Long ago, we switched initiative from how it's normally done. We still do individual initiative each round, rolled. However, we changed it where we start from 10 and count down to 1. So whoever rolls a 10 gets to go first, whoever rolls a 1 goes last in each round, etc. If I remember correctly, we did that to correct a player or two who consistently got distracted during the games. So I remember saying"
"I'm gonna do initiative like a countdown...10, 9, 8, 7...and whoever misses his turn/initiative as we count down loses their action that round."
It worked. And I've been doing it like that ever since. Anyway, the big battle comes up as the lich is opening a gate to the Negative Material Plane in the depths of his castle. The PCs (a priest/paladin of Horus, an elven wizard, an elven ranger, a gnome thief and another elven ranger) ended up reaching the massive room where the gate was in time to interrupt the lich and ensure combat would take place. The room was filled with zombies (enhanced via the embalm spell), skeletons (enhanced with the transmute bone to iron spell, some crypt servants and a few skeletal archers (a new monster of mine, they have arrows of wounding). The PCs ended up summoning a fire elemental, a divine minion of Horus and a goddamned phoenix! Now this was a VERY tough 20th level wizard and they're all between 10th and 14th level. EVERY initiative, the lich rolled high (good, meaning he goes first), and the PCs rolled low (bad, they go last). The lich rolled (remember, I'm counting down where 10 goes first) - 10, 9, 9, 10, 10 for the first 5 rounds and half the PCs rolled 1's and 2's. Even the summoned help rolled low! The freaking lich made ALL his saving throws and even made a successful magic resistance roll of 5% for his damned robe of the arch-magi!
The Dice Gods definitely seemed to be using massive bless spells for the villains tonight!
The PCs only won because the priest was able to dispel the time stop spell the lich had put on himself, so he didn't complete the 2nd and 3rd spell he was prepping while time was stopped. He cast chain lightning, which would have killed the entire damned party at that point, but luckily the priest/paladin's holy sword made its magic resistance and killed the spell. They eventually destroyed the lich, then handed his body to the fire elemental to take back with him to the Elemental Plane of Fire.
So in the end, a great victory after a long battle!
Too bad the players/PCs don't know about the lich's phylactery, which is safely well hidden.
