I thought Skameros might wait until either Beegred says "come on in the water is fine" or screams out in agony.

Don't want to get that darkness on his nice fur, if he doesn't need to.

Big Red is Skameros friend - he'll defend you from the evil drow 

Rodolfo will grab the coat tails of whoever is going in and follow.

OK, so Beegred is going in carefully (stealthing and trying to use his other senses).  Skameros and Rodolfo are following Beegred, but not chasing on their own.  Orubis (and Grithik) are staying back.

Here's the result from the HISTORY check I asked you all to make:

Orubis and Beegred remember the tunnels and caverns enough from the way to Entremoch's Boon that you recall this is about the correct place for the 80 foot cliff you had to climb up.  Refer to THIS POST if you need a reminder.

Seeing as no one  has tried to RUN through the darkness and both Beegred and Orubis remember, then there won't be any risk of having some of you drop off the cliff.  

What was all the stuff that had to be done before the attack on Pudding King? And how far off is it time-wise?

If I recall correctly then there was: a) blowing a hole, b) drawing oozes away, c) strike force, d) the Boon/Bane topic... anything else?

Time wise, from the hatching of the plan, there is supposed to be a preparation phase.  Two of the several options you could have chosen was to go to the City of Blades to buy crossbows and crossbow bolts, OR you could have gone to Neverlight Grove to gather mushrooms to make the salve that protects weapons and armor against the acid of the oozes.  

Each of those tasks would take maybe a month to complete including travel and 'complications'.  Instead, your party chose to find Entremoch's Boon, which is only a couple days away from Blingdenstone.  The whole round trip, including finding the place, would probably be between a week or two.  So I would say you have approximately 2 to 3 weeks before the launch of the attack.

As for the PLAN, since your party did not show any interest in risking their lives to go after the Pudding King, I suggested an alternative, which was to provide a stronger fighting force for the gnomes (the elementals boosted by Entremoch's Boon) with the understanding that you would have to deal with Ogremoch's Bane prior to the attack, or keep it busy during the attack so it didn't interfere.

I proposed this alternative and you ended up choosing to go find Entremoch's Boon.  So I figured you were also choosing to take care of Ogremoch's Bane.  Maybe I assumed too much?

Nope, you are correct. It's just been a while :)

I think there was a lot going on and it wasn’t entirely clear then, but appears clear now. Thank you

I'm fine with somehow taking out the Bane before the Pudding fight.
I think we need some idea of how to destroy it. I don't remember hearing that.

At least for Beegred, it wasn't an objection to fighting the Pudding King.
It was the gnomes saying that they don't want to risk their lives fighting PK.
That sounded a lot like, "solve our deadly problem for us, while we do nothing at all to help".

They don't have to fight with the party, but they should provide support or a distraction to the main ooze army.
Since it is their problem, they can't just dump it all on our party.

Maybe I was at fault in my writing.  It is not that they aren't willing to fight and die for Blingdenstone.  What they meant to say is they are not great fighters.  At the time, they believed none of their own were ever trained to be soldiers.  Whoever was going to volunteer for the mission, was going to be an ordinary craftsperson who picked up a makeshift weapon and would do the best they could.

Earlier, that's why I was suggesting that the gnomes could make a distraction that would lure most of the oozes away from the PK, but not necessarily put them at risk, like making noises, lighting fires, rolling boulders, etc.

Also that it would help if they gave (or loaned) a pole arm that wouldn't melt under use. If Skameros can attack from 10' away, then he won't get the acid splash. Their resources are limited, but this would seem to be something where they should put in more effort.

Anyways, that is still weeks away.
First thing is for Nomi to tell us how to actually defeat the Bane, instead of us futilely watching it like a cyclone cleaner.

You would be aware that Nomi has never SEEN Ogremoch's Bane, and the only reason the gnomes no longer believe it is just a myth is that all of YOU have told them you've seen it yourselves.

To sum up what I'm pretty sure (I hope, I'm running this module for 2 groups afterall) I've already explained is:

• This is not a creature that belongs to the material plane
• This creature is not able to directly affect your physical forms, and likewise you are not able to affect it's 'ephemeral' form
• The creature acts on the material plane through a proxy, and those proxies have, from your experience, always been earth elemental creatures, or creatures turned to stone.
• When you do face Ogremoch's Bane again, you will be level 7.

I think there are a couple pretty big hints in there for one possible solution.

I may be a dummy then, because I don’t know what to do about that, what with being unable to effect the source. I remember using Wind Wall to block it. But… I guess we can go try to wing it?

If we assume that the Bane is only able to inhabit a single elemental at the time then we may be able to summon one and then just neutralize it with a blob for an hour or up to several hours. Restraining or removing it in other ways seems more difficult, but I don't know all the options.

If you remember all the way back to when you were exploring the Rockblight, you found a room full of petrified drow soldiers.  When you entered that chamber, Ogremoch's Bane possessed 6 statues at a time, within that room.  You fought 6 and then left when the next 6 began to animate.

I also seem to remember that when you fought the two gargoyles and a berserk earth elemental in the chamber above the waterfall (rockblight again), after defeating the gargoyles and elemental, Ogremoch's Bane occupied their corpses.  I think it was controlling two defeated corpses at one time.

He keeps pointing out that we'll be level 7 when we take on the Bane - I suspect in someone's leveling up there is a potential solution to this problem

Don't think it's mine - Skameros gets advantage on initiative at level 7

Quote from ArgentTheWise >>

He keeps pointing out that we'll be level 7 when we take on the Bane - I suspect in someone's leveling up there is a potential solution to this problem

Banishment is a 4th level spell that will expel visitors from another plane. Also a lot of fun in combat, to make the big boss go away for a few rounds while thinning out the minions. (That all depends on a failed Save, of course.) It is available to clerics, warlocks, and wizards.

Yeah, I think I'll be dropping Grithik from the group.  Dreak doesn't seem to be active anymore.  Last post in our threads was Aug. 6.  His last post was Aug. 11.   He last logged in Nov 1.

So no Warlock going forward.

So what are our options then? 

Quote from Winenose >>

So what are our options then? 

 Go level grind is what it sounds like. Time to pursue some other avenues