure, Asylum, to its conclusion, and what happened?  The point is this:  Did any DM have a party actually defeat Adimarchus, and if so...HOW????  Discuss...


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## ltclnlbrain (Jan 4, 2005)

My party consisted of a halfling wizard/elemental savant/archmage focused on evocation spells, a human samurai/kensai, a human barbarian/fighter/rogue with the smoking eye, a human rogue, an elf druid, a pixie sorcerer/incantatrix, a half-orc cleric of Kord, and Nidrama. The group was at nearly full strength; they breezed through the majority of the prison and did not make the mistake of trying to open the cells. They still had a good amount of healing spells left available to them (on a side note, a sorcerer with disintegrate is nasty). All of the PCs were at or around 18th level. The entire party had been mind blanked from the marilith's stone and had energy immunity or protection from energy against fire, the bbn/ftr/rog had been polymorphed into a troll, and the druid had the majority of an earth elemental swarm. The cleric had several buffs active on him (righteous might and spell immunity [blasphemy, horrid wilting, and one other] among others that I can't remember). All of the front-line fighters were under the effects of displacement as well.

When I ran it, I decided to roll randomly to see which form Adi would take each round. He spent most of the first part of the fight in his angelic form.  He opened with blasphemy, which paralyzed the rogue, the samurai, and Nidrama (the cleric was immune and the smoking eye allowed the bbn/ftr/rog to be unaffected). The druid cast remove paralysis on Nidrama, who in turn did the same to the samurai. The samurai went in with his swords (+5 keen speed weapons IIRC) and did about 100 damage in one round, but Adimarchus switched to his demonic form and destroyed the samurai in one round.

Though the battle was long and grueling (perhaps 20 rounds or so), the rest of the fight went heavily in the PCs favor. Two dual-weilding rogues with sneak attacks are nasty, especially when one is polymorphed into a troll, is raging, and gets a bonus to attacks against Adimarchus with weapons that can penetrate his DR. Not to mention the cleric was wielding a blessed holy greatsword that was bane against evil outsiders. The druid kept summoning more creatures to use 'aid another' actions on the party, increasing their AC and attack rolls by an average of +8 each round (lots of huge and large elementals that could reach over the PCS). Adimarchus could hardly hit the party members, and his word of chaos was ineffective because all of the front-line fighters are chaotic. Throw in the archmage hurling powerful evocations being maximized by the incantatrix (readying an action each turn to boost the archmage's spells...his Spellcraft rating was through the roof) and the angelic form quickly fell. And the demonic form, which was actually subject to criticals and sneak attacks, fell even quicker. The PC's made all their saves against the imploding strike.

So in the end, the group only suffered one casualty.  Needless to say I was surprised.


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## Mortepierre (Jan 4, 2005)

ltclnlbrain said:
			
		

> Two dual-weilding rogues with sneak attacks are nasty, especially when one is polymorphed into a troll, is raging, and gets a bonus to attacks against Adimarchus with weapons that can penetrate his DR.




Just curious but how did he manage to make sneak attacks while raging? It is my understanding you cannot usually do that (well, unless he had a feat akin to Righteous Wrath of course) since a rogue must be clear-minded to sneak attack.


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## ltclnlbrain (Jan 4, 2005)

Mortepierre said:
			
		

> Just curious but how did he manage to make sneak attacks while raging? It is my understanding you cannot usually do that (well, unless he had a feat akin to Righteous Wrath of course) since a rogue must be clear-minded to sneak attack.




From the PHB, paraphrased a bit:
"If a rogue can catch an opponent when he is unable to dfend himself effectively from her attack, she can strike a vital spot for extra damage. Basically, the rogue's attack deals extra damage any time her target would be denied a Dexterity bonus to AC, or when the rogue flanks her target...A rogue can sneak attack only living creatures with discernible anatomies...Any creature that is immune to critical hits is not vulnerable to sneak attacks. The rogue must be able to see the target well enough to pick out a vital spot and be able to reach such a spot. A rogue cannot sneak attack when striking a creature with concealment or striking the limbs of a creature whose vitals are beyond reach."

Nowhere in the passage does it mention that a rogue cannot sneak attack while raging or must be clear-minded to do so. As long as the target is denied its Dex or the rogue is flanking and none of the other exceptions occur, she can sneak attack.


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## JollyDoc (Jan 5, 2005)

ltclnlbrain said:
			
		

> My party consisted of a halfling wizard/elemental savant/archmage focused on evocation spells, a human samurai/kensai, a human barbarian/fighter/rogue with the smoking eye, a human rogue, an elf druid, a pixie sorcerer/incantatrix, a half-orc cleric of Kord, and Nidrama.




So, you make my point here, in that it took 8 characters instead of the specified 4.




			
				ltclnlbrain said:
			
		

> The group was at nearly full strength; they breezed through the majority of the prison and did not make the mistake of trying to open the cells. They still had a good amount of healing spells left available to them (on a side note, a sorcerer with disintegrate is nasty). All of the PCs were at or around 18th level. The entire party had been mind blanked from the marilith's stone and had energy immunity or protection from energy against fire, the bbn/ftr/rog had been polymorphed into a troll, and the druid had the majority of an earth elemental swarm. The cleric had several buffs active on him (righteous might and spell immunity [blasphemy, horrid wilting, and one other] among others that I can't remember). All of the front-line fighters were under the effects of displacement as well.




You neglected to mention here one important point...what about Dark Myrakul?  Surely they didn't have an easy time with him?




			
				ltclnbrain said:
			
		

> When I ran it, I decided to roll randomly to see which form Adi would take each round. He spent most of the first part of the fight in his angelic form.  He opened with blasphemy, which paralyzed the rogue, the samurai, and Nidrama (the cleric was immune and the smoking eye allowed the bbn/ftr/rog to be unaffected). The druid cast remove paralysis on Nidrama, who in turn did the same to the samurai. The samurai went in with his swords (+5 keen speed weapons IIRC) and did about 100 damage in one round, but Adimarchus switched to his demonic form and destroyed the samurai in one round.




Unless you changed Adimarchus' caster level (which I did), anyone affected by that Blashphemy should have been killed.  As written, Adimarchus' caster level is 30, so anyone who is ten levels or below his caster levels is instantly killed...no save.



			
				ltclnbrain said:
			
		

> Though the battle was long and grueling (perhaps 20 rounds or so), the rest of the fight went heavily in the PCs favor. Two dual-weilding rogues with sneak attacks are nasty, especially when one is polymorphed into a troll, is raging, and gets a bonus to attacks against Adimarchus with weapons that can penetrate his DR. Not to mention the cleric was wielding a blessed holy greatsword that was bane against evil outsiders. The druid kept summoning more creatures to use 'aid another' actions on the party, increasing their AC and attack rolls by an average of +8 each round (lots of huge and large elementals that could reach over the PCS). Adimarchus could hardly hit the party members, and his word of chaos was ineffective because all of the front-line fighters are chaotic. Throw in the archmage hurling powerful evocations being maximized by the incantatrix (readying an action each turn to boost the archmage's spells...his Spellcraft rating was through the roof) and the angelic form quickly fell. And the demonic form, which was actually subject to criticals and sneak attacks, fell even quicker. The PC's made all their saves against the imploding strike.





Few points:  As you mentioned, in Angelic form Adimarchus is immune to crits and sneak attacks.  Also, in both forms, Adimarchus masks his alignment.  Therefore, aligned weapons would have no special effects on him, nor would aligned magic.  Finally, you mention summoning creatures.  Did you forget that all of Skullrot was under the effect of an unhallow with a Pro. vs Good linked to it?  This hedges out all summoned monsters from attacking Adimarchus.  They can be summoned....they just can't touch him.


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## Mortepierre (Jan 5, 2005)

ltclnlbrain said:
			
		

> Nowhere in the passage does it mention that a rogue cannot sneak attack while raging or must be clear-minded to do so. As long as the target is denied its Dex or the rogue is flanking and none of the other exceptions occur, she can sneak attack.




You're quite correct. I just reread the D&D v3.5 FAQ and it confirms the fact. Don't know where I got the impression one couldn't do it while raging


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## Berandor (Jan 5, 2005)

So, JollyDoc... did the group die?

IMC we're approaching Flood Season so I can't tell you what will happen


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## el-remmen (Jan 5, 2005)

This looks like a good thread for The Rat Bastard's Boards


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## ltclnlbrain (Jan 5, 2005)

JollyDoc said:
			
		

> You neglected to mention here one important point...what about Dark Myrakul?  Surely they didn't have an easy time with him?




They actually had a pretty easy time with him.  A greater dispel from the cleric took down most of Myrakul's magic defenses, then a disintegrate each from the pixie sorcerer and the halfling archmage plus a few hits by the samurai and he was dust. Then it just took a bit of wailing on the demonflesh golem with healing provided by the cleric when needed.



			
				JollyDoc said:
			
		

> Unless you changed Adimarchus' caster level (which I did), anyone affected by that Blashphemy should have been killed.  As written, Adimarchus' caster level is 30, so anyone who is ten levels or below his caster levels is instantly killed...no save.




Yes, I did reduce the caster level specifically for that reason.



			
				JollyDoc said:
			
		

> Few points:  As you mentioned, in Angelic form Adimarchus is immune to crits and sneak attacks.  Also, in both forms, Adimarchus masks his alignment.  Therefore, aligned weapons would have no special effects on him, nor would aligned magic.  Finally, you mention summoning creatures.  Did you forget that all of Skullrot was under the effect of an unhallow with a Pro. vs Good linked to it?  This hedges out all summoned monsters from attacking Adimarchus.  They can be summoned....they just can't touch him.




I knew that Adimarchus masked his alignment, and that alignment-based spells did not harm him. I did not rule that this applied to holy weapons though; perhaps a mistake on my part.

As for the elementals, the druid soon learned that they could not touch the demon lord. That is when he began to order them to use "aid another" actions to increase the AC and attack rolls of the other party members. According to the rules, a creature must be in a position to make a melee attack against an enemy in order to aid an ally engaged in melee with it. While the elementals could not come in contact with Adimarchus, they could still make melee attacks against them, and so they could also aid their master's comrades.


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## JollyDoc (Jan 6, 2005)

Berandor said:
			
		

> So, JollyDoc... did the group die?
> 
> IMC we're approaching Flood Season so I can't tell you what will happen




No, the group did not die...at least not all of them...well, at least not permanently, but it was a near thing, and it was only thru the intervention of an unexpected ally that any of them survived.  However, I will say, Adimarchus did not die either.


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## ltclnlbrain (Jan 6, 2005)

One thing I forgot that really helped the party out: Nidrama has the ability to cast death ward at will.  That, coupled with the mind blank, made all of the PCs immune to the most dangerous of Adimarchus' powers.


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## gfunk (Jan 6, 2005)

ltclnlbrain said:
			
		

> One thing I forgot that really helped the party out: Nidrama has the ability to cast death ward at will. That, coupled with the mind blank, made all of the PCs immune to the most dangerous of Adimarchus' powers.



 Interesting that you say that.  Our version of "Nidrama" could cast _energy drain_ at will.  You'll understand when you read the segment ;-)


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## Berandor (Jan 6, 2005)

gfunk said:
			
		

> Interesting that you say that.  Our version of "Nidrama" could cast _energy drain_ at will.  You'll understand when you read the segment ;-)



 Now *that* is a spoiler. And a cool one at that!


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## JollyDoc (Jan 7, 2005)

ltclnlbrain said:
			
		

> One thing I forgot that really helped the party out: Nidrama has the ability to cast death ward at will.  That, coupled with the mind blank, made all of the PCs immune to the most dangerous of Adimarchus' powers.




One other question...did you allow Adimarchus to use his _summon ta'nari _ ability?  When he used it in our game, I rolled randomly and he maxed out, summoning 4 glabrezus.  Not particularly challenging to a group of 19th level characters, but a distraction nonetheless, especially when they start wailing on paralyzed party members ala _blasphemy_.


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## ltclnlbrain (Jan 7, 2005)

I did not have Adimarchus use his summoning ability.  It may have helped him out a bit, but the PCs likely would have prevailed in the end.


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## Dragovon (May 5, 2013)

I'm playing in a game of this now...because someone else wanted to run it.  Naturally I'm playing a stupid druid and not being much help...because I've actually run it twice.  The first time I ran it...there were only two survivors out of 6 (plus cohorts and planar bindings and such).  I didn't use Adimarchus' power to switch form the same though.  Since it was a free action...I had him switch form every turn and gave both forms full round actions...so he was pretty horrifying.  The second time I ran it...after the party beat the tree while avoiding all the cagerights...the cagerights left and hid to start over...and the party couldn't figure out how to follow them to finish the story...and I let it end there.


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