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This weekend we decided to start The Whispering Cairn. We found ourselves short one player, but didn't want to cancel twice in a row, so we decided to press on with only 3 PCs.
Our first time in, we encountered the wolves. They quickly flanked and tripped our fighter. While we managed to take down one, the other two quickly dispatched our fighter and our wizard. In the 5 rounds of combat in the meantime, I (a favored soul) managed to roll 4 natural 1's out of 6 rolls. 3 on attacks and the other on resisting a trip. So now it's down to me (prone and flanked) against two wolves that aren't really damaged. I decided my only chance was to get up and run for it, but both wolves hit with their AoOs. TPK #1.
The second time in (same characters with slight tweaking). We managed to have better luck against the wolves. Seeing the green lantern already lit for us, we decided to explore that direction first.
Hearing the runbling of stone, we decided to retreat from the central chamber to the bottom of the stairs. Once we saw the beetles starting to emerge, my character immediately went to work. I prepared one flask of oil for lighting. I spent the next two rounds dumping oil on the two quares in front of me. The following round I readied an action for the swarm to step on to the oil covered squares. My action triggered, so I tried to "light 'em up", only to roll ANOTHER natural 1 on my attack roll. Consulting the scatter diagram, low and behold, my flask of oil HITS ME! I roll the 50% chance to ignite, and of course, it does. I roll my Reflex save... a 2! Not a 1, but I'm still on fire. The splash does ignite the oil however, and the flames do significant damage to the swarm. Being on fire momentarily saves my character, as the swarms decide to go for the fighter and wizard. Both are significantly damaged and nauseated as the mad slasher is now upon us. On my action, I decide to put the fire out by rolling on the ground... on top of the swarm. I roll my reflex save to put the flames out and fail, but the swarm also fails their reflex save and is scattered by the flames. At this point I'm at 0hp (yay Toughness) and prone, and it's the mad slasher's turn. A whirlwind attack later, I'm at -7 hp. The fighter barely manages to finish off the mad slasher.
After resting for half a week (as I was the only healer in the party) I was finally conscious again. We decided to descend into the green chamber. First we encounterd the bombadier beetle and managed to dispatch him (though both the fighter and I were fatigued). Having used up very little of my spells we went to the room with the orange goo. Suspecting there might be another swarm, I gave my last two flasks of oil to the other party members and lit a torch for myself. The swarm came out, our wizard managed to catch the swarm for some splash damage with one flask but the fighter missed completely with his. I missed with the torch. Now the swarm is upon us and we again have trouble making our saves against the distraction effect. I toss the torch aside to let the other party mambers use it on the swarm as I turn to deal with the bombardier beetle who is now upon me. The swarm decimates the fighter while I fail to make my save vs. distraction in order to heal myself. The bombardier beetle cuts me down and the acid beetle swarm catches up to the wizard. TPK #2.
Hoefully next time we'll have a full party before we try this again.
I wouldn't suggest going through Whispiring Cairn without at least four characters.
I Dm'd it with a party of three gestalt characters, and I still had several deaths. the whispiring cairn is unforgiving of any mistakes you might make.