Ok, I did go down to fight Shelob... sorry 'The Matriarch' and I didn't find her too frightening to look at - to be honest, she looks quite beautiful - and her babies are downright cute, wish, I could adopt one.
Problem is, I don't have anyone good at sneaking in my party. My Tiefling lady is the best of the ones I have, but I think, I might put up with Astarion for this. As much as it pains me, I want to get the spidereggs with the (sadly very violent) cuties out of the way. Fighting the whole tourage is a bit challenging.
I did get the Matriarch down to 30 hitpoints by shooting her from the webs (I always thought, that spiders don't have to worry about a fall, but I'm not complaining), but the babies and the two normal spiders do too much damage - and they all attack the same person, first Wyll and then Gale and both died in one round. Since they are my most important damage dealers, the fight was over after that, since my Tiefling warlock had only 2 hps left and Shadowheart was out of spells (she kept Gale alive for the time being). All in all that could have gotten better.
Is there a way to get down where the two normal phase spiders are to kill them without the Matriarch noticing? That would certainly help a lot. I think, I can manage the eggs with Astarion and Shadowhearts trickery domain spell and some well placed fire bombs and I think, if we only have to deal with motehr dearest, it'S challenging but doable.
Did I mention how cute the babies are?
