Ok, continued.
Finally, on everyone's mind is that last bit: Vincen't's last message spell said "I left you a parting gift on your ship.."
This is their airship, the Intrepid, we're talking about. The Airship is a submersible, flying, ocean-going magical vessel. I have these in a lot of my campaigns. This particular vessel was liberated from a group of Mind-Flayer invaders.
So, now, well-rested and re-equipped, the PCs decided to see what the damage was. They expected a trap, curse, undead, or ..something similar. Back when Vincent was still a PC, they had set up countermeasure defenses on their ship. The only upgrade they did when they found out Vincent was now an enemy, was remove him from the Alarm list: so the ship would shut down and psionically alert them whenever anyone not on the list (including Vincent) tried to board. The ship was docked at a private area of the Harbor, and guarded. It had been there for about 4 sessions.
Vincet had summoned a pair of yugoloths, (Echinoloths, actually) and left them lurking near the dock of their ship, underwater. These are like giant starfish-squids with a pretty brutal rend attack. They are amongst the least intelligent Yugoloths I've found. The version I used is from Stormwrack. They are blind, but have tremorsense, so they could sense when the players were coming down the docks.
Ok, so cautiously approaching, we threw down miniatures. Owyn (rogue/wizard/arcane trickster) was in the lead trying to search for traps. Ganex at the rear with Kismet did a Detect Scrying.
He located and destroyed a scrying sensor (Vincent's of course. He delights in watching the carnage) located above the vessel. Too bad! But since the watcher was not in the radius of the spell, he couldn't psionically trace it back.
At that point, they rolled spot checks, and Owyn was the only one to pass. Out of the water spring my two Echinoloths. Rarrhh!
They scramble up onto the docks and lash away at Owyn- and he's hit!.
Owyn casts fly (on the defensive, now, because he's in threat range) successfully. But he flies up and out of range. Ah, it's one weakness. No ranged attacks. Plus, these guys were slow out of water.
Of course, right behind Owyn is Bernard and then Ganex and Kismet in the rear.
Surprise round over, it goes back to the top.
One closes in on Bernard, who is flat-footed, and wails on him- hitting with three tentacles, and then rending for extra damage. Oof. Bernard is almost halfway down and he hasn't even acted yet!
The other closes in on Ganex and hits him three times, and rends. Oof. Ganex is hurt even worse, because he recently rebuilt as a pure Psion. That really nerfed his hit points. He's more than halfway down.
The tactical situation was- the PCs were standing on docks, over water. So they had set paths to walk on and fight from (and escape to).
Owyn tried an Otiluke's resilient sphere: the idea was to encase one, while the group concentrated on bringing down the other. Divide and Conquer. Unfortunately, he failed his spell penetration roll. Otiluke's Resilient Sphere hit the critter... and fizzled.
Bernard doesn't want to take another AoO just to get a better tactical position (this was foolish of him, because he could have withdrawn to a safer fighting position if he had just sucked it up and taken the AoO). So he tries to fight from where he is standing. He barely damages the thing.
Ganex attempts a psionic disintegrate- one of his best powers. It fails to penetrate spell resistance.
Kismet tries to mind thrust it, and it saves. No damage.
This was bad: bad luck (bad spell-penetration rolls actually, and good saves by the yugoloths) put them in a position where I could now full-attack a flanked Bernard.
Which I did. The Echinoloths together hit him with 6 out of 8 possible tentacle attacks, and two rends. He was down to like .. less than a quarter of his hit points. He can't heal himself either, because these are infernal wounds. This could be the end for Bernard.
Owyn flies up and casts a scorching ray from his wand. It fails spell penetration. Zot! Fizzle.
Bernard assess where he can go: now, he can't fully withdraw. One round's hesitation closed the escape route and left him trapped between both monsters on a narrow dock. He didn't want to take one tentacle swipe, and instead he got hit by 6 and two rends. See, thats tactics in action. Sometimes you have to go ahead and take the hit just to get position.
He considers the situation for a second, and then decides the only option is 'into the water'. He drops off the dock into the water. In full plate.
This cleverly avoids him taking an AoO (actually two AoO's, one from each critter). But now he's got trouble, as he sinks to the bottom. He tries to heal himself with a wand, but fails the heal check (for infernal wounds).
Ganex bravely steps up to try and distract the beasties from going after Bernard in the water. He fails another disintegrate. Still, desperate measures are needed.
Kismet sets up some defensive buffs. (She's now an allied 'henchman' type npc during combats, so technically Ganex's player runs her as an extra PC during combats. However, I roleplay her NPC-ness in non-tactical situations).
One of Echinoloths drops off the dock and goes into the water after Bernard. uh-oh. The Echinoloths have an advanatge in water! A huge advantage! It closes in and takes one swipe at him. Ouch. Bernard is on his last few hitpoints.
The other Echinoloth turns around, and full attacks Ganex who has gotten too close. It latches on with all four tentacles and shreds him. And also rends. Ganex is dropped down to his last few hit points as well.
It's looking dire!
Ganex and Bernard are almost down. Owyn has yet to hit with anything. Kismet has been fairly useless.
Suddenly the tide of battle changes. Owyn tries to pull the Echinoloth off of Bernard by swooping down under the water, Swift Invisible, and using another Scorching Ray from his own spell list. This gives him sneak attack and a higher spell penetration roll. He finally makes a spell penetration roll.
He hits with a sneak, hits again, and then crits with the third ray. Zot Zot Zot! The echinoloth is badly damaged.
Bernard withdraws underwater, holding his breath. Even though he's in armor, he's within walking distance to shore. He struggles to move, and tries healing as he goes. He finally makes a caster check and heals the infernal wound. He's getting back some hit points.
Ganex holds his action, Kismet grabs him from behind and psionic dimension doors him 300' back onto dry land. He then tries to heal himself by burning a metamorphosis. He changes into a will-o-wisp. That boosts his AC, and he makes the heal check and gets some hit points back as well. But he's hurtin'
The echinoloth in the water catches up to Bernard and hits him again, wounding him badly, but Bernard is hangin in there from just healing a round ago. Plus he's like 5' from shore now. He can full withdraw out of the way of this thing and just outrun it if he has to.
Owyn drops a fire-brand spell on the wounded one, and then flies back out of the underwater zone. It has some resistance, but not enough. It dies. Finally!
The last one tries crawling towards Bernard on the shore, but is too slow to get very far. It hits again, but it isn't enough to drop Bernard.
"Everyone, ranged attacks!"
Aha, they figured me out.
Within a couple of rounds, they back off from the critters, lure them out of water, and bring them both down.
Great, brutal combat. At his lowest, Bernard was down to 3 hit points, and losing 1 hp per round from a 'wounding' effect of the Infernal wound. Ganex managed to stay at around 15 hit points after he beat the heal check and metamorphed. Kismet was fine. Owyn was barely hit, but fine.
The interesting thing happened next.