Forge of Fury


3.5/d20/OGL


It is my turn to DM our group, which includes two fledgling players. We started with Sunken Citadel with another guy DMing and now it is my turn to run Forge of Fury. I tried to switch us all over to AoW, but the other guy who DM's wouldnt have it because he already bought the next tow modules from WOC.

Anyway, so I will be running Forge of Fury and just wonder if anyone has any notes from when they ran it.

The party consists of three elves (Wiz3, Clr3, and Rog1/Rng2) and a human barbarian3.

I particululary wonder about the encounter with the black dragon in the end and the one with Idalla the Succubus.

Thanks.

PS: I know I could be asking this on the boards at WOC but I like this group much better.


Looks like you've got the ideal iconic party setup there. So, how did the players like the Sunless Citadel? What did they focus on, combat, or interaction with the npcs? When I ran it, our barbarian had a blast cutting down the enemies, while the mountebank (rogue-type) ended up wishing there had been more npc interaction.

Since I'm losing my barbarian player (and the cleric, for that matter), I'm going to skip FoF, and play things out like so (my PCs reached 4th lvl at the end of the SC):
Base of Operations (Download at WotC)
House of Harpies (Download at WotC)
Hasken's Manor (Download at WotC)
Temple of the Iron Codex (AEG)
A Harvest of Evil (Download at WotC)
Thicker than Water (Download at WotC)
Fallen Angel (Download at WotC; Major rework - make lvl 14 adventure out of lvl 5 adventure)
Stone Dead (Download at WotC; Minor rework - make lvl 16 instead of lvl 14)
Blood on White Petals (AEG; this one required a bit of work, since it's an Oriental Adventures module)
Black Rain (Download at WotC; Moderate rework - make lvl 20 out of lvl 16)

All the adventures will have tie-ins to each other and to the Sunless Citadel. Thicker than Water will be the point around which everything turns - all before that adventure will be building up to it, and all after that one will be dealing with the ramifications of it.

The Exchange

Tsulis wrote:

It is my turn to DM our group, which includes two fledgling players. We started with Sunken Citadel with another guy DMing and now it is my turn to run Forge of Fury. I tried to switch us all over to AoW, but the other guy who DM's wouldnt have it because he already bought the next tow modules from WOC.

Anyway, so I will be running Forge of Fury and just wonder if anyone has any notes from when they ran it.

The party consists of three elves (Wiz3, Clr3, and Rog1/Rng2) and a human barbarian3.

I particululary wonder about the encounter with the black dragon in the end and the one with Idalla the Succubus.

Thanks.

PS: I know I could be asking this on the boards at WOC but I like this group much better.

I was run through this adventure and Idalla was tough she charmed my character and made me defend her from my friends. I never swung at them but I physically blocked them from getting to her until they knocked me out. The black dragon was beautiful, met up in the forge area that opened into the cavern with the river going through it. It almost dropped everyone but after tons of readied actions to shoot/spell it when it came over the chasm lip it took enough damage to turn and run. Wizard hopped on his summoned celestial Hippogriff and persued. He came back a few tense moments later to inform us of the dragon's downfall to his last fireball spell.

Make sure you know all the options for those fights and you will do fine.

FH


Thanis,
Sunless Citadel was a funny game for us because two of the players had never really played before and it took us a solid year to meet five times to get through it. We actually skipped a whole section becauase we were just sick of it.

In our game there was a lot of NPC interaction because the DM did a great job of fleshing out the town. We were pretty cautious and clumsy in the fights, but we enjoyed them. Ultiimately the best thing was that we all just get along well and had a good time. And the final battle with the druid was very climactic.

This game should be better. We meet a little more often (knock on wood) and the new players are getting the hang of their characters.

I dont know any of the adventures you have lined up for your players but it looks like you have a solid plan. What is your party's make up?


I was run through this adventure and Idalla was tough she charmed my character and made me defend her from my friends. I never swung at them but I physically blocked them from getting to her until they knocked me out. The black dragon was beautiful, met up in the forge area that opened into the cavern with the river going through it. It almost dropped everyone but after tons of readied actions to shoot/spell it when it came over the chasm lip it took enough damage to turn and run. Wizard hopped on his summoned celestial Hippogriff and persued. He came back a few tense moments later to inform us of the dragon's downfall to his last fireball spell.
Make sure you know all the options for those fights and you will do fine.

FH

This is interesting. Did your group kill Idalla, or did she just fight for a while and then teleport away? Did the encounter seem to fit in with the story?

Why did you end up fighting the dragon in the forge room? How did you lure it up? It might have been a much harder fight if it had been in the room with the lake.

I noticed that in the 3.5 Monster manual the same dragon is CR 5 instead of CR4 in 3.0. What level was your party when you fought it? I expect that my players will be level 5, there may even be five of them, and I am trying to decide if I should buff teh dragon up somehow.

Thanks for the replies,

The Exchange

Tsulis wrote:

I was run through this adventure and Idalla was tough she charmed my character and made me defend her from my friends. I never swung at them but I physically blocked them from getting to her until they knocked me out. The black dragon was beautiful, met up in the forge area that opened into the cavern with the river going through it. It almost dropped everyone but after tons of readied actions to shoot/spell it when it came over the chasm lip it took enough damage to turn and run. Wizard hopped on his summoned celestial Hippogriff and persued. He came back a few tense moments later to inform us of the dragon's downfall to his last fireball spell.

Make sure you know all the options for those fights and you will do fine.

FH

This is interesting. Did your group kill Idalla, or did she just fight for a while and then teleport away? Did the encounter seem to fit in with the story?

Why did you end up fighting the dragon in the forge room? How did you lure it up? It might have been a much harder fight if it had been in the room with the lake.

I noticed that in the 3.5 Monster manual the same dragon is CR 5 instead of CR4 in 3.0. What level was your party when you fought it? I expect that my players will be level 5, there may even be five of them, and I am trying to decide if I should buff teh dragon up somehow.

Thanks for the replies,

We did end up killing Idalla and I didn't think she fit in at all, it felt like someone flipped to that page of the MM and tried to shoehorn her into an otherwise great dungeon, I would replace her with something else. My group was 5th level when we encountered the dragon and almost lost 2 to 3 people (5 players at the time). I don't know why the DM had us fight the dragon there, but we had seen it several times throughout the adventure. It showed up in the Glitterhame part of the adventure while we slept, mine and another character saw it staring at us from a river while the party was sleeping and recovering from a fight. Scared the sh** out of us on guard duty and due to the lighting and the fact that both of us were small, the dragon seemed to be REALLY big and frightening. In the Forge room the dragon kept sniping us with its breath, then flying out into the large cavern out of range to recover its breath weapon. We never actually lured it out, but we had encountered it on a smaller ledge past a secret door if I remember correctly. It drove us away in that encounter.

Anyway, I would lose Idalla and replace her with something more inline with the story. As a sidenote, the animated rug almost killed a party member and Rogues should feel good about this module (lots of traps, locked doors, and hidden stuff).

FH


I don't remember the group I was DMing having that difficult of a time with it. The succubus encounter ended up being comical to a degree because the party set her room on fire which didn't hurt her but she didn't want the books destroyed. So the charmed character was told to put the fire out.

The other thing a remember (because my wife won't let me live it down) was the black dragon encounter. My wife's Druid had kept the white dragon from the Sunless Citadel. It was unrulely but she really wanted to try and train it. Well when they got to the underground lake they were at the waters edge. She had the dragon in a backback and as she was standing at the waters edge, the black dragon rose out of the water and snatched the white dragon off her back. That was the end of the white dragon. She still gives me a hard time for that. I also remember the monk successfully stunning the black dragon with stunning fist for a room, which really helped them.


Tsulis wrote:

Anyway, so I will be running Forge of Fury and just wonder if anyone has any notes from when they ran it.

The other DM ran it in my group, and we barely survived. First bit of advice, Take out the Roper. Nearly a TPK for us.

Make a point of telling them how deep it is under the beginning rope bridge.

Tsulis wrote:


I particululary wonder about the encounter with the black dragon in the end and the one with Idalla the Succubus.

The Succubus, we avoided after she charmed the rogue (me) and told us to leave. (None of us were Good Aligned.)

The Black Dragon was a TOUGH fight. If not for our Wizard being a Conjurer, we would have died or ran (and subsequently died fleeing). Celestial Porpoises ROCK!

The Roper nearly killed us all, and did get 1 character (who fought it off while we all fled. It was too bad nobody spoke Undercommon.)

The Rope Bridge killed The Dwarf Cleric and Dwarf Fighter (damn medium armor got 'em both).

The Troglodytes didn't make much sense being there, and we didn't even find their section of the dungeon, after the water below the rope bridge took away our friends, we avoided water at all costs.

Are you playing in 3.0 or 3.5?
We played in 3.5.

-c

Dark Archive Bella Sara Charter Superscriber

Clint Freeman wrote:
Tsulis wrote:

Anyway, so I will be running Forge of Fury and just wonder if anyone has any notes from when they ran it.

The other DM ran it in my group, and we barely survived. First bit of advice, Take out the Roper. Nearly a TPK for us.

Make a point of telling them how deep it is under the beginning rope bridge.

I was just going to bring up the roper. Make sure you know your group. The encounter with the roper is designed to humble your players and not all players will willingly be humbled. There's a big danger of metagaming going on and the players saying "they wouldn't put this monster in the module if we couldn't defeat it." The typical reaction to the roper is to either not surrender, or to surrender, but then spend the rest of the game planning a way to kill the thing. Inevitably, this second assault results in a tpk.


I don't have the module in front of me, but I ran it years ago. From what I remember:

The Succubus. I don't remember the succubus. Maybe she died really easily. Maybe I need to lay off the antihistamines.

The Black Dragon died a dog's death. But thats par for course in my games: the PCs nearly die to the rabble, but totally own the rabble's boss. Go figure.

The Roper killed one PC and maimed another before they took it seriously. Named "Roger" incidently...

The Rope Bridge was one of tthe more memorable encounters. DMs should take careful note of the distances the enemies on the other side are - this is a good opportunity to put an Elf's low-light ability to good use.

The Troglodytes was THE most memorable of the locations. If I'm not mistaken, there is a warren or female and hatchling troglodytes in one of the chambers. The party was split down the center on killing them or letting them live. It was a tremendous intra-party showdown of bravado and intimidation.

There were some caskets somewhere also. Party argued whether they should disturb the resting dead or not. Of course they did...this is D&D! :)

But the most difficult encounter that resulted in a TPK is the Ogre and his guard dogs. He made quick work of the party.


Wow, it is great to have so much input. Thank you. The following is a long ramble which I understand if no one has the energy to read. I could go on about this stuff all night. Here it goes:

I also have had reservations about the roper.
The roper and the succubus seem like encounters that were just thrown in there for some odd reason not having anything to do with the story. One of you wrote that if the players dont try to kill the roper outright they will just obsess on how to kill it later. That is probably exactly what I would do if I were a player, partly out of resentment that someone put in an almost unkillable monster for no reason having anything to do with the story, and no foreshadowing, or anything.

Any encounter that is put there just to teach the players something is suspect if you ask me. I'm not crazy about all the animated items either. It seems like one would be enough.

This is the backstory I made: The players received a broken sword from the other DM. It is a sword of legacy with the mark of Durgeddin. As I took over the game, the players went to a Dwarven Smith to see about getting it fixed. She told them that only a high-Priest of Moradin could fix it, which would cost a fortune, or she could do it at Durgeddin's forge, only no one knew where the forge was.

Durgeddin broke with the Dwarven Priesthood when he when to Kandahar. When he was defeated by the orcs, they desecrated his body and his shrine and left his soul in torment. The dwarven priesthood ruled that he should be left to rot, and forbid all dwarves from seeking Kandahar or liberating Dugeddins soul. "But" says the dwarven smith. "if you were to find the forge, and end Durgeddin's torment, and happened to tell me first so that my clan could occupy it, then I would reforge the sword for you." She gives the players the name of a man who knows right where it is.

So, I want to add Durgeddins ghost to the desecrated shrine and add an ember needed to rellight the forge to the dragon's treasure. Then maybe the Allip could be a ghost and the Idalla encounter could be replaced with something neccessary to free Durgidden or something. And of course in the end Durgeddin's ghost can reforge the sword. And maybe the players will have to choose whether to make the embr available to the incoming Dwarves or keeping it, or maybe Durgeddin asks them to dump it in the lake.

I think it is good to have some creature guarding the prison cells with the key to the iron door, but I would rather see something that adds to the story, or at least something that isn't impossible to kill. It is pretty cool that if a player is washed away by the river at a certain point then the roper will be only too happy to fish him out.

Bill


I think I'm going to replace the roper with an Otyugh. Maybe a huge otyugh. It would have a longer reach with its tentacles than a large one (15' vs 10'), and still be less powerful than a roper. The party should be at least level four when they get to it.

The MM says that Otyugh have an intelligence of 5 and speak common. What would an otyugh have to say? "Feed me!"

The Exchange

Tsulis wrote:

I think I'm going to replace the roper with an Otyugh. Maybe a huge otyugh. It would have a longer reach with its tentacles than a large one (15' vs 10'), and still be less powerful than a roper. The party should be at least level four when they get to it.

The MM says that Otyugh have an intelligence of 5 and speak common. What would an otyugh have to say? "Feed me!"

If it has one of the party in its clutches it may say "Feed me or tasty manthing is dinner."

I like the idea of changing the Roper to a Otyugh. It feels right in this adventure.

FH


Tsulis wrote:

I think I'm going to replace the roper with an Otyugh. Maybe a huge otyugh. It would have a longer reach with its tentacles than a large one (15' vs 10'), and still be less powerful than a roper. The party should be at least level four when they get to it.

The MM says that Otyugh have an intelligence of 5 and speak common. What would an otyugh have to say? "Feed me!"

Thats a nice touch actually, I never had to run my party against the Roper, they ended up missing that part of the dungeon. The fight at the bridge and the fight against the dragon down in the lake were the most memorable parts of the adventure for my group. The cleric ran into the Ogre and his dogs with only the thief in tow at the time. The party still quotes that encounter nearly a year later:

Ogre - "You wish to challenge the Great Ulf?!"

Cleric - "Uh... no!" (Sound of the door slamming and running footsteps)

I ran the succubus as linked to the Duregar in the audience chamber. She told the party that she was a serving wench from Blasingdell that had been kidnapped by the "evil dwarf wizard". The party bought it and the cleric ended up kissing the succubus after they freed her from the room. It seemed to work as far as the plot of the adventure was concerned, but certainly wasn't a "memorable moment" for the party.

I ran the dragon strait up with its numbers from the adventure, and found that I had to fudge its HP to make the battle more dramatic. I would definitly suggest using every dirty trick in the book for that fight, my party has always talked about how that fight gave them a new respect for dragons.

Hope you have a blast with this adventure, we sure did!

-Rath


I just started running this one with a party of five PC's (human clr3, human bar3, human sor3, halfling rog3, gnome clr1/ftr2).

This lot failed to sneek past the pair of orcs at the start (the rogue got in close then missed with a crossbow, then the gnome missed, as did the sorcerer...) and they alerted every orc on the level. There was one hell of a fight at the rope bridge, along with half of the party trying to crawl over the bridge after the rogue almost fell off. Somehow none of them died although the rogue got KO'd 4 times.

I was thinking of taking the succubus out altogether. First I tried to fit her into the campaign as a recurring enemy (maybe revealing her purpose later) but can't and don't really see any reason to keep her.

As for the roper, I like enemies that the PC's have to run from. I once hid a Kraken in a 5th level adventure. Unfortunately I think these players may well try to kill the roper somehow and thats not going to happen. The Otyugh idea's pretty interesting though.

Dark Archive Bella Sara Charter Superscriber

Tsulis wrote:

Wow, it is great to have so much input. Thank you. The following is a long ramble which I understand if no one has the energy to read. I could go on about this stuff all night. Here it goes:

I always have the energy to read how people are improving on classic adventures. Those are some excellent plot threads. I also tossed the succubus because she didn't feel to logically belong there. I had the dueregar organized in an apocalyptic cult that were planning on using the forge to create weapons for the final days. After defeating all the evil in the mines, my party even took over the area and made it into their home base.


Shaitan, amazing that the group could miss the guards like that but the big fight sounds dramatic. I was considering adding an orc to the far side of the rope bridge if I had five players, but maybe that would be too ambitious. It always seems easier to me as the DM before the game is played.

When we played two weeks ago I had them go to Blasingdell, the nearest town, to find an old miner who could show them where Kahndahar was. To make a long story short, the group ended up in a dingy gambling den called the Feral Dog (stolen from AoW). The Rog1/Rng2, a novice player, thinking he was some kind of tough melee fighter with his 16hp and +2 BAB, picked a fight with Kullen, then tried to sunder Kullen's great axe with his longsword, and ended up taking 32 points of damage from the AOO and Kullens first attack. Because he is a novice player I let the cleric heal him later and just explained to him that he really isn't a melee fighter at this point.
The barbarian in the party, who already knew Kullen from his home tribe, was enlarged by the wizard and took Kullen out in two hits.

This just goes to show that players arent always very smart. Did your players take out the patrol of four orcs and get advanced info on the defenses?

As for Forge of Fury, what is up with the Troglodyte Sorcerer with Breast Plate armor and the 25% chance of spell failure? That may have seemed cool when 3rd edition first came out, and you could have a sorcerer with plate mail for the first time, but it doesnt seem cool now. Also, his strategy is supposed to be to turn invisible, but then the Dueregar below are also going to turn invisible.
I think I am going to change him to a cleric L4.
I still havent decided what to do with the Succubus. She definitley is coming out, but I'm not sure how I going to replace her. I'll probably take her out and the Allip, and add a cooler ghost of Anduril the Dwarven Cleric. I jsut worry that I am making everything too hard.

Tsulis


The players didn't meet the patrol initialy, I had them return after the orcs were defeated and the players were resting. That was a little mean but they were very lucky not to lose a PC or two in the fight.

They walked over most of the troglodytes which made that level a little disapointing (they did lose the sorcerer to the bear though). The troglodyte sorcerer did turn invisable but the players handled the others so well that it didn't help him much, he ended up running off with a few hatchlings.

As a side note, one of the players (the paladin i think) found one of Durgeddin's blades and realised none of the party could use it without another proficiency feat. She sold it in town (Hornwood in my game) and I then had the shopkeeper sell it on the the local lord for twice the price. He's know bragging about it around town. That paladin's not happy.


Shai'tan, Thanks for your reply.

My group began the Forge of Fury yesterday. We only had four and half hours, and it may be months before we play again, so I got them quickly through the woods to where they could see the path leading up to thes stone tooth, and the smoke coming out.

They checked out the path, and found the tracks, but did not wait around for the four humanoids, probably orcs, that had walked down the path a day or two before them.

So, they approached Khandahar with no advanced knowledge and no plan. I was worried. They followed the path until they caught the first glimpse of the two guards. Approaching the guards wasnt hard for the elf ranger rogue with the orcs having -4 spot and listen. The wizard cast sleep, the rogue fired his crossbow, the barbarian prepared to charge but didnt have to. One orc went to sleep and the other died from the sneak attack.

The party (Elven Wiz 3, Elven Clr 3, Elven Rng 2 Rog1, Human Barb 2 Ftr1) snuck up the curve in the trail, spotted the kill holes, and started sneaking around up the stairs. This was fun. Each player rolled MS checks. I rolled spots for the sentries (also -4), paused...and nothing happened. For the first few rounds. Eventually one of the sentries heard the cleric and arrows started flying. My dice were hot. The barbarians speed was really effective in this situation, He made it through the front door before an orc from the gallery could close it. But he couldnt see the archers firing at him from across the chasm. The input from others on this board was helpful here because I was sure to pay attention to light and vision. The barbarian fought off one or two orcs (he had taken one arrow to the neck, a crit, but was still in ok shape) and then started across the rope bridge into the darkness, sure that someone would be able to cast a light spell over there before he got across.

I have to admit I was kind of hoping he would botch a balance roll and end up hanging from the bridge by one hand, but he didnt. In the mean time the others had made it through the door. The cleric fought the orcs coming through the secret door. The ranger fired at the archers across the chasm. The wizard summoned an augmented celestial dog on the other side of the chasm to support the barbarian.

The barbarian's speed came in handy again. He was across the bridge in three rounds. At the end of the second round he had only five feet to go. The thing was, no one had a light spell. The cleric is one of the novice players, and didnt take it. The wizard is a conjurer and couldn't cast it. So he was in the dark.

When the barbarian was so close to the end of the bridge on of the orcs charged forward, but attacked him instead of the rope . So the bararian was in the dark fightng off the orc and having a miss chance. But with the summoned dog and the missle weapon to support him he made it. That was a good fight.

After a few minutes of lighting torches and healing, the players took an interesting turn. Th elf ranger/rogue went down to be sure there were no more archers in the gallery and found the secret door at the end. So the players ended up attacking old Yarrack next.

This ranger/rogue, also a novice player, was about to go through the second secret door by himself. This is the one who died last game due to foolish bravado. Uncontrollble eye rolling on my part (I tried to restrain it) convinced him to listen at the door and wait for his companions. Eventually the group got back together. The Barbarian smashed the door in (with Kullens +1 great axe) and the party charged the orcs.

This was another good fight. The barbarian cleaved (clove?) two orcs in the first round while the others all just squared off. Then Yarrack crited the Barbarian with his throwing axe and the rng/rog (Dirkin is his name) tried to tumble between two orcs, dont ask me why, failed, and was taken down to -2hp by AOO's. I did privately give him points for style but there was nothing I could do to save him.

Dirkin was down. Spank, the barbarian/fighter had taken real damage and suddenly realized that this orc with the large steel shield was no normal orc. He and the cleric were in melee with two orc warriors and Yarrack (a third level warrior) The wizard was in the rear ineffectually firing arrows. The balance of fear and hope was really good. The barbarian killed one warrior but missed Yarrack. Then he took another wound. Yarrack boasted he would drink his blood for breakfast. The last warrior, who was already wounded, broke for the door to get help. If he had made it, it would probablyt have been a TPK, and the players could feel that, but by leaving melee he allowed the wizard a clear shot, and went down with an arrow in his back. This provided an opportunity for some excellent pantomime on my part which I exploited to the fullest.

Yarrack grimly continued to fight. Spank was down to about 4hp. The cleric flanked him but missed. Finally Spank raged and ended the fight. I had thought they might try to parley but it was all too bloody.

More healing ensued. We had a little less than an hour to play. They decided to keep going. At that point I made a decision which almost ended in a TPK but turned out to be really fun.

The party exited Yarracks room and crowded into a short hallway made to be a kill zone for this trapped statue. Dirkin the disaster-prone was scouting ahead, so he was the only one not engulfed by the gas cloud released by the statue. Everyone made their Fort save except Spank, who lost 3 str points.

At this point, to kee the game moving I ruled that the trap going off alerted the two wolves and the Great Ulfe behind the door twenty feet away. I dont think that is such a bad ruling, but it did almost kill the whole party. The wolves started barking and yapping bloody murder. I gave the players a round to react but they were confused and not making any decsions. Finally I gave them 10 seconds to make up their minds. Dirkin went to listen at the door behind which the wolves were straining at their chains. Spank stood stupidly with his short bow in his hands. The cleric did nothing, and the wizard, an NPC, did nothing too.

The wolves came out charging and frothing. I made my first charitable ruling and let Dirkin make an attack and then retreat without the AOO. He did hit one of the wolves. Then the two wolves charged Spank, hit him, and tripped him. I saw TPK floating through the air. The great Ulfe followed, "You dare challenge the great Ulfe?" (also taken from a board post). Instead of killing the prone Spank I had him attack the wizard. That was when I realized that a large great axe really does a lot of damage! This wizard has 19 hp which isnt bad for third level. It is actually more than Dirkin. But the Ulfe does 3d6 +7. I made the first damage roll behind the screen of the whole game and took the Wizard down to one hp. If I had gone by the dice he and the party would have been dead, but none of the players seemed to notice and so it was really good.

My final cheat was allowing Spank to use tumble to get up from prone and retreat from the wolves without an AOO. To give him credit he did have ranks in tumble and he made a really good roll (20 I think, with his modifiers) so I let him do it. The group was also really smart to retreat the way they did. They all got back into Yarracks room and under cover. Dirkin, who started the second round, slammed shut the door.

Ulfe disintegrated the door with his axe and the wolves charged in. They jumped the table but missed the players. The wizard hit Ulfe with an acid arrow. Everyone knew Ulfe would kill anyone he hit, even the barbarian.
Spank and Dirkin finished off the wolves. The cleric, Chion, used a spiritual weapon to good effect. I rolled Ulfe's attack on the Cleric in front of the group. It was one of those rolls that teeters on one number and then settles on another, and happened to save his life.

The wizard enlarged the Barbarian. From that point on it could have gone either way, but my dice went cold. Ulfe never made another hit and was dead in two or three rounds. It was a really good close fight. Everyone got a piece of him, even Dirkin.

We ended up going twenty minutes late and Vito was behind schedule to pick up his wife for their tenth anniversary dinner. I hope he made it. In conclusion, if the rest of this module is this good I'm going to write Richard Baker a letter.


Tsulis wrote:


I particululary wonder about the encounter with the black dragon in the end and the one with Idalla the Succubus.

This may be a no brainer but my players loved it! When i ran the black dragon, I had it duck back underwater and recharge its acid breath. The dragon would surface and spray the acid and then on the next turn do a down and out back into the underground lake.

Also, one of my players was trying to make a break for it and go across the small stone bridge down there. My dragon saw that and exploited the character with an acid breath. It didn't kill the character but the character was afraid to run after that because he thought the dragon might chase him.

Eventually the Dwarf fighter in my group got a critical hit on the dragon right after she took an acid spray to the face. It was awesome and when i got done, the players were so glad that i played the dragon smart.

Just remember that this dragon is just starting and doesn't want anybody coming down and taking his fledgling hoard of gold and items. Have him duck and weave but also remember he probably won't run either because he is still a young dragon.

The Forge of Fury is my personal favorite 3rd Edition WOTC adventure.


The next game in this forgeof fury adventure is tomorow. All the orcs on the first level have been killed exceept for Borag, the adept. Thye players are completely spent, I am sure they will go rest before encountering her unless I bring her to them.

I woud take her out because she is not integral to the story. But what I think I will do is turn her into a servant of the curse that torments Durgedding. Her female servants will be Zombies. She will be a little higher level, and act as a chance for the group to learn some things about the dungeon they face.

I cant tell them too much because we may not meet again until august (My wife is 8 1/2 months pregnant) and they wont remember anything fancy by then...So it will be a brief encounter giving me a chance to role play an evil hag and torment the players with hints about what they face. The zombies will also give the cleric a chance to shine.

She will hint that the next level is filled with fierce beasts and haunted by a ghost, Anduril, who I am transforming to a wandering monster, maybe still as an allip, maybe as a ghost. She will also hint that Durgeddins body was taken deep underground to an orcish burial ground.

My only real problem with this adventure is that the most dramatic and dangerous encounter is not really a BBEG, it is more like a tough, so that it is kind of anti climactic. So I will plant Durgeddins body in a deep orcish cryppt in a huge cavern with cold winds and a large burial mound, a Zombie priest, and maybe a living curse spell tormenting Durgeddins soul. But my players probably wont reach that before september or october, we only play once a month at the most...

The troglodytes I am leaving as written, maybe changing the Sorcerers spells a little. Then I will make a few changes in the foundry, and flesh out the Dueregar a little, but I cant write about all that now.

I guess I'm just thinking out loud here, but I would love to hear some feedback...what would be in a deep undergound orcish burial ground?


I used the encounter at the shrine as the place to discover Durrgedins body. (He was on the altar, being guarded by the wight) I suppose you could give an Orcish Necromancer a few flunkies and have the whole area be Unhallowed or something. Thats what comes to mind right off the bat.

Glad to hear that you are enjoying the adventure! It was one my group still talks about, in fact the cleric and I recounted the meeting with Ulfe just today!

-Rath


Rothandalantearic wrote:

I used the encounter at the shrine as the place to discover Durrgedins body. (He was on the altar, being guarded by the wight) I suppose you could give an Orcish Necromancer a few flunkies and have the whole area be Unhallowed or something. Thats what comes to mind right off the bat.

Glad to hear that you are enjoying the adventure! It was one my group still talks about, in fact the cleric and I recounted the meeting with Ulfe just today!

-Rath

I used that line "You dare to challenge the great Ulfe!" from your last post when I ran it. That was really good.

The thing about having Dugeddins body in the temple is that they will find it before the dragon, and then the dragon encounter will happen after the main story objectives are accompliished, which would be kind of anti climactic.

Another option is that an item of Durgeddins is in Nightscales hord, and he tells the party that he cant repair the sword without it.


It's kind of funny reading how all of you campaigns went (or are going). We played FoF a couple of years ago and I remember it being incredibly difficult as a player.

Our party fared alright up until the ogre and his wolves. With a series of bad rolls by us and criticals by the ogre, the entire party was leveled, but instead on killing them took them as captives. We had to escape and evade the orcs and ogre and find our equipment before we could get our revenge. Later in the Glitterhame we struck a deal with the dwarves, but then broke it. Again, we fared very poorly and the dwarves beat us into submission. Only our rogue escaped and, after much negotiation, was able to bargain for our release with his brand-new mithral chain shirt and a fair bit of coin. The final fight with dwarves was very memorable.

The troglodytes were a dilemma for us as well. Our party was also split on what to do with them and in the end struck a shaky deal to leave the females and young alone with the promise they'd do the same. A kind of mutual avoidance. In the end they were the only things left alive in the Forge.

Idalla tried to deceive us, then kill us before fleeing. Honestly I never really understood her role (nor what she was) until reading this thread.

The black dragon fight was also memorable in it's tactics. It sprayed the wizard (me) with acid, then proceeded to knock our cleric and fighters into the water. Since everyone had medium or heavy armor, they all almost drowned. It also took this time to pick up the cleric's magically-flaming holy symbol and drop in the deeper end of the pool where it quickly sunk out of sight. While the others struggled to swim to the shore and climb out, the dragon focused on killing the wizard. He was only saved by the fact that the dragon turned to one of the fighters when he finally got out of the pool. We were finally able to kill the creature when it tried to flee.

A lot of these moments we made more memorable by the fact that we had 2 DMs running the bigger fights - One playing the role of the impartial DM and the other playing the creature itself.

But after getting captured and humiliated several times we did almost give up on the Forge. There was a LOT of frustration there, but in the end we came out alright.

Dunno if that helps your next session, but that's how ours went.

BM


~grins evilly~ You are tossing a succubus out of a module? How dare you! ~chuckles~ Just kidding. However, I would keep her and use her as a spy on the area. Make it that her lord wants something from there and she was sent to get it. Have her use the PCs to get that item and then once they do that, have her transform and laugh at them. That will get the PCs pissed off enough to want to track her down. Thus a reoccuring villian is born and several new adventure plots are created.

1. What does that item do? (it is part of a larger item that the succubus' boss wants.)

2. Who is the succubus' boss?

3. What are his plans?

4. What else is she after?

To use her effectively, think of Mytique in the X-Men movies. She was a very effective spy. Use her that way!

~grumbles~ Now I am going to have to buy that module and run some people throught it!


what a session. The group passed by the Troglodytes almost completly. Then, after a few fights, attacked the Dueregar head on at about 75% strength. I thought I saw another TPK coming, one player was down, but them the Cleric pulled it off by criting Nimira.

The most amazing thing was how well the whole party worked together. As an iconic party: Ftr/Bbn, Wiz, Clr, and Rng/Rog, the Rog spotted almost all the traps, the ftr did tons of damage and cleaved alot, the cleric saved the rog with a heal check, and cast lesser restoration several times, the wizard saved the cleric from being mauled by the bear with baleful transposition on the bear (great new spell), and saved the whole party from the Dueregar with his wand of enlargement...it was really good.

The one encounter I made up didnt work that well, as usual, but it wasnt that bad. I had the adept set up an ambush in the stirge room, where the party would be weakened, and the zombies could attack unmolested, but then I didnt have it that well thought out, and she didnt get to taunt them with what lay inthe lower levels before they killed her.

It is hard running combat with multiple foes all turning invisible and enlarging at different times.

Thanks for reading.

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