TriOmegaZero's page

Name of PC: Guido
Class/Level:Hobgoblin fighter 3rd
Adventure:Burnt Offering
Catalyst: A critical spirited charge ride by attack from Ripnugget
Story: "disclaimer: I have 10 pc's going through this adventure so needless to say I have had to really bump the number of opponents".

Guido and the others stormed the stockade. The broke though the main doors with a couple rounds of bashing then got into a grand melee with the forewarned goblins within. It was a goblin slaughter fest until ripnugget showed up. He had a clear charge to guido and landed a nasty critical hit on a spirited charge, however what finished it was the next three goblin attacks, 2 of which also criticalled. Started with 31 hit points, and ended at -13. Poor fellow, it was the first death in the campaign, but I am anticipating more as tonight they are tangling with Nulia and all her merc's together in the Shrine. (The probed down into the second level and alerted the mercs, but then fell back to the top of the stairs to recover a little. Needless to say the mercs are going to be together and ready,)

Hello folks,
Well its taken 19 months and 9 total characters but the players have advanced to Dawn of a New Age.

I had a quick question, what kinda of weapon over comes DR/EPIC as in what are the requires for a weapon to be considered epic?

The most recent issue of dragon, had a new feat name Improved Whirlwind attack, which basically is a whirlwind attack , but the attacker gets to pick one target to attack with any remaining attacks he has left. Do those remaining attacks include offhanded weapon attacks if he is two-weapon fighting?

Is the damage from an Unholy Weapon inflicted upon a good character (the bonus +2d6) negative energy damage? One of my players had death ward up on his character and thought that it was but I could not find a reference saying that it was.

Ok I need some things clarified here about Otilukes Resilient Sphere.

Last combat the party popped one around an opponent cleric. Can the cleric stand in it and cast Mass Cure Serious Wounds spells in it to affect his companions? or does the Sphere block the spell effect.

The Sphere is hard to destory, but can you teleport out of if?

What about spells like charm person and such can they pass through it?

I am assuming that spells like lighting bolt and fireball will not pass through it.

I guess the thing that surprised me most about it is your running on the assumption that before a party opens a door to any room they are buffing to full with buff that have a duration of 1 min/ level.

Now I suspect you are correct about the scrying or commune ahead of time. However my group of 6 has 4 players with more then 20 years of experience apiece as well but they dont tend to use such spells in general. Part of that is because for years (prior to this adventure path) I ran a relatively low magic campaign, that tended to top out at levels 12-14. The campaign style is what most likely is causing them fits which is something I need to deal with in and of itself.

As I said in my original post however, This was not a rant point out module flaws, its was pointing out a very dangerous encounter to fellow DM's to be aware of. Like I said in my case I just removed the blast effect from the swords and it worked fine for my guys.

This is not so much of a rant as a warning to fellow DM's who like myself did not run the numbers of this room before the PC's encountered it. This room is set up for a TPK if its done as it "should" be done considering the critters abilities. Of import these are not mindless undead, quite the opposite.

There are three Swords of Kyuss and a Worm Caller in this room.

First three rounds of combat should roll out like this:
Swords of Kyuss unleash their Invocation of the Worm.
Now for my party this would have been the end, the were not spread out and all pretty much right at the doors when the combat started. The Swords would have ran up to the door stopped 5 feet from the closest individual and set off the bang.
This works out as follow, 20-foot radius (8 square diameter sphere likely to get your ENTIRE party in with all three blasts the first round.) 14d6 (average 3.5 points) = 49 points of damage (DC 22 saves for half, most of my group has about a 50% chance of making this). So each member of your party is going to take somewhere between 147 points of damage and 73 points of damage (minus evasion).
Worm Caller empowered slashing darkness, one target takes 5d8 *1.5, ranged touch at +11 to hit, high percentage of hitting. So average works out to 33 points of damage.

So on the open round party eats between 147 (180 if slashing darkness) and 73 (106 if slashing darkness) too all members (except for the slashing darkness.

That first round would have killed nearly every player in my group, for certain the Wizard, and the rogue if he failled 2 saving throws, the cleric would have been to single digits if he made all three saves, and the fighters would have had to have made 2 saves to still be standing.

My group also was unable in 1 round to put down more then one of the Swords of Kyuss, so next round repeat above *2/3 for the total damages.

Game Over.

To correct for this prior to the encounter I removed the Invocation of the Worm from the Swords of Kyuss and just made them straight melee. (normal average damage for them is 34 points per hit, so if the crit (19-20, two attacks per round) 68). And had the Worm Caller using Mass Inflict Moderate Wounds from the rear. This still worked out to be a dangerous fight, killing the ranger/rogue, driving the wizard and one of the Two fighters to unconcious before the party finished them off (I have a party of 6 players.)

I am interested to hear how this room played out for other DM's that have gotten to this point please :)

An interesting effect of this, the War Mage in another of my campaigns is now saving every cp to purchase Mithral Full-Plate, treated as medium armor which he can wear and still cast...going to be a rovering artillery platform by the time its all said and done with.

Better items by 4-5 levels?! I'll have to take that into consideration. I guess I've just always thought of magic item creation as an NPC thing, as I have a great personal stigma against spending any of my hard earned XP. It must be worth it though if so many other PCs do it.

TS

In the past I have limited magic item creation greatly making it pretty much just an NPC thing or you need to find it adventuring. However..... What I have found with the AOW campaign that I am running is that unless you open up the purchase of magic items too the PC's they dont stand a chance come about Gathering of Winds. Mine are taking full advantage of the ability to purchase gear with their hard earned loot, just as an example at the start of SoLS 3 of the 6 PC's had AC of 32 or higher , two were in the high 20's, and I will not mention the poor wizard.... anyways in the first combat of that Module, The knight and hounds.... One of the party was dead, one was unconscious, and (the primary heavy armored fighter) had 1 hit point left.

I have a player that is interested in taking Heavy Armor Optimization feat, however there is the crux....

He is wearing Mithril FullPlate which is treated as medium, sooo will the feat work with it?

Personally I think so, simple because the armor itself and the tactics used in it are the same as Full Plate as far as protection goes, its just treated as medium because of the weight reduction from it being mithril but I wanted some other opinions.

Hello Everyone, I was hoping I could get some help clarifying some costs for some magic items that my part is interested in making.

One example is a: Keen Dwarven War Axe +2 of Undead Bane with 3 charges per day of Mirror Image Per day. I understand that the weapon with the keen and undead bane mods come to a +4 weapon... but how does one factor in the Mirror Image image uses?

Another is a: Belt of Giants Str, with Continual Shield of Faith (1st level caster).

Another is: Celestial Armor with 2 charges per day of Displacement. (5th level caster)

If someone could show me an example of the break down for the cost of the # charges per day thingy would be greater because the section in the DMG dealing with that is a real mess.

Party just started the Spire of Long Shadows.

Just be wary of the spawn in the basement, the only real trouble the PC's are likely to run into is getting feared after they have a worm on them. Spawn #1 advances on the party, party all makes it will saves verse fear, Spawn smacks a party member and transfers a worm, Spawn #2 advances on the party 2 PCs fail their save verse fear, one of them is the one that has the worm on them , the feared PC's are off to the races, all the while the worm is eatting its way to in the infected PC's brain. Its baically what happened to my party, and it cost them a couple of characters.

We play 6 times every 4 week, and my group is just about 1/3 the way through A Gathering of Winds.

If it gets ahold of Auric, which it will if it attacks him, it will swallow him. I dont remember for certain but I believe its grapple checks are in the +30's range.

I would assume that Auric and Khelleck would fight the worm with the PC's certainly as its main goal is to eat Auric when it gets outta the ground.

My group set it loose the day before the last fight and had to deal with it alone and early anyways, which is likely for the best because if it gets out the day of the finial fight and gets to Auric within a round or two..... man its going to be a hard row to hoe after that.

In truth much of this was mentioned by my gaming group, however I just had them push the "I Believe" button and continue on with the game.

Twinsun, I was interesting in hearing how this played out - I'm starting BK very soon. Thanks.

My party is well beyond this now having just won the Champions Belt, however I can tell you how this worked out. In the finial engagement with the King, the Leiutenant, his mate, and shaman, the party tore it to pieces, now granted I did have the shaman turn against the King once things were going badly for the King. But this also made the party much more likely to speak with the shaman rather then just mowing him down.

We got around this in an a way that I liked alot. Houserule: The person that plays the cleric gets to play a second character of their choice.

Has totally removed the issue of people not wanting to play the cleric and becuase its an extra toon has lead to some interesting choices of what kinda cleric they are playing.

Thank You all for your comments,

I had forgotten about the -20 to grapple checks if the creature attempts to do anything but maintain the grapple. The froghemoths stomach space is 4 medium creatures (I believe). Attacking all in range opponents and them swallowing the largest of them successful grappled the following round is the way I am going to go on this I think. Thanks again folks.

And thanks Gold Katana for the swallowing clearification, I had invisioned this beast getting the PC's grappled and then in one round gobbling them all down into it gullet. (/boggle)

I have to run this encounter tonight and I wanted to clarify some things first.

I dont have my copy in front of me however I think I remember the specifics well enough.

The Froghemoth has 4 tentacles attacks, a tongue attack, and a bite attack per round. So six attacks on a full attack action. It has improved grab, but what I am uncertain about is how that functions. Text says that it can start a grapple anytime its tentacles or tongue scores a hit (its a +35 to grapples and +25 to tentacle attacks so its not like its going to miss either.) So if it attacks 4 different characters with one tentacle each, its inflicting 2d6+12 for the tentacle, its grapple which is 2d6+12 constriction, and the individual is then grappled (not like they are going to get out with a +35 grapple). I am assuming that this grapple damage continues each round until the characters break grapple (yeah right), or and this brings me to my second question....

The Swallow Whole says that it can attempt to swallow any creature it has grappled in tongue or tentacles with a successful grapple check (which again its not going ot fail), so say the above scenario happens and 5 characters get grappled with tentacles and tongue, can it swallow them all whole in one round, or canit only swallow one per round....

I personally as a player would much perfer to be in its belly only taking 2d6+12 concussion and 1d8+4 acid damage per round rather then outside but that is entirely beside the point..

Some quick number break downs:
I pitty the party of 5 10th level characters I have going into this fight tonight, AVERAGE damage: 190 points per round if all attacks hit, and they are going to was well buffed with gear from the AOW series the parties has ac's ranging from 18-27. The critters attacks are all at +25 but for the tongue whichis +23. The grapple +35 is unbeatable I am pretty certain by anyone in the party period (unless maybe they get enlarged).

Shudder

After having regathered themselves, avoided the guards, and gotten themselves back into position in the wine cellar to make another trip down the secret stairs....
This time the party was ready for the Spawn of Kyuss, two Remove Fears covered the 5 members of the party with +4 saves vs fear, A Magic Circle of Protection from Evil (+2 saves), Recitation (not certain I spelled that right)(+2 saves), got them to the point that they were throwing a +8 on their will saves.... not to mention the AC boosts they got as well. The three spawn in the coffin room died in 2 rounds, the practice room with its 6 spawn and a Mohrag, was no more challenging again they tore through it and if I remember correctly no one was even injured. However one of the spawn did run away at the beginning of combat.....
Bozal was fully prepared and ready for the PC's in the room with the Scrolls and an interesting standoff took place...
Bozal was buffed fully including him anti-life shell which held the party back very effectively....most of his spells were touch spells such as Harm, Slay Living, Contagion, so until he broke the shell he was hampered as well.... He attempted to Monster summoning spells but the party was under the effects of Magic Circle against Evil which holds all evil summoned creatures at bay.... With protection from good he was up to a 20 AC against most of the characters but then the characters are 9-10 level and AC20 is almost a cake walk.... so after shooting missle weapons at him for a round he cast Divine Power and walked into combat he did put a hurting on one of the PC's the round he engaged but was at 4 hit points when it got back around to him and he released the Apostle, Monologed, and died under the parties blades... but the turn fun was starting now....
The party can hear the Apostle crashing around as it attempts to break through the ceiling, it takes it 3 rounds to do this while the party is healing and buffing thinking that its trying to come at them through the double doors. It take the Apostle 2 more rounds to break through the arena floor, during which time the party has gotten mostly healed and put up Legions Aid Spell, sheild on the mage, etc etc and they realize the crashing is getting more distant not closers, one runs forward to look and finds the worm above them headed into the arena, Wizard teleports the group up, a fight starts... long story short the Apostle really messed up one of the fighters biting it and grappling it and then the next round swallowing it, but the party put in 204 hit points of damage in 4 rounds, and the worm had a full round of misses against the cleric with the 29 AC and the Apostle perished freeing the trapped fighter who was down to a 3 con and 8 hit points remaining. That would pretty much be where we left off.

Well my group is about halfway through the Champions Belt and last night was one of the funniest sessions we have had in along time. While exploring the arena they found the secret door into the Shrine of Kyuss located in the wine cellar. They disarmed the ward on it, and went down (lucky rogue). Out popped the 3 Spawn of Kyuss in the coffin room and then the fear saves started up...
3 of the 5 failled, 2 of those took off back up the steps running like mad men for 7 rounds, 1 of them took off down the hallway toward the training room but turned right before he got there into the pump room (all turns are randomly determined when under fear effects in my campaign). The cleric and the wizard were all that remained with the Spawn of Kyuss and they quickly realized they were out matched, the wizard took off running down the hallway to the pump room following the panicked ranger/thief (this greatly surprised me as I figured he was a goner) when he got the the cowering ranger/thief the wizard D-doored them out to the wine cellar room above. The cleric took off after the two runners (both straight up warriors in heavy armor can you say clang clang clang for the tank) who were ripping through the first level of the arena at runs with little heed where they were headed. One he stopped right outside of the storage with a hold person spell (another blown save) and the other he followed able to keep up with but not catch as he ran crazy through the arena. I thought this was going to come to an abrupt end when the fleeing fighter (with cleric in tow) charged through the guard chamber (the one that has two elites in it) but the cleric pulled out his Eversmoking Bottle and filled the area with smoke before the guards could make out who had charged into the room. At this point the fear has worn off and everyone hightailled it back to the wizard for a teleport back to the Cenoby except for ranger rogue who snuck his way back down...

I cannt wait to come up with rumors about what took place that night on the first floor of the arena

Would Love suggestions.

Oh as a side note, the Spawn of Kyuss stayed in the coffin room as Bozal would likely not want to tip his hand early if he can avoid it, since there was really no combat or damage he is of the opinion that should the party come back he can deal with them.

I like it. Its very specific in its effect and as such should not unbalance the game.

Stone Brigade

Thank you all very kindly, especially for the links.

I have been trying to just wait for the online suppliments to come out to answer this question however I am at the point of push coming to shove as the PC's advance.

Who should Manzorian likely be in the FR, and suggestions for the placement of Magepoint or another town to takes its place?

I made them Blacklock Lore Seekers in my campaign. I believe that organization is detailled in the Complete Arcane. My players were very interested in what organization the other adventurers were part of.

1984.... omg so long ago....

Vala Caladine
Human Paladin of Heironous.

Chuckles, thoses were the days...

Ditto here,

In fact steelwind I had every house rule in play that you did before the start of the AOW PA. Some of the players like them being gone and some miss the feel of the old game. Shrugs to each their own. Having read the first 4 Adventures in the path before starting it I was fully aware that the house rules were going to hamper if not completely stop the PA's completion,

In a certain infamous 1st ed adventure many years ago...

Mage 1: "Well, I guess I jump in the devil's mouth"
Mage 2: "Me, too"
DM (me): "How about the rest of you?"
All: "We jump in, too."
DM: "Okay. You're all dead."

That may be a little DM-specific humor, but, c'mon, a TPK in first room?! And the two mages were very experienced (as in going back pre-AD&D).

OMG I think I was in that group with you.
I thought it was funny...

I was wondering if anyone was interested in posting how their party did in the last encounter in Blackwall Keep with the three Spawn of Kyuss in the basement? I was going to detail how my party took it (on the chin).

Party:
Nale 5th level Human Warlock (player has been playing with me since ... omg 1986 so 19 years blech I am getting up there)

Nurru 6th Level Elven Cleric of Mielikki (This guy has been playing since 1976 and with me since 1993)

Aura 3rd level Elven Ranger/3rd level Rogue (Played by same guy as plays the cleric.. a house rule is that whoever plays the cleric gets to play a second toon as well.. always has trouble getting people to play the cleric)

Aldovar 6th Human Wizard non-specialist (Player has been playing with me since 1999, but been playing D&D since 1975).

Aradred 7th level Dwarven Fighter (with the best stats I have seen rolled for a character in years... two 18's, two 17's, a 15 and a 14)(Player has been playing with me since 2000 which is when he first started playing the game).

Now of note, I have been running the same on going campaign since the mid 1990's with pretty much the same people playing as listed above all minus a couple that came and went during that time. The players created new characters specifically for the AoW PA when I decided I wanted to run it and among them decided that Aradred would be the party leader, even through the player is relatively in experience compared to the other players... to qoute Nale "Live and learn buddy, Live and learn." Now I did not figure this arrangement would last that long but I have been pleasantly surprised to see that the more experienced players have been allowing Aradred to lead without second guessing his decisions and such.. anyways neither here nor there on to the encounter description:

The party was waken in the middle of night at blackwall keep to the general alarm. They responsed only to find that two guards had been grabbed and pulled into the basement by rotting corpse filled with green worms. Of course the primary question was omg where did that come from? which is not important for this description. The party took time got armored up while the remaining soldiers and Melinda (the paladin from Diamond Lake that lead down the reinforcements to blackwall keep) barricaded that top of th stairs to keep them down there.

Aldovar cast mage armor and shield on himself, the cleric did not do any buffing.....(kept my mouth shut), and the party headed down the stairs into the basement. I had placed one of the spawn behind each of the corners leading into the surrounding corridor around the central cooking area where they were attempting to hide. The party of course brought down continual flame torches as they have two humans which alert the spawn to their approach (while the spawn only have an 6 Int they have an 11 Wis and are suppose to be cunning).

That is when stuff started to go badly. Aradred called for the group to move as a unit into the central cooking area which they did, and the spawn decided that looked like an great place to attack... out come the spawn from around the corners into the central room and off goes the fear saves (three separate ones). Aradred fails, Nurru fails, and Aura fails. Aradred and aura fleee up the stairs smacking into the barricade trying to get out. Nurru flees into one of the side rooms, realizes he is cornered and cowers in the corner. During this flight Nurru is hit by 2 shots of Opportunity (full plate and still got smacked around) and gets two worms transferred to him. Nale and Aldovar cut loose some magic damage. Next round, the spawn gang up on Nale including a critcal hit, drives him to low single digits and he is pinned in a corner. Aldovar cut loose a magic missle not wanting to kill Nale outright with an AOE spell. Nurru cowers and the worms are in him doing damage, both of them only going to be in him for 2 rounds before they reach his brain. Aradred and aura force their way through the barricade, where I bend the rules, and allow them to resave against the fear when they enter Melinda's Aura of Courage effect. Aura makes it, Aradred will be headed for the front door and out of the keep. Nale attempts to get a potion of cure moderate wounds drank (he is really between a rock and a hard place at this point) Shot of Opportunity drives him below -10. One comes at Aldovar who has positioned himself in a doorway and misses its attack. Next round Aldovar hits it with a Scorcher and puts it down....

At this point thinking that I was looking at a TPK, I have Melinda join with the Aura and her and a the Blackwall troops charge down the stairs to aid in the combat. With Melinda's Aura of Courage to back them about 1/2 of the troops make their fear saves and a mass melee starts. In the end, Melinda is down with worms in her, Nurru has succumbed to his worm infestion before his fear wore off, Nale is a outright dead, Aradred made it back from his jog in the countryside just in time to see that last of the spawn fall, Aura is fine without a scratch, and Aldovar is completely outta damaging spells, and has managed to not get hit in 3 or 4 swings at him (lucky dice for him that night let tell you).

Realizing where this was headed, and with the parties cleric about to turn into another spawn I gave ample warning, "You find Nurru's body in a sidechamber cowering a corner, but as you watch you see green worms start to crawl from his mouth and eyes" The party promply removed his head and burned the corpses outside.

Affects of this encounter: While it resulted in the death of a couple of party members, they had a great time with it. I am pretty certain that in their gaming careers none had before encountered Spawn of Kyuss. There was a hole lotta laughing about the brave leader and his jog in the moonlight grasslands. I think that they are likely going to pool resources and get some potions of cure disease/remove fear as well as likely a wand of cure disease or remove curse. Nale was raised by the Tormites in Diamond Lake at request of the Captain of the Garrison for their aid in saving Blackwall keeps soldiers (twice), though he has retired the character and will be playing a fighter cleric split class. Nurru alsa could not be saved, an d is going to be replaced with a Cleric of Tempus.

Yup I would have to say that they handled it well.

I guess part of the fault was in my opinion of how the action in the room should be ran. such as waitting on the tanks to get get onto the planks, flanking and striking a single opponent on the planks for force the balance checks, etc. However on thing that I dont remember is how intelligent the invisable stalkers are, so maybe they would not have used such tactics.

I am just cutious how you fighter class that tend to wear armor that effects balance checks managed not to get knocked to the water during the combats? If I remember for my group and they fighters they would have had base check balance 12, armor and shield mods around -8-10, so balance check DC for half movement and no fighting on the beams at 20-22. Now my "tanks" did not have much in the way of points in balance but still. Shrugs either way was just trying to bring it to DM's attention before they got themselves a TPK and some very upset players.

Chuckles, Trust me that "big punch" at the end of blackwall keep is going to still be very very hard for the players even if barbarians and warlocks DR makes the worms ineffective against them.

The party has not gotten to it yet, but I also am looking forward to the Champions Belt which leads well for the conclusion module.

There is alot of cash/magic in the modules that is certain, however.... having ran a group about halfway through HoHR , so three and half modules, the party is going to need every bit of it just to get by which is something to consider. After the last encounter with the spawn in the basement of the Blackwall keep, they are considering purchasing potions of remove fear, and a wand of cure disease for the cleric just incase they should "run into them again", that alone works out to near 15,000 gp.

The worms cause 1 hit point of damage per worm. One worm transferred from each attack that hits from the spawn. Each worm causes 1 hp of damage per round, but DR removes one hit point of damage from each attack therefore negating the damage the worms are inflicting totalling. Do they still progress through his body when they cannt damage him>?

The party has not finished this one yet but last night they got to the room in sodden hold with planks over the water. Dm's having read this module will know where I am talking about. I realized right at the start that it was going to be a nasty room but I ended up putting the 2 invisable stalkers in the well room instead of in this room. The DC for the Balance checks alone had the party at a huge disadvantage in that only the rogue and wizard has any chance of making them after armor penalities. The stalkers are just nasty (besides a 50% miss chance from concealment), 2 attacks at 10 (+12 because they are invis, +14 when flanking) for 2d6 +4 points of damage each on characters that are trying to balance on the beams, or be knocked into the water for the spike/weapon damage and then get the fight them if you survive from the water....
The highest ac in my groups party is a dwarven warrior with a 25 , sans buffs, but even if I group the stalkers on him they would have hit 50% of the time so 4d6+8 , sans crits, per round oh and did I mention the balancing checks....

All in all its a great encounter design for a unusual room, for a group of 10th maybe 11th level characters, not 7th...

I avoided all this by moving the stalkers to the well room. Here its cramped, movement is restricted for both the pcs and the stalkers, they can smack the snot outta someone with flank still but the party can bring to bear enough force to deal with them without death to members, there will be plenty of that in the two "boss monster" encounters coming up.

Interesting issue came up last gaming session....
Long Story Short:

The 5th level warlock is infected with kyuss worms...2 of them... gets smacked down to negative 6 hit points from direct damage... the worms are suppose to inflict 1 point of damage each, each round while they are crawling to the brain of the victim... that damage would have driven him to -10 (death ) before the worms reached the brain and started trying to transform him to spawn and I dont think that the worms can animate corpses.. that the individual has to be alive when infected to be transformed (whch was good news for the party in this situtation in general)

BUT...

5th level warlocks have DR 1, That should stop all damage that the worms deal as they only deal one point of damage per worm... but that also mean that the worms progress is stopped and they cannt chew their way to the victims brain in the case of creatures with natural armor +5 or better?

not certain which way to jump with this one.

Name: Nurru
Class/Race: 6th Level Elven Cleric of Mielikki
Location: Cellars of Blackwall keep
Catalyst: The worms crawled in, the worms crawled out..

This encounter was brutal on my party. The three separate fear checks from the three spawn sent all but the wizard running. The cleric had the worms transferred to him on the way out from a Shot of Opportunity. Spend 7 round running away while the worms went to his brain, the same round he stop running he dropped to 0 int. The party warrior took his head from his shoulders to keep him from rising as a spawn of kyuss.

The same encounter also killed Nale, 5th level warlock but from straight up damage on the round the spawn charged them. He was raised from the dead but retired the character (now 4th level) to play a 6th level cleric to replace the one that perished.

All told this was crazy hard encounter for my group, with the fear effect from the spawn being what made it really really bad.

I personally dont see an issue with the way it was done. I dont know the amount of time that passed between the faceless one being made aware that the party was coming but regardless... If the door was closed and the party rushed through it... he could has still lost the initative and got jumped by the rogue. If you think that is untoward go stand and stare at a shut door and tell a friend of yours ok sometime in the next half hour I want to you come charging through that at me... see if you get surprised (winks)

I just ran into this exact question last night at out weekly session when the party encountered the spawn in the basement of blackwall. (shudders see the obituaries for details).

Funny you should mention this. Just this last thursday the group that I have running through AOW arrived at the beseiged keep as well. They wasted no time and sprang into action.
Party:
5th level dwarven fighter
3rd level ranger/ 2nd level elven rogue
5th level elven cleric
5th level wizard
3rd level warlock

They destroyed this encounter so easily I was boggled.....
To make a long story short, cleave....web...fireball... entangle, and ranged attack on the ones thatwere stuck.....lots and lots of dead lizard men.... In fact the only one that made it out was the shaman/witch doctor lizard man.

Then on to the the lizard man lair. They snuck in the ranger and wizard into the entrance... attacked the scouts and let them run into the ranger and wizard just inside the entrance. The alarm was raised some of the lizard men inside making listen checks to hear the combat. 15 of the lizard men inside responded and and the harpies flanked the rear by flying out the roof, but I did not have the harpies sing as it would have affected the lizard men as well (according to the monster manual). There was a brief pitched fight at the entrance, but the party cleared it with little issue. They are currently exploring the lair, but I think that I am going to have the lizard man king, the lieutent and his mate, and the shaman with pet all encountered in one room in the last fight. It should make it more challenging. Will know after tonights session.

Taps toes impatiently.....

5th level cleric of Mielikki (elven)
2nd level rogue/3rd level ranger (elven)
5th level Wizard (human)
5th level fighter (dwarf)
3rd level cleric of Kelemvor/2nd level fighter

The group above is the second group, the first group that TPD in the Banite temple was:

3rd level Elven Rogue
3rd level warlock
3rd level Fighter
3rd level fighter
3rd level Favored Soul of Cyric (posing as a Kelemvorite)

One of the fighters, the rogue and the warlock were just rescued with the defeat of the faceless by the second party (not certain what the players will want to do with them now that they have them returned)

Personally I think its rocks. Its nice to see some "world changing" aspects in an epic adventure should there be a failure.

I have a party of five going through the AOW path.

They started the adventure at 1st with 0 exp.
They hit 2nd before the encounter with filge, 3rd by the end of whispering cairn.
The reached 4th after clearing the Banites (Hextor) temple.
And just hit 5th at defeating the faceless (barely leveling).
There were enough hints about the Aspect up in the pool that I believe they plan on resting, using Smenks supplies before going up into the Cathedral again (good thing as well if they went up there in the state that the Faceless encounter left them at it would have been a TPK almost for certain.)
That advancement is using the standard experience rules in the DMG.

I have been running the same on going game for a little more than 3 years. The concept that the PC's wanted was an adventuring/mercenary company and this has lead to an interesting way to deal with character death. Each of the players has a handful of characters in Stone Brigade at various levels ranging from 3rd to 14th (the company), and when we started AOW they created new first level characters, which were new recuits into the company. They had a total party death (capture) in the Hextor temple of 3FoE. Now the nice part was they had hit 3rd level and each person already had another 3rd level character (from previous play) in the company so when the "new guys" failled to report back after a couple of weeks, the 3rd level characters they already had were sent looking for what happened to their brothers. Of course Theldrik and his surviving crew had looted the first parties gear and were using it so lead to an even more intersting fight. Three of the first party had been captured, and when they defeated the Faceless they found their captured members in chains in the alchemy lab:).

Mine figured it out when the rogues attack hit but did not overcome the DC. (winks)

Chuckles, this fight was very short lived in for my group as well. The rogue was lowered down to check out the balls of course. The grick got a surprise attack on the rogue which missed. The warlock blasted it, and the barbarian jumped (charged)down on it with the shortsword+1 finishing it off.