Quote Originally Posted by Greyfeld85 View Post
Chalk it up to a faux pas in DMing. Even if you hadn't taken the time previously to map out any defenses for the BBEGs' lair (under the mistaken assumption that the PCs wouldn't head that way), you should have taken a break to draw up something really quick. Or possibly called the game for the night to give you some time to hammer something out.

You have to keep in mind that you're not just challenging a group of players, you're roleplaying villains. Intelligent villains. Intelligent villains who have mooks and a lair they feel is worth keeping secret. Allowing the players to traipse through their lair without any sort of alarm or pre-warning system, no traps, no mooks making a tactical retreat to set up an ambush... that doesn't sound like an 8th level wizard to me.
The layer was completely mapped out. Allow me a few minutes to write up everything that happened...

Quote Originally Posted by Greyfeld85 View Post
I'd also like to point out that enemies don't always have to take the AoO. I don't know what the Aurak's intelligence score is (don't own the book he's in), but when I'm running combat encounters, it's not uncommon for my monsters to completely forego AoOs. Either because they're intelligent enough to know not to be conned into doing what the enemy wants them to do, or because their focus is somewhere else and don't have the presence of mind to respond with the follow-up attack.
Aurak's are like draconic mind flayers. They wouldn't forgo an AoO.

The player completely played me here. Basically, I got frustrated about the villain and made a comment about "he never even dealt damage to you" when Alfelias died. So he gave me an opportunity to take an AoO, knowing I would jump at the chance, then laughed as my BBEG burned to little pieces.