Random Geek Jabber

Well, I've been running the Age of Worms for the last several months. It's been an OK campaign. Some of the structure is really bad. Some of the lay out's have been lacking. Monster and encounter design, ugg in too many places. However, the story has been pretty good, and the group has just got to end game.

Last Sunday, Dragotha, the mighty Draco-Lich, one time Consort of Tiamat, right hand of the Worm God Kyuss, total bad ass, was brought low by the party. In a round. No, drawn out epic battle. No desperate struggle to bring overcome this fearsome obsticle. No chance for mighty being to exchange blows that would rock the very pillars of heaven!! Nope, the party walked in, Dragotha breathed (they all made their saves and had evasion, wasted breath weapon in other words), let lose a mighty spell (they all made their saves, and took a relativly small amount of damage from the Horrid Wilting), and then they stomped him. A combination of highly specialized cohorts, plumbing the depths of the entirety of my D&D library (which is impressive), and power gamed characters took the FIRST DRACO-LICH EVER in less then 10 seconds game time. About 10 minutes table time I think. Yeah...

I powered up Dragotha, I had to. I gave him max HP and then some. I gave him a giant Kybar Dragonshard floating in his chest that filled him with necromantic powers (we're playing in Eberon). His bones were studded with Eberon Dragonshards as well, giving more boni. I swapped out feats to favor party trick beating Epic Feats. I used the old versions of spells that have since been revised, and I used them wrong (on purpose!!!!!!!!!). But it didn't matter. They walked in and pumped more then 2000 points of damage into him in a single melee round. It was late, so I decided to say, the hell with it. Except for going through the ol' dragon melee routine, there wasn't a whole lot left to do for him.

The fight, basically, was a huge let-down for me. I wanted it to last 5-6 rounds. Have a feel that this was something that was trully fearsome. An incredible threat. Nope. And that is the absolutly worse feeling for me as a DM, when that just kinda falls apart on me. When I have what should be a really cool encounter, what should be a desperate fight that will be memorable for the party. Well, I guess it's still memorable. They get to say "Hahaha, we totally poned Dragotha! I don't know why people think he's so tuff, what a pussy!" Yeah, makes me feel like I'm missing a rule somewhere.

It really, really sucked. I guess my idea of what makes a climactic scene is different from my players. *sigh*