The End of the Pyramid (Scheme) Is Nigh

Our DM revealed the next gaming session - which is tomorrow (today) - would have the last two encounters of the Pyramid of Shadows. They will or should be also our last encounters in the heroic tier. We'll see how that goes; our warlord won't be around...

Since the previous D&D post, we've played once and I got to try my new character, the tiefling warlock. And I must say, I'm not totally convinced of his capability to compete with ranger in the amount of damage dealt per turn. The warlock, however, is able to choose safer spots on battlefield for being a ranged character and the temporary hit points gained from cursed targets dropping are a nice asset.

Scion (my character) has a lowly +12 bonus (+13 with fire/fear powers) to attacks but when he's able to meet all the right conditions, the bonus goes as high as +21, which is very nice. Still, single target damage wasn't very huge, and our barbarian dealt lots more (or would have if he hadn't missed all the time or been weakened).

Instead, Scion has a bunch of small AoE's... whose damage pales in comparison to our wizard's powers. I do very much like Tyrannical Threat, though, which is a party-friendly close burst 3 attack, which curses each enemy hit or missed by the power. It doesn't do a whole lot of damage but starting a fight with half dozen cursed targets is handy when they finally start dropping (or die instantly for being minions) and grant those THPs. Saves the trouble of cursing everything one by one.

Also, the last time we played, we had an encounter in a quite big room; corners blanketed in deep shadows. We moved as a bunch into the middle without delving into the darkness, and decided to wait for the monsters to come. It would have been very bad if the monsters had had AoE's. Luckily, they didn't and emerged from the shadows to close into melee range. And we then proceeded play our tactically best encounter ever.

We moved out from the middle using whatever tricks we had, only our warlord taking one opportunity attack (which missed). Our barbarian was helped by the warlord's Knight's Move and our cleric got teleported out by our wizard, who then layed down his Fireball (feat'd to give cold vulnerability against next attack) and action point'd Ice Storm. About 200 damage was dealt by him only during that turn.

I helped with the little AoE/zone from Feast of Souls. And on my next turn, I used Diabolic Grasp to move a Skull Lord into the cold damage zone with two other enemies and our wizard finished them off. I was one of the few to actually get a third turn, which I used to finish the last standing monster. And getting that +21 bonus for it being bloodied, cursed and whatnot.

I wish we'd be able to pull that kind of fights more often, instead being constantly inflicted by a handful of different status effects and having the fights drag on and on.