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Is there anyone with a Cult of Cinders random encounter table?

I've identified monsters in Bestiary 1 that fit the setting and level range but might want to see someone else's take.


My group didn't have a huge issue with the barghest, I didn't so much nerf him as I nerfed the previous encounters, leaving the tixitog out entirely, and letting them have a diplomatic resolution to the spiders with Renali's help, and hence a warning about the barghest.

This was a funny encounter as we have a CN/CE goblin ranger who worships Zarongel, one of the goblin deities, and a barghest. Goblin ranger insists on honoring barghests as the progenitors of goblin kind. Party enters the chamber, announces their presence, and barghest makes his first demand, I added some additional insults over what's in the book, including "pathetic slave". Goblin ranger delivers the weapons to him, happily, the rest of the party preparing to start combat.

The second demand, for the skull of the spider and skeleton of a human, the goblin ranger immediately starts considering how to comply. I suspect the goblin ranger would have happily do anything for the barghest.

The rest of the party initiates combat, goblin ranger is the closest to the barghest and bears the brunt of first-round attacks, including a ~30 damage crit, the barghest screaming at him for being a betrayer for leading the party to him. Goblin ranger runs into one of the tunnels to sulk. At round three or four, the barghest dimension doors into the tunnel to seek out goblin ranger. Here the party is able to gang up with some flanking and finish him.

There's some mostly harmless intraparty conflict, goblin ranger gets a hero point, and they move on. If the party had never attacked though, there's a chance that the goblin ranger is still there, answering the delusional demands of the barghest with a big smile on his face as the party moves on.


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My group of 5-7 are having a blast with Hellknight Hill as we enter the second month of the campaign. Last week they narrowly avoided a TPK in the north wing of the Altaerien vaults, and loved every minute of it. We're playing in Fantasy Grounds.

Some things I'm doing differently:

I didn't like the layout for Citadel Altaerien so I made my own in Dungeon painter. I'll see if I can share them here. Ended up being 4 levels in total, a little more castle-y, with generally larger rooms and few more rooms than the book has. Mostly same encounters though some might be in some different places. Overall worked pretty well.

Instead of the Bumblebrashers telling the party the secret passage to the Vaults, I hid the entrance in the castle for the players to find. Thanks to a hidden door the Bumblebrasher's don't know the way. Took them about 10 minutes, makes for a good simple puzzle. I added a small map extending the passage that begins the vaults to make it architecturally consistent with the rest of the citadel.

The stairs in the Vaults didn't suit the new citadel design and I wanted the Bumblebrashers to be totally ignorant of area D. So the destroyed stairs only lead down and had been hidden behind a stone wall, the work of the hellknights.

I like Alak as a character but found him to be an unbalancing force for the party, especially at first level. I had him meet the characters on the way up to the citadel. I made it so the only thing he was retrieving was the letter, which was found along with the deed in a hidden part of the Lictor's desk. The party took a break from the crawl to see to the deed in town, and so he says his goodbyes then.

In general I've been beefing up the encounters a little bit, especially when I'm concerned the larger number of players scuttles the action economy. The Grauladon was the only one to really disappoint me, didn't last long enough into the second round to use its body slam ability, if I recall this was the result of OP Alak rolling too well.

Looking forward to what comes next now that we're at the half way point of this book!