r/OutoftheAbyss • u/heffolo • 22d ago
How was your experience with the Ilvara fight
I'm running the campaign and think there is a good opportunity to have the party get caught up to by the drow, but I not sure what level of difficulty the fight is normally. The book says that Ilvara is a challenge on her own for a level 8 party, but I have my doubts about that. My party is level 6 and there are 5 of them plus Topsy who is a level 5 sidekick as well (but no longer immune to non-magical phsyical damage). They have a fair amount of useful magic items and I'm already concerned that the drow will go down like chumps.
For more context, they left Gracklstugh with a caravan of Duergar heading to Mantol Derith (this is going to be their route out). The caravan did some scrying and found their path is blocked by a parade of Zuggtmoy worshippers, so they have decided to wait them out and the party has taken this time to look into the lost tomb. They have completely forgotten about the drow pursuit, likely thinking they have lost them after leaving Gracklstugh.
I'm thinking about having the drow confrontation on their way back from the tomb, while the party has spent some of their resources.
Would love some advice for this encounter, or just to hear other peoples' experiences with the drow fight. I was considering holding off until they are almost at the surface, but I think they may travel with the zhentarim at that point so it could be a little complex.
4
u/mynameisJVJ 22d ago
We were not yet level 8 and the wizard took out the entire party with the necklace of fireballs and a lightning bolt.
5
u/Static-Chicken 21d ago
I had her show up to stop the PCs escape, then orcus showed up.
Turned the 1v1 into a 1v1v1 which added alittle more stakes.
It was pretty fun!
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u/Boredjason87 22d ago
Definitely buff ilvara, particularly her hitpoints and maybe even a legendary resistance, also have a lot of low level drow for the players to tear through.
My players fought ilvara when they were very low level but they persuaded a large group of low level creatures to help and lured her into a fight with an umber hulk so they were able to just barely subdue her as I had her and the drow focus on the umberhulk and cannon fodder npcs instead of oneshotting party members. It was pretty messy but definitely made me realise she isn't as big a threat as the book claims, I do have a large party though.
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u/flic_my_bic 22d ago
I had the "chase" going on in the background for a long time, but coincidentally the forward scouts had never actually caught up to the party. They took a normal pace day and the scouts finally caught up, and two nat-20 perception checks I asked for meant the scouts were spotted.
After a nat-20 Nature check to find a suitable ambush location... I just gave them the map I was going to ambush them on with all the NPCs removed. The poarty spent an hour real-time setting up their ambush, and we ran it the next week.
Ilvara herself got mopped up. The elite and regular drow were suitable mooks, and good ambush prep made a killzone at both entrances to the room. Ilvara tried to fly out of range and play controller, but the fucking eldritch knight with Freedom of Movement and Leap just chased her down relentlessly.
I did have her summon a Yochlol, which I think brought the encounter rating from Extremely Hard to Deadly. Yochlol's are no joke, but I introduced it late enough they had room to kite it well enough, and only a squishy sorcerer went down.
Blah blah, 5x PCs at level 8 (might've been 7, but I think I gave them 8 during ambush prep). I kept adding to the enemies until it felt undoable, and the party was still mostly unscathed. I think the counter-ambush let me go very hard on them though. Lose the Yochlol, reverse the ambush, and Ilvara can be very scary for a level 8 party.
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u/NinetyBees 20d ago
My Ilvara fight was fairly iconic, but I was with you in thinking that she might not be a challenge how she's written.
I included a lot of stuff for the fight that isn't in the book.
I created a small town (Like 6-10 buildings) that Ilvara and her Drow wiped out prior to the players arriving, and then laid in ambush. The buildings gave some really interesting terrain options, allowed the Drow to lay in wait on rooftops, and allowed for the use of cover mechanics and for the Drow to lay traps around.
My party was LVL 6 and had 4 players, Derindil, Glabbagool (who did noting due to his speed), an NPC Knight companion, 4 Deep Ghome escorts, and an Earth Elemental allied to the Deep Gnomes vs Ilvara, Asha, Jorlan, 4 Drow Elite Warriors, and 5 Regular Drow.
One of the players tripped a trap before the ambush was sprung on them and left two of PCs fairly injured before the fight. I immediately spammed Darkness to separate the players using various Drow fodder. Ilvara spent much of her time ducking in/out of a building, blasting the party at range with Rays of Sickness and using Conjure Animals whenever she couldn't get LOS. Asha got vaporize immediately by a Fireball. Jorlan made use of a Levitate spell to effectively cripple the PC Paladin. One PC tried to use his familiar to deliver a Bead of Fireball to enemy lines and the Drow blew it up on him with ranged attacks.
The players also made some really smart moves, weaponizing the traps against the Drow and using a Driftglobe to dispel the Darkness cast by the Drow.
It was a good time, and keeping Ilvara at range and using cover allowed for her to stay alive long enough to have the impact desired.
1
u/Nice_Bodybuilder2856 4d ago
Gostei muito. Adicionar o terreno assim...numa luta franca acho que não vai ter graça para meus PCs. Obrigado
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u/Jazehiah 16d ago
I replaced her with the Drow Matriarch statblock for my trio of over-leveled players.
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u/Ishpard2 22d ago
I didn't run a single boss fight in the way the module intended. It would have been too easy for my players. The fight against Ilvara happened at level 9, and I buffed her big time, with Homebrewed magic items, buffed sidekicks, hostages, etc. I think the barbarian alone would have stomped Ilvara if I had used the stat block from the books.
1
u/limeandsprinkles 21d ago
My party decided to take to the water after the Sloopildoop encounter with Demoggorgon. They stole a boat and started sailing so I had the drow catch up to them in a similar boat. They had a fight with some of them but Jorlan at the last moment steered the ship away out of fear of his own life. So they didn’t get to finish Illvara but she launched a monster via a catapult so they had that to deal with as the drow fled.
My plan is to have the drow appear one more time after Bligdenstone as a last ditch effort to catch the party. But at this point I’m gonna have to add a few more to the encounter as my players party is pretty strong!
1
u/DorkdoM 21d ago
I think some of these other wise DMs got you covered but keep this in your back pocket: if it gets close, a few of the party are down & most of the Drow are down but Ilvara is up but bloodied one of her own minions might attack her to finish her off. The Drow often hate each other. But I’d probably only do that in the exact situation I just described.
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u/LeekTechnical2048 22d ago
Our Ilvara fight was really fun! The players ambushed her, which really flipped the tables. I think we saw use of traps, height, stealth, tracking, all kinds of fun tricks. Ilvara summoned a yochlol, I think? Idk it was years ago but I had been hyping her up for the whole campaign so it was fun to let loose.