Pierce's page

Thom: one of the town guardsmen who had a crush on the female cleric in the party. He even converted to Heironeous to get closer to her

Glug: an ex-PC. One of our players who started the AoW is no longer with the group. I turned his PC into an NPC. He was killed for not giving up Allustan's location

Kullen: survived the PCs, survived Ilthane's onslaught. Told Ilthane that Allustan had been poking around the cairn and offered to show her the way. After she chased Allustan back into the cairn, Ilthane had Kullen go in to find the wizard. He was killed by the abyssal ghoul and left as a clue to the PCs of the danger.

I didn't explicitly kill off anyone else. Smenk and Dourstone were gone after the 3FoE. The party captured Filge and handed him over to the clerics of Wee Jas. I'm tempted to have Filge escape during Ilthane's attack and show up again later, perhaps in the Prince of Redhand.

Too bad we're already past this point. That's such a great idea that I'm going to have to find someplace further down the AP to try the same trick. I think my players will love it.

It reminds me of some of the more memorable parts in KOTOR II where you'd take control of special henchmen to advance the story and give you insight. The fact that the 'guest' PCs are expendable make it even more fun.

Agreed. Perhaps the same method could be applied to the Kings of the Rift. The players could take the place of a squad of giants and play out the initial dragon assault. It would definitely give them a sense of the enormity of the situation.

My group ended up talking the info re: Filge out of Kullen in the Feral Dog and didn't interact with him again (though they did stake out his place and follow him around beforehand). I utilized him later in the Gathering of Winds as an informant for Ilthane. He tells her that Allustan was poking around the cairn and that the party had been hanging out with them. Also told her where their house was (no more!) and went with her to the cairn. He ended up a victim of the abyssal ghoul in the black seal and left as a clue to the party that the seal wasn't without danger. Not that it mattered to them... I love a party that charges in blindly.

My group persuaded Kullen to give up Filge, but didn't follow up on the eyes promise. So when Ilthane comes to town, guess who helps her track down Allustan?

One of my players is playing a half-drow, so I'm seriously thinking about having the elves fire on her first. Hopefully they'll ally themselves with one of the teams beforehand to take the sting off.

Yep, those archers can deal out the damage pretty quick if they focus.

Any advice? What did you do with this encounter?

The first thing I did that made things easier was to have each group roll a single initiative. Then each group could maneuver and attack as a single unit. This made it a lot easier to run - you're tracking four groups' turns rather than 16 or 20 individual init counts.

Secondly, pay attention to the goals/tactics of the various groups. Arcane Auriga and Badlands Revenge should square off against each other immediately. If your PCs are smart (as mine were), they let those two go at it for a while and put their focus on the last group (name escapes me). Since all of Arcane Auriga's attacks are identical with the exception of the leader's higher bonus, I had them set their bows against the Badland's charge and just keep stepping back and firing. Roll a fist full of d20s and you're good.

Finally, give some thought to the initial group placements. I had each group start at the point of a square ~100 feet square in the middle of the arena. Auriga and Badlands were at adjoining corners, so they went straight after each other. This gave the PCs even more reason to focus on the third team and clean up the mess later.

All told, it did take some work to run it all and there were some pauses in between PC actions. Give them some good descritions of what's going on and it'll keep their interest.

Further, I made a few modifications to the later battles. My PCs ended up discovering and wiping out Bozal and ulgurstasta on the second (break) day. It just about killed them too, but now they've been able to focus on the arena battles, which means they're completely buffed when they go in. So I added a third member to Pitch Blade, bumping that battle up a bit and making it more interesting. Also, I had all the participants start out in a circle about 50' in diameter and interwove the group members (PC1 - Pitch Blade 1 - PC2 - Pitch Blade 2, etc.). That made it interesting since the PCs could start out clumped together and leveraging each other's abilities.

Then for the third battle, I increased the froghemoth by 8HD. That nearly resulted in a TPK! Lots of fun though, and the PCs are awed by the XP total for it.

Since all of the characters in my player's group have at least one level of cleric, they went with "Divine Intervention." Interestingly, they started calling themselves that as soon as they reached Greyhawk, long before they needed a warband name.

My group encountered the two trolls as well, but ended up simply talking with them. I ended up replacing the gnoll halbardiers in the Badlands Revenge team with the trolls and adding an orc from another "random" encounter they hit on their way to Blackwall Keep.

Sorry - should have clarified. We ended last session just as they dispelled the containment sphere around the ulgurstasta. So we begin this week with combat.

Plus doesn't it say in the text that Rakinian is unaware of the demise of Bozal and the Ultragarasta until the last day of the tournament? I.e. he doesn't check down there until the last day of the contest. If he finds that the Ultragarasta is freed, he runs and if its alive he frees it.

I can't imagine your players not wanting to finish up the games, there is gold and glory there.

Don't forget about Lahaka's zombie. He'll be aware once she shows up for dinner....

I'd love to play out the rest of the battles! I made up fight cards & odds sheets for the entire games. I'm not sure that my players are as interested in the remainder of the contest, honestly. They've been focused almost entirely on recovering the scrolls and are only tengentially interested in Lahaka. Other than being able to bet on themselves in the arena has kept them interested in the gladiator combats, and that not so much.

I can work the Froghemoth into a different encounter. I'd already added a third member to Pitchblade, perhaps Okoral will send the trio after the party once he figures out what happened. And Auric and Khellek will definitely show up again, perhaps in Alhaster.

I suppose I'll have the wizard ref (can't remember his name at the moment) call a meeting early on the third day before any battles begin and tell the remaining teams the Raknian's dissappeared. The Greyhawk business leaders have a stake in the games continuing and have offered to put up a portion of the purses for any teams interested in continuing. That gives the PCs the choice between continuing in the arena or leaving and continuing on the AP.

Through good use of some divination spells, great teamwork, great spell selection and lucky rolls, my players managed to find and enter the Shrine of Kyuss and defeat Bozan on the second day of the games. They also figured out how to remove the containment sphere from around the ulgurstasta, which is where we left off for the week.

If they manage to take out the ulgurstasta this week, I'm considering cancelling the remainder of the games, and thus the remainder of the CB adventure. They didn't find Lahaka's zombie before she left to fulfill Bozan's final orders. Aside from locating Lahaka, the party's lone goal was to track down the Apostolic Scrolls (which they've obviously done now). Thus, there's no reason for them to continue in the games. Further, there's no logical reason Raknian would hang around fulfilling his hosting duties for the remainder of the games.

So, if we skip the remainder of the adventure the party would miss out on the three remaining arena combats and the resulting purses. They'll hear about Ilthane's attack on Diamond Lake, which should be enough to get them back home and continue the adventure path. Thoughts?

Having a halfling rogue in the party, I am keenly aware of this problem. There have be a few fights where his meager 1d4 short swords can't even penetrate the DR at max damage. The solution to the problem prsented itself in the Spell Compenduim.

There is a 1st level cleric spell, I can't remember what it's called, but you cast it on yourself as a free action, and your next attack allows you to use a sneak attack on the undead. Since it's self only your rogue would have to take a level of cleric, but it could be worth it. If, like me, your party rogue has a Wisdom of 8, you could make it a magic item.

I'm trying to figure how to do just that. Since its a 1st level spell it would be really cheap, but I think its awfully powerful to have it as an always active item. I'm thinking of makingh it like boots of haste where you have 10 rounds per day, but I'm not sure.

Grave Strike. The Clr/Rog in my player's party used it to great effect vs. the Morgh in TCB.

I just wrapped this week's session with a Bozal cliffhanger. By the way, if you want to make your players nervous, double the number of spawn in the training area. Before that point, my players hadn't been too concerned by spawn. A couple of them had gotten worms on them, but had taken care of them before they started burrowing. It was quite a sight when the cleric/barb got three at once and didn't get a chance to get ANY of them before they started burrowing. On top of that the full cleric got paralyzed by the Morgh and then got worm-burrowed. They just managed to pull the last worms out as Bozal made his entrance. No one's too badly damaged, but they've already used up quite a bit of their firepower. Next week should be fun.

Ah yes - I forgot about Eligos' return. Well, I suppose a nice gruesome death is in order after all. Missing heads and hearts it is!

Thanks for the quick response James. I've learned not to trim or alter this adventure willy nilly. I changed the dates around on the WC adventure when I figured out that Alastor Land had been trapped in the tomb for thirty years but the red lantern had gone missing fifty years ago. Needless to say I was ruefully surprised when I read Kings of the Rift. I'm *so* looking forward to Alastor's curtain call - my group's been talking ever since then about either digging up his bones and defacing them or somehow calling him back and turning him just for kicks. Yeah, I played up his annoying teen side....

I just started my players through the Champion's Belt last week and I'm wondering what others have done about Eligos and his fate. It seems a little offhanded to have him (and Pollard?) assassinated and expect the PCs to not follow up on it. I know my group - they'll cast a raise dead, try to track down Okoral and get completely sidetracked from the AoW path. I'm planning on leaving Eligos and Pollard alive and dropping that whole thing. A dragon in Diamond Lake is plenty enough to bring them back to "home base." Any considerations?

Greg V wrote:

I was wondering when someone would mention it. James also cut the new pestige class I introduced in the adventure--Space Knight.

huh ??? Dread Giant Ninja Space Pirate, or what ?? :-)

All about ROM here. One of my favorite comics growing up. I sold off all my books in college when I was desperate for cash. One of the first things I did when I started my collection back up (older and with more disposable income) was to acquire the entire run. ROM's main opponents - the Dire Wraiths - share a bit with Illithids, Dopplegangers and other classic D&D nasties.

/end tangent

Agreed. Love the maps and portraits. I second the idea of including stat blocks as well.

I did at first. Z was levitating above the pool and having his way with the party between mind blasts and lightning bolts. The party has no real ranged damage capabilities (ah-ha! found a weak spot!), so the rogue resorted to tossing alchemist's fire. He hit and did minor damage, but was primarily trying to force a concentration check. Z made the check anyway, so no harm. I remembered about the resistance a round or two later and marked off the fire damage - which at that point was the only damage he'd taken!

My group managed to subdue and capture Filge. After pumping him for info, they decided (rightly) not to take him to the local authorities but to the clerics of Wee Jas. Once the Wee Jasians (?) learned Filge's "occupation" they were ready to sacrifice him, but the party convinced them to simply hold him alive in case they needed him further. So he's been kept imprisoned in a mortuary ever since.

I like the losing-a-hand-to-have-it-replaced-by-Vecna's idea. In fact, I'm now considering having the Wee Jasians amputate one of Filge's hands as punishment for practicing necromancy then having him escape in the confusion of Ilthane's attack on Diamond Lake.

Playing weekly for around 4-6 hours per session and started last August. The crew is halfway through Zyrxog's lair (just wiped out the drow priestess and her guards.

I'll second the notion of having the spawn transformation happen while the PCs are in the swamp.

After my group defeated the besieging lizardfolk, they spent the night in the keep. I purposefully hastened them through and mentioned that they were bunked in the tower. They left early the next morning, before the rest of the guards were aware that the spawn was loose in the basement.

Upon returning from the swamp, they were met outside the keep by the remaining guardsmen. The guards came clean about the history of the spawn ("we didn't know it was still alive! we hoped it would just go away"). The PCs were astounded that these buffoons had kept an undead dude closeted in the basement for two years. They took to calling the place Fort Moron.

So yeah, looking back, creating the spawn while the PCs are in the swamp is a much more believable scenario.

My group just finished off Telakin. I got one player (the rogue) to buy-in early in the adventure and gave him a list of motivations and goals (which he did very well on). One of his goals was to have each of the other party members arrested at some point so that they could be swapped out with dopples. I played out the "betrayal at the bar" pretty close to the module and the rogue managed to talk the framed player (cleric of heironymous) into going along to jail quietly (nice to have a bunch of lawful characters!). For a change of pace, I didn't let the second player know that they had been swapped. Instead, I let the group get all the way to the mirrored room - with the undercover player leading - before telling the second player the truth. When the group saw their duplicates, I took each player out of the room individually and told him whether or not he was a doppleganger. We rolled initiative for actions, which at this point was just talking - each accusing the others of being dopplegangers while I played all the chained creatures. On the third round, I changed up and had everyone play the chained version of themselves. The next round, I had them switch back, EXCEPT for the cleric - he continued to play the "chained" version. His doppleganger had slipped out of the room on the pretext of "freaking out" to go raise the alarm. By this point, a couple of the dopplegangers had gotten free plus the true cleric, so no one was sure of anything. By the time the players started being confident of who was who, the rest of teh complex had been alerted and started coming in waves over the next few rounds. Turned into a heck of a fight and ended up with the real rogue dragging the corpse of his (fully-equiped) dopple and the rest of the party chasing the final dopple (the one impersonating the cleric and holding all her gear) into the maze, where they were promptly set upon by Telakin's guards and beaten to a pulp.

Lotsa fun.

I'm running the 3FoE with 5 players: Ftr, Clr, Rog, Barb/Clr & Wiz. They started the adventure approximately midway through 3rd level. We were pretty heavy on the roleplaying in the first adventure, so by the time they got the green worm from Filge's and talked to Allustan, they went straight for the Dourstone mine. With a combination of bribes, fast-talking and bluff they made it into the elevator shaft pretty easily (within the first two hours of play).

So they immediately encounter the two tiefling guards in the dark cathedral. The first holds them off with darkness while the second makes for the door to Hextor's wing. The party cuts him down just as he opens the door, letting loose the skeletons. The single-class cleric blasts all the skeletons with a good turn check, the party advances into the first room and get mobbed by the commoners. The tiefling guards in room 4 follow the same strategy as the initial two - darkness and run for backup. The Beast is loosed and pounds the party pretty well. The only surviving tiefling warns the guards in 6 and runs into the battle temple, drawing his bow. The guards in 6 bar the hall door and run to warn the rest of the complex. The party finishes up the Beast and commoners and charge into the temple to take out the last tiefling (who makes great use of the big statue as cover). As soon as the last party member is inside, Theldrick closes the door behind them, trapping them in. He gets a few rounds to buff up while Garras and Kendra throw spells and the party works on getting up to the balcony. They finally make it up and start pounding on Garras, who's getting great healing support from Kendra. After a fantastic combat, Garras is pulp, the remaining tieflings and zombies are dead/more dead, Kendra manages to stabilize at -8 and Theldrick bites it in the Chapel of Hextor (room 9), surrounded by the party. We were in combat time the whole running battle, which lasted around 2-3 minutes (roughly 26 rounds, IIRC). Needless to say, the party was pretty banged up and spent: spells gone, lots of potions used, etc. They figured out that by leaving the hall door barred and the big battle temple doors closed that they were pretty secure.

I thought about what might happen overnight. I ended up deciding that the commoners in the Hextor wing were responsible for bringing down supplies from the outside world and taking out the trash (that's mentioned somewhere, I think) and that the rest of the complex's inhabitants weren't likely to go outside of their respective wings. For one night at least....

So the party used up a bunch of cure light wand charges, bunked down in the barracks and crashed. They timed it pretty well - they had garnered enough XP to level to 4th during the big battle, so they woke to the "quickening." They healed Kendra enough to wake her (bound of course) and proceeded to question her. They got out of her that the labyrinth mentioned in Theldrick's journal was located past the door to the north before she chewed out her tongue. They party then set out for Vecna's wing.

They're in the middle of the labyrinth now - I expect them to wrap it up at tomorrow's game - and I'm trying to plan ahead for the post-mortem. Assuming that they storm through the remainder of the Vecna temple, I imagine they'll either return to the barracks in Hextor's wing or go back to the surface (it may depend on if they manage to decipher the scroll from Theldrick's desk). So I need to a) figure out if the grimlocks in the the Erythnuul wing will notice anything amiss and b) ensure the party advances on to the grimlock lair without going straight to the Mistmarsh following the clues in the encrypted scroll. Perhaps I can combine these.... A small party of grimlocks have left the caverns to notify Theldrick and the Faceless One that Grallak Kur has had a vision that must be passed on to them.

So, how has your party worked its way through this adventure?

I wasn't sure about the depth of the water either. I ended up making it roughly 8 feet deep to make it a challenge to get around. The water elemental definitely wasn't - one good smack from the party fighter and it was gone. The ghoul ended up pretty much the same way, though it at least got off its paralyzing attack on one party member.

If you're familiar with A Fish Called Wanda: the scene where John Cleese's character is trying to get Michael Palin's character to say "Cathcart Towers Hotel".

Cleese: Try singing it....
Palin: The...Caaa.... The CAAA...
Cleese: No rush...
Palin: The CAAA....

So I always sing it "a-Kaa".

http://tinyurl.com/8jt4l