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It's possible I missed this upthread, but I'm confused on the Stirge Queen's Brood Nest. The entry says that the nest has 30 hp (half of the Stirge Queen's hp), but then in the 'Swallow Whole' entry, it seems to suggest that you need to do 42 damage to escape (usually swallow whole requires you to do 1/10 the creature's hp to escape). What number should be used? 3?
Also, is the intention that there are no doors in these dungeons?
The nest should have half of her HP: 30. Something must have happened while her stats were adjusted.
The dungeon has no doors because: flipmat. The Raiders arch specifically needs a door, so feel free to add one.
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Okay, so 30 to destroy it and 3 to get cut out of it, or cut yourself out of it (per swallow whole?)It's possible I missed this upthread, but I'm confused on the Stirge Queen's Brood Nest. The entry says that the nest has 30 hp (half of the Stirge Queen's hp), but then in the 'Swallow Whole' entry, it seems to suggest that you need to do 42 damage to escape (usually swallow whole requires you to do 1/10 the creature's hp to escape). What number should be used? 3?
Also, is the intention that there are no doors in these dungeons?
The nest should have half of her HP: 30. Something must have happened while her stats were adjusted.
The dungeon has no doors because: flipmat. The Raiders arch specifically needs a door, so feel free to add one.
My intention was 30 to both destroy it and escape.
On one hand, this seems to make it much harder to escape. However, unlike swallow whole, outside creatures can do damage to it to help someone inside get out. With swallow whole, if the fighter hits the T-Rex for 30 points then that doesn't help the gobbled up halfling at all. Here, she can cut him free.
Venture-Agent, Netherlands—Utrecht
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Most of the monsters in this dungeon are pretty dumb. There's no real reason for some of them to intrude on other fights. They might be roaming around, but simply shoving two encounters together isn't what's intended, I think. In the Raiders arc the humanoids might want to intrude, but again, that'd just be messing with CR. I played them off as being too busy with other stuff to notice/care.
And yeah, for the sealed encounter I just added a door in a room that would otherwise have been a dead end. There are so many routes that it seems impractical to cut off a huge interconnected piece of the dungeon. As for regular doors, I'm not sure. They've all been abandoned for quite a while, so wooden doors wouldn't make sense, but on the other hand, some rooms seem like they would benefit from having a door.
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Loot question The gust of wind wand is listed at 18 charges cost 4050
For a second level spell wand that would be 45 charges should it be a 45 charge wand or cost 1620 for an 18 charge wand. (there is no mechanical reason to give a gust of wind wand a higher caster level)
I caught this too - is it supposed to be a CL 3 wand at that price (I, too, see no mechanical need for it to be), or should it be edited to cost 1620?
Thanks!
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Loot question The gust of wind wand is listed at 18 charges cost 4050
For a second level spell wand that would be 45 charges should it be a 45 charge wand or cost 1620 for an 18 charge wand. (there is no mechanical reason to give a gust of wind wand a higher caster level)
I caught this too - is it supposed to be a CL 3 wand at that price (I, too, see no mechanical need for it to be), or should it be edited to cost 1620?
Thanks!
Umm, the mechanical reason for CL 3 is that it's the minimum caster level for it to be cast at all (druid 2, sorc/wiz 2). Though if you're asking if there is a possibility that it be a higher caster level, that provides two problems 1) there is no caster level effect to the spell, so there's no reason for it to be and 2) even if it were the math works out to make that CL 7.5, so no probably not that either. The most likely conclusion is it was mispriced as a 3rd level spell instead of a 2nd level spell. As there are two possible solutions to work out the correct price (either 45 charges or 1620 gp) I think the only solution GMs can use at the moment is to avoid the wand altogether and use one of the other locations.
Venture-Lieutenant, Alaska—Anchorage
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I need help understanding Akina's 3-4 stats. She is listed as a Vampire Spawn Fighter 1 but she her feats seem off. Shouldn't they be Blind-Fight, Skill Focus (Perception), Dodge and Mobility? Also can a Vampire use a weapon 2 handed and still use its slam?
Of course unless poetic license was taken with the feats.
Also I plan to run this on the 15th and any other feedback GMs have on running this would be great, everyone's input so far has been insightful!
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Venture-Agent, Netherlands—Utrecht
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Don't know much about the feats. But if Skill Focus is the only one missing, that's only a minor thing, I wouldn't worry about that.
Her attacks seem flipped, though. Her full-round routine is treated as if she wields her katana two-handed, but indeed makes a slam attack after it (which you can't, because slams are used with arms), but in the single attack with her katana (where she could theoretically be two-handing) below that, her damage actually goes down. I'd say switch the two damage outputs and you're fine.
I've GMed this once (Scoundrels arc) and played twice (both Bones). After taking a look at all the possible combinations, I'd say the undead arc is possibly the most dangerous one. The undead bosses have a lot of tricks up their sleeve. I'm not saying you should pull your punches, but make sure your party is capable of dealing with a vampire going full-out.
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Both versions of Michiko have a +1 frost katana listed in her attack line, but her gear lists a +1 katana, and there's no +1 frost katana on the chronicle sheet. Also, an antipaladin divine bond can't replicate the frost property. Am I missing something, or is there a mismatch there? (It just seems like a lot for a low-level npc to have a 8000-ish gp weapon.)
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Both versions of Michiko have a +1 frost katana listed in her attack line, but her gear lists a +1 katana, and there's no +1 frost katana on the chronicle sheet. Also, an antipaladin divine bond can't replicate the frost property. Am I missing something, or is there a mismatch there? (It just seems like a lot for a low-level npc to have a 8000-ish gp weapon.)
Pretty sure it's supposed to be cold damage from the Graveknight template Channel Destruction ability, but I don't have the scenario in front of me to double check.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Alaska—Anchorage
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When I ran this I prepped 3 slightly different setups for 8-07 but ran this one due to the large party size.
This is my Setup:
Undead Crusaders in Ustalav, low tier.
7 player party: Cleric 3, Sorcerer 3, Arcanaist 3, Rogue 3 or 4, Fighter 3, Pregen Shaman 4, Sorcerer 5.
Encounter/Location
Major: Threat: C14 Akina & Skeleton Champions
linked threat: C13 Unfettered Phantom.
Additional Threats: C8 Fiendish Gargoyle & C9 Gibbering Mouther
Environmental Threat: C1 Enraged Defenders haunt
Treasure: C3 Crusader’s Blade (hidden), C6 Restorative Cache and C11 Magical Reserve
Clues: C5 Holy Energy Erosion, C6 Vellum, C7 Prayer, C12 Holy Symbol
Summary: The scenario went well but with 7 players nothing was a true challenge. Poor placement of the major threat decreased the difficulty of the encounter.
I enjoyed prepping this scenario but because I did 3 different slants on it it took a considerable amount of time.
High lights: The fiendish gargoyle was undetected (Perception DC27) and ambushed the Arcanist and both Sorcerers as they were attempting to undue the gust of wind in the Archery range. This was a great surprise it was described as "Stone statue of a horned winged demon". It dropped the Arcanist to negatives and almost the same for the lvl 3 sorcerer.
Poor planning: The battle against Akina was overly cramped but she did manage to Dominate the rouge, and almost the shaman (damn reroll). they party did well in dealing with but the mere presence of a vampire put the party on edge.
They were able to convince the unfettered Phantom to depart the dungeon without incident.
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i ran this today, at short notice but I prepped it a while back. I've played it twice too. Today I ran Orcs in Belkzen.
I really like the scenario for its adaptability. It is a pretty straightforward dungeon-crawl but there are so many permutations.
I had a 4 player party, and two of them were quite new players using pregens (Oloch and Adowyn). The experienced players were using a swashbuckler and a swashigator. It was low tier.
The scenario culminated in an epic throw-down with Orc Warchief Groblek (the low tier orc tactician). He's a tough baddie! There was a drum battle between Oloch and the orc bard, which I loved and the players seemed to enjoy. Groblek kept knocking the swashbuckler down but he kept getting back up again with Kip Up. In the end, it was Groblek vs Adowyn, with the rest of the party in negatives and Oloch still bleeding out. Lerwyn (Adowyn's wolf companion) had been killed earlier. Groblek was only up because of his Ferocity, the orc bard had used all his spells, and Adowyn had 4hp left when she landed the killing blow with her longsword (Groblek had used Step Up to get in her face). Very very close to a TPK, but I am glad the party won out and their victory was all the sweeter for the narrow margin. Groblek might have fled but when his morale condition triggered the exits to the room were cut off by the players.
There's a lot of danger in this scenario if certain choices are selected in the set up, and terrain can make a big difference too.
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Venture-Agent, Netherlands—Utrecht
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I'm prepping this again to run on Wednesday, and I noticed something in the Nightgaunt statblock:
During Combat The nightgaunt uses its tickle ability to try to incapacitate one foe while attacking another with its claws.
The Tickle ability works only on grappled creatures, but if you're grappling you can't use natural attacks. Is the intent to grapple, tickle, release, and attack someone else with its remaining claw, or is there an error in its statblock? I'm not running this creature, but it might be relevant other people running it. To me, keeping someone grappled seems like the better tactic, but still.
Also, I'm still debating which arc to run. I've run Raiders before and while the Raiders themselves are a bit disappointing, I like the roleplaying aspect of it, and the sealed encounters are really fun. But the Dragons look pretty fun as well. Though at tier 3-4, a Medium dragon isn't really an epic encounter. Skeshnil is pretty scary, but I like the scariness-factor of Large+ dragons.
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It does if you have to use your standard action to maintain.Tickle is a swift action.
Maybe the intent is if it successfully tickles at the start of its turn it free action drops the grapple and moves on to a new target (standard and move actions still available).
This would mean that it doesn't maul low fort targets? An way to softball the encounter via tactics?
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So I accidentally stumbled into something REALLY nasty that a GM could do in this one.
I'm prepping to GM this for the first time at Gen Con. So I don't know who my players will be, or what subtier, and this is my first time reading/prepping this and only having a week to do it. Needless to say, I decided to just prep one configuration and don't worry if it resembles what any particular players have already faced in the past.
I decided dragons are iconic, and I have some nice minis I can use for them, so I'm going with that. And I chose Lastwall, just because that's the one I played once, so I figure it might make it a little easier to remember stuff when reading the descriptions. I considered prepping both the highest and lowest powered dragons, and asking the players if they want to go "hard mode" before starting, but decided that's too much work, so I chose Blemia as the "in between" difficulty dragon.
I started reading up on the Lastwall story, which I forgot, since I only played this once at the end of last year, and looked at Blemia's stats. And I realized that I've got a permanent source of negative energy (the rift), combined with a main boss who heals from negative energy. Is it just me, or is that a recipe for a TPK? ie She runs away when her morale says she will, and runs straight for the healing, coming back at full strength maybe 15-20 rounds later. Or worse, she intentionally chooses the room with the rift as her lair, which actually makes the most sense, but I would never be that mean to the players.
To avoid that, I'm thinking that the dragon is smart enough to know she got her butt kicked, so she'd be scared to face them again right away, even knowing she can just heal at the rift.
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Venture-Agent, Netherlands—Utrecht
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The same thing happened to my group. We played high tier, Undead arc. Michiko and two Dullahans, in the room with the rift. When we walked past it, we knew we were in for trouble. The boss is incredibly powerful of itself, and a source of healing will only complicate things. It was an incredibly tough fight, but we managed to survive simply by blocking their access to the rift. With a more mobile opponent like a dragon that might be a different thing, but if she's camping the healing spot, she's at least not hurting the PCs. They can fire ranged weapons and spells at her, and buff as well. And yeah, if the healing isn't in the same place as the fight, I don't really see why they wouldn't chase her, unless they're in pretty bad shape themselves. Still though, a retreating enemy can call for backup, best practice is to chase after it.
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Well, putting the dragon in the same room as the rift makes the most sense, from the perspective of that dragon. But it would be too mean. I'm thinking maybe I should put the rift in a room that's too small for her to feel comfortable making it her lair, but put her primary lair close by.
I haven't gotten far enough to read all the room descriptions and decide where everything is going yet. I've got until Tuesday to finish the prep, so I only did part of it last night.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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When I ran it at low tier I had the dragon with flyby and 10ft reach bite (unusual for medium). I staged the combat in the room with the icky pool in the middle, so that she could be all cagey.
I view this dungeon as full of teaching opportunities. In this case, the lesson that sometimes you should try to lure an encounter back to a room that's more tactically advantageous to the party.
Of course the barbarian just ran into the pool trusting his fire resistance not to get him cooked. He learned something about running into a full attack from a dragon. Went unconscious in the water, whole party had to haul ass to save him from drowning too.
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I am prepping this to run next week, but don't understand how to place the encounters. The text says to place them ahead of time, but the dungeon has so many passageways, the players could skip them entirely. My thought was to just place them in each possible path, so that the players hit them as intended until all encounters were found. So, can I position the encounters so they can be found in any path or just let the players skip some or do them "out of order"?
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Just space them out relatively evenly around the map. Most groups will be thorough and try to explore the whole map, just because it's there.
I'm also not quite sure what the "linked encounter" represents. Is it a stand-alone that is some time and place away from the main encounter? E.g. I'd like to use the orc scout as part of the orc sword encounter - the orc is searching for something when the party encounters him and after they defeat him or send him packing, they continue the search and find it. Or is he supposed to be a part of the main encounter?
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 16
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I am prepping this to run next week, but don't understand how to place the encounters. The text says to place them ahead of time, but the dungeon has so many passageways, the players could skip them entirely. My thought was to just place them in each possible path, so that the players hit them as intended until all encounters were found. So, can I position the encounters so they can be found in any path or just let the players skip some or do them "out of order"?
Place the encounters in ways that make sense to you. Throw in a few extraneous details that may help players puzzle out how the pieces fit together. Don't worry whether the players trigger every encounter.
To provide an example, when I ran the scenario, the main villains were a rival party. In addition to the monsters and traps the scenario called for, I placed a few bodies and signs of battle around the site. This evidence made the other party's rationale for seeking alliance understandable: They had already lost part of their group. A trap had killed one of the rival adventurers (the players found the sprung trap and mangled, stripped corpse), another was cut down when he turned on his party's leader, and a third was grabbed and dragged off by one of the complex's monsters (a pouch on his partially-eaten remains held some treasure and notes about the history of the area).
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Venture-Agent, Netherlands—Utrecht
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I'm prepping this for the third (fourth?) time (I really like this scenario, okay?) and I noticed something. In both tier 3-4 and 6-7 there's an Animated Object monster statted, but I couldn't find a similar monster on the encounter table. Did I overlook something, or is it there by accident?
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Just noticed around page 20 something that would have made my run of this much better:
Violence is not the only way to defeat encounters. The PCs can circumvent any encounter in the scenario except the major encounter by using skill checks.
Why can't the Ranger figure out a way to lure the Stirges out of the dungeon using Orcs as bait? So many possibilities.
Also, the fact that a large part of the plot of each arc seemed buried around pages 20-22, makes me want to run it again and include all the flavor of the enemies.
Dungeon crawl no more, this is a full blown adventure!
A bit of necromancy, but I figure I'm supposed to ask questions here, and it is somewhat fitting as I'll be running the Undead Crusader arc.
Anyhoo, with regards to the treasure packages that are to be distributed throughout the dungeon, are all the items in a particular package meant to be found together in the same room, or do you spread them out in different rooms?
Also, is there any reason to keep the major threat buried deep in the dungeon? There is a room dripping with flavor that I want to have her in, but depending on party choices, it could be their 3rd room in exploration.
And as a complete side-note, Fromper's post, while awesome, is incorrect. On pg.20 it says that "PCs can circumvent any encounter in the scenario except the major encounter by using skill checks."
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The packages are broken up into 3 parts on the charts/lists if I remember right, and each section should be found close to or in the same room as one of the encounters as the reward for that encounter.
You can put things anywhere you want, but as you noted it can mess up the flow of things if you stick the big bad right at the start and he's the first person they see.
You're correct, they shouldn't be able to bypass the major threat with skills checks except in morale conditions. Such as the Nightmare dragon trying to negotiate at low health, but it also states he just attacks them again later, likely on their way back to last wall.