OK so I'm pretty new to DMing and am running my PCs through the AoW campaign (obviously)
I'm not sure if I ran an Encounter from TFoE correctly or not. My understanding of the temple of Hextor was that the cultists and skeletons delay the PCs at the beginning of it, allowing one of them to go open the door to release the dire boar. Once the dire boar shows up all the bad guys from areas 1-5 run to the bottom part of area 11. The rest of the bad guys from areas 6 - 10 go to the balcony in area 11 and start raining arrows/spells upon the PCs.
This is the way I ran that temple, and how i understood to run it from Dungeon magazine. So I'm just wondering if that was how it was supposed to be run or no? My party lost 2 people and then decided never to come back (effectively ending my campaign), cause they felt i was too mean.
So yeah let me know please. Also, if anyone has any tips for the PCs and how to get through the giant room of death
Oh yeah, you ran it correctly. The temple of Hextor is an efficient militant organization with wise and intelligent leaders. Preparing for an incursion such as the PC's only makes sense. The party I run for was almost wiped out, everyone was in negatives at the end. But this allowed for an escape scenario.
One of my players, who also DM's, asked me about it. He figured out the EL and was wondering why it was so high and what the party could have done. I explained that the party knew the temple was alerted, but went forward anyway. Intelligent foes will act intelligently. And there were other directions they could have gone in.
Did your players see the tiefling give the "secret knock"? Did they go into that temple anyhow. Did they let the cultists release the boar, fight the boar, and give the temple time to organize? Ask your players what they would have done if they had these resources and were defending their temple.
I've adjusted some of the EL's in AoW, but I felt this one was justified.
Did your players see the tiefling give the "secret knock"? Did they go into that temple anyhow. Did they let the cultists release the boar, fight the boar, and give the temple time to organize? Ask your players what they would have done if they had these resources and were defending their temple.
Ok well the Tiefling did gave the "we're under attack" knock. The PCs managed to kill all the skeletons right away (cleric with turning) and then slay the cultists right away. So the PCs ended up opening the door to the dire boar, and killing it too. So basically all they had to contend with was the guys from area 6 - 10 up on the balcony, and 2 trog zombies on the floor.
The only thing i changed from the written adventure was i swap out one of Theldrick's 3rd level spells (Create Food and Water) for a 3rd level Cleric spell from the Book of Vile Darkness called Unliving Weapon (basically when ever the affected undead creature takes a single point of damage it explodes and deals 1d6 per 2 caster levels in a 10 ft radius). So a 3rd level spell that did 2d6 points of damage was not all that over powering I think (although 2 of the PCs in negative hp were in the area effect when it went off, killing them. but such is life).
Does anyone have any tips on how their PCs fought/survived this room?
My players finished the Temple of Hextor about 2 weeks ago. I was worried about TPKing them from all the messages on this forum. One factor in their favor was that they had 6 players instead of 4 and they all built effective characters. My players went down the elevator expecting a large and dangerous encounter at the bottom, and they prepared correctly including having a silence spell pre-cast so that they effectively cut down the guards ability of alerting the temple. This allowed them to take on the temple in more of a piece meal fashion.
The skeletons and cultist where quickly taken down by the Cleric of Heironeous and the half-orc fighter/barbarian with power attack and cleave. They readied against the Beast when it busted down the door and Beast lasted a whole 2 rounds(only hitting once) before it was torn to pieces. My players heard the description for the Main Temple area and the first words out of their mouths was that it sounded like a gladiatorial arena and a bad place to get trapped. Hence no matter what I tried they would not step one foot into the temple.
After that they simple busted down the barracked doors in area 6-10 and systematically killed everyone in the temple. They gave as good as they got, and in the end they stood in victory over the temple. No one ever went to negative(some got close), and no one died. The players went away happy after a 6.5 real life hours combat session. Over all I thought it was a great area, and all of my players agreed.
If the players can separate out the battles then the individual EL's are way lower than the party. In this case the use of a single silence spell drastically changed the flow of battle to the PCs favor. Though their use of the silence spells in the Caves of Erythnul is not working out as great as the parties spots are not high enough to see the Grimlocks before they attack from ambush.
They are currently about to finish the Caves of Erythnul, and then they will be on to the Labyrinth of Vecna. Do to the nature of how my players game I am going to need to increase the power of the 'Ebon Aspect' as a single creature vs six fourth level players will not last long at all.
Any ways just wanted to share my players and my experience with the Temple of Hextor.
Later
My party gave the temple ample time to muster ALL of its resources into the battle room, but killed the person on his way to release the boar. In trying to be a good DM, I reasoned that the temple would assume the boar had been released, and did not send another NPC to release it.
The party found the boar, and slammed the door in its face.
The party then moved to the temple, and the fighter reasoned that the odds were against them, and shut the door behind them. They moved through the "apartments" area, and prepared for a fight.
In the interest of moving action along, I flanked the party--first, sending waves of tiefling archers and zombies at them, filling the area with darkness, and making the party use a lot of resources.
This was followed up by the clerics and Theldrik moving in. The party held their ground--a good use of a scroll of call lightning from the party artificer took out one of the clerics, while the party wizard held the other cleric, a tiefling, and Theldrick off with a well-placed grease in the hallway. The fighter and the rogue held off the zombies and the other tieflings with good blows and excellent use of full defense actions--I reasoned that it was beyond the zombie's tactics to overrun the defender, which would have certainly turned the tide in battle.
The rogue was almost killed when the fighter rushed the greased clerics and grappled Theldrik. Again, I tried to behave as the Mockery Monks would--it seemed that they would defend Theldrik. The male cleric and tiefling joined the grapple, and the fighter held his own!
I wanted to keep Theldrick as an NPC for later, so I had pre-determined that he would run at 1/3 HP. It was a wonderful scene--he escaped the grapple, crawled through the grease on hands and knees, and got to his feet. He ripped off a necklace--a symbol of his status, and flung it at the male cleric, shouting "You're in charge now!" before fleeing the scene.
The wizard used a potion to heal the rogue, who made effective use of sneak attacks against the other grapplers. The party finished off all the combatants but the zombies.
Here, we were pretty much at a point where the zombies were killable, but would have taken a long time... I decided that it would simply not have been fun to continue combat. The main bad guys had been defeated, and the zombies just were not a compelling enemy. So, I had the zombies retreat to the temple and stoically stand guard--the players took a few potshots, but realized they were safe, and quickly re-grouped and healed up, then commandered a bedroom and recovered.
Theldrick, on his way out, released the boar. He also took the lift up to the surface, leaving the party with no way out. I intend to resolve this situation by rewarding the players for a good deed--they had subdued one of the human cultists, who I played as a Diamond Lake youth. After getting information from him, they told him he had fallen in with a bad crowd, and to go home to mom and dad.
I'm going to end TFoE with Dad and the boy coming down to the temple so Dad can "have a talk" with Theldrik (who is BTW long gone). The elevator will be down at this point, and Dad & Boy will witness the Overgod Aspect rising from the dark pool... I love DMing :)
In any case, enough bragging about my party. You're in a bind, and I'd hate to see you stop playing AoW because of one bad TPK. Perhaps you could borrow something from my campaign--one of the cultists witnessed the slaughter of the players, and became horrified with the cult--he'd never really believed they were capable of that. He goes to the surface, and, not knowing what to do, goes to the smartest man in town for help. Together, the boy and Allustan try to assemble a team to clear out the mine and save Diamond Lake. Perhaps one of your players could even take on the role of the defector cultist (a monk, cleric, or fighter), and you could help the players out with a bit of tactics knowledge from this perspective.
The Half Dragon Twins never like foes to get away.
With a ninja in the party, entering the arena from the back
was inevitable.
I know I didn't give that away because I hadn't read that
part before hand.
As for killing Theldrick, he came back as a Heckuvah(bad spelling).
By getting killed by non-believers he offended his diety.
I had exactly the same problem - my first party wasn't tactically minded, and the rogue was an idiot (see my post on the Obituaries thread).
TPK...
After my group made new characters (bumped up a level), I added Melinde and 6 1st level warriors to form a strike force to raid the mines. Less experience for the party, but I'm offsetting it by awarding XP bonuses for each NPC to survive the adventure.
I would probably let the party recruit some help - Involve Melinde or maybe some of the Free City Trio...
Also, the new paladin bought a CLW wand. This has been a total campaign-saver.
So far, they tore through Theldrick's (although I'm having some issues with their desires to retreat and call in "air raids" - "We know there's evil here - we should go back and get the entire garrison down here" - "Um, you do know that YOU'RE the HEROES?")
My PCs had a difficult time with the Hextorites, but only at the end. They spotted the tieflings in the cathedral and killed them quickly before they could warn the others. They blasted the zombies in the surprise round. They killed the other tieflings who were surprised rather quickly too. Then they wiped out the fanatics and the beast (who crit'd the fighter to negs).
Of course, this sapped their resources when they hit the next guard station. That's when the poopstorm started -- the rest of the temple showed up in waves. It was close 2 of 4 PCs unconscious (fighter and cleric). It became rogue & sorcerer vs Theldrick. Lots of fun as I tried every dirty trick I could. An epic battle.
My players are used to tough fights because we're all LG players and nasty encounters above EL are par for the course. In hind sight, the mods are tough for 3-4 characters and easy for 6. That seems to be their target party size.
My suggestion for parties of 3, hire a min/maxed NPC to fill out the party. For parties of 4, be generous with magic resources like potions, scrolls, wands of CLW, alchemist fire, guard dogs, etc. They need the umph early on. If you play it right, they'll run through the stuff fast.
BTW, for PCs using silence against grimlocks, grimlocks can't "see" into silence so they can't ambush anything. when they fight in a silence field, they have a blind mischance. (blindsense) They "see" through hearing since they don't have eyes...and they can only "see" 40 or so feet. I played a grimlock devoted defender before and these things came up quite often.
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
|
BTW, for PCs using silence against grimlocks, grimlocks can't "see" into silence so they can't ambush anything. when they fight in a silence field, they have a blind mischance. (blindsense) They "see" through hearing since they don't have eyes...and they can only "see" 40 or so feet. I played a grimlock devoted defender before and these things came up quite often.
Silence does impair the grimlocks blindsight, but they also rely on their sense of smell. You'd need some sort of weird anti-smell spell to make them completely blind. Theortically, they could smell the enemy from 40' away (and possibly the half-orc from twice that distance). From the SRD:
Negating a grimlock’s sense of smell or hearing reduces {their blindsight ability} to normal Blind-Fight (as the feat). If both these senses are negated, a grimlock is effectively blinded.
However, getting into an ambush position would be a lot harder if the only advanced warning is from smell rather than sound.
Heh - my party (halfling Drd3 on war dog, halfling Ftr3, human Rog1/Sor2, Human Rog3) had quite an interesting experience in the Hextorian temple - The Dire Boar was an ally three times that day.
They managed to kill off the Tieflings as the skeletons filed out to assist (I misread the adventure). The skeletons presented a pretty tough fight, actually, since there are zero bludgeoning weapons in the party. But they persevered, and headed into the temple. They managed to take down the cultists and even the tieflings very quickly, before they could even unlock the Dire Boar's door.
Then they found the Dire Boar. The Druid was ecstatic, and immediately went about trying to win over the boar. I had decided that the Boar would be "Unfriendly" to start - no order to attack had been given - and wouldn;t you know it but the Druid got him all the way to Friendly. So the party had a quite powerful ally on their side.
Now, so far the remainder of the temple is completely unaware of the incursion. They are convinced tha the statue of Hextor will animate and attack if they set foot in the arena, and so loop around.
Through the 5' corridor.
That the Dire Boar has to squeeze to get through.
So picture the halfling Druid, on his riding dog, pushing with all his might and cajoling with all his charm, to get this smelly, slobbering beast to squeeze itself through the tiny corridor. That's what he did, at the back of the party. Once they enetered the corridor to teh side of teh arena, it was one long, continual combat.
Highlights: The Fighter takes Kendra down well past -10 in one swipe with a critical from his greataxe. The Boar munches on a fully buffed Garras, before falling to Theldrick. Finally, it comes down to Theldrick and the bruised and battered party, when the Sorcerer remembers a particularly interesting item found in Filge's lab - A Scroll of Raise Dead.
A quick caster level check, and up comes the Boar as a zombie. Theldrick whales on the thing, and actually KILLS it again (yes, with double HD and d12s), but not before the party is able to regroup, and finally take Theldrick down.
In the aftermath, a firepit is built and the party feasts on roast pig!! Quite an exhilirating adventure. I can't imagine what these guys are gonna do in the Vecna maze . . .
Chris
I think you mean "Animate Dead"?
My party killed the boar pretty quickly, but Theldrick escaped to the temple of Vecna, only to return later and animate the boar. The party wizard, however, knew only one 2nd-level spell, "Command Undead". They turned the boar to their side and proceeded to trample through the labyrinth with the boar in the lead.
The first time in, the party downed the two tieflings in the cathedral easily enough, but not before one managed to alert the Hextor temple. The party chopped their way through the skeletons and were preparing to coup de grace the cultists put to sleep by the sorceror, when one of the guard tieflings released the boar.
Beast rampaged down the corridor, gutting the PC sorceror into minuses in a single hit and nearly killing the fighter when he attempted to rescue the sorceror. The party retreated to the top of the lift to recuperate.
I reasoned that Theldrick would set up an ambush and set up all his forces in and around the skeleton's chamber, with everyone rushing into position as soon as they heard the lift coming back down.
So, the party opens the door after a night's rest. They get into the skeleton room and are beginning to explore when the left door opens and the cultists charge out, the right door opens and Theldrick steps out with a couple of tieflings, a third tiefling releases Beast and I utter the magic words "roll for initiative".
My party's druid didn't bother with talking, he went straight to charm monster. And I failed the save by 1 point. Beast spent the battle goring zombies and tieflings. Theldrick spent several rounds swiping at the rogue with a Inflict Serious Wounds and missing while she attempted to feint him into sneak attack city. The fighter chopped his way through the cultists and into Garras and Kendra and the druid cast his fire spells.
Ah well. I'll do better with the Faceless One and his big bugs...
Silence does impair the grimlocks blindsight, but they also rely on their sense of smell. You'd need some sort of weird anti-smell spell to make them completely blind. Theortically, they could smell the enemy from 40' away (and possibly the half-orc from twice that distance). From the SRD:
Negating a grimlock’s sense of smell or hearing reduces {their blindsight ability} to normal Blind-Fight (as the feat). If both these senses are negated, a grimlock is effectively blinded.
However, getting into an ambush position would be a lot harder if the only advanced warning is from smell rather than sound.
My party finally got the two grimlocks on the archer's ledge by webbing them (they escaped but couldn't easily get to the escape ladder), then burning the web, which put smoke in the air and effectively wiped out their scent ability, then the bard cast silence on himself and rolled up onto the ledge, making quick work of the pair, which had the 50% miss chance.