My GM asked me to start this thread after our party TPK'd in the encounter against the Stag Lord in his fort.
He wants to know what kinds of characters that OTHER people have played in this module.
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My GM asked me to start this thread after our party TPK'd in the encounter against the Stag Lord in his fort.
He wants to know what kinds of characters that OTHER people have played in this module.
** spoiler omitted **
At 3rd level, The Stag Lord still requires very good tactics. The group I ran included a reformed bandit NPC, a Summoner 4, a Fighter 3/Rogue 1, a Cleric 4, Ranger 4, and a Druid 3. With such a large group, I actually made some upgrades to the Stag Lord. In a one-on-one fight, there would have been casualties. I would say more, but you want this spoiler free.
We played using the 3.5 rules. We had a 3rd level Tiefling Ninja (+1 LA), 4th Tenebri (elf) Mage, 4th Silver Dragon, and a 4th level Faceman.
Creative Director
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Keeping spoiler free... the Stag Lord was not really designed to be a straight-up toe-to-toe fight against the PCs. Such a fight isn't impossible to win, but it's hard. There are several other ways to handle the Stag Lord other than a fight, and much of the adventure's other encounter areas and plot lines serve to give clues and hints on how these other resolutions could be handled. He's certainly not an infallible villain—he's got flaws that can be exploited.
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The group I GM'd for had a level 3 Fighter, Summoner and Janni from Savage Species. The fighter and summoner used 25 point builds and the Janni used a 20 point build.
However, it was some very clever tactics that the group employed once they were in the fort that made a potentially difficult battle relatively easy.
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Considering I had a group TPK in the first encounter...I maybe a bit biased to say this line of adventure is tough. But then again I have had other players do much better when they get it that this one isn't about straight up fighting. Course when you do fight, having casters who know what th hell they are doing helps. Without good casters, your pretty much dead unless your using options to make the players stronger then standard with very generous stats, odd races, higher levels etc etc.
Considering I had a group TPK in the first encounter...I maybe a bit biased to say this line of adventure is tough.
How on earth is it even possible to TPK on the first encounter? It's so heavily tilted towards the players that several DMs I know don't even bother running it as a combat encounter.
Uhm....charge screaming at it, naked, like the Celts? As a full party of Sorcerers with no DD, crowd control, or defensive spells?
Yeah, OK, the party can all commit ritual suicide in front of the startled bad guys. I was talking a realistic scenario.
The group I GM this for almost suffered a TPK here as well.
Their plan was to get to see the Stag Lord alone (pfft), deal with him, and then fight their way back out through the weaker bandits. When they realised this wasn't going to happen they attacked the bandits watching them, which brought Auchs and Dovan (who first freed the Owlbear to run amok) and a couple more bandits into the fight.
Finally came Akiros and the Stag Lord, Akiros switched sides and attacked the Stag Lord, but even with his help, 2 players and Akiros were reduced to negative hp, leaving only the witch and one of the clerics left standing. They were finally able to prevail. But it was very close. Appropriate for something they'd been building up to for so long.
I don't think the Stag Lord himself is overpowered, but the situation needs some more delicate handling than a frontal assault. Admittedly that wasn't their plan, but when they drew swords on the bandits it essentially became that. I gave them a reasonable few rounds before the Stag Lord appeared.
One of the best "stupid party" stories I've ever heard
I love that they went straight for the extra horses, which are in the module so that the PCs can start exploring hexes at a reasonable rate. I'm just giddy over that. "THESE HORSES MUST PERISH!"
Stag Lord was tough. 4th level Ranger, Fighter, Cleric and 3 Alchemist/1 Fighter. But then again, my DM ran it in a very organic way, so the Stag Lord wasn't plugging at us from the start... but it was still tough! I was playing the Cleric, and it was seriously the only time I've ever played D&D where I've had to continuously spam healing in order to keep my party alive. And I did, for the most part! I kept the entire party healed to full the entire time, buffing, shooting my bow, etc. and then immediately, the round he staggered out from his bed in a drunken stupor, the Stag Lord dropped a critical confirmation on the Alchemist. Made him flat footed with his helm. Dropped him from 100% health to -Con in one shot. Truly terrifying!
Sadly, the last real dangerous encounter in Kingmaker for us so far.
Spoiler:They charged the bandits...and made a point to attack the spare horses the bandits had before anything else. They assumed they could charge and kill everything with no planing, no prep...just charge...they are idiots.
They attacked the 75gp each horses that would not have normally entered the combat?
They need to learn something ... "Any plan where you lose your hat is a Bad Plan."
I haven't gotten to the Stag Lord with my group yet, but I can't wait to. Hopefully he will hit them, unlike Happs or Kressel. The first encounter I got 3 lucky hits in, 2 with nat 20s, but since then I haven't done damage. 3 of my players haven't taken any yet. I'm expecting my players to be level 2 when they get to the fort, and to crush him like a bug. I've got an inquistor, blind oracle or lore, weather domain druid, ranger, and rogue.
** spoiler omitted **
Ah, the classic "I'm a hero/PC, I'm invincible" mindset; also known as "tactics, shmactics."
My group defeated the Staglord this past weekend. Our group consists of a half-orc Ranger 4 (my character), an elven Wizard 4, a Tiefling Rogue 4 and a human Fighter 4. We didn't go it alone. Our party had established good relations with different NPC's, so we recruited an NPC Ranger, NPC Fighter and some men-at-arms. Even with reinforcements and a good attack plan that exploited our enemies weaknesses, it was still a challenging encounter. Multiple people on our side went down and we had one death. My GM may have toughened up the encounter, but from what I saw this encounter would be suicide for a party of only four 3rd level characters.
** spoiler omitted **Ah, the classic "I'm a hero/PC, I'm invincible" mindset; also known as "tactics, shmactics."
... of course, attacking the enemy and not the treasure would help too.
My party have the core 4 classes (Fighter, Rogue, Cleric & Wizard), plus a cavalier.
Facing off with stag lord, he manages to get off a rather painful hit against the fighter, but soon enough he is hit by a Hold Person from Cleric, followed by a Coup De Grace from Rogue.
*cue victory fanfare*
Nothing special, but Staggy's sheer damage potential scared them.
My GM asked me to start this thread after our party TPK'd in the encounter against the Stag Lord in his fort.
He wants to know what kinds of characters that OTHER people have played in this module.
** spoiler omitted **
I don't know how we can discuss this fight in depth without spoilers, but I'll tag my response anyway.
Also, was the party all human, by any chance? That could have also impacted how well the Stag Lord did.
And just to answer completely, my party consisted of a druid, witch, ranger, bard, rogue, and paladin. They bluffed their way into the building with the pass code, but almost immediately the paladin started swinging.
They handled the mooks pretty easily (I even used the bandits from the Gamemastery Guide since I had 6 PCs. Auchs went down pretty quickly to a critical hit inflict moderate wounds. Dovan (who I had advanced a level), released the Owlbear, which was put to sleep by the witch. It came down to Dovan and the Stag Lord pretty much, with Akiros joining the PCs side. The Stag Lord knocked the druid down to 0 hp in one hit, but then I rolled terribly and could barely hit anything else.
The stag lord is even sober when this fight starts, have people been applying the drunkness to his stats and tactics? It seems if you include the fact that he's deep in his cups that his ability to be a real threat would diminish some. I'm more worried about the 3 others and the owlbear when my players get to the fort.
I just started Kingmaker and my group I'm GM-ing for hasn't gotten to this point yet. I have 6 players as well, the race/class breakdown is as follows...
Alistair: half-elf inquisitor (Iomedae)
Crosser: gnome sorcerer (fey bloodline)
Drelith: human druid w/ Medium tiger companion
Iroh: dwarf cavalier w/ heavy war horse mount
Kaleb: halfling alchemist
Tichias: human summoner with quadruped eidolon
They decimated Happs and his "boys" with a well thought out ambush of their own (see my Campaign Journal for details... The_Minstrel_Wyrm's "Kingmaker" or "Crosser Demands It!")
I can't wait to see how they handle the Stag Lord.
This Sunday (the 25th) is my next session, and they are taking the fight to the bandits at Thorn River.
It is my current plan to continue posting the group's adventures and misadventures during "Kingmaker"
Dean (TMW)
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Am very surprised people are getting to the fight being mentioned at 4th Level.
My own experiences-
Running through my 6 player conversion using 5 players on a 20 point buy, the group talked their way into the Fort, but we were short on game time in RL and we had to inish that day, so eventually they just suddenly drew weapons and attacked. Despite the lack of tactics this seems to imply, getting inside the fort was the hard part. The fight was extremely close, with the Stag Lord eventually cornered in his own chambers, backed into a corner and dropping PC's with the longsword he was forced to draw. Even at the very climax of the fight with just him left, it could have gone either way.
Dovan also did a huge amount of damage to the group, until the Witch got irritated and slumbered him. Said Witch is played by my girlfriend, and 'they remain awake and breathing only at my pleasure' :S
I would seriously recommend increasing the challenge of encounters in some way to account for 6 players. I have a 6 player conversion written up in the Kingmaker forum if your interested. Kressle has been levelled to level 3 there. I think you're better off adding more bandits like I did with that than raising their level to Warrior 2. These are the rank and file mooks after all, not hardened veterans.
For my group the 2 hardest guys to deal with was the stag lord, and Auchs. The Party snuck there way in with Fog clouds and the cover of dark, the whole party went underneath towards the owlbear except the 2WF Ranger who went above. As they started to fight the Stag Lord Appeared above. The Ranger was like "Alright its on!" and drew his weapons. Stag lord drew a bow and he was like "OH !@#$" and jumped off the ledge and ran inside with the group. Stag dropped the ranger in 1 hit the first round of combat the stag lord was in, and Auchs dropped someone as well. The Cleric did a decent Job, and the player has never played a caster before so she was doing well. I had a 5 person party, and they were 3rd level i believe when they did it. They had also done 4 encounters from book 2 before they hit the stag lords.
Stag Fight
I was using the uprated details from the adapted adventure for 6 players on these very boards
My group of 3rd level characters..two fighters(both TWF) Rogue, Cleric of Erastil, Druid(also Erastil) with a tiger companion (disguised as a big dog with the dust of illusion), 1/2 orc sorcerer bluffed their way into the fort with the booze for the SL.They spent a bit checking out the lay off the land and decided to take out the three guys on the guardposts first..splitting into pairs they disposed off them in one round.Our Sword Scion then engaged Davos in a conversation about duelling and persuaded him into a sparring match(he flubbed his sense motive). Getting him into the courtyard the entire party whaled into him and dropped him with non lethal in one round.
Then the dust wore off..the low grade bandits paniced at the sudden appearance of a tiger in their midst and rushed into the courtyard where most were taken down quickly(two just surrendered)
Auchs and Akiros then appeared and were harried with a bat swarm from the druid followed a round later by the Stag Lord. The Sorcerer rolled a natural 20 on his intimidate on Auchs and got the big lunk to sit in a corner for the rest of the fight while Akiros seeing his only chance to redeem himself attacked the stag lord...the party then stood back content to let the two off them bash each other to bits..the fight ended when Akiros critted the SL and down he went. Akiros then surrendered on terms. Beaky never got out off his cage and was
dispatched with long spears and missiles.
In the two rounds that the Sl was able to engage the party he seriously wounded both fighters a hard fight but doable
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Am very surprised people are getting to the fight being mentioned at 4th Level.
My own experiences-
** spoiler omitted **
** spoiler omitted **
My group got a jump on XP with most of the challenges upgraded for 6 players(thanks again, btw), and since I wanted to encourage journal posts and wiki entries, I gave the players 10xp per unique wiki, 25 for character journals, 50xp for group journals. They also explored and cleared every single hex before going to the Stag Lord, along with almost every quest. The big boost really came from rolling a very high-level encounter and failing to kill the creature, leaving it to menace them a second time.
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** spoiler omitted **Ah, the classic "I'm a hero/PC, I'm invincible" mindset; also known as "tactics, shmactics."
My group was like this, but [spoiler]they first grabbed Auches' toys and threatened to break them unless he helped against the owlbear and the stag lord. This brought the ire of the stag lord's first shto with the bow[/spoler]
My party specifically attacked at night so that they could sneak in over the back wall. The nice side-effect was that in moonlight/starlight everyone gets a 20% miss chance from concealment. This hurt the players a couple times, but it also negates any sneak attack - even when the attack hits. This alone saved at least two party members.
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My party specifically attacked at night so that they could sneak in over the back wall. The nice side-effect was that in moonlight/starlight everyone gets a 20% miss chance from concealment. This hurt the players a couple times, but it also negates any sneak attack - even when the attack hits. This alone saved at least two party members.
I suppose it's up to the DM, but why would all of them sit around in the dark with no torches or fires going? After making the starlight choice for the other bandit camp, it felt a little weird to me, posting people in watchtowers that are very nearly blind under the circumstances. Whenever there's an encounter like this, I always try to give home field advantage, even if it's just a small advantage. Concealment for everyone goes the other way. Again, it's probably a personal preference and I apologize for the threadjack.
My party specifically attacked at night so that they could sneak in over the back wall. The nice side-effect was that in moonlight/starlight everyone gets a 20% miss chance from concealment. This hurt the players a couple times, but it also negates any sneak attack - even when the attack hits. This alone saved at least two party members.I suppose it's up to the DM, but why would all of them sit around in the dark with no torches or fires going? After making the starlight choice for the other bandit camp, it felt a little weird to me, posting people in watchtowers that are very nearly blind under the circumstances. Whenever there's an encounter like this, I always try to give home field advantage, even if it's just a small advantage. Concealment for everyone goes the other way. Again, it's probably a personal preference and I apologize for the threadjack.
Well, I did assume they would have fires/lanterns at various points, but once you're more than 20' away from them you're in dim light (15' for lamps). Since most enemies were using bows, they couldn't move the light sources around. It was very easy for the PCs to keep concealment since they stayed mostly outside (on the roof). Of course, the large-sized, flying, raging barbarian took care of just about everyone outside in short order.
Am very surprised people are getting to the fight being mentioned at 4th Level.
My own experiences-
** spoiler omitted **
** spoiler omitted **
Alexander, thanks for the "helpful hints", I'll look into that. (I'm glad I was on the right track with the one thing I mentioned, regarding the bandits, your idea does sound better, also less hassle). :)
Dean (TMW)
Alexander Kilcoyne
Still, it isn't (or wasn't) about killing them... I really do like their characters... I want to see them succeed. But a little fear of death or dying is "healthy." :P
Thank goodness the player of the gnome sorcerer is a smart player. They might live to see higher levels.
Dean; The_Minstrel_Wyrm
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Alexander Kilcoyne ** spoiler omitted **
Still, it isn't (or wasn't) about killing them... I really do like their characters... I want to see them succeed. But a little fear of death or dying is "healthy." :P
Thank goodness the player of the gnome sorcerer is a smart player. They might live to see higher levels.
Dean; The_Minstrel_Wyrm
** spoiler omitted **Alexander Kilcoyne ** spoiler omitted **
Still, it isn't (or wasn't) about killing them... I really do like their characters... I want to see them succeed. But a little fear of death or dying is "healthy." :P
Thank goodness the player of the gnome sorcerer is a smart player. They might live to see higher levels.
Dean; The_Minstrel_Wyrm
Same for my PBP. Except all 7 of them are human.
Kingmaker #1 Broken?
Not in any way, shape, or form.
Requiring tactics (or player incompetence) =/= broken module.
** spoiler omitted **Alexander Kilcoyne ** spoiler omitted **
Still, it isn't (or wasn't) about killing them... I really do like their characters... I want to see them succeed. But a little fear of death or dying is "healthy." :P
Thank goodness the player of the gnome sorcerer is a smart player. They might live to see higher levels.
Dean; The_Minstrel_Wyrm
Yeah.. with my group only 2 of 6 are humans.
Alexander Kilcoyne:
Dean (TMW)
Well my players had a fun time with the Stag Lord encounter, though it got tense a few times.
Over all it seemed that a group that kept up with all the rumors and hints about the Stag Lord would have less of a problem in the fight.
The players brought loot and alcohol, and then waited to start things until after the Stag Lord was off in a stupor.
The players charmed a bandit or two with charm person to act as Stag Lord fodder.
In the end though it was Beaky that saved the day.
My players haven't hit it yet, but will next adventure, whenever that will be (curse cycling through campaigns. Its looking like this will be in Oct.) Currently, their plan is to transport the 4 catapults from Oleg's to bash down the walls, hire some of their allies they have made to flood the place with arrows, and then go marching in to clean up. I may be removing the Stag Lord's negatives for the fight.
I thought the catapults at Oleg's were non-functional.
My players haven't hit it yet, but will next adventure, whenever that will be (curse cycling through campaigns. Its looking like this will be in Oct.) Currently, their plan is to transport the 4 catapults from Oleg's to bash down the walls, hire some of their allies they have made to flood the place with arrows, and then go marching in to clean up. I may be removing the Stag Lord's negatives for the fight.
Sounds rather extreme. Of course if my players went about it this way, I'd definitely make them pay full price for a castle since they're destroying what's left of the fort.
I thought the catapults at Oleg's were non-functional.
I believe the description says it will take weeks to get them opperational. They have hired a crew to fix them, and have the knowledge skills to instruct them how. At least my PCs are horribly undergeared from spending all their money on things like this :)
My player solved this problem by attrition.
The Snitch warned the Stag Lord, who objected strenuously--but he was massively outnumbered and went down fast, even though none of the bandits were willing to fight him. I had Nograh come in on that fight too but by the time he'd done his precasts it was too late.
A strange late stage of that fight involved half the party holding the portcullis to keep Beaky inside....
The Stag Lord has been so bad to his men that it should be possible to get them to betray him, as long as their fear of him is taken into account.
We absolutely botched our own strategy against the Stag Lord but we came out on top.
We attacked at night with some of us sneaking over the hill and behind their outermost sentries to get the surprise. We were almost driven off by their surprise that they had surrounding the outside of the fort but two of our players tore off at the fort even though most of us were at 1/3 HP. Amazingly we took the fort and defeated the Stag Lord and his minions! I managed to take out the duelist who was in there and got one blow on the Stag Lord before our archer dropped him.