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Definitely remember that Venk and Zyrith are mind linked with Dragotha. In the absolutely unlikely event that they get the total drop on Dragotha, they shouldn't have more than a single round alone with him. Help should start arriving, and keep right on arriving. And definitely the wormdrakes should spell the end of the fight for your PC's. Start targeting those dispells and counterspells and that should do for that.
Gah. Someone with a brain needs to do something about gate. My players are still in the library of last resort, but they've been making a list for a while of everyone they plan on using gate on when they finally get access to the spell.
The corrupted angel in Spire of long shadows should almost always be a TPK since someone made a pretty big booboo making him. He's quite capable of kicking someones hind end without casting a single spell, especially if the party is good aligned. Not to mention his two archon buddies, save or die time. But then, most of Spire of Long Shadows is extremely lethal. 3 rounds of triple negative energy fireballing should be enough to outright kill any party I've ever heard of. As the DM you just chose not to TPK the party in that encounter. The underwater encounter in the whispering cairn is lethal in the extreme for the level. And of course the Library of Last resort has the encounter with Darl which should be a very dangerous moment, and then at the end there's the dream sequence, if that fight doesn't kill someone, you're doing something wrong. If the party doesn't cast the exact right spell, some, or most of the party should be dead by the end of the first round of combat for that matter. (15d6 multiplied by 5 = 225 save for half...) God help them on round two.
Odd. I was quite disapointed in the acidwraith. The placement of the 4 black dragons just prior to it meant that any party with access to resist energy was going to have it up prior to this encounter which basically nerfs the acidwraith. Thematically its nice, but challenge wise the wraith was a non event due to the nonevent fight prior to it.
His stats are in the right column on page 81 in Dungeon 132. He is a efreeti aristocrat 3/fighter 8 with a bunch of riding feats. And there it is. I can't even imagine how I missed that. Thanks!
So what am I missing? I can't find any stats for Malhazar outside of the basic efreeti listing in the MM. The module describes him using mounted combat feats in the tactics section, but a CR 8 Efreeti doesn't have any... Help?
Now that you mentioned it, that was a huge cakewalk for my party too. Everyone else was hundreds of feet away, while the wizard teleported right outside its reach and just kept blasting it full of fire spells. All its spell-like abilities either 1) needed Will saves, at which the wizard was nigh-unbeatable, or 2) were too low-level to affect the wizard. She ended up destroying it all on her own before anyone else even got near enough. Yeah, the Night Twist and the Octopus tree (whats with nearly identical encounters in the same mod, btw?) are easily defeatable by old fashioned kiting. A guy with a good will save (or death ward) will eventually kill the Night Twist once everyone figures out what is up. Of course my party out clevered themselves, advancing to withing 200 ft under cover of silence and then coming out of said silence one by one to make, or fail, the will saves. Given a choice, it seems like my pc's will take the more complex and obtuse route every time.
I had one of those "DnD" moments last night. My Party was facing up the cr20 tree in Tilagos. They walk up to it, there's a few things done back and forth, and they begin to realize that things are about to go very very badly for them. They are average party level 13 after all. Then the dread necromancer casts destruction on the tree. I laugh and, I kid you not, say "Well, it could always roll a one on its save.." I roll and down comes a one, just as slick as you please. Tree of doom dead, end of fight. Just like that.
My party basically watched the urglathingy eat Auric. As described this unleashed a wave of negative energy hitting everyone in the stands for 1d4 negative levels. On average that meant that the majority of the 50,000 people gathered to watch the final fight died instantly and rose 1d4 rounds later as wights. They immediately turned on the survivors, killing them (to rise as wights in a few rounds) and then spilled out of the arena killing everything in their path. As it stands the free city is about to succumb to the wights as it immediately became a magnet for every powerful necromancer and Kyuss aligned undead as well as clerics worshiping gods of death, undeath etc. I personally plan to continue to allow the little nasties to rampage accross the countryside until and unless the party can stop Kyuss. It gives them a much needed sense of urgency.
Office_Ninja, All rules arguments aside, there is exactly one thing you need to start doing which will change the entire nature of your problem. Learn to counterspell. There's no reason your wizard should get off a timestop unapposed, much less all that other damage nonsense. They may still win, in fact pretty quick they'll learn, but until then, start throwing around some counterspells and watch your fights turn into bloodbaths :D
Crust, you might want to read ahead a little, Issue 131 specifically, changes you make now might make it harder for you in the long run.
I'm actually quite interested in seeing this same situation happen in Waterdeep in my campaign. It would open up some nice possiblities for future adventurers/campaigns, in addition to keeping a couple powerful somebodies from interferring with the party and thier quest. Not that I'm working against the group to have this happen but i'm not going to be upset if they loose. We are going into Champions belt next session. I was enormously pleased with the outcome myself. I have great admiration for Mr. Mona and his crew for this entire campaign arc, but I do feel they missed the boat on this point. The swarming undead laying waste to waterdeep really brought the coming age of worms home to my players. Their somewhat complicity in the event just makes it more delicious. Periodically I give them little "News at 11" snippits about what is happening in Waterdeep That Was. For instance as they entered Mage point they passed an encamped army that was there seeking recruits and help from Manzorian before attempting to retake Waterdeep. They even tried to convince the generals not to attempt it. On their return they'll hear how that went. I don't plan for it to be pretty :D
I don't think Dragotha has much use for anyone's agenda but his own. AoW doesn't really need more bad guys, but if you wanted to invlove the Cult, I would do so as unwitting pawns of Dragotha. I've run up to Prince of Redhand in FR. I used the conversion notes as supplied where needed and made stuff up when I felt like it. It is, after all, my world, not Mr. Greenwood's. My only problem so far is the utter failure of the party to meet the challenge of the Champion's Belt. The subsequent transformation of 99% of the arena audience into Wights has posed some logistical problems as well as continuity challenges. I was tempted to have some Elminster types craft some sort of epic spell to address the issue, but I had a hard time reconciling that in a logical fashion so currently Waterdeep is largely a smoking ruin full of swarming wights with small besieged pockets of powerful hold outs. All of this is somewhat of a digression, but the point is, it's your game, there's no rule that says you can't, as has been said, just add magepoint to the map (what I did) or change some existing city into magepoint, or whatever. If you read the source material for FR and the background articles provided, it'll all come together well enough.
Its ballanced, as every installment clearly states, for 4 people of X level. Some parts of it are quite difficult, to be sure. Three Faces of Evil might be one of them. But many parts are a coast. I'm running it at the moment for a group that at its largest is 7. By preference I add levels to things, or HD, before I add numbers, since numbers can skew the CR of an encounter very quickly. Running AoW for 7 people without changing it will result in lower than average wealth and lower than average levels, I dont reccomend that at all. Bumping the wealth or XP to compensate results in a cakewalk. Do the math, fudge when the recipe calls for fudge, and you get a better result.
As far as the OP goes: I think I need to reread the encounter. I got the pretty strong impression that while the party may know that they have to confront Kyuss, they aren't really very clear on exact details. The plan and level of planning you describe seem to be for a party that has read the module. Not to mention, if they are doing it in the way you would guess, they've just fought their way up to the top of the monolith against some pretty dangerous foes. Even if they knew that fire was needed, would they be able to save all of that till the end? Lastly, It seems like your theoretical players knows what happens when they hit Kyuss with the sphere. Even if they get to the top, and guess that Kyuss is about to emerge, unless they are walking around with the incredibly dangerous artefact out in the open (which is pretty well covered in the module) they have to spend some time getting it ready, which means that our boy may have more to say about the encounter than a yawn and a surprised look.
PC Name: Shin'Rae, Aasimar Paladin of Helm
Our valiant heros have not been having a good time of it. Thuroughly trounced by the banites, they retreated to safety in the mine above, leaving the Banites with a problem; How to defend themselves against further intrusion? While the party distracted themselves with some random guard killing, including cold blodded murder, the Banites sacrificed the remaining zealots, turning them into Banedead, and then let loose Beast. The morning saw an ill fated foray into the Temple of Vecna, leading to the party deciding to rest in the room with the pool. After defeating a midnight ambush by the Banedead, they pushed forward into the Banite temple again, only to face the sleeping Beast. Quietly the halfling rogue snuck up to the sleeping behemoth. Carefully he aimed his mace for the final blow. Sadly a mere 10 points was inflicted, to which the mighty creature responded by nearly eviscerating the poor wee rogue who promptly retreated to the safety of the clerics healing magics. Valiantly the Paladin and his barbarian friend strode forward, but alas, the enraged creature was to much for the paladin who fell before its goring tusks. And woe, the cleric had been busy tending to the halfling, and so, arrived a turn to late, her friends last breath expiring while she was but a few feet from her charge. Amazingly, this was the first death in a campaign which regularly features people in the negatives, desperately rolling to stabalize.
On Assignment FTW! I merely attatched the Paladin in the group to the local garrison and decided that the garrison commander owed Lazaar a favor, so he lent the paladin to lazaar. Keep in mind that your characters are still first level, no matter how high minded they might be, they still have to prove themselves to the rest of the peoples.
Any good tpk is as much your fault as it is the players. There's a reason for the screen you know. I'm not saying I'll save a character from his own stupidity or arrogance, but after you've rolled three crits in a row, there's nothing wrong with chosing not to confirm the 4th. The OP's players seem to me like a group of first class idiots, but much of this seems like the OP's problem. Someone with 3rd level xp still playing as 1st? This didn't ring any bells for you? The cr of the final encounter compared to your average party level didn't trip any wires? I'm all for realism, of the sort that applies in a fantasy game, but realism of the sort that results in this is just arrogance on your part. People can fly. Fireballs come shooting out of little sticks, the dead walk the land, or are returned to life. And you're quibling about training to level up?
So I'm starting 3FoE last Saturday and the PC's have been so kind as to take the bait. They decide that they need to get into the Mine. Lacking other inspiration, they walk up to the pallisade and tell the guards that they want jobs as miners. In full armor. With all their really expensive 3rd level adventurer gear on. So the guard looks at the Halfling spellthief who has announced this and says, "ye don' qualify, now git." Said spellthief is irrate. He's a 3rd level spellthief! He can dig in the dirt, what qualifications do you need to be an underpaid miner in a town like Diamond Lake? So he says, "What do you mean we don't qualify? We want to be miners!" Quick as a wink, the guard clocks him a good one on the ear, sending him sprawling in the dirt. All the PC's Draw their weapons and the guards just look at them. "Ye don' qualify!" snarls the guard. Deciding that slaughtering their way into the mine might draw unwanted attention the PC's slink off. Our Halfling Hero has decided that this nameless guard is a main character and spent the remainder of the night figuring out how to expose and defeat him....
I just started my players on the Three Faces. While I wish it hadn't been quite so open ended (Whats to stop the players from wandering into the vecna wing before doing the other two bits?) it seemed like a fine adventure. I like the faceless one (In fact I'm arranging his escape, post defeat, in case I want to use him later) I dont see the problem with having cool villans at low levels. My party got rather thoroughly trounced by Theldrick's Banites, I swear they picked every option which would give the banites an edge... So what are the problems you see with TFOE? I was much less impressed with Blackwell Keep. I mean, seriously, would you honestly go to sleep at night knowing there's an unkillable undead monstrosity locked in your basement? |
