Finale Fight Mechanics
Posted by Apostate on 01/31/24
It will be a bit different. The structure of the fight narrative is Azazel has to shrink himself down and take a singular form (of sorts) in order to enter the Shining Lands, and the players are trying to stop him before he passes. The way he is defeated is with a child's toy puzzle box that was used to create him over a thousand years ago, which unfortunately was made with exceedingly difficult riddles that were culturally relevant to Caer'alfar at the time, so they are essentially trying to decipher puns and in jokes from well over a thousand years ago. It takes 26 successes using the riddles skill (specs count as 2, inhuman successes count as 4) in order to fully break the 13 puzzles and trap him. During this, Azazel will be subtracting potentially thousands of victory points per round from the aggregate total of all the battles, and if it reaches 0 before the puzzles are solved, he crosses into the Shining Lands to destroy all mortal life.
Characters can use magic to lower the difficulty tier of someone checking puzzles by one for a single check, and this is cumulative from its start at daunting. IE 1 person helping a puzzle worker lowers it from daunting to hard, 2 to normal, 3 to easy. This counts as a spell use.
The fight is more dangerous for the allies of the Compact. They can absorb one hit safely for their ally, a second hit will incapacitate them (not kill them) and they'll be out of the fight.
Anyone self sacrificing will prevent damage that round, stop the loss of victory points that round (no gain, it'll just be a 0'd round), and the difficulty of puzzle workers is all reduced by one tier the following round. No defensive luck rounds, all offensive, as Azazel is focused on passing through, and just trying to kill the people working on puzzles and those attacking him.
Depending on victory points, the shortest number of rounds would be about 5, average would probably be 6, and very unlikely they'll have more than 7 before he passes into the Shining Lands.
If he crosses successfully, there will be a follow up events where all the gods and archfiends manifest to fight Azazel as he tries to devour the Wheel of Death and Rebirth, with PCs being selected as their avatars. Failing there destroys existence, and Arx 2 would be in a separate timeline entirely.
Good luck.
Characters can use magic to lower the difficulty tier of someone checking puzzles by one for a single check, and this is cumulative from its start at daunting. IE 1 person helping a puzzle worker lowers it from daunting to hard, 2 to normal, 3 to easy. This counts as a spell use.
The fight is more dangerous for the allies of the Compact. They can absorb one hit safely for their ally, a second hit will incapacitate them (not kill them) and they'll be out of the fight.
Anyone self sacrificing will prevent damage that round, stop the loss of victory points that round (no gain, it'll just be a 0'd round), and the difficulty of puzzle workers is all reduced by one tier the following round. No defensive luck rounds, all offensive, as Azazel is focused on passing through, and just trying to kill the people working on puzzles and those attacking him.
Depending on victory points, the shortest number of rounds would be about 5, average would probably be 6, and very unlikely they'll have more than 7 before he passes into the Shining Lands.
If he crosses successfully, there will be a follow up events where all the gods and archfiends manifest to fight Azazel as he tries to devour the Wheel of Death and Rebirth, with PCs being selected as their avatars. Failing there destroys existence, and Arx 2 would be in a separate timeline entirely.
Good luck.