Shawn Hilton's page

As mentioned earlier the level suggestions at the front of the module (start at first, 2nd by plague house, 3rd by the time the PC's should pull out their Hope Knives and commit seppuku when the hit Part 3) isn't even close to correct.

Just dump XP, because that's never going to work in the frame work of the first book. It won't even come close. Even if you dumped the medium track, went with a fast track they won't make 2nd level by the plague house unless the suck up every single XP in the book, and even then a GM probably has to give them a small bonus (+ or - a few points as I might have missed something).

If you as a gm roll straight, or take the screen down and roll in front of your players you might as well save them all the time, and mercy kill them all before you even bother running the scenario as it would have you run part 3.

That whole wave of orcs, a custom giant, and a dungeon crawl with a bad arse alchemist at the end isn't realistic for any 3rd level group to handle.

That said, my group took a bunch of those alchemist fire vials, used the glue from early on, attached them to arrows, and made super short work of Crusher. The group had accumulated the max resolve points so Crusher was weakened to begin with, and then their range specialist took a long box with those alchemist arrows (I didn't look up the rule for penalties for the vials on the arrows so a straight -4 to their to hit rolls seemed fair enough on the quick). Three rounds and crusher was dead.

1st round surprise.
2nd round Crusher throws a rock.
3rd round Crusher is dead.

So the one fight that I think everyone was probably looking forward to, a giant fight, was by far the most anticlimatic. However, the party had a great plan, it made sense, it had a great over the to action movie feel to it, and it worked.

Then a swarm of shadow rats damn near TPKd them.

If you're getting ready to run this make sure you make some changes.

They have to rest after Crusher.

Don't let the PC's go into that dungeon crawl without getting back some of their mojo.

I would advise having Omast gift one of the PC's with his +1 right of protection, and somewhere along the line let them pick up a +1 weapon of some sort. Something that will help against incorporeal rats.

CMB has been confusing me quite a bit, and I'd love to clear some things up.

I am mostly interested in tripping.

The CMB is your BASE ATTACK + your str bonus. What if a character has Weapon Finesse? Should they be allowed to trade their Dex for their Str bonus in this situation?

On another note it says make an attack roll and add your CMB. Is that a straight D20 roll or is it a D20 with all of your bonuses added for the attack: in my case +5 for weapon finesse (also should it include Bless, Flanking, and I'm not even sure if you can charge and attempt a trip but it might be a cool maneuver)?

Currently I'm using the equivalent of a 5th level fighter (3 levels of Swashbuckler, and 2 of fighter). I have weapon finesse, improved trip, a masterwork chain (cost a bloody fortune), I'm often blessed, and almost always involved in a flank.

Also, are there some kind of "entangle" rules? According to what I'm reading you can't trip a flying creature, but can you entangle them with a trip attack and yank them out of the air (I'd see that as an attack and then an opposed strength check of some sort).

Thanks