Mad God's Key [SPOILERS]

[Greyson]

Hey, all.

I ran an initial group through Mad God's Key (Dungeon 114) last week, I have another table of six this Saturday, then one more table sheduled for October 9, 2004. Props to Jason Bulmahn. His first Dungeon submission is great, and this adventure is wildly popular in my Living Greyhawk region. Here are a few notes on MGK:

1. It took my first group about nine hours to get through the entire adventure. That time includes an hour in the "middle" to allow players to advance their characters to second level. If you are an LG campaigner, allow yourself enough time to play this adventure properly. It's a lot of fun.

2. The half-orc Irontusk (page 24) should only have one feat. I allowed him to keep the Athletic feat so he can still auto-jump across watercraft in the Barge End chase. So, adjust his Initiative if you ditch the Improved Initiative feat, too.

3. My first group of PCs burned the curtains down one layer at a time with torches in the Chamber of Veils (G19). Consider this tactic and make a contingency plan for the room's occupants. I am actually looking for suggestion on this - I screwed it up, I was so caught off guard by the PCs' actions.

4. Remember that Veltargo is a cleirc of Vecna in the Vecna Shrine (T12) area. Allow his desecrate spell to have the full effects of being used in such an unholy place.

5. If you are playing this adventure for LG/RPGA credit, you may tweak the TUs, XP and Gold on the Adventure Record. Keep that in mind, as the AR is filled out in these respective boxes.

That's it for now. Thanks again for making this awesome adventure available. I really like it. I lament that I had to "burn" it. Maybe I'll play the next one.

-------- Don (Greyson) --------
Salt Lake City, Utah

[primemover003]

I'm actually going to be running this most excellent adventure on 8 level 2 PC's saturday... Good heads up on the curtain tactic! It's too bad concealment negates sneak attack, otherwise some smokesticks placed in each row would've been a good alternative to the curtains.

[Greyson]

Good luck, primemover. You'll have to let us know how your game went. Eight is a pretty big group.

I ran a second group throught today, myself. I added another "note to self" from today's experience. During the Chase at Barge End, I prerolled which events would occur as the PCs followed Irontusk across the barges - it saved me a precious moments and moved that encounter along nicely. Also, one PC wanted to skirt the bank. So, I made it a 12-inch ledge with slippery from being wet as a modifier, giving it a DC 12 to move across. And, I made the water adjacent to the shore 4 feet deep, so that it costs four units of movement (as per the DMG, page 64).

Last, my above post should indicate that Irontusk has the Acrobat Feat, not Athletic, for improved jumping purposes. My mistake.

Anyway, definitely let us knowhow your game went, man.

-------- Don (Greyson) --------
Salt Lake City, Utah

[Asmo]

I´ve a question about the map of the Green Dagger hideout.
Area G2 mentions a "a small door hides in the shadowy recesses of this overhang".
When I look at the stables I see no door. I´m missing something here?
Should the door be in the middle section of the stables?
Or is the description pointing at the door leading into area G6,G8,G7 and G5? ( The door to S/W on the map, in the far corner).

Asmo

[James Jacobs]

The small door in the shadowy recesses fo the overhang refers to the door in the southwest corner of the main building; the one that leads to the hallway with doors going to G5-G8.

[Troy Taylor]

Greyson

I've been thinking about the burning the curtains trick.

Any PC holding a burning torch in front of them and trying to light a curtain (bending over to light near the floor, I suppose) would 1) have vision obscured by the flames 2) not be in a defenseable position. It seems those PCs would be vulnerable to sneak attacks, especially, if the twins in the room tumbled to get close in.

When I DM'd it, the attackers used the curtains to their advantage and got in several near-lethal attacks. It was a significant challenge for Low-level PCs to get past, even when they are working together.

Also: the Green Dagger is an old building. Setting curtains on fire is a good way to burn the whole darn building down.

[Asmo]

My players are just about to start the chase of Irontusk.
If he manages to get away I´ll have him head for Maraven,where I hope the party manages to catch him and possibly fight him.
What I want to know is how you, fellow dm:s, staged this encounter:did Irontusk surrender, did he fight to the death?
Spare me no details, as I want this to be a memorable encounter for my players!
(I´ll probably have him fight dirty, but when he knows he´s outnumbered he will plead for his life,and hope for mercy )

Asmo

[Troy Taylor]

Asmo

It can be real memorable encounter. It was for my players.

I played Irontusk as a survivor. He won't fight to the death, but he was really adroit at hopping from barge-to-barge, tipping things over and luring the PCs into traps.

I was afraid he'd have to be killed, but as it happened, both Irontusk and two the lead chasers all ended up in the drink. He tried to bargain, but another player just bonked him on top of the head whenever he tried to pop out of the water. After fishing him out, Irontusk told his tale, sending the PCs onto the next encounter.

What helped was rebuilding the map on 1-inch squares and having it all laid out for the players. It made it a lot easier for them to conceptualize jumping from boat to boat, the distances involved, and what awaited them when they landed.

One PC with max ranks in balanced successfully jumped onto one of those posts sticking out of the water. It enabled him to head off Irontusk. (Not that it helped much. Irontusk pushed him into the water).

[The Eye of Kyi]

My characters decided to rip the curtains down one at a time, which lasted until the twins dropped their first attacks onto the characters then the chase was on.

We had a blast with the curtain room. Kudos to Mr Bulmahn!

One of the players ended up falling through the trap door into the junk room it was hilarious!

I had two problems with the adventure;

1. the initial key to the map was a little confusing to me at first, I had to read it a few times to understand where everything was at. Same issue as Asmo had.

2. the collapsing stair damage was mighty high. In fact so high it would have killed the half-orc barbarian in the party if it weren't for some fudging dice rolls on my behalf when I rolled near max damage for the fall.

[Asmo]

Ok, back to the Green Dagger hideout again! :)

It seems that I´ve some problems to picture the second floor of the building in my head. Let me explain:

1: page 27 - "Green Dagger Guildhouse" - says.. " A modest stable is located underneath an overhang.." and .." and the second floor contains a large outdoor porch."
Is this porch or overhang actually G21?
Or is the overhang and the porch two different things?
If you move G13-17, G18 and G19-21 "on top" of the first floor the map make sense: the traps in G19 fits nicely with first floor, etc.
This leads me to belive that G21 is the overhang,but I can be wrong.

2: how is G21 supported? Is it built directly on top of the stables, or does it rest on poles?
Is this part climbable? ( from the poles or the roof of the stable?)

3: what really puzzles me is G18:
when/if the characters enters G4 should they be allowed to make spot checks to notice the walkway above them ( if my understanding of the map is correct)?
If it is so that the walkway is above G4 the description of G18 makes no sense to me:
"A character who tries to climb up from the street below.."
Huh, wich street?
"...must first clamber up to the nearby roof..."
This is where I´m truly lost. What roof?
I hope that I´ve made some sense, I would be very glad if someone could explain the layout so I can understand it correctly..
Well, enough of the ramblings!

Asmo

[Asmo]

Anyone?

Asmo

[Alec Austin]

Without the benefit of having the map in front of me, I believe that G18 is the outdoor porch, and G21 is built directly on top of the stables, the walls of which serve as part of the upper floor's support structure.

The two maps are placed directly over each other, so you end up with the stables underneath the final areas of the building, and G18 (an open porch/walkway) visible from the street below as a possible alternate means of entry.

Because G21 has solid walls, one could probably make it up there, but without hacking through the walls, it wouldn't do you any good.

[Matthew Morris]

Did anyone else look at the corpse rat swarm and go "Holy..."

52 HP, DR, reach and how mucn damage? Turn as 4 HD monster?

We just alchemist fired the swarm, but the DM dropped their hitpoints considerably

[Troy Taylor]

Matthew Morris wrote:

Did anyone else look at the corpse rat swarm and go "Holy..."

Yeah, one my players did, and it was in character, which really made it a creepy moment.

Unfortunately (for the party) it didn't occur to him what was going on until the party was in the center of the chamber and the elf decided to poke his arm into one of the holes. It was one of those creepy moments, where fear starts to take hold. The PC realize the danger just as it is about to pounce!

By the way, the pool of blood really freaked out the cleric! She absolutely refused to go anywhere near it.

[Matthew Morris]

Troy Taylor wrote:

Matthew Morris wrote:

Did anyone else look at the corpse rat swarm and go "Holy..."

Yeah, one my players did, and it was in character, which really made it a creepy moment.

Unfortunately (for the party) it didn't occur to him what was going on until the party was in the center of the chamber and the elf decided to poke his arm into one of the holes. It was one of those creepy moments, where fear starts to take hold. The PC realize the danger just as it is about to pounce!

By the way, the pool of blood really freaked out the cleric! She absolutely refused to go anywhere near it.

Well in our case it was the DM who went 'holy...' he gave me the stats and I reverse engineered it from the rat storm and the zombie template. Fortunately we were armed with greek fire and he figured chucking a few flasks in the centre of the swarm would disapate it, 52 hp or not.

We also encountered the prayer to vecna trap, and dm to player, figured out that when the rogue made her disable device check, she knew the prayer used to bypass it.

My character is a nominal follower of Zuoken and won't bow to any deity. I spent a power point on vigour and just set it off, taking the damage like a man :-)

[NPC Dave]

I kicked off Savage Tide with this adventure, and they just captured Irontusk. He made it to his boat but badly wounded(archer on the roof) and with two PCs closely following. They were great helped on round 1 when he jumped into an adjacent boat that was a junk heap and promptly failed his balance check. He also helped them by critically fumbling when trying to throw his tanglefoot bag.

One PC captured Solina while two ended up in the water, the gnome fell in on his own and the halfling from a bullrush by Irontusk. The PC who captured Solina after much effort compared it to capturing the waiter in Lethal Weapon 4...lots of effort for no gain.

But instead of continuing this directly, Irontusk points to another character, Grackle from Dungeon Magazine #118. Grackle was hired by the Green Dagger Gang, but had to sub-contract out to Irontusk when he learned the Lotus Dragons were after him.

[NPC Dave]

With the completion of Box of Flumph the PCs are now back to this adventure with a raid on the Green Dagger Gang hideout.

The party rogue felt like he was getting a rough time of it, a stirge drained him of 4 Con points and he failed to search the storage room door and got a spiked iron ball dropping on his head knocking him to 0hp. But he did disable the bell on the front entrance which allowed him to KO the sleeping guard after sneaking up to him. With the recovery of a masterwork longsword he considered the day a push.

The PCs then found the chandelier room, and tried to rush the fighter/rogue guarding the stairs. The paladin barely survived after having the chandelier drop on him and then falling through the collapsing staircase. The rest of the party was using missile fire and warlock blasts though, so when the guard fell to 1hp she tried to escape, but it is 35 feet to the door...

Last action was the party ranger rolling a crit and doing 18hp of damage.

Looking forward to the party handling the rest of the second floor.