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So far, this dungeon crawl has pretty much been a cake walk for my PCs. The party consists of a ranger, inquisitor, druid, and sorcerer. For the most part, they are crushing everything in one round (to the point players commented the two times a second round of combat arose). My players have chewed through the museum and zoo.
Pretty much, the dungeon has been a series of disjointed encounters that do not support one another. Did I do this wrong?
Is there any advice for running the Promethean? Is it truly necessary necessary to enlist the aide of the Beast? I am not a DM that feels the need to kill a bunch of characters over the course of a campaign, but I do want the combats to provide a sense of peril (and I am not doing a good job of this).
@Archmagi: That's too bad, I think the AP overall is pretty good, more-so with a little bit of work. Also, there have been reports of Gunslingers and Paladins taking out the Aberrant Promethian pretty handily, so despite the printed text in the module, it is not out of the question for the PCs to have the right combination of classes and equipment to deal with the thing, without the Beast's help.
@Green Eyed Liar: What is the point build of your group? Also, are they just pre-buffing and flying past all the hazards and traps? I'm assuming that between the Sorcerer and Druid, they're all just flying around and lobbing DPS in the form of heavy ranged attacks coupled with favored enemy and Bane Arrows. Are you running complete access to all new books for feats and other options? If so, your players have about two years worth of options that weren't accounted for when the AP was written. The big encounters are the
What level is your players at? Is it higher than intended for the dungeon? That could be an explanation.
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Unless you gimp the Promethean, yes, the Beast is necessary. I made it pretty easy for the Beast to arrive when I ran it.
The Promethean can and will do some damage to the Beast, so the PC's will need to aid the Beast in combat. Obviously, to be fair to the PC's (and to prevent overkill deaths), it'd make sense for the Promethean to zero in on the Beast once he arrives - chalk it up to it wanting to take on the the biggest threat (the Beast), or sees the Beast as a rival (it may not have a Int score, but it does have Wisdom).
Promethean: depends on the group makeup. Some classes (gunslinger, for example) are powerful against that type of enemy. Others will fail against its AC and DR.
The air elemental trap threw them all of the bridge causing them to nearly drown.
The devil killed one player, feared one away, and KOd the other two before it despawned.
The muesum wasn't too scary, I think one of the PCs got mummy rot.
The group had some trouble with the basilisk (3 were turned to stone before it was slain. Could have been really bad if I hadn't rolled the basilisk had enough blood for 3 cures.
The leeches were actually threatening because the oracle was impatient and went ahead, he almost died due to hitting 0 str and almost drowning.
The guardian of the tower can do 40-50 damage with a good rend and nearly killed a player.
The AP wasn't much of a threat after the beast arrived and tanked it. But if the beast hadn't been there, the Ap would have probably killed a player or two.
Overall, front line characters are in the most danger, you have a mostly ranged group so some fights might cone easier to them.
Overall, the castle was very tough, but if the PCs used better tactics they could have made it easier on themselves.
But, remember as GM you can increase the difficulty of monsters to challenge your players. For example, use max hit points for monsters rather than average. Also, don't give you players too much time to strategize in combat, a little is okay, but given too much time to think, most groups can figure out a plan to roll an encounter. A round is only 6 seconds after all.
The party's monk got kicked off the bridge by the elemental, but survived the fall and swim. The party hid out in the buildings from the Erinyes while also fighting the hooked horror (it was fun; the gnome bard ended up in the wine storage room during the fight and just drank for 10 rounds).
The biggest danger were the leeches. The gnome was riding on the inquisitor's shoulders and they both fell in. The inquisitor didn't quite die.
The Promethean was an interesting fight. I think the party of 5 were a level above what they should have been, but they (and six lantern archons and haste) took out the grillion golem, ran up stairs, and killed the promethean in seven or eight rounds. They didn't even know about the roof, the control device, etc. Got the druid to 1 hp shy of death (though, he should have died if I hadn't messed up something; didn't realize until later).
Like most premade adventures, some fights will be cakewalks and some will be nightmares and it mainly depends on your party and the how they approach fights. If things are going easy, up the number of monsters in a fight or have a few fights combine into one brawl (just stagger the arrival of the monsters and you can have waves arrive in such time as to keep the tension up without overloading the party).
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To answer the questions, the party is 25 point build and reached 7th after the hobbling hook clawed apparatus. The campaign started with a three member party, so I went with the higher point buy, and they are ahead of schedule because (xp/3)>(xp/4). I allowed the fourth member to join at the same point buy and xp as the rest of the party so he would be an equal.
The air elemental actually was a challenge, but the erinyes was not. The sorcerer cast fly on the druid's large tiger companion, and the druid summoned dire bats. That along with a couple of blast spells and a few arrows killed the creature.
The zoo was also not very challenging.
My players are a pretty veteran group and are really good at taking down lone BBEGs. Schloss Caromarc for the most part seems to be a series of fights where the creatures do not support one another. This coupled with a lack of random encounters allows the guys to hit the reset button (sleep). Ordinarily, I would pressure them more, but it does not make sense in this particular dungeon. They have no sense of urgency because they misunderstood the Beast's request they come to the estate as merely an invitation for a visit, and have no idea Caromarc is held hostage.
I think I will be upping the hp on the Guardian at the least. I am kind of curious to see how they handle the Promethean, but will have the Beast available to assist if needed.
The Promethean is pretty much unbeatable w/o the Beast. After the Splatterman in book 1 being tactics dumb then the APL+7 cant win w/o the beast fight, my group pretty soured on CC.
Gunslinger killed it in one round in my campaign. Very anticlimactic. The Beast wasn't even involved.
Green Eyed Liar - You will need to enhance the combats in this case. You have veterans that are ahead of the level curve, so expect some ease on their part. The books don't really talk about how monster group B will come to the aid of A after X turns if they hear something. Of course, you can also simply upgrade the number of creatures in a fight, but that'll ensure they keep ahead of the xp curve.
Sounds like your players are overpowered (and a little over leveled) for the campaign. Combined with veteran experience, that is definitely the issue. I wouldn't feel bad increasing the challenge level of the monsters without increasing experience, or decreasing experience over time to bring them down to the correct level.
You are playing with PCs with Epic Fantasy stats and the campaign is designed for Standard Fantasy stats, it's only fair the monsters are stronger to compensate. But be careful not to overdo it!
A quick and dirty way is to max all monster HP. You can also give them a +2 to all rolls and to all defenses. This makes them last longer and be a bit more dangerous. Though, my best experience so far is combining several encounters into one large fight.
For example, in book 3...
I'd also have some of the barbarian werewolves charge out of the woods and attack on round 3-4 as well. If things are going too easily for the players, have the Ghost Werewolf (and/or the Lodge owner) show up and attack as well. You could even have some of the Whispering Way casters from Feldgrau happen to be visiting with the pack leaders pop out and support after a round or two.
This has two benefits: Epic fights are fun AND it speeds the game up immensely. Nothing in the fight is especially strong, but it will give the players a lot of threat sources and make them constantly readjust tactics.
Ran this not too long ago, encounters varied wildly in difficulty. The erinyes nearly wiped the party on the bridge. As for the other encounters I'd say they ranged from easy to middle of the road. However, the Promethean as others have noted is generally not defeat able without the aid of the Beast and it is very likely the Beast will be killed by the promethean.