Treasure of Talon Pass, Part 5

After defeating the drakes and arbalesters, the elf cleric easily found the secret door at the north end of the stage. The party crept north through the secret passage into the abandoned dusty room. They were a bit unnerved by the silence, and even more by the shadow that flitted past the partially open door at the north end of the room.

They crept into the central hallway and the wizard threw the door completely open with mage hand. As she did so, two other doors opened and a ghoul emerged from behind each of the three now-open doors. Meanwhile a wraith floated out of the south wall behind the cleric. The defenders did a pretty good job of locking down the ghouls, in part because they kept getting hit and were spending all their time immobilized. The rest of the party mostly tried to deal with the wraith. At first it looked like the wraith might be a real problem, but it rolled crap to hit. Once the cleric started hitting with her radiant ranged powers, it didn't last long. Once the wraith was destroyed and the full party turned on the ghouls, they didn't last long either.

Analysis:
The lead-up was kind of tense, but once the battle was joined the party did a really good job keeping the monsters split up and pretty ineffective. I probably should have withdrawn the wraith and had it attack from another direction, but it didn't really have a good way past them or a good angle to come back in from.

The penultimate room was an amusing encounter. The imp talked to them as the party tried to convince him that he should ally with the dwarf wizard instead of whoever he was currently helping. The imp stayed near his escape route, but was ignorant of the fact that the rogue had spotted it and warned the wizard. With talks breaking down, and afraid that reinforcements would come out of the hole, the wizard blocked it with a cloud of daggers. With no way to retreat, the imp was slaughtered in a round. They then formed a battle line and beat down the iron defenders that came running from the other side of the room.

Analysis:
The imp managed to accomplish his goal of getting at least two party members across the wall of difficult terrain, but that just meant they were right on top of him after they cut off his escape. One horrible initiative roll later and it was all over for him. The party handled the iron defenders much more easily now that I know to use the 4e MM rules (free opportunity attacks against the single guarded creature) for them instead of the DDM rules (free opportunity attacks against anyone who attacks ANYONE but them while adjacent).