Well that was that, the party I DM was just wiped out by the Invisible Stalkers in the sodden hold. To their credit they did fight on to the bitter end and managed to take down one of the without see invisibility.
So I now have to shoehorn a new party in to the middle of the AOW campaign and I am planning to do it in the arena fights in the next adventure, and having the approached by Eligos after the event to fill in for the previous party.
Too bad really as they had a really interesting party going:
Male Dwarven Psychic warrior
Female human Monk (going sacred Fist)
Male human Fighter/Cleric of tempus (going warpriest)
Female human Ranger/Rogue/Scout
So the sodden hold hands out another TPK! That adventure is fricken deadly. I'd talk to your players about whether they want to try HoHR again, they may want some payback rather than starting over at Champions Belt.
what is so deadly about it? Other than the invisible stalkers and the advanced octopin, it looks challenging, but doable to me.
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Seems to me that it's one of those adventures that assumes access to some ol'-standby adventuring tools and character responses. If players just trudge their heroes through, bad things can (and do) result, from what I've read here.
Situation 1: Once the party realizes that either shapechanging or mind-controlling is afoot, they'd best start making use of divination magic or other proactive countermeasures.
Situation 2: When a beat-down starts to occur, FLEE, and return prepared! Those invisible stalkers are no joke. A handful of relatively inexpensive potions of See Invisibility, though--readily available in a metropolis--and it's a different battle.
Situation 3: Zyrzog isn't just foreshadowed--he sticks his tentacled face out for everyone to see in Sodden Hold before fleeing. Again, the smart players/wise heroes will take a moment to research the abilities of the creature, and prepare spells and gear accordingly. Again, this is easily done in a metropolis... and they have a loremaster contact, to boot.
It's not said in the adventures, many of which have appearances of classic kick-in-the-door D&D play, but really--the forewarned and forearmed Age of Worms heroes are the ones most likely to save the world. The AP can be a harsh teacher of this lesson, with mounting casualties reported in the "Obituaries" thread. If my players seem to be barreling through at the time they reach this adventure, I'll have Eligos give them some sagely in-character advice: "I have only come to this time and station [he'll be guildmaster of the Esoteric Order of Aureon in our Eberron campaign] through careful thought and planning. You are facing foes that would kill to protect their secrets. Use caution; wits will serve you as well as any blade or incantation."
Of course, if that doesn't do the trick, mind blasts and octopins may!
When you've got a warlock with 'see the unseen' and a 250 ft. ranged touch attack, and a spirit shaman that deals 7d6 damage to elemental creatures with 'chastise spirits', invisible stalkers just aren't that scary :)
Looks like I might have to eat my words. I just DMed the invisible stalker encounter and the PCs got their butts handed to them.
Granted, one of the PCs was missing that game (just so happened to be the warlock with the see invisibility) and one of them was Ixiaxian in disguise. The encounter was a near-TPK.
The party consisted of:
2 7th level PCs - cleric 7 and spirit shaman 7
1 5th level cohort - scout 2/bard 3
1 CR 8 Ixiaxian - doppelganger rogue 1/chameleon 4
The PCs had already spent a lot of spells fighting Martal and Regim. The spirit shaman's chastise ability dealt major damage to the stalkers, but then they beat him down into the negatives. The scout/bard was fairly ineffective, although his inspire ability helped a little.
Outcome: The PCs survived and defeated the stalkers and Ixiaxian, but it was really close. If I were to do it over, I would use only one stalker. The player who was playing Ixiaxian felt guilty about turning on his party when they were nearly dead and needed his help most, but I think he enjoyed it anyways.
Agggh - I hate running encounters with invisible creatures. I think I will cut it down to one. My players are the type that would fight to the bitter end, even though the wise choice would be to retreat and try to find something to help them see it.
My group just defeated Telekin. The really tough encounter up to this point was that dang octopus! They "entered" the room 40' below the surface only to run into 8 nasty tentacles with a 20 foot reach. That encounter took out the party wizard and nearly TPK'd them all.
FYI - The party rogue pinned Telakin down by "readying" his action to fire at Telakin when he went to cast a spell. That was a key move to help end a killer encounter. Nicely played.
If the default city is Greyhawk, how exactly does an octopus live in fresh water?
If the default city is Greyhawk, how exactly does an octopus live in fresh water?
There was some speculation on this earlier. But there are many saltwater species that have freshwater relatives. There are freshwater sharks in Lake Nicaragua. So why can't there be freshwater giant octopi in the Nyr Dyv? If that doesn't work for you, I'm sure one could be captured at sea and brought to Greyhawk in a special "aquarium ship." No reason there couldn't be a magical device that maintains the desired salinity of the water.
I didn't even get to use the octopus. The warforged (who doesn't need to breathe) went down the shaft into the room first, and lowered the water level. By the time the others got there, the water was gone. No octopus. I also didn't get to use Telakin to his fullest either. He was in the guise of Eligos when they found him, and the druid(in troll form) charged him and immediately grappled. I had no choice but to turn into the barbarian and rage, escaping the grapple. I didn't even get any good hits in, really. I added two other DGs with Elaxan's stats as minions and it still wasn't much of a challenge. However, they all think that Eligos is dead now, realizing that Telakin was a greater DG. *devious grin*
If the default city is Greyhawk, how exactly does an octopus live in fresh water?
By being native to a fantasy world :)
Giants are a far bigger (pun intended) problem than fresh-water octopi.
....and the druid(in troll form) charged him and immediately grappled.
One of my players is thinking about a druid for a replacement character. Quick question...how did the druid get into troll form? Did he use his wild shape (combined with some feat as it only allows animal forms at HOHR levels) or get polymorphed by the wizard? Mainly asking to get clarification on wild shape.
I actually have a much easier time suspending disbelief for dragons and giants than for freshwater octopi. I think this is simply because in the former instance they are clearly mythical creatures, but in the latter instance I know there really are octopi and *know* they can't live in fresh water.
But can a kraken live in fresh water? See, for that question I'm split down the middle.
Forget the invisible stalkers; try one mind blast from Zyrxog taking down everyone but the party's wizard. Then it turned into a spell duel between the mind flayer and the wizard; both were zipping around the room pelting each other with evocations while the wizard was *also trying to keep the octopins occupied with summoned creatures so it wouldn't eat his friends.
In the end, 3 of the 5 PCs were knocked into single-digit HP, the fourth (wizard) used every spell in his repertoire along with a half-dozen scrolls and most of a wand, and the fifth party member died after dealing the killing blow to Zyrxog.
And they still don't talk about it as much as they talk about the feast at Prince Zeech's....
Forget the invisible stalkers; try one mind blast from Zyrxog taking down everyone but the party's wizard. Then it turned into a spell duel between the mind flayer and the wizard; both were zipping around the room pelting each other with evocations while the wizard was *also trying to keep the octopins occupied with summoned creatures so it wouldn't eat his friends.
In the end, 3 of the 5 PCs were knocked into single-digit HP, the fourth (wizard) used every spell in his repertoire along with a half-dozen scrolls and most of a wand, and the fifth party member died after dealing the killing blow to Zyrxog.
And they still don't talk about it as much as they talk about the feast at Prince Zeech's....
Sounds like a great session to me! As memorable as the battle with the Faceless One and follow-on desperate fight with the Aspect in my campaign! (*Shamelessly plugs campaign log on this site: The Company of Light*)
I actually have a much easier time suspending disbelief for dragons and giants than for freshwater octopi. I think this is simply because in the former instance they are clearly mythical creatures, but in the latter instance I know there really are octopi and *know* they can't live in fresh water.
Suit yourself. However, it is a common device in fantasy literature to make small changes to real-world flora and fauna to provide flavor, so there's no reason not to do it for a fantasy roleplay setting, IMO. (E.g. poison peaches and ravens that behave abnormally and are the spies of the Dark One in Jordan's Wheel of Time, or talking birds and wolves that let goblins ride on their backs in the Hobbit.)
The adaptation from salt water to fresh water is a pretty minor one in evolutionary terms--I suspect (maybe some biologists on the boards can enlighten us more here) just a matter of a small mutation or two. In addition to the fresh water sharks cited above, think about anadromous fish like salmon or steelhead trout, which actually move back and forth between fresh and salt water two or more times during the course of their lives. Obviously, there must be some small biological mechanism that gives them a tolerance to a wide variation in salinity, or allows them to switch between a high salinity and a low salinity environment. There are certainly other freshwater molluscs, and I can't think of any reason why freshwater cephalopods are a biological impossibility, just because they don't happen to exist, as far as we know, on the contemporary planet earth. Perhaps, many eons ago, the Nyr Dyv was an arm of the sea. The geological upheavals that created the Abbor Alz and the Cairn Hills cut it off from the sea, and the inflow of fresh water from the several great rivers that flow into it gradually flushed out the salt water. Many of the native species died off and were replaced by those that migrated downriver from Lake Quag or Lake Whyestil, but some were able to make the evolutionary transition to a freshwater environment. The much-feared Nyr Dyv Giant Octopus was one of the latter.
So, even in a low-magic alternative earth, a freshwater octopus seems quite believable to me.
I just read through the AoW AP and I wonder how any group should survive this. By what is planned in the rules a party of 4 can manage four encounters of their ECL, the fifth is likely to kill on PC. They of course could only handle fewer higher level encounters. Now just as an example take HoHR. Most of the encounters in Sodden Hold are EL8 or HIGHER!!, but the adventure is for level 7 PCs (at that point they surely did not reach level 8). If you want to be realistic, the PCs have no chance to rest, not in the hideout and not outside, as the doppelganger would see that something is amiss and would take respective meassures. So even on the ground floor, the PCs have to deal with more than 5 encounters higher than their ECL.
Now back to the Invisible stalkers, dungeon says they are EL 9, one of them is CR 7, two are EL 9, true, but this does not take into account that the PCs are on shakey ground (so they are probably flat-footed), that this shakey ground might easily collapse and that the water does also do lots of damage (1d4 times 1d6+4 and then while swimming still 1d2 times 1d6+4 for every 10ft swimming). So this could be at least a EL10 encounter, I would say rather EL 11.
So from what I read some people succeeded, but I am not surprised about regular TPKs.
I just read through the AoW AP and I wonder how any group should survive this. By what is planned in the rules a party of 4 can manage four encounters of their ECL, the fifth is likely to kill on PC. They of course could only handle fewer higher level encounters. Now just as an example take HoHR. Most of the encounters in Sodden Hold are EL8 or HIGHER!!, but the adventure is for level 7 PCs (at that point they surely did not reach level 8). If you want to be realistic, the PCs have no chance to rest, not in the hideout and not outside, as the doppelganger would see that something is amiss and would take respective meassures. So even on the ground floor, the PCs have to deal with more than 5 encounters higher than their ECL.
Now back to the Invisible stalkers, dungeon says they are EL 9, one of them is CR 7, two are EL 9, true, but this does not take into account that the PCs are on shakey ground (so they are probably flat-footed), that this shakey ground might easily collapse and that the water does also do lots of damage (1d4 times 1d6+4 and then while swimming still 1d2 times 1d6+4 for every 10ft swimming). So this could be at least a EL10 encounter, I would say rather EL 11.
So from what I read some people succeeded, but I am not surprised about regular TPKs.
None of my PCs have been down to negative hp yet, so I'm very surprised by all the TPKs out there. We're planning to finish up HoHR tonight, and they're about to enter Xyrzog's (Chyraask's) domain. The plank/invisible stalker room was the most difficult after the mimics, but up to that point, no area really has given them trouble since the Passage of the Face in WC. The spawn of Kyuss in EaBK wasn't even a threat. They took it down before heading out to rescue Marzena. Are alot of the TPKs other groups are experiencing due to bad rolling by the Players, or clever tactics by the DM?
Another thing I am surprised about is Zyrxog's CR. They say CR 11 and he is a 7th level Sorcerer Mindflayer, but in the MM a 9th level Sorceror Mindflayer has CR 17...
May it be that all those options apart from Core make characters in general much stronger and that PCs only created with Core rules have less chances to survive? i have no experience, but maybe someone played rather Core and had no problems/lots of problems whereas others who use lots of option have less?
....and the druid(in troll form) charged him and immediately grappled.One of my players is thinking about a druid for a replacement character. Quick question...how did the druid get into troll form? Did he use his wild shape (combined with some feat as it only allows animal forms at HOHR levels) or get polymorphed by the wizard? Mainly asking to get clarification on wild shape.
Sorry, forgot to add that the druid has levels in Master of Many Forms, thus he is able to turn into a troll...albeit without the special abilities.
Zyrxog's CR has already been discussed ad nauseam in earlier threads. The essence of the CR assignment, IIRC, is that the psionic strength of the Mind Flayer as base race and the spellcasting strength of the Sorcerer are significantly different--Sorcerer levels don't boost the strength of the base creature, so sorcerer isn't counted as an "associated class" and each sorcerer level boosts the CR by 1/2.
I think this AP is a meatgrinder for groups that don't use good tactics and make poor use of their resources. Teamwork is absolutely essential, and effective intelligence gathering is very helpful. (I.e. by 7th level your party cleric can, and should, cast divination before each foray into a dungeon, and hopefully the DM can give away a couple of choice hints that will allow the spellcasters to prepare the right spells, without giving things away too much). Don't split the party, don't rush headlong into the dungeon without checking for traps, etc. The party should have a cleric and at least one secondary healer, and both should be equipped with well-charged cure wands of an appropriate strength. (My party has a cleric, a paladin, and a bard, and having two backup healers has saved the day at least twice.) These adventures do not encourage a "kick-down-the-door" style of play, unless you give the party a level or two headstart, or have a large party that has room for someone to go down in combat. The encounters are tough, but manageable, if the party avoids making any mistakes, and their luck doesn't go badly south. (If everyone's been rolling 6's and 8's all night, it's probably best to retreat after three encounters).
From the DM angle, everyone takes different attitudes, but I think whatever you can do to encourage teamwork is good. Also, it's good to review the adventures (and the obits thread, and other threads like this one that discuss the tough spots) to see what is going to be tough for your players--then modify encounters or make sure they are equipped with gear and or knowledge to deal with the challenge. You can also modify adventures to create appropriate spots where the PCs can rest or temporarily withdraw from the dungeons, or eliminate some of the superfluous encounters (the mimics in the entry room, the octopus in Sodden Hold, the yellow mold, the naga, and the vrock in Zyrxog's lair would be examples from this adventure). The missing XP can be made up by a story award, or by just eliminating XP altogether and telling the players to level up their characters at appropriate junctures.
Sorry for bringing up Zyrxog again (although I disagree that he is only CR11, but no need to discuss this again, I will search for the respective thread), I was not around the board at the time. But thank you very much for this elucidation. Now I am confident, that my players could handle this with only some minor modifications (I already thought about the exact changes you mentioned!).
I cannot wait to play the AOW, but in the moment I am still running my own campaign, which I cannot and do not want to stop in favor of AOW.
I think this AP is a meatgrinder for groups that don't use good tactics and make poor use of their resources. Teamwork is absolutely essential, and effective intelligence gathering is very helpful. (I.e. by 7th level your party cleric can, and should, cast divination before each foray into a dungeon, and hopefully the DM can give away a couple of choice hints that will allow the spellcasters to prepare the right spells, without giving things away too much). Don't split the party, don't rush headlong into the dungeon without checking for traps, etc. The party should have a cleric and at least one secondary healer, and both should be equipped with well-charged cure wands of an appropriate strength. (My party has a cleric, a paladin, and a bard, and having two backup healers has saved the day at least twice.) These adventures do not encourage a "kick-down-the-door" style of play, unless you give the party a level or two headstart, or have a large party that has room for someone to go down in combat. The encounters are tough, but manageable, if the party avoids making any mistakes, and their luck doesn't go badly south. (If everyone's been rolling 6's and 8's all night, it's probably best to retreat after three encounters).
Agreed. I DM for six, and at the end of the Whispering Cairn, after deaths, we had three CN characters, a LN character, a CG character and a LG character. The characters conflicted on a lot of issues: many of the N characters were more "shoot first, ask questions later" types, for instance. The LG cleric in the group is taking Exalted stuff, so he's trying to reign the group in and teach them the benefits of stronger morals, a love for life, and teamwork, especially after certain members of the group instigated a bar fight that resulted in the death of Kullen. When Filge was "forcefully subdued" by the party and brought to the holding cells of the church of the Silver Flame for questioning instead of just smearing him and taking the bones, I knew they were headed in an interesting direction. So far the cleric has managed to convert the CN ranger and artificer into CG characters after two side adventures, some sanctified spells from Book of Exalted Deeds, nightly conversion attempts, and generally a whole lot of preaching. And the side adventure was all about the characters going out into the wild to train for Teamwork benefits!
I just started running my players through Sodden Hold tonight. It may have been the most entertaining encounter for me in the AP so far.
So the druid/barbarian shapechanges into a hawk and flies accross the room. The dwarf monk heads accross the beams. The warmage and enchantress are standing in the doorway. And the ranger and his cleric cohort are gathering crates to cross with.
I had one stalker attack the monk during a surprise round. On the first round of initiative I attacked him again and the d/b. The d/b flies out of the room, and the monk holds his ground to miss a grapple attempt. The warmage tells the monk to move and delays. Both stalkers attack the monk. while the others sit trying to find a way to help. The monk finally shouts for the warmage not to worry he has evasion (I allow characters to speak out of turn). The warmage then cast Ice Storm... there's no save so no evasion!! The monk takes it full on and then retreats out of the room (He only had 6 hp's left). The rest of the party is now preoccupied with healing the monk while the stalkers go to work on the warmage, who rolled amazingly on his defensive rolls (from Unearthed Arcana). He casts blade ring (I think) and a ring of swords sprouts from his body damaging the stalkers more, but now the party can't get close enough to heal him. So the stalkers 5' adjust and attack from reach. He casts combustion, not realizing they were out of range. The rest of the party is still trying to heal up the monk. More damage to the warmage. But then he steps away from the wall, blade damage and another combustion take out the stalkers.
1 character took out both invisible stalkers. And I got to watch him almost kill the monk.
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My party has pretty much breezed through this.....the only really tough encounter was the octopus. The end encounter was a joke!!!!! telekin (if that was ihis name) got one spell..then he was webbed (which sucks becasue he had no ranks in concentraction..so he failed casting a few spells, plus the party blinded him. So he was pretty much target!!! So far I have been disappointed with the all mods up to this point....
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My party has pretty much breezed through this.....the only really tough encounter was the octopus. The end encounter was a joke!!!!! telekin (if that was ihis name) got one spell..then he was webbed (which sucks becasue he had no ranks in concentraction..so he failed casting a few spells, plus the party blinded him. So he was pretty much target!!! So far I have been disappointed with the all mods up to this point....
Web? It's a 30 foot ceiling room. Even assuming a mid air burst web can anchor top and bottom, it's not that big a web "footprint".
Telakin also has blind-fight. If he's webbed - they can't reach him either and webs provide some concealment bonus. Telakin has a huge Ref bonus and just retreats to the other side of the web - casts confusion and then woe betide the party if they fail their Will saves. The web quickly will becomes a fly paper for confused fighters and a defence for Telakin - not a hindrance.
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I ran the latter half of Sodden Hold this eve. It claimed 2 more PCs and it was down to the wire against Telakin. The Druid pretty much saved the party's bacon and we've all come to develop a rudging respect for summoned crocodiles (a critter not to be underestimated)
Put simply, the AC 22, 1d8+6, +13/+8 doppelganger fighters are kick ass mean to a party of this power level. With so many attack rolls - wielding longswords - the critical chances go up - way up. And I was rolling pretty well too.
I followed the module more or less. After the first group of doppelgangers were attacked and the PC freed, the party advanced on Telakin. The Wiz saw the PCs coming at him using his clairvoyance. He withdrew his personal guard from the maze to his chamber, buffed with Mage Armor and Resist Energy (fire) and positioned his guards inside the room.
The 'Gangers won inititative and the fireball scroll was used as their opening salvo. The fireball flew into the maze as the gangers then moved to the door, blocking the entrace and attacking. The party's tank took 54 points, two others 31 each.
And so it started.
Before all was said and done, Telakin had used up nearly all his spells, the party almost all of their (remianing) spells. The fighter and the rogue died and I would have picked off two others with the remaining fireball (I had Talakin hold it back almost until the very end) if they had failed their reflex saves.
It was nasty -- bloody nasty.
As the party returned with the treasure and their comrades' bodies, they looked down to see Zyrxog at the secret entrance.
I made the "fingers waving under chin" sign and held up the front cover of the issue.
Even Dave, a veteran player of 30 years look startled as the new foe was confirmed as a mind flayer.
"Kill them!" it hissed. Then the lights went out as darkness descended over the remaining - and spell exhausted - party members.
I ended the (very long) session at 1:00 a.m. right there.
The general opinion of the players is that the AP is extremely tough - but there is a drudging enjoyment of the diffculty I think. With TPK's lurking around the corner every session - nobody is much surprised anymore at the lethality level of the encounters.
*Cough*
IT IS NOT FRESH WATER.
There is no light down this shaft, and the water is very salty.
*Just in time*