I've been anxiously awaiting my group being high enough level to begin running the [i]Dungeon[i] Maure Castle modules. They're just about there and I was wondering if someone could point out a few errors or broken encounters that need fixing beforehand. I've followed many of the threads about some of the problems with it such as the 11-headed juggernaut's stats (or is it more?) in the Chamber of Intiquities level.
If someone could chime with some suggestions to avoid a TPK to early on ;) I'd appreciate it.
Hmmm. I'll have to take a look at those and see if my group will have a problem with them. Thanks for that pointer.
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The 3 Symbols nearly did TPK my players and the guards didn't have to lift a finger. Most players won't be able to pass up a tapestry of Tomorast as treasure.
All together my players had to leave and regroup at Maure Castle 5 times before giving up (Kerzit, the Iron Golem and the Maurids kicked their arse too). It is easily the best and hardest dungeon I've ran in a long time. I like an adventure that isn't a walk in the park.
About to run the Maure Castle series... What needs tweaking?
Your PCs life expectancy.
OK. The PCs are in. There are 7 of them. They used dimension door spells to get past the Unopenable Doors. After half a day of careful "looking around but touching nothing" type of play, the party had opened the doors to rooms 6, 5, and 4 only. I had secretly rolled for random encounters each hour, but come up with nothing. I rolled to see where Arley the Weaver would be and the result was that he wasn't in room 14. OK. Where is he? Rolling between wandering the Great Hall and talking with the Seekers in the level below, I came up with talking with the Seekers.
Well, towards evening as the group was gathered near the Unopenable Doors and discussing where to camp for the night, I finally got the bodak encounter. With this group, if the party wizard and sorceress get the jump on the bad guys most times their going to be toast unless really big and really strong (with lots of hp). The elf wizard got them in an Evard's black tentacles spell (grapple modifiers for the bodaks = +5). With the party about 60 feet away from them and the elves in the party the only ones that could really get a good look at the cloaked men with Seeker uniforms on, the others had to move a bit closer to "take it to them."
The elven scout has goggles of life sight (Libris Mortis) and needs to be within 30 feet of creatures to see if they are undead, living, or constructs. He moves up to 30 feet...
Player= "OK. I move up to within 30 ft. of the first two. Are they undead?"
DM= "I need you to make 2 DC 15 Fort saves."
::Player rolling dice and looking concerned::
Player= "Failed the first one, but made the second one."
DM= "Yes. They're undead. They gaze back at you with horrible dark, hollow eye sockets. Your character calls back to the others "Their undea....." and falls over dead."
And the exploration continues.
... He moves up to 30 feet...
Player= "OK. I move up to within 30 ft. of the first two. Are they undead?"
DM= "I need you to make 2 DC 15 Fort saves."
::Player rolling dice and looking concerned::
Player= "Failed the first one, but made the second one."
DM= "Yes. They're undead. They gaze back at you with horrible dark, hollow eye sockets. Your character calls back to the others "Their undea....." and falls over dead."And the exploration continues.
And then there were 6.
OK. The party left the dungeon and had Padril the elf resurrected. Yep. Loss of level and what not.
Back to the dungeon they go, teleporting to the rooms of Kerfane the dead Seeker.
They do a bit of searching around and finally get to the rooms of Arley the Weaver. He actually happened to be in residence this time and heard them pilfering room 15. He left his chambers invisibily and flew a short distance from the north door to room 15. As soon as the party began filing out of the room and moved over to the door to room 14 for what would probably be more thievery, he blasted them with a cone of cold and shouted several epithets and accusations about stealing his artwork.
From then on it was a game of cat & mouse as Arley used invisibility and a few well placed spells to harm and frustrate the party. After taking enough damage to be worried, he began goading them into following him through the great curtain separating the nort and south halls.
Long story short, I had swapped out displacement for dispel magic prior to running the adventure and had already used it once to drop a flying PC into the fountain full of het fish. Not fun for the PC involved! Well, the suckers let him goad them all the way up to the throne of the Terrible Iron Golem. Of course, the 3 PCs that were "taking it to him" were flying.
Once they were in position and practically right on top of the golem, Arley used dispel magic and ended 2 of the PCs' fly spells and the Paladin's divine might spell.
The 2 PCs that dropped down onto the platform in front of the golem caused it to animate and attack.
Crack! goes the whip of cockatrice feathers - HIT! - and 1 failed save later Padril the elf is out of commission again. Four solid hits on the paladin and he's running (or in this case flying since that spell wasn't popped) for his life. The invisible (and no longer flying) rogue wisely GTFO's out of there.
The golem pursued the party all through the GREAT HALL and managed to catch the elven wizard who remained behind invisilby to use telekinis to float the petrified elf out of there.
The golem ended up hearing the shouts of half of the party that had remained on the south side of the curtains and stopped pursuing the ones heading to the UNOPENABLE DOORS. The elven wizard and the floating statue of the elf happened to be right there as it came out the southern door of room 13 and got the full breath weapon. Fortunately, the wizard made his save and was only at -2 hp. The petrified elf dropped to the ground, but was not high enough up to actually shatter. However, all of its sharp edges and fine detailed feature had been melted away.
Well, to end this week's story. The group's sorceress had located the ogre magi and blew him up with a fireball. The paladin lingered back invisibly and took a few choice items off of him.
The party regrouped and the paladin summoned his mount to place the statue of the elf scout on it. Just as they had fastened him to the horse with rope, the golem who had been led on a merry chase by ond of the faster moving PCs finally caught up to them again and literally was right on them when the paladin's mount was dismissed and the group teleported out of there in 2 groups.
One last note.
After the group got the elf scout returned to flesh, he opted not to return to Maure Castle and when the party returned in company with a cleric that wanted to join their expedition, they wisely did not return to the curtained off section of the GREAT HALL.
For a more story style version of events transpiring you can check out my Campaign Journal, the Destiny Stone.
But, I'll keep giving the gory DM-to-DM style details here.
Well, I don't remember how to post links on these boards, so I'll just have to tell you that it's "a little further down" on the Messageboards menu ;). Under Campaign Journals in the Dungeons & Dragons section.
To Steeve,
I'm an avid reader of your campaign journal and of Maccabbee's (sp?)"in the eyes of a paladin" diary. Just out of curiosity, what are the current levels of Padril, Maccabbe, Mira Luna, Andrew and their friends ? Did you have to adjust the adventure ?
And many thanks for sharing !
Thank you, Infomatic and Bran. I appreciate your kind words.
Bran, currently Maccabee and Mira Luna are 12th level. Andrew, Thal'Talis, Tysis, Savaun, and Coralis are each 11th level, creeping up on on 12th as well.
Because the party is large and their actual playing skills are above average, they have an APL curve that makes them more of a 13th level party bordering on 14th.
I'm tryting to be careful of this, of course, since Maure Castle can be brutal on even the most seasoned players. But so far, my estimation of their abilities has been accurate.
Of course, they are now dangerously close to that big old tapestry just down the hallway from them at the beginning of level 2. So, we'll see what happens ;)
OK since there are all these resurections I think its better to keep a body count as opposed to a tally of members of the party remaining.
So if I read the last bit of the story on this thread correctly I make the body count out at 2 - both times some most unfortunate elf.
OK since there are all these resurections I think its better to keep a body count as opposed to a tally of members of the party remaining.
So if I read the last bit of the story on this thread correctly I make the body count out at 2 - both times some most unfortunate elf.
Yep.
Hmmm... about half way through my Friday night game and taking a short break. 2 characters bit it when the Seeker guards from room 25 responding to the PCs fighting the huge tyrg pulled down the huge tapestry exposing the symbols of death.
Am I bad because I'm smiling about it? He he.
Ah... well, back to Seltaren to bury one dead elven wizard and True Res a dead young rogue named Andrew...
Hmmm... about half way through my Friday night game and taking a short break. 2 characters bit it when the Seeker guards from room 25 responding to the PCs fighting the huge tyrg pulled down the huge tapestry exposing the symbols of death.
Am I bad because I'm smiling about it? He he.
Ah... well, back to Seltaren to bury one dead elven wizard and True Res a dead young rogue named Andrew...
OK so by my count that puts us at 4.
We should have a contest - every DM that plays Maure castle tallys up how many characters they manage to kill and the one with the biggest bag of dead characters gets some kind of prize. Actually one could do it sort of like a betting pool. All the DMs put $20 into the pool and the one with the most character deaths wins the pool.
I ran the Maure Castle for my players (still not finished but I'm taking a big break since I'm in university again) and the most ironic thing is that even though I'm the DM, the pc that died the most was my own pc (it was an entire group of elves and half-elves who knew each other during various adventures in Myth Drannor). My own pc died twice. Once from the bodak and once from fighting Kerzit (the poison killed him in one shot, dammit!).
Although to be fair, I did over the course of the entire campaign managed to cause a pc to waste a fully charged ring of nine lives. Heck, in one round alone he had to burn 4 charges just to keep healing himself. It wasn't intentional, I just happened to roll 3 criticals in a row. To this very day, we talk about just how much blood that pc must have lost in the process of being healed 4 times. You'd think it was a slaughterhouse or something.
We didn't get too far in our last session and the party escaped with no character deaths. They explored the northern and eastern portions of level 2. The green marble stone golem in room 39 could have been pretty lethal had the party not been overprepared vs. your garden variety golems, even ones with a little more hit points than normal. It got a few sweet hits in, though ;)
Since this was their 3rd venture into this level, the Seekers were on alert for them. They heard Serini Glistermane's tiger companion growling behind the locked doors of rooms 31 and 30 and wouldn't take a simple "leave me alone" for answer when they started beating on the door. When they began breaking in, I saw no motivating factor for her to simply hang out for the PCs to chop to bits. Her and her tiger charged out the west door from room 31 and GTFO out of the dungeon.
Searching the woman's armoirre will turn up a pair of spare Seeker uniforms, which I'm hoping the PCs attempt to try to use as disguises. It should make for some interesting roleplaying ;)
It might also save the party the trouble of fighting the tyrgs in room 29, which I believe is next on their agenda to investigate when we resume next.
Hmmm... about half way through my Friday night game and taking a short break. 2 characters bit it when the Seeker guards from room 25 responding to the PCs fighting the huge tyrg pulled down the huge tapestry exposing the symbols of death.
Am I bad because I'm smiling about it? He he.
Ah... well, back to Seltaren to bury one dead elven wizard and True Res a dead young rogue named Andrew...OK so by my count that puts us at 4.
We should have a contest - every DM that plays Maure castle tallys up how many characters they manage to kill and the one with the biggest bag of dead characters gets some kind of prize. Actually one could do it sort of like a betting pool. All the DMs put $20 into the pool and the one with the most character deaths wins the pool.
Bragging rights is reward enough for me ;) You're on!