I just thought I'd ask how the Spire of Long shadows is going for everyone considering my usually insanely powerful group is having at least one party member dropped into the negatives each fight. I even rolled up an NPC of mine and pratically munchkinized him yet it's still a battle to the point where my players are looking at me and saying "Good god how much does he add to his damage?!". It's a toughie. So, how'd everyone else do?
My party of six players is having a really hard time of it. The party members are dropping so fast that it's hard to maintain any kind of flow to the game. I asked this before and got no respose so I'll ask again:
"As I look through this adventure I was struck by this fact - the dungeon is for 4 characters of 13th level, who should reach 14th at some point, so why are all the encounters above the EL 13 that they should be? There's not one EL 13 encounter in the ziggurat!! Most are EL 14 on the upper level, and most are EL 15-16 in the lower dungeon. What is up with that? In fact, there is but one encounter that's EL 14 in the lower level, two EL 15, two EL 16, and one EL 17!! The party is only just supposed to reach level 15 at the end of the adventure, so why are the EL's so high? I mean one or two encounters above the level of the party is fine, if they can rest and recover between encounters, but in the lower level only two of the encounters can be said to be at the party's level (and my group is just in the 13th level range, about half way to 14th, and there are 6 of them, and they are starting to get tired of all the deaths) so what gives?"
I'm hoping for a response this time. . . .
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I have a Hypothesis. The adventure designers are assuming that people playing the adventure are a tight, cohesive group of diehard veteran gamers. In my group you don't know anything about a creature without the proper knowlege check and/or experience against the creature. I see alot of gamers who know the monster manuals like the back of their hand and have specific strategies for combatting them. Metagaming is what I call it. I think that some designers look at an EL rating and say "My group would trounce that with no trouble!" and proceed to raise it to challenge their group. Meanwhile, the rest of us don't have gamedesigners sitting at the table and are struggling with game balance.
I was in the habit of just adding 2 to the adventure level if it was of the mid to high range, and 1 if it was of a low range. Then I read the adventure and decide if my assessment is accurate.
I feel what you guys are saying.
FH
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Theoretically, a CR 14 encounter shouldn't be too tough for 13th level characters, but as we all know, the CR system is pretty heavy on theory. Out of curiousity, is there any common thread in the deaths? Any ability that is out of whack?
I don't think this is an adventure where metagaming is expected (or even does any good) considering that 80-90% of the encounters are with completely new monsters not published outside that issue. I'm not sure how even a metgaming player would acquire knowledge about the monsters in the adventure short of the DM lending them a copy of the adventure.
Two of my party members died in the encounter with the Swords of Kyuss and their negative energy blast - the cleric failed all three saves and took somewhere in the high 80's points of damage. The nagas in the tunnel took out another player with enervation and then slay living (nothing like lower the saves before hitting them with a good killer spell), and the most recent death was from the naga socerer who cast harm on the other cleric in the party and promptly did 140 points of damage. I realize that a party should be able to take on an EL 14, but my concern is that there are too many EL 15, EL 16 and then an EL 17 encounter. Now if the party was just 13th level when the adventure began then there's no way they can be 15th level when they encounter the lich - and that's an EL 17!! That spells party death. Even with all the XP for the visions my party isn't at 14th level yet, and they are standing outside the door of the lich's chamber.
Theoretically, a CR 14 encounter shouldn't be too tough for 13th level characters, but as we all know, the CR system is pretty heavy on theory. Out of curiousity, is there any common thread in the deaths? Any ability that is out of whack?
I don't think this is an adventure where metagaming is expected (or even does any good) considering that 80-90% of the encounters are with completely new monsters not published outside that issue. I'm not sure how even a metgaming player would acquire knowledge about the monsters in the adventure short of the DM lending them a copy of the adventure.
Not that hard. At the store where I get my copies of dungeon every month the mag is usually on the stand and the owner of the place doesn't mind when people flip through them. Since the place if frequented by my players, I only go on the honor system that they haven't glanced at the adventure beforehand.
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They printed the guidelines for encounter ELs in the DMG and it details how the 13.33 encounters needed to level-up should be handled and at what ELs they should be. Dungeon mag chooses to ignore the chart and makes most adventures into a TPK waiting to happen. They should read the chart and stop making encounters of 2-6 levels above the party level so common.
FH
The reason there are so many high EL encounters is that there otherwise would not be enough XP in this mod to advance 13th level PCs to 15th. That's why they needed to throw in XP awards for seeing the visions. The tough encounters plus story awards barely get the party to 15. It's just an inherent flaw of this module that there isn't enough space in the mag to cover dealing with Manzorian, plus revealing all of Kyuss' history, plus having ~20 balanced encounters to advance the PCs two levels.
So the experiences with this module so far label it as being too tough. I look forward to a difficult challenge for my group and am prepared as DM for the worst, even a TPK. I've expressed my opinion on another similar thread as to why I think they made the encounters tougher in this one.
Another question for those who think it has been too tough. What magic items did "Manzorian" offer at the start of the module?
I figure he's smart enough to offer them items to help them against the main threat of Kyuss and his minions. So four out five of the characters will be offered items that should help them fight chaotic evil undead:
Archer: Undead bane oathbow
Ranger: +1 axiomatic dwarven waraxe and +1 holy dwarven waraxe
Templar: Sword of Unerring Direction (a version of the Farlaghan Rapier from Complete Divine) - +4 ghost bane longsword that negates miss chances
Cleric: Ruby Blade of Wee Jas (complete divine) that will boost her power over undead
I hope these items will give them an edge.
The reason there are so many high EL encounters is that there otherwise would not be enough XP in this mod to advance 13th level PCs to 15th. That's why they needed to throw in XP awards for seeing the visions. The tough encounters plus story awards barely get the party to 15. It's just an inherent flaw of this module that there isn't enough space in the mag to cover dealing with Manzorian, plus revealing all of Kyuss' history, plus having ~20 balanced encounters to advance the PCs two levels.
Obscure you are completely correct, that is the reason that the encounters are so tough. But that still doesn't make for a good adventure. I mean, eventually the players will get tired of rolling up new characters each week just to make it through one dungeon. The logic in making the encounters too hard for the party is lost on me. The makers of the game went to a lot of trouble to incorporate a system for balancing encounters (and I'm not debating the reliability of said system) so that problems like the ones in this adventure don't happen. I was just hoping that the writers for dungeon would use the system, or at least get close. An EL 17 encounter for a party of 13-14th level characters is a TPK (unless the dice roll very poorly for the DM).
Creative Director
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The adventure path adventures are, as a rule, fairly tough cookies. But in hindsight, I'd have to agree that "Spire of Long Shadows" is probably a bit too tough. The idea behind the adventure is that the PCs won't necessarilly be going from room to room, trying to take on the entire dungeon in one run. The monsters in the dungeon have no real way to chase the PCs down if they retreat, and have limited resources for rebuilding and repopulating encounters. Plus, by this point, the PCs are quite likely a bit ahead of what their expected gear GP value should be, especially once Manzorian hands out the gifts to them (assuming they chose to hand over the Rod fragment).
If we ever do a hardcover release of Age of Worms, "Spire of Long Shadows" is ceratinly one of the adventures I'd love to have a chance to go back to and fix. At this point, I think those fixes can be addressed by adding several lower EL encounters to the outlying reaches of the city (so that by the time the PCs reach the Ziggurat they're 14th level), by toning down a few of the encounters inside the Ziggurat, and by indicating more clearly that the PCs aren't expected to take down the entire dungeon in one run. They should take their time and make multiple strikes against the place, taking full advantage of teleportation and the fact that the monsters within cannot cross the obsidian ring.
Oh, and I'd probably nerf the swords of Kyuss and their invocation of the worm special ability. 1d6 damage per 2 Hit Dice, once every 1d4 rounds up to 3 times a day is probably where that ability needs to be.
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Creative Director
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The makers of the game went to a lot of trouble to incorporate a system for balancing encounters (and I'm not debating the reliability of said system) so that problems like the ones in this adventure don't happen. I was just hoping that the writers for dungeon would use the system, or at least get close. An EL 17 encounter for a party of 13-14th level characters is a TPK (unless the dice roll very poorly for the DM).
The EL/CR system is light-years ahead of anything that 1st or 2nd edition had, and is an immense help in planning encounters. The problem is that, as you get higher level in D&D, the EL/CR system starts to break down. Why is this? Part of the reason, I suspect, is that as the system was being designed, they didn't playtest enough at high level. The 3.5 rules addressed a lot of the high-level problems that plagued 3.0, but they're still in there in places. Another part of the problem is that at high level, combats tend to get a lot more binary. There's a lot of "save or die" type effects at high level. With the death from massive damage rule, even a dragon with 800 hit points has a 5% chance to die if a dragonslayer gets in a lucky hit. To say nothing of spells like flesh to stone, slay living, and banishment.
As for throwing an EL 17 encounter at a party of 13th–14th level characters... it's a tough encounter and may well result in a TPK, but it's hardly beyond the recomended level discussed in the DMG. It's AT the extreme, but not beyond.
Anyway, as I've said in that other post I just made, I agree that "Spire of Long Shadows" is probably too tough. For "Gathering of Winds" and "Prince of Redhand" I think we did a better job keeping the encounters at the right level. Of course, your mileage may vary. Against a party of barbarians augmented by a wizard with an antimagic field spell, that EL 17 encounter might end up being a pushover.
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Creative Director
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I have a Hypothesis. The adventure designers are assuming that people playing the adventure are a tight, cohesive group of diehard veteran gamers. In my group you don't know anything about a creature without the proper knowlege check and/or experience against the creature. I see alot of gamers who know the monster manuals like the back of their hand and have specific strategies for combatting them. Metagaming is what I call it. I think that some designers look at an EL rating and say "My group would trounce that with no trouble!" and proceed to raise it to challenge their group. Meanwhile, the rest of us don't have gamedesigners sitting at the table and are struggling with game balance.
I have a sneaking suspicion your hypothesis is spot on. Looking over the Age of Worms adventures, the toughest ones tend to be the ones by industry professionals, I think. I'll keep an eye on this for Adventure Path 3.
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I'd certainly concur with Fake Healer's comments, not just about SoLS but many 3.5 adventures -- too often they feel like they've been designed on the assumption that the PCs are celestial half-dragon dire ninjas and are playing like they're a SWAT team.
It's perhaps one of the major problems published adventures face -- balancing for all the different options available. Most of the people I play with are core-rules only, but judging by these boards and the WotC ones most other groups thrive on wacky prestige classes, templates, races etc. Even if these don't consistently raise (or lower) the party (or threat) power level they make it harder to determine/predict/analyse.
Not playing AoW myself, but has anyone considered starting the PCs a couple levels ahead of what the path recommends and giving 25% more XP or so than the DMG table gives? Seems like a reasonable solution if folks are getting so many TPKs.
TS
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Creative Director
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A party of six might be a better choice than a party of four adventures as well.
That said... there's certainly something to be said for deadly adventures. Looking back over the past 30 years, it seems obvious that many/most of the more successful adventures, the ones people remember the most, are also generally remembered as being rather difficult. For both Shackled City and Age of Worms, the adventures are intentionally tough. They're meant for experienced players; not for beginners. If your group is new to D&D, you should certainly consider starting them a level higher than the recomended levels for Age of Worms, adding NPC allies, or adjusting the adventures down a level or two as described in the "Scaling the Adventure" sidebar.
My party as well is facing several challenges in the Spire. Two deaths on the first two encounters, to be precise.
1. Nezzarim(sp?) and the Eviscerator Beetles: This was simply good rolling on the DM's part. A critical hit for near-max damage from Nezzarim to the party leader's soulknife cohort. He's a level or two below the party, so it's not a surprise. As an evil twist (to make sure the players wanted to beat this place to a pulp) he then took a full-round action to coup de gras the cohort's head off, thus negating raise dead.
2. THE NEXT ENCOUNTER... party goes inside and faces off against the corrupted archons and ghaele eladrin. Wizard fails his save to prismatic spray (green), and dies from the poison. The party also HAS NO CLERIC so things are tough enough as it is.
At least I feel better know that I'm not just going for the jugular in every combat... they're really that hard.
After reading this thread I am really looking forward to running this. :D
Mwah-ha-ha-ha
Although I don't tend to have any half-dragon ninja warlocks in my games, the players do tend to run like a well-oiled SWAT team which is generally what happens when people get a handle on the rules and are able to use external to the character knowledge when battling the bad guys.
Should be fun. :)
It's perhaps one of the major problems published adventures face -- balancing for all the different options available. Most of the people I play with are core-rules only, but judging by these boards and the WotC ones most other groups thrive on wacky prestige classes, templates, races etc. Even if these don't consistently raise (or lower) the party (or threat) power level they make it harder to determine/predict/analyse.
This reminds me of a few of the old 1st edition modules.
Namely, I'm thinking of "Lost Island of Castamanir" - It was a GenCon RPGA event module for characters 1-3rd level (or so it claimed).
It has a room with 23 hobgoblins - A little beyond the abilities of a party of 1-3rd levels - The only way I figured it would be beatable was that if you were using the pre-generated characters, one had a wand of fireball with 2 charges.
Seeing how much trouble my players had with TFoE (TPK) the first time around, I may need to take a closer look at Spire.
James, which of the AoW AP were written by "industry professionals"? So I know which ones to worry about ;-)
I think that the CRs for the individual monsters are too low given their abilities, all of the monsters written specifically for this module should probably be one CR higher.
That being said I really like this module, So many of the Module's in Dungeon, I have felt were too easy, Personally I find adjusting down to be less work because you just take away one of the critters in every encounter.
If your worried about it, run an additional adventure in between, but tip your hand some, i.e. the PCs need to find a crypt or something with a rod of blah blah blah to get across the obsidian wall. In there there are single encounters with individual monster types from the module, facing the PCs alone that should help them figure things out.
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Y'know, I *like* the fact the APs are tough -- it gives the PCs a sense of accomplishment when they finish.
The best part is that I'm finding with the SCAP it is more or less consistently difficult, 1st through 20th. So, if the pc's survive past 3rd level, they know it's an uphill struggle all the way through.
I started my group at 2nd level, but being a large group (and spending their xp on magic item creation etc) they are a level behind the 13th level they should be for Lords of Oblivion, and my group has had less random death than previous campaigns -- mainly because they're scared witless...
The challenge rating system isn't always precise. Luck, party composition, player skill, character choices and terrain can make the difference between a pushover and a challenge, or a tough challenge and a total party kill. It's not something to be taken literally - just because you're level 13 doesn't mean you should only fight EL13 encounters - but it does a good job of telling you when something is far too powerful for the PCs.
It's also perfectly valid to fight, say, three CR14s in a day instead of five CR13s. Even if you can't fight five CR14s in one day, you probably can fight three one after another quite safely.
I'd like to take this opportunity to complain about the 3.5 conversion of Tomb of Horrors, which while I understand that it's meant to be lethal, should at least have given accurate challenge ratings to the encounters. Saying "this is CR11" on a monster that's as tough as a CR13 monster plus dealing four times the damage (and bending monster advancement and natural weapon size rules to do so) is quite inaccurate.
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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Guys, I had to drop in (on my vacation, no less) to clean up this thread a little. In the interest of keeping this place as friendly and useful as possible, please lay off the culturally insensitive adjectives and the masked swearing, please.
And Fatman, you might want to change your screen name, and not just because it contains a spelling error.
Back to Arizona...
--Erik
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Guys, I had to drop in (on my vacation, no less) to clean up this thread a little. In the interest of keeping this place as friendly and useful as possible, please lay off the culturally insensitive adjectives and the masked swearing, please.
And Fatman, you might want to change your screen name, and not just because it contains a spelling error.
Back to Arizona...
--Erik
Thank you Eric, and sorry that some insensitive **** had to drag you back from vacation. Arizona?!? Is that really a vacation;)
Thanks for "above and beyond the call"!!FH
I plan on adding Spawn of Kyuss horde within the obsidian wall at the Spire of Long Shadows. Say, 30 or 40 of them milling about the outer portions of the Ziggurat, waiting to take orders from the Knight. “Move this over here, dog! Move this over there! Get a move on you scurvy worm-ridden bag of bones!” He needs people to boss around.
Our cleric has unearthed a few spells to protect from Kyuss’ Gift, also. Nature’s Embrace (and Mass Nature’s Embrace) I believe is the divine spell name. It comes in two forms:
Level 1, Nature’s Embrace
Protects creature touched from burrowing undead for 10 minutes per caster level.
The Level 3 version, Mass Nature’s Embrace is essentially the same as Level 1 except that it affects multiple willing creatures within a specific radius of the caster for 10 minutes per caster level.
I am looking forward to running this adventure this Friday.
And thanks for clearing the thread....
Guys, I had to drop in (on my vacation, no less) to clean up this thread a little.
Eric, I apologize for using "Castamanir" in a post... It will not happen again.
Oh... well after this post....
(And here I am wishing I looked at this thread earlier - I apparently missed the rampage :-) )
Spire of Long Shadows just overtook the Tomb of Horrors as most dangerous (and, by extension, most beloved) place in our campaign world. It took several parties (the first one wiped out, to that last guy living plane shifting out with one of the bodies) 3-4 successive attempts to get all the way through. The last group so far has survived by listening to the previous survivors ("death ward! Everybody better have a couple o' them up at all times, or the place'll eat yer souls!"), but the fight with the spellweaver lich is still to come.
Since this post got dragged back up and my party just entered the place this past weekend I thought I would share as well.
The party which consists of 6 members and is pretty well rounded first entered the ziggurat from the east entrance. As soon as they entered the main chamber where the altar used to be they were attacked by the beetles and kyuss knight. This battle worked them a little but they quickly healed up and opened the door to room 5 where the celestials were at. Having heared the battle outside the door, Kelvos was already invisible and had several prep spells on him. The group entered the room and got hit with the archon's aura. The paladin and the favored soul (tanks) stepped in first and got beat down by the Archons. The whole party was forced to flee as they couldn't get past the Archons to the invisible caster, and Kelvos continued to rain hell down on them, most painful spell was blasphemy which did 11 points of str damage. That instantly dropped the wizard and sent everybody into heavy load. With some fancy footwork by the rogue and some timely potions and scrolls the group got outside of the room. The favored soul dropped a wall of stone in front of the doorway while the group gathered and retreated. Kelvos in the mean time teleported into the main chamber and began using slashing darkness on the straglers. By the time they got over the obsidian wall the archons had busted through the wall of stone and all 3 went to the top of the ziggurat. The archons took flight and chased them down pulling up at the last second as they barely made it over the wall, then retreated back to the ziggurat.
So they learned two things here. The spire is very dangerous, and the obsidian wall keeps the monsters inside while they rest. I fully plan to use another encounter outside the spire if they get to comfortable.
They rested for the day then healed, spelled, and prepped up for another attempt. This time when they went over the wall, Kelvos and the Archons were on the look out from the top of the ziggurat again. The Archons set upon the group as they ran for the door, meanwhile Kelvos began to buff up again. The group killed the Archons on the ground having survived the dives, then 4 of them flew up to the top. Kelvos invisible again blasted 3 of them with a prismatic spray turning the mage into stone. The two survivors and the rogue jumped at where they thought he was (in the doorway), then he dropped blasphemy again for -3 str damage and dazing the 3 for a round. Kelvos then used slay living and destruction to no affect (they made saves). The paladin and favored soul finally reached the top of the ziggurat having run up the stairs and proceeded to jump in at where the others were attacking. The ranger flew back down into the bottom main chamber thinking to come up behind Kelvos in the narrow staircase effectively flanking him. Passing by room 5 He saw that the two walls were broken and there were worms on the ground (he and wormspawn make spot checks). Thinking nothing of it he continued up the stairs after Kelvos. Kelvos now being mostly buffed placed a wall of force in front of himself cutting off the main group and started running back down the stairs. The wormspawn are going up the stairs while the ranger is trapped between the two oblivious to his current situation.
We stopped there for the night and this saturday will see it's conclusion. This was all 1 session for us, so this is officially our longest battle in this campaign.
Party Info:
12th Favored Soul of Helm
12th Paladin/Templar
12th Wizard/Incantrix
12th Fighter/Rogue/Dervish/Acrobat (yes he's complicated)
12th Ranger/Fighter
12th Barbarian/Fighter
Cohort: 10th Cleric of Helm (holds down the camp, healing machine)
I loved SoLS, and do not dispute that it is an intense adventure, as evident by the tough "close-proximity" encounters (i.e., almost every room has an encounter of an EL 1 or 2 higher than the average party level). My only gripe with it is that it does feel abridged, like it does want to be a larger dungeon. But I believe that this is, ironically, due to the predominance of original creatures. Personally, I'll take these awesome new baddies over another GoW dungeon crawl (with respect to Mr. Baur's awesome adventure).
Easily the most infamous foe of the new batch was the Sword of Kyuss. The Invocation of the Worm is simply too good for the average party to compensate for. This is one ability that I would have nerfed, had not my players been so capable of dealing with a wide variety of foes. The encounter in area 5 is one of only two encounters they were forced to retreat from (and marked the first character death, as well). I agree with James Jacobs aforementioned alteration to the Swords' Invocation.
On the other hand, I think the Kyuss Knights--particularly Nezzarin--deserve better ranged capability. Personally, I gave them an ability that would allow them to reflect ray attacks, and recommend this to other DMs. Also, Mak'ar needs some room to breathe. Perhaps he could engage the PCs in a room akin to the Sea of Worms...one which contained, say, a waterfall of worms, emptying into the Sea of Worms, in room 13, one about 60 ft. by 60 ft. at least, with varying levels of terrain.
One more thing...
I recommend DMs provide some early access to death ward, via a wand or scrolls, as this spell alone makes an astronomical difference in this adventure; perhaps by substituting the wand of restoration (or splitting its charges amongst two wands) from the treasure chest Bozal Zahol (from TCB) keeps in his room. A party that enters the Spire with death ward up has had the foresight to warrant the easier fight, and thus will be rewarded by not having to expend resources to revive allies. On the other hand, this alone can nerf about half the enemies in the adventure, so the choice is yours.
Yeah, it's hard, but we had good fun and only one death which was an NPC. I changed the Invocation of the Worm as per above, and had I finished tweaking the Harbinger properly, he might have put up more of a fight. All up, it was a good adventure for showing the PC's that while they are getting more powerful, they can't just rest on their levels to succeed.
Originally they went in with Celeste as an NPC (under player control), and minus two of the main PC's. They fought their way in after a tough fight, and the first fight actually inside the ziggurat attracted the attention of all the adjoining rooms - quite a high EL! Although a number of enemies were partitioned off with a blade barrier, the sword archons killed Celeste outright with a full attack round each - basically, the PC's underestimated the threat level i.e. they were a bit lazy and found out too late.
So they teleported out, re-grouped, and, with all the main PCs etc (which was only 3x15th level, a 12th level follower and druid's animal companion, keeping in mind all are multiclassed so no-one had higher than 6th level spells available), they fought their way back in, past the fallen angels (of which Celeste was now one), and all the way to the Harbinger. I think they rested once in the middle of that, using rope trick.
They never even used negative energy protection. Their key to success was mainly just paying attention to the threats before them and playing smart. In the end, they were all pleasantly surprised at how much easier it was the second time around.
So as I say, a good adventure for showing players how they need to keep lifting their game at higher levels of play. Yes, the EL's are overall a bit too high, but in the context of the game we all felt it was justifiable, after all the PC's are going into Kyuss' old city, so if they expect a cake walk they have a screw or few loose - they should know they are treading dangerous ground and prepare appropriately.
Oddly enough, Spire of Long Shadows seemed to be exactly the point my players hit that break point where their saves skyrocketed over the creature attack DCs. Plus several of my players (not just the sorcerer) had found ways to routinely fly, with disgusting move rates, and the bow-wielding ranger was starting to do some obscene damage (that only increased over time, despite his protestations to the contrary).
The Spire was kind of a cakewalk for them, even when I started hitting them with numbers.
Which, tangentially, was the major lesson I learned while running AoW (my first time really running under 3.x rules) -- if you want to challenge your players, the real secret is numbers. I dreaded running them against single creatures, even BBEGs, because the fight would rarely go into its third round. The BBEG at the end of SoLS went down like a chump for me, even having gathered the other critters on the floor as additional defenders.
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Our AOW campaign bit the big one in this adventure. My group took out the beetles and the death knight, but then managed to trigger both the archon/eladrin and Swords of Kyuss/wormcaller battles at the same time! They got their tails whipped, but were able to beat a retreat, heal up, and return. Unfortunately, their return was pretty short-lived, as all but one of the PCs fell in a running battle with the survivors of those two previous encounters. The party rogue/shadowdancer was able to finish off the last baddie, and is now stranded in Kuluth Mar trying to get her friends' corpses over the wall before they rise as Spawn of Kyuss. Luckily, the party cleric consecrated the area where the fight took place, so she has time to do it. I'm going to run a short solo survival adventure where she can make her way back to the coast.
In the meantime, we're running STAP. The new group is just starting Sea Wyvern's Wake, so I am planning a guest appearance by the rogue from the other party. Basically, I'm going to give them a chance to rescue the rogue from AOW and transfer her to a ship bound for the north. Eventually, she should return to Magepoint, where Manzorian and Agath can resurrect the AOW party and let them head back to the Spire. Hopefully we can return to AOW once we've tapped out on STAP!
My party was clearly past the breakpoint which another poster mentioned, where the PCs' defenses outstrip the monster's attack DCs, everyone is flying (what are the Kyuss Knights supposed to do about that?) and nothing lasts more than two rounds. They went through Longshadow without ever being in serious danger. They had Death Ward on everyone so Enervation, Finger of Death, etc. did not work and the NPCs generally wasted their one and only action finding this out.
The player didn't care for it. Like others have said, he thought it was truncated, lacked a reasonable mix of encounters, and was also very static--just a bunch of critters in rooms. (I should, in retrospect, have invented activities and internal politics for them.) And he really chewed me out for putting three of the Kyuss Knights, who can't fly, in a room reachable only across the Sea of Worms. This made them pathetically useless and, he felt, robbed him of any real accomplishment.
I think Longshadow is very hard. For the PC party we had up through Hall of Harsh Reflections it would have been too hard. But after the double TPK in HoHR the player souped up his party using every trick available, and now nothing is hard. I think this is the downside of the very difficult Adventure Paths. They may teach players to work together and plan well, but they may also teach them to use every dubious splatbook race, class, feat or item they can find, pile on the buffs until they are nearly immune to everything, and then the game doesn't seem as much fun anymore. I really regret what happened to my campaign after HoHR but it seems too late to fix it now.
The one good thing that came out of Longshadow for us is that (for various backstory reasons) I gave the Harbinger of Worms his chromatic orb back and made it his phylactery. Only one of the PCs--the warlock who is plotting her own ascension--realized what it was and what keeping it would imply. She struck a deal with the Harbinger and kept it. I am looking forward to seeing what happens from that!
Mary
In the meantime, we're running STAP. The new group is just starting Sea Wyvern's Wake, so I am planning a guest appearance by the rogue from the other party.
Now I'm terribly curious. What did you replace the Wormfall Festival with, for Bullywug Gambit? Just a generic festival?
They had Death Ward on everyone so Enervation, Finger of Death, etc. did not work and the NPCs generally wasted their one and only action finding this out.
Heh. My players didn't even bother with Death Ward, their saves were so high.
Heh. My players didn't even bother with Death Ward, their saves were so high.
That only works if you have something that will allow a reroll. Otherwise 1s happen.
While not my true favorite module in the path, SoLS still has a soft spot in my heart due to its sheer deadliness and hostility of the dungeon's monsters. My party rolled in all Deathwarded and spelled up, but it really didn't matter. FIrst death was against Nezzarin, who surprised(!) the party paladin, slaying her with a couple of crits while the beetles stunned the rest of the party. Then Kelvos and crew killed another while sending the Cleric to another plane via the prismatic spray. Then, the worm nagas targeting the flying PCs with dispels, causing many 20d6 falls into the wormswarms...then the wrath of the Overworm criting for over 100 dmg, snapping the Wizard in two. I could go on, but every death was spectacular. My group of veteran players jaws dropped numerous times, which rarely happens in games. I am running the adventure path again (different group, Evil characters ala Savage Tide), so we'll see if the Spire is as deadly the second time around.
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2011 Top 16
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Then, the worm nagas targeting the flying PCs with dispels, causing many 20d6 falls into the wormswarms...
Damn how high up were they? You do know even if dispelled Fly provides the character with Feather Fall effect for 1d6 rounds. If they're not on the ground by that time they plummet.
Then, the worm nagas targeting the flying PCs with dispels, causing many 20d6 falls into the wormswarms...Damn how high up were they? You do know even if dispelled Fly provides the character with Feather Fall effect for 1d6 rounds. If they're not on the ground by that time they plummet.
Thanks for the instructional. Would it help if I stated that a couple of the checks were 1's on the d6? Probably not, nor would stating the that the 500 foot hole they transversed, even halfway down, caused a 20d6 fall. No, this is a legit tactic, and since I began the encounter with the PCs nearly 300 feet up, even those that got lucky on the D6 were still due for above 10d6 dmg...So, since you are questioning my knowledge of the game, Yes, I know how fly works. Thanks. Really.
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Now I'm terribly curious. What did you replace the Wormfall Festival with, for Bullywug Gambit? Just a generic festival?
I saw in the history of Sasserine that there was this legendary fight between Sasserine (the founder) and a big Black Dragon. I said that wormfall was a big festival honoring Sasserine's sacrifice for her people. I also said that the town's academy (name escapes me now) was the major sponsor of the parades and arena games that accompanied the festival.
I hated to lose the wormfall festival as written, because it would have really been a cool link between the two APs, but in my case I think what we will end up with is an even better link.
That festival is the only thing I've had to adjust to make the two APs run concurrently.
I've also heard that the AoW was playtested by the Dragon staff, meaning that it's balanced assuming that you're running it for expert players. In other words, if your players are newbies, you might like to give them a little help if they're attached to their characters (and it's always neat to get your first character all the way to twentieth level).
Wow, I've had 3 near TPKs in the 3 previous adventures to this one. I may have to tone it down a bit if my players are going to have any chance at all.