Worldbreakers Playtest: The Fernia’s Throat Bebilith, Battle

This is a continuation of Worldbreakers Playtest: The Fernia’s Throat Bebilith, Setup.

The Rediron Avengers rested near the Scab after defeating the mind flayer, whose lair laid between them and Fernia’s Throat. In the night, Korrak the warforged warlock had set to the task of picking through the scab while the party slept. A short while before the party had planned to rise, they were abruptly awoken by a loud, arcane noise. They hurried out of camp in time to see Korrak standing upon the Scab, in which an unmistakable glowing mark of the Prophecy had been carved. With a crack, the Scab collapsed into Fernia’s Throat, casting Korrak down towards the pinprick of molten light at the bottom of the shaft.

Without a second thought, Tima, the winged halfling avenger, dove in after him as the rest of the party shrugged and assumed they’d find their way back up. When a five minute wait failed to return their two companions, they decided they’d better follow them down. Tima’s dump stats are strength and constitution, nor was she trained in athletics or endurance, so there was no way the little halfling would fly, carrying the 200 lb warforged, any real distance back up the shaft. She could only slow his descent as the rest of the party pooled all of their late paragon resources to figure out a way down.

Descending a 15 mile shaft which gently slopes in increasing diameter, whose walls become molten, is no easy feat. Without access to any flight rituals, the adventurers rigged together two tents, a bunch of rope, and a dose of sovereign glue for good measure. A few nature, thievery, and arcana checks built a pretty badass, fire resistant parachute. (Resistant is the operative word here). With crossed fingers, a collective prayer, and the guidance of the party’s druid in raven form, they began their descent. Hours later, after a few acrobatics checks to barely avoid volcanic thermals casting the parachute into the molten walls, the party found their two castaways hiding from the Bebilith on an earthmote.

As soon as the rest of the party floated out of the shaft, the Bebilith turned on them, mandibles clicking madly. The heat was on, and initiative was rolled as they touched down on an earthmote.

It’s easy to predict what the Rediron avengers will do in a battle, but there’s not a lot I can do about it. With a druid, a swordmage, an avenger, and a warlock in the party, they have more control powers than any solo can deal with. This is why I was looking forward to the badass Worldbreaker power. The first thing that happened is the avenger flew out to meet the Bebilith, and started pounding on it. The rest of the party looked on, out of range for their attacks (except that damn ranger), while the beast and the avenger traded blows. Shortly after Tima had teleported the Bebilith to the party for its customary anal reaming, it was prone, stunned, and had the death’s blade effect on it, and it had become bloodied. Par for the course. ;_;

That’s when the tables turned. On the Bebilith’s turn, the players looked onward with shit-eating grins, which turned into wide-eyed surprise as I turned the figure upright. “The Bebilith spends a standard action (ignoring the stun) to clear all effects on it. It also shook off your hunter’s quarry, oath of enmity, warlock’s curse, and mark of warding.” I expected a clusterfuck of rage as it shook off two dailies, but the players took it really well. I think it helped that I warned them I’d be playtesting a new mechanic. It spent an action point and snapped at that pesky flying halfling with its Devour power. She burned some item daily to avoid the attack. Smart move, Tima.

We can’t forget the ‘real’ effect of the Worldbreaker power. As the demon spider became enraged, the battlemap’s few safe spaces erupted with Fiery Death Web, forcing the adventurers to spend actions on their turns to mitigate the changed terrain. The ranger, who got caught on the Artificer’s phantom structure, had to double move to stagger out of it after the bridge was covered in webbing.

On the druid’s next turn, he used Baleful Polymorph.

That ate up two of the Bebilith’s worldbreaker turns as it rolled a 2(+5) on its first saving throw. When it finally recovered, it spent its standard action to summon its minions into flanking positions, then spend its last action point and tried to land another Devour attack on Tima. Sheldara the swordmage interrupted it with Dimensional Vortex, redirecting its hungry wrath towards one of its little minion spiders. See what I mean about ‘more control than one solo can deal with’? The Bebilith gobbled up one of its broodlings, and became very sad.

The last two turns (remember, the Bebilith gets two turns per round) of the Worldbreaker timer consisted of the Bebilith whiffing with one Devour attack, then finally landing one on Tima. That pissed the party off enough for them to defeat the demon with one last barrage.

What’s the verdict? Worldbreaker is awesome, and exciting, and not overpowering. However, its ability to mitigate the party curbstomp was still limited. I’d suggest giving every Worldbreaker Sly Flourish’s Brutal Shakeoff power while the Worldbreaker state is active, so they can keep going without the players feeling cheated. My players and I agreed that the map changeup when Worldbreaker hit made the combat more exciting and dynamic. A few notes on the timing and specific effects of Worldbreaker could stand to be clarified, and I think gamefiend plans to address this in his next post on the subject.