That stands for "total party knockout." Add the party I'm running to the tally of those that have been slaughtered by Three Faces of Evil. The party thought they were all badass sneaking into the temple after walking through Whispering Cairn like it was a breeze. The party makeup was as follows:
Goliath Bbn1/Rgr1
Grey Elf Wiz3
Raptoran Clr3 or Obad-Hai
Human Drd3 of Obad-Hai with riding dog companion
Human Spellthief3
They boldly marched into the Temple of Hextor and their barbarian got killed going toe-to-toe with the dire boar. Not stopping any longer than necessary to heal up their wounds and planning to take the barbarian back later, they walked right into Theldrick's trap in the main room. Theldrick wanted to take them all so he waited one round to see if they would all come inside the room before sealing the doors, but the wizard refused and stayed outside. The doors closed and hell ensued. Kendra cast bane, Garras cast bless, Theldrick began summoning, and the tieflings from the guard room ran up to the balcony and shot arrows down at the approaching party. Fortunately the party cleric of Obad-Hai had silence memorized and used it to interrupt Theldrick's spell. The wizard pulled out the wand of shatter found in the Whispering Cairn and blew the door away, allowing the party to get out, but not before having sucked up several ranged attacks, a sound burst, and a spiritual weapon. They were hurting, and could have pulled back, but instead, the wizard blew apart the door leading to the guard room and the group proceeded to try and enter the other way. This is where everything went FUBAR. The tieflings stayed behind in the main temple with their bows trained on all entrances while the priests and the troglodytes buffed themselves for the PCs' imminent arrival. What happened next was not pretty.
Garras and the troglodytes burst into the bedchambers between Theldrick's room and the guard room to face the PCs who were fast approaching. Having gulped down a potion of bull's strength he began kicking ass and taking names, tripping the cleric of obad-hai and the druid of obad-hai in successive turns. The wizard managed to gain control of one of the zombies with command undead, but Theldrick rebuked it and it cowered in the corner. The spellthief was largely ineffective except for the rare occassion when she managed to sneak attack and steal one of the buff spells from the bad guys, an event that only happened 2 or three times in what became a 26 round battle.
Things took a turn for the worst when the tieflings decided to abandon their post in the main temple and sneak around to the stairs leading down to the guard room and attack the party from behind. Hereafter, the wizard spent all of his efforts keeping the tieflings at bay with his wand of shatter, destroying two of their greataxes and one of their bows (poor Will saves didn't help at all). Eventually he got into a fist-fight with the tiefling who remained weaponless. However this effectively took his attention away from the main battle which was going sour fast. Theldrick tag-teamed Kendra and Garras and waded into melee after 5 or 6 rounds while they moved back to heal with Kendra's wand. He spent several rounds ineffectively swinging at the spellthief who was fighting defensively. But eventually he decided she wasn't going to hurt him anyway and began taking out the other characters. He laid low the druid while the tiefling who maintained his bow scored a critical hit on the wizard, taking him down. The spellthief was eventually hit and knocked down when Kendra and Garras moved back in.
So as all this is happening, I realized the party was getting nowhere fast. Theldrick had offered them a surrender several times in battle and they had refused (not like it would have helped much since he would have just given them a painless death as opposed to an excruciatingly painful one). Hence, they were likely to become worm food if I didn't do anything. I sure was glad the AoW Overload was released Friday because I was able to develop a plan. I decided the Free City adventuring party of Khellek, Auric, and Tirra had followed the party, thinking to clean up after they had died and loot the chambers for themselves. They came in from behind and the battlefield changed drastically.
Tirra sneak-attacked one of the tieflings and took him out while Auric handled the other the old-fashioned way. Khellek scorched Theldrick with a ray of fire and suddenly things were not going so well for the Herald of Hell's minions. Of course, at this time my party was on its last legs. The cleric was the only one left standing, and as Theldrick moved away to deal with the new invaders, Kendra and Garras spent the next several rounds beating the cleric into submission. Tirra snuck around the balcony while Auric went toe-to-toe with Theldrick in a glorious melee. With a little aid from Khellek, Auric managed to bring Theldrick down. Tirra loosed a well-placed arrow in Kendra's back and then darted away before Garras could catch her, performing hit-and-run attacks until the half-orc was finally brought to the ground.
My party awoke in the main entrance chamber watching Tirra sort loot as Auric hauled it out. Khellek watched the group with his wand of glitterdust and made sure they didn't try anything funny. Although he would have liked to simply loot them and leave them for dead, he figured he wouldn't like them to do the same to him, and they might even be in a place to return the favor one day. So he let them live, let them keep their things, and even let them keep the loot that he, Auric, and Tirra couldn't carry out of the temple (mostly scrap metal, a few mundane weapons and no magical items). He swindled them of looting rights by trading them Theldrick's journal, which he didn't much care about. I figured he didn't know a thing about the Ebon Triad and wouldn't really care if he did.
So in the end, the party got away with 4/5 of their lives and a pitance of treasure. But at least they weren't made sacrifices. After running this part of the adventure, I have to agree that it was tough, but there were plenty of mitigating circumstances. My party had three chaotic characters and none of them got along well with each other so they didn't coordinate too well. They often charged headlong into battle without making any form of a plan first, and they grossly underestimated the organized and efficient response to invasion that would be found in a temple to the Scourge of Battle. Had they cooperated a little bit more and acted with a little more caution, I have a feeling they would have been alright. Plus, the spellthief has a nasty habit of getting in the thick of things and being very ineffective while taking up very good tactical positions on the battlefield that could be more useful to other members of the party. Overall, I think this was mostly the PCs' faults, and not the fault of the module. But I will say this adventure is very unforgiving to mistakes. Make one, and you could be running or begging for your lives.
Incidentally, I could have swayed the tide of battle by fudging a couple rolls, but I don't do that for this campaign. I want it to be scary for the PCs, and that means maintaining the element of luck and chance is important. I'm not against fudging in general, particularly in campaigns where I focus on role-playing, but that's not the case here. I want the Age of Worms to terrify my PCs and threaten them with true danger. Death is just one lucky critical hit around the corner.