My players finished about half of the labyrinth in our last session, so I thought I'd share some of my thoughts and experience running the encounters... and ask for anyone else's ideas.
I started by having all of the elves make 20 spot checks and I had them write them down in the order that they rolled them. There were no rolls over 23, so I didn't have to worry about them spotting a secret door. This may have alerted the players to look for secret doors, but when they came to their first dead end and found no door (the two rogues rolled 21 and 23), they figured they might not be very many after all.
I drew out the maze as they ventured forward. It took some time, but the effect heightened the sense of "not knowing what's around the corner." I would draw out to the distance that the lanterns would illuminate, so it also gave the effect of being in darkness.
When the Kenku group one first got wind of the party, I had them break into two teams. One went to get the weasels, to keep them quiet and use them in an ambush. The others went to alert group three (the one with the boss). Then, as the party made it to the north-east corner, two kenkus started making noises like a beetle swarm (from behind a bend in the extreme north-east corner).
The party reacted like they did in the Whispering Cairn, and prepared oil and torches, and lit one of the intersections on fire. That effectively blocked the party's movement. At that point, the weasels were released from the west, and the kenkus attacked from the south.
The boss and lieutenant appeared in the corridor and shot off at the nearest PC (the rogue), who happened to be wearing the amulet of shielding. The rogue advanced on the Kenku Boss, failed a spot check as he passed the hall where another kenku was waiting. After the rogue engaged the boss, the kenku stepped out to flank. The bard saw that so moved down the corridor to flank the second kenku. Then a third Kenku came out of a secret door to flank the bard.
Meanwhile, a couple of kenkus were pestering the Cleric, who was trying to finish off one of the weasels, as the second weasel attacked the party sorceror. The weasel hit and latched on. On the second round the weasel did 4 points of Con damage, and after the sorceror couldn't kill the weasel or win a grapple to get it off, took another 4 points of Con damage in the 3rd round, dropping him unconsious.
The party's other rogue (a Kender) finished off the weasel and tended to the sorceror. The cleric finished off the weasel and Kenkus that were attacking her (including the kenku sorceror), then moved to heal the sorceror as well as possible.
The rogue and bard got hit pretty bad, both being flanked. Note: The Great Ally ability goes a long way to pester the PCs, in what would otherwise be an easy encounter for 5th level PCs.
At the end, the kenku boss was the last one up, and he retreated around the corner, just in fron of the starting point for group three. There he mimicked the sound of a door opening and a dire weasel screech.
Since the encounter with the weasel and the sorceror went so bad, the PCs all backed away from the end of the hallway. That's when the boss tossed in a 5d6 fireball. A couple of the PCs failed their saves, but luckily I rolled 12 on 5d6, and just barely avoided killing the sorceror (whose max hp was now down to 5).
When no weasel came out (the bluff bought him a couple of rounds), the PCs advanced and finished off the Kenku Boss.
So now, they have to make their way through the rest of the labyrinth knowing that there might be more Kenkus, and that they haven't yet found the cleric of Vecna.
-----------------
Lessons learned:
The kenku's mimicry ability is most useful when they make the noise of a creature that the party has had trouble defeating. So use your DM "meta game" to your advantage.
The 1 HD kenkus will not likey hit the PCs AC in melee. If you can set up an encounter where one kenku can shoot at a distance and lead the PCs into a flanked position, you greatly improve their effectiveness as a challenge.
Use the Kenku Hide checks to hide around corners, and let them pop out and flank, or shoot from around corners so they can have cover bonuses.
Then just kind of sit back and watch the PCs wonder where all the monster calls are coming from, and constantly protecting against enemies that will never appear.
Consider the acid beetle swarm idea stolen!
In my last session we ended in the grimlock cavern, so we'll hit the labyrinth tomorrow night. One thing I want to do is put the secret door advantage to good use.
One question about the worshipper of Vecna (Shadow in my campaign) ability to open doors as a free action, "merely willing it to be so". There is nothing in description that says the worshipper must be adjacent to the door. How did other people interpret this rule?
One kenku can use a free action to open the door shoot and then move away. Another kenku can then take its action on the same init phase, move adjacent, shoot and then close with a free action.
Maybe a stupid question, but just what adventure are you talking about?
WaterdhavianFlapjack
....what adventure are you talking about?
The Three Faces of Evil.
Sorry, I should have prefaced that. There are three cults in the "Temple Raid" adventure. There's been quite a bit of talk about the Hextor Battle Temple, but not so much about the temples to Vecna or Erythnul.
There are a few complex situations in each of the temples, but the obvious one deals with the Hextor Battle Temple. The situations that came up with the Kenkus made me want to start a separate thread. I had a couple of interesting developments in the Erythnul caverns as well, and I'll post that in a separate thread to see if it generates any interest.
Dang. I'll have to buy 125, seeing as my first issue of Dungeon was 126. Thanks.
WaterdhavianFlapjack
Thanks for all the helpful info, Big Jake.
My players finished about half of the labyrinth in our last session, so I thought I'd share some of my thoughts and experience running the encounters... and ask for anyone else's ideas.
It looks like your group is ahead of mine in the module....we took last week off and are still stuck in the Grimlock cave. I like your tidbits on how you ran the maze and will likely steal your ideas as well.
One difference is that in our campaign, I (the DM) know everyone's Spot, Listen, Hide, and Sneak skill ranks (to include armor check penalties). When they announce that they are performing the two later skills, I make the rolls secretly for them. In the case of Spot and listen, I usually do this automatically for them. In most cases, I roll the die only ONE time, and apply it to everyones skill rank. Yes, it penalizes someone with low rank levels, but it rewards the Rouge too....
Big Jake,
Your post was full of great ideas and you are obviously a clever strategist. Thanks for sharing your insights, though there are a couple comments I don't fully agree with you on.
I don't agree that the kenkus would be an easy encounter for 5th level players without adding clever extras (though adding the extras certainly adds "spice" and that's always a positive thing). While your strategies are cool, I think DMs need to be wary of overplaying the intelligence of monsters. I'm not saying this is the case in your example, just that battle tactics and clever combat strategies aren't always available to your average-intelligence monster encounter. IMO, these adventure paths are already pretty tough - every encounter needn't be a climatic touch&go, possible-TPK situation.
The other comment of yours that I personally don't agree with is your advice for DM's to "meta-game" when having the kenkus mimic formerly difficult encounters. I can see how this particular case would be funny in a devious sort of way but I think as a player I'd be tempted to get p*ssed. Again, for me, it comes down to a question of intelligence. How would the kenku logically know what encounters the PCs have faced and which were particularly difficult/frightening to them? The only time I meta-game points like that is when I'm DMing a dragon, a lich, or some other genius/super-genius opponent (Wile E. Coyote - SUPER GENIUS!!). Ancients have all kinds of time to research and puzzle things out and they wouldn't live so long (or maintain undeath so long) if they couldn't "foresee" some PC weaknesses or have clever defenses set up.
Just my thoughts.
Again, I do like your kenku tricks and will most likely employ many of them into my game.
One difference is that in our campaign, I (the DM) know everyone's Spot, Listen, Hide, and Sneak skill ranks (to include armor check penalties). When they announce that they are performing the two later skills, I make the rolls secretly for them. In the case of Spot and listen, I usually do this automatically for them. In most cases, I roll the die only ONE time, and apply it to everyones skill rank. Yes, it penalizes someone with low rank levels, but it rewards the Rouge too....
Roll the dice once and apply everyone's modifiers.... you just saved me so much time when the party is dealing with sensory checks. Thank you!
I let sneaking PCs roll their Hide and Move Silently checks, since someone attempting to be stealthy will know if they make a noise or some such thing. What they don't know is the opponents' Spot and Listen modifiers, which keeps the suspense up, possibly even higher. There's quite a sense of excitement when the rogue rolls a 5 on his check and is wondering if the enemy will notice.
Your post was full of great ideas and you are obviously a clever strategist.
Wait till I get going! *pause* Where was I?
You know... I almost took out the DM meta-gaming comment. I ended up leaving it in, hoping to promote separate ideas on how to include the mimicry ability (And as a suggestion on how to beat a meta-gaming player at his own game.) :)
But, you're right to be wary of over-doing the kenku encounter. If all goes well for the kenkus, the party might be too beat up to go against the Faceless One. And then to go and face the Ebon Aspect afterwards?! I just hope my players decide to rest before they go back to the surface.
But, as far as I can tell, the mimicry ability is one of the little things that makes them a CR 1 instead of a CR 1/3 like a goblin. Might as well use it as best you can.
Thanks for your feedback. I do sometimes play things too smart for their own good. Or something.