What encounter do you believe is the most difficult in the whole Adventure Path?
Delvesdeep
Well, we haven't played all the way through yet, but the encounter from today's game turned out to be the deadliest for my players thus far. They were exploring the ruins of Karran-Kurral's lower level after defeating the ghereleth guardian. They ended up fighting Xail the bone naga and his friend the fiendish half-orc at the same time they fought Fetor Abradius. Fetor disintegrated the bard in the group and inflicted enough pain with his lightning bolts and vampiric touches to infuriate the other characters before teleporting away to safety when his allies had been killed and he had been wounded.
What encounter do you believe is the most difficult in the whole Adventure Path?
Delvesdeep
What encounter do you believe is the most difficult in the whole Adventure Path?
Delvesdeep
I remember Kazmojen in the first chapter being a tough one compared to the party level (almost TPKed my party).
We were nearly TPKed by Kazmojen as well.
Vhalantru was no pushover either.
We have played thru Demonskar Legacy and the Fire Giant smithy was the toughest... I actually killed the dwarven fighter/berserker with a 127 hp smack in 1 round.
He was down, got up (AOO - did 22), then it was the giants turn and he crited on the 1st attack, then hit with the 2nd and 3rd. +68 + 8d6 for 105... Dead..
The giant wanted to talk, however the dwarf f/b was talking smack. The human righeous warrior calmed the situation down till the other dwarf (paladin/fighter) gave the giant the choice of a clean kill taking off his head or the 'hard way'
heh....
-- david
I have been DM'ing SCAP for 2yrs now, and my party will face Hookface this evening. Two encounters stand out as exceedingly difficult for them
1 - Aushanna in the Kua-Toa complex smoked them like a cheap cigar. TPK
2 - Triel in flood season took 3 of the 6 below 0 before she finally went down.
In the immediate future I feel Hookface will probably get at least two especially if they go arial, and Moltenwing in 13 cages has a good chance of getting a few. In fact, I think 13 cages will probably be the most difficult because of the time pressure. As for Shatterhorn I dont see any encounter there being to difficult for my PC's to overcome, although sometimes they just do dumb things. The final showdown with Adimarchus will be very diffiuclt I think, but it should be interesting.
Well my party are only hafway through Drakthar's Way and found fighting Drakthar tough...only because the Cleric forgot he could spontaneously "cure" the vampire for 1d8+3 per round. :)
Otherwise, Kazmojen was fun. Having him and Prickles going full force into the party was nearly a TPK. Most of the party were down to their last HPs although no one had dropped, when the Ranger critted with the hook on his hook-hammer for x4 on prickles, cleaved into Kazmojen and critted again. Made for a memorable and heroic moment. The fact that he has the Touched-in-the-Head trait as well made for a classic role-playing line...
"Don't mess with a ranger when he's pissed!"
We couldn't stop laughing. :D
So far it's been the completely buffed Kua Toa Cleric from Zenith Trajectory (my group's nearly finished chapter 6).
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Our hardest encounters to date have been Aushanna and Dugobaras. Both nearly resulted in TPK's for my group. Surprisingly, Nabthatoron was not as difficult as I thought it was going to be, but that is because the party is very much geared towards combating evil outsiders.
Other hard encounters included the cryo-hydra which forced the group to flee and cost the fighter his cohort, and the battle against Tongue-Eater at the Lucky Monkey because the group essentially caused every encounter in the inn to happen in one room.
My players are currently in the Kuo-Toa temple.
I think the most difficult encounter was Tong-Eater. I buffed him a little (see thread of Tong-Eater buffed up). The DR Silver was difficult. I think one player went below 0.
I think the fight at the shrine will be difficult.
But that's for in a couple of weeks. We're playing Shadowrun at the moment!
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The fire giant smith in the Demonskar. He came up after three different waves of hill giants and ettins, so the group resources were quite depleted.
Even if they were at almost full health, their healing abilities were at a minimum, and when the giant triple crit'ed the group barbarian and shrugged off two spells and a stunning attack, things were really looking grim.
From that fight, my players have a (un)healthy fear of black-skinned large sized humanoids in heavy armor.
I'm about to begin Chapter 6 now.
Sure, Gottrod was tough. Even Kazmojen and toungeater were tough at their levels. But I never had to hold anything back in those fights. My party had a tough time, but they pulled through in order to beat those adversaries.
But then came Nabathatoron. Pure abuse and brokeness. Give an outsider with teleport at will and a 15-foot reach the improved trip feat? And then throw in Combat Reflexes? Total and utter abuse. My party couldn't get close to him in order to do anything. In all, it was not a fun encounter to run. My party felt completely outmatched.
So a bit of advice? Make Nab a standard glabrezu. Combat Reflexes and a 15-foot reach mixed with improved trip is complete abuse.
The fire giant smith in the Demonskar. He came up after three different waves of hill giants
BTW, Do you use Hill and Fire Giants Improved Sunder feat? I think it's a very powerful combination (Giants+IS). With average a damage about 20 hp they can easely crush any +1 magical weapon with a couple attacks, if not with a hard hit in a single one (ex: One-handed Blade +1: 12 Hardness 15 hp) ripping off PC weapon resources very quickly. What do you thing?
Q. (sorry for my bad english)
The fire giant smith in the Demonskar. He came up after three different waves of hill giantsBTW, Do you use Hill and Fire Giants Improved Sunder feat? I think it's a very powerful combination (Giants+IS). With average a damage about 20 hp they can easely crush any +1 magical weapon with a couple attacks, if not with a hard hit in a single one (ex: One-handed Blade +1: 12 Hardness 15 hp) ripping off PC weapon resources very quickly. What do you thing?
Q. (sorry for my bad english)
WRONG!
I found a rule in the PHB recently that saved a co-players bow from being sundered by a giant. I don't have my PHB with me now, but there is a paragraph that states magic items must be of the same enhancement bonus in order to damage magical arms and armor. For example, that hill giant with a great club doing 2d8+11 dmg to you +1 longsword can't damage it unless the giant's club is magical too. It's a great rule...saves PC's items from evil, broken giants.
Dhorlot the Dragonfather was the toughest encounter my party have had. I like dragons and try to play them to the full extent of their intelligence and years of experience. I think they tend to be over-used in SCAP so I dropped a few but Dhorlot gave the PCs a hard time. They fought him 4 times before beating him.
The first time they stumbled into him (due to not scouting ahead) the players nearly wet themselves. The thief with the high CHA managed to persuade him to let them live in return for all their traesure and possessions. Being sadistic, evil and with an inflated sense of his own grandeur, Dhorlot went along with their pleas. Most of the players were relieved but the half orc barbarian was outraged and ended the negotiations with a critical to Dhorlot's head with his greataxe.
At that point the party acted true to form and disintegrated. Dhorlot gave the thief a blast of acid, dissolving him on the spot. The half orc got ready to fight while the two priests fled. The NPC fighter dutifully advanced to help the half orc.
For some reason I'll never understand, the half orc then ran away too, leaving the 4th level NPC fight to deal with an enraged and slightly wounded black dragon. He did his best but didn't last long.
Dhorlot had great fun hunting down the rest of the party. He cornered the half-orc who strated to strip off his armour and possessions (don't ask). This made killing him that much easier for Dhorlot. He then found the elf priest hiding in the empty temple with a spectre advancing on him. Dhorlot let the spectre do its thing and then finished the elf off.
The only survivor was a human priest who spent many sessions trying to rescue the remains of his comrades which Dhorlot had buried under stones in the subterranean lake to 'cure' befroe eating them.
The party remained absolutely terrified of Dhorlot as their levels advanced. When they finally outmatched him they went back and killed him. Even then he took a PC with him. They have not been frightened of anything so much as Dhorlot.
I think Kazmojen was the toughest and most memorable encouter. The character's refused to hand Terrem over to Valanthru and tried to make a run for the exit with the 4 children. This resulted in one big chase through a Dwarven Forge Master Maze set with characters dying along the way. Kazmojen and Prickles slowly caught op with them when they were held up by some hobgoblins. And cut most of them up one by one. Valanthru called out for them to hand over Terrem, when they refused a second time he killed all the children except Terrem (my players hated me for that). In the end only the sorceror managed to leave alive. The rest were dead, captured or in hiding. The sorceror did manage to come back and free the rest.
It was one long action-scene session. One of the best sessions I've ever run.
Other tough ones: Aushanna and the assassins in Secrets of the Soul Pillars.
No. Thats a hang over from 3.0, you no longer need an equivalent or greater plus to sunder a weapon.
So yes ... the giants with improved sunder are absolutely lethal to equipment. Especially when adding power attack. They can pretty much destroy any weapon or shield without too much effort.
Are you saying what's written then in the DMG is wrong? Is this in the errata? I haven't checked the errata yet in the DMG for this rule. I happen to really like it...giants sundering PC's weapons is just not fun.
This is from the DMG 3.5. Pg. 222, top paragraph under the "Hardness and Hit Points" Magic Weapons section. And I quote,
An attacker cannot damage a magic weapon that has an enhancement bonus unless his own weapon has at least as high an enhancement bonus as the weapon or shield struck."
So this is wrong? If it is, I'm keeping it in my games. Seems very fair to me.
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Are you saying what's written then in the DMG is wrong? Is this in the errata? I haven't checked the errata yet in the DMG for this rule. I happen to really like it...giants sundering PC's weapons is just not fun.
This is from the DMG 3.5. Pg. 222, top paragraph under the "Hardness and Hit Points" Magic Weapons section. And I quote,
An attacker cannot damage a magic weapon that has an enhancement bonus unless his own weapon has at least as high an enhancement bonus as the weapon or shield struck."So this is wrong? If it is, I'm keeping it in my games. Seems very fair to me.
It has indeed been erattaed.
Hardness and Hit Points
Dungeon Master’s Guide, page 222
Problem: The first paragraph is not consistent with similar
information for shields on page 217.
Solution: Delete the first sentence after the boldface header.
Change the next sentence to read as follows:
Each +1 of enhancement bonus adds 2 to a weapon’s or
shield’s hardness and +10 to its hit points.
Are you saying what's written then in the DMG is wrong? Is this in the errata? I haven't checked the errata yet in the DMG for this rule. I happen to really like it...giants sundering PC's weapons is just not fun.
This is from the DMG 3.5. Pg. 222, top paragraph under the "Hardness and Hit Points" Magic Weapons section. And I quote,
An attacker cannot damage a magic weapon that has an enhancement bonus unless his own weapon has at least as high an enhancement bonus as the weapon or shield struck."So this is wrong? If it is, I'm keeping it in my games. Seems very fair to me.It has indeed been erattaed.
Hardness and Hit Points
Dungeon Master’s Guide, page 222
Problem: The first paragraph is not consistent with similar
information for shields on page 217.
Solution: Delete the first sentence after the boldface header.
Change the next sentence to read as follows:
Each +1 of enhancement bonus adds 2 to a weapon’s or
shield’s hardness and +10 to its hit points.
That makes me so sad. Sundering PC's hard earned, valuable items is not fun.
Although this thread has been a little hijacked by this debate, I'll chip in...
Thinking about a giant, would he want to splinter the weapons or turn the party into bloody goo? I think I know the answer and that is how I will play my giants.
Interesting that Dugobras has been mentioned a couple times when the book specifically mentions that he views combat as an absolute last resort.
Although this thread has been a little hijacked by this debate, I'll chip in...
Thinking about a giant, would he want to splinter the weapons or turn the party into bloody goo? I think I know the answer and that is how I will play my giants.
If a battle ensues, and if the giant makes an intelligence check and notices that the weapons are providing the characters with a great advantage, I'd have the giant attempt to sunder those weapons. But then again, I'm a despicable DM...
Job.
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Interesting that Dugobras has been mentioned a couple times when the book specifically mentions that he views combat as an absolute last resort.
This is true. In retrospect I played Dugobaras wrong, and went into combat mode when I should have had him try and talk to the players. I wish I had gone that route even moreso since I have one player who is really orienting his PC as being a diplomat and usually prefers talking his way out of things.
After the first near TPK I tried to have Dugobaras talk to the party, basically telling them that he tired of battle and would prefer to be left alone. At this point the party ambushged and slaughtered him. Oh well.
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We just started "Secrets of the Soul Pillars" and I have to say, the opening encounter was brutal on my party. The group, having finally had some down time following the Test of the Smoking Eye were relaxing in the tipped tankard, but the party dwarf was still under almost constant surveillance from Ike. While their guard was down, the assassins came in.
The party was caught surprised, and by the end of the 2nd round, the party wizard was dead, the cleric badly injured and the dwarf fighter (unarmoured to boot) was cut off from the rest of the group.
The party, due to some lucky rolls on the part of the rogue, managed to take down the half-orc fighter/rogue, but the other two assassins managed to flee. All together, the party was soundly beaten down, and very nearly were all killed. Fortunately for the party, the sorcerer never got off his cone of cold due to the silence, but his scorching rays took down the fighter. If it wasn't for the Revivify spell from the Spell Compendium, I'm sure this would have been a TPK.
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We just started "Secrets of the Soul Pillars" and I have to say, the opening encounter was brutal on my party.
We just finished Secrets of the Soul Pillars, and the assassin encounter was the most brutal yet. The encounter was very similar to the what you described.
The group was enjoying a celebratory lunch at the Tipped Tankard. The assassins entered, the sorcerer opened with Cone of Cold, covering the entire party and killing six other bystanders. The half-orc charged the still sitting cleric and with a powerful blow and sneak attack killed him outright. The female closed with the wizard and took him down to the negatives. The parties heavy hitters moved in and made short work of the assassins, though the sorcerer escaped.
The following assault on Ike Iverson went the other way.
Thinking about a giant, would he want to splinter the weapons or turn the party into bloody goo? I think I know the answer and that is how I will play my giants.
Well, I really don't know. In fact, they do have the Improved Sunder feat. Shouldn't they use it?
OtoH, I agree that sundering hard earned weapons and equipment isn't funny. Although I try to teach my players that not every living monster will stop to being slaughtered by a bunch of adventurers and will of course defend themselves using all his resources at hand. Improved sunder is a resource for a giant, isn't it?
Q. (sorry for my bad english)
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Interesting that Dugobras has been mentioned a couple times when the book specifically mentions that he views combat as an absolute last resort.
I know. In fact, he's been fought in his own forge, trying to defend it against barbarous ravagers (the PCs!) while he was frantically disposing of the soulcage prototype left over.
Opponents can be heroically evil, too.
About the sundering tactics, they left the mark on the party equipment mostly during the following "Test of the Smoking Eye", thanks to the capabilities of Tathnak the Bebilith during the first test, Motruk the fire henchgiant at the skull, and those thrice-accursed babaus that plagued the whole trek (well, their acidic abilities).
We just started "Secrets of the Soul Pillars" and I have to say, the opening encounter was brutal on my party. The group, having finally had some down time following the Test of the Smoking Eye were relaxing in the tipped tankard, but the party dwarf was still under almost constant surveillance from Ike. While their guard was down, the assassins came in.
The party was caught surprised, and by the end of the 2nd round, the party wizard was dead, the cleric badly injured and the dwarf fighter (unarmoured to boot) was cut off from the rest of the group.
The party, due to some lucky rolls on the part of the rogue, managed to take down the half-orc fighter/rogue, but the other two assassins managed to flee. All together, the party was soundly beaten down, and very nearly were all killed. Fortunately for the party, the sorcerer never got off his cone of cold due to the silence, but his scorching rays took down the fighter. If it wasn't for the Revivify spell from the Spell Compendium, I'm sure this would have been a TPK.
if you want to make life really suck for your players check out two of my entries to therpgenius.com
http://therpgenius.com/shackledcity/GameMechanics/NPCActionSheets/tabid/110 /Default.aspx
my players are strong combatants and I try to always come up with a way to challenge them.
The toughest encounter so far (players just finished destroying the tree) was moltenwing. I actually found my self holding back. Of course I messed around with the feat selection for him. I’ll see if I can post my moltenwing tweak when I get home if anyone is interested.
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if you want to make life really suck for your players check out two of my entries to therpgenius.comhttp://therpgenius.com/shackledcity/GameMechanics/NPCActionSheets/tabid/110 /Default.aspx
my players are strong combatants and I try to always come up with a way to challenge them.
interesting tactics. I also tweak a lot of encounters for my players, to either make them really challenging, or just to take advantage of other rule books I own. For instance, I've modified Ike to focus him slightly more on his clerical spell casting, although I'm not sure if I made it too hard or not. When I get home from work I might post the tweaked Ike.
But basically, the changes include swapping out his weapon prof. feats for Divine Spell Power (adds his turn check result to caster level) and Profane Boost (turn check to maximize any inflict spells you cast on targeted creatures.
I figure with these two abilities, and a few spells from non-PHB sources, the battle with Ike will be quite difficult. Mostly since it'll allow him to easily rejuvinate himself and the undead easily. In addition, I factored in his full array of possible buff spells, which pretty much gets his AC up into the low 30's, and modifies his attack modifier into the high 20's.
Unfortunately (for my PC's) two of the assassins (the sorcerer and rogue/cleric) escaped and are now waiting with Ike to finish off the party. However, I don't expect the bone devil to be much of a challenge. My party is heavily geared towards fiend killing, and mops the floor with evil outsiders. (basically the dwarven fighter should be able to deal out at least 60 - 90 damage on a full round of full attacks on his own). I just have to use ice walls to keep them seperated.
It's been a few months since we finished the SCAP. Going chronolgically in modules here are the encounters that stand out.
Tarkilar handed out a free beatdown to the party as well as scaring the bejoombas out of them.
I would say that the 1-2-3 combination of fully buffed Mangh-Micto, whips, and Aushanna in Zenith Trajectory definetly tested my party. They survived but barely and mainly because I pulled my punches a bit. Later, the players said that this module was their favorite.
The two huge fire elementals in Demonskar killed a party member pretty darn quick but that was mainly due to a ranged fighter being engaged in melee.
Nabathoroton had his way with the party but then again, that's how the encounter is supposed to go.
The 1-2-3 combo of Fetor (Skaven in my game) the bone naga and Orgo was also a good series of fights that tuckered the party out. Vittris Bale was also quite good though not as much of a whompin as I expected.
Vhalantru was one of the most drawn out battles of the game. From round to round the PCs were alternately completely screwed or making amazing headway. Really memorable!
The Morkoth...Ah, memories. The wizard cast disintegrate 3 times on the Morkoth only to have it reflected thrice! The wizard also had SR so most of the time it had no effect. Unfortunately, probability caught up with him and he disintegrated himself. The Morkoth got away and the players were maaaaad!
Moltenwing almost killed the party barbarian (no small feat) by pulling him under the lava. Were it not for his protection from fire it would have happened but he hacked away at the dragon under the magma (taking massive amounts of damage in the process) and forced the dragon up where the rest of the party could pepper him with attacks.
Fish kept sneak attacking the paladin in the party until the paladin fell. They eventually dominated him and got a lot of information out but man, he really cheezed the party.
The spellweaver also spanked the party with polar ray and finger of death. He eventually was downed but not before killing 2 PCs (who were subsequently revivified).
The paladin started a fight with Byakala and once again got his butt handed to him. That was funny!
The final battle with Adimarchus had every character going into negatives at least once, only to be healed/revivified. It was also by far the longest battle we ran.
Thanks for letting me take the trip down memory lane!
Chamber of Antiquity Spoiler!!!
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I ran this as a side trek at the recomended level and the "security system" that's in the main room almost killed 1/3 the party. They retreated (one of the only times the party EVER did this) and returned buffed and prepared and it still was a long, difficult, and above all, memorable encounter.
The final battle with Adimarchus had every character going into negatives at least once, only to be healed/revivified. It was also by far the longest battle we ran.
I don't have the Spell Compedium, so what is the general gist/purpose of the spell 'Revivify'?
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The final battle with Adimarchus had every character going into negatives at least once, only to be healed/revivified. It was also by far the longest battle we ran.I don't have the Spell Compedium, so what is the general gist/purpose of the spell 'Revivify'?
Basically, if cast within the same round a character is killed, it restores them to -1 hit points, stable, with no level loss or experience loss. But it has to be cast right away to work, or so I understand.
Basically, if cast within the same round a character is killed, it restores them to -1 hit points, stable, with no level loss or experience loss. But it has to be cast right away to work, or so I understand.
Exactly right. Frontline fighter (barbarian) keeps Adimarchus distracted for the most part. The party cleric would revivify the fallen comrades while the rouge or paladin (secondary healer) would bring them back to consciousness. A couple of cure critical wounds potions/pokes with a healing wand later and they were good to go.
Frozen DM was right on the money there Sir with one small change, it has to be cast within 1 round of the victims death. It originally appeared in the Miniatures Handbook iirc. It is one fantastic 5th level Cleric Spell.
Tarkilar handed out a free beatdown to the party as well as scaring the bejoombas out of them.
LOL! I laughed my ass off when I read that. :D My party are coming up on him soon...
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Frozen DM was right on the money there Sir with one small change, it has to be cast within 1 round of the victims death. It originally appeared in the Miniatures Handbook iirc. It is one fantastic 5th level Cleric Spell.
and it's saved my player's on a couple of occasions, the latest being during the assassination attempt in the Tipped Tankard. If it wasn't for this spell, the party wizard would be 6 feet under.
We were nearly TPKed by Kazmojen as well.
Vhalantru was no pushover either.
Our group was given quite a run for their money fighting these two also. If not for some help from some of the prisoners we released we would have been toast.
So far the toughest fights for my group have been (in no particular order):
1) Aushanna (they fled in terror, but ended up defeating her in a smaller room when she pursued them)
2) the fire giant in the Demonskar
3) Tongueeater the werebaboon
4) Nabthatoron (they were able to drive him off, but only after the party was near destruction)
5) the assassins at the Tipped Tankard
6) the large red dragon that attacked Crazy Jared
They are about to face off against Thifirane and her Legion of Doom gathering of villains, so I'll see how those do against the PCs.
There have been plenty of respectable challenges, but as my group is about to begin Soul Pillars, I'm thinking that they wouldn't have much chance against the assassins.
I have some further trouble with the assassin encounter in that I can't see why the assassins would attack the PCs while the PCs are all together. My PCs hang out in different places through the city - in fact, when they're not adventuring, it would be rare to have them gathered together - and it just seems that experienced assassins of this potency, with a few tips from Ike, could study the routines of their targets and easily bump them off when they are divided and most vulnerable.
I'm leaning toward scaling down this encounter. I don't want what is essentially an adventure hook to even be in contention for the campaign's most dangerous battle.
There have been plenty of respectable challenges, but as my group is about to begin Soul Pillars, I'm thinking that they wouldn't have much chance against the assassins.
I have some further trouble with the assassin encounter in that I can't see why the assassins would attack the PCs while the PCs are all together. My PCs hang out in different places through the city - in fact, when they're not adventuring, it would be rare to have them gathered together - and it just seems that experienced assassins of this potency, with a few tips from Ike, could study the routines of their targets and easily bump them off when they are divided and most vulnerable.
I'm leaning toward scaling down this encounter. I don't want what is essentially an adventure hook to even be in contention for the campaign's most dangerous battle.
How about one-on-one encounters with the assassins? If a PC gets killed, word would get out that the PCs are dead-men walking and it would certainly have them looking over their shoulders.
>> and it just seems that experienced assassins of this potency, with a few tips from Ike, could study the routines of their targets and easily bump them off when they are divided and most vulnerable
That makes some sense. But couldn't you also argue, that if one PC is assasinated, the other PCs are going to get together and be extra, extra careful and prepared - the assasins could get 1 but maybe not the others.
Or they might get one, but then the rest could come after Ike which he doesn't want.
Better to wait and get them all at the same time. Also, Ike is in a bit of a panic so might make a bad decision.
>> and it just seems that experienced assassins of this potency, with a few tips from Ike, could study the routines of their targets and easily bump them off when they are divided and most vulnerable
That makes some sense. But couldn't you also argue, that if one PC is assasinated, the other PCs are going to get together and be extra, extra careful and prepared - the assasins could get 1 but maybe not the others.
This line of reasoning makes the most sense to me. If the assassins only get one of the PCs, chances are that the others will get wind of it quickly, and thereafter take the necessary steps to avoid further attacks or even track down and eliminate the assassins. Much better to get all of the PCs at once, as there are no loose ends to deal with. This assumes the assassins (or Ike) are confident in their abilities, so just make it so.
<<That makes some sense. But couldn't you also argue, that if one PC is assasinated, the other PCs are going to get together and be extra, extra careful and prepared - the assasins could get 1 but maybe not the others. >>
I hear you. Still, I was thinking they could know the character routines and kill several simultaneously in different places, or in quick succession before word could spread. Even if they only succeed in killing half the party, what a huge victory for the bad guys that would be.
I'll give a few specific examples of what I'm facing. I have a horizon walker who is currently attuning herself to the nearby environment. She's gone for many days at a time and could be elliminated without raising suspicions.
I have a cleric of Wee Jas who is connected to the temple. Ike could give her an assignment "out of town" and that would be the end of her.
I have one character that sleeps in her own home in the city along with one of the former orphans whom she adopted. This character's sister, another PC, often visits and these two could be bumped off together.
I have a bard, the leader of the team, who frequents the taverns to perform and mix with the commonfolk. He could easily be slain solo on his way home. He's busy working intently on magic items during the day, and all the others have projects of different kinds going, so it could be some time before he was missed.
I have characters who have made friends with the Chisel in Red Gorge who go there to visit. They too could meet an untimely demise and not be missed for some time.
Some would say, well, if they aren't keeping rigorous, daily security, it serves them right to get wiped out. But my own feeling is that gosh, they all split up and do things because they enjoy the roleplaying connections to the city. Do I wipe them out for doing this?
Now I'm not terribly worried. I'll figure it out - probably creating a plan that COULD wipe them all out, but having some stroke of good fortune help them figure out what's going on, and, with some quick thinking, hopefully minimize the carnage against them. I could even have a forecast hint from someone caught up in the insanity of Adimarchus along the "beware the ides of March" kind of thing. I'm confident I can make it challenging, yet fair and fun.
I'm just contending that having those three assassins attack the heroes by surprise in down time is a tremendously nasty kick off encounter if the bad guys are played with smarts. Now, granted, as I look at the villains INT and WIS (I think the brightest among them is Zaenna with a 10 INT and 14 WIS), they aren't exactly on the evil genius list. That makes me feel a little better about building a flaw into their plan.
We only got to the beginning of the Demonskar Legacy (see my AoW thread on why we "disintegrated" the campaign
Roughly in order..
Lifes Bazaar - Kazmojen/Prickles (this tag-team should be called the TPK Anonymous). 2 Dead (Human Wizard and Cleric), 2 Captured (Halfling Rogue and Dwarven Fighter) and nearly sold into slavery.
Flood Season - Tyrannosaurus Skeleton - sawed the Gnome Wizard in half, and killed the Human Cleric as he was guarding our turbocharged retreat.
Zenith Trajectory - Zenith and his Invisible Stalker. My players dispelled the red smoke bypassing Aushanna and the Cryohydra killed no one.
>> Interesting that Dugobras has been mentioned a couple times when the book specifically mentions that he views combat as an absolute last resort.
Should have kept my mouth shut until my party meet him I guess. They found Dugobras with an arcane eye and rushed right in to attack him. Three whacks from Dugo's mighty warhammer sent the party ranger to the negs. "Stand back or I kill the ranger!" didn't work so Dugo squished him. Dugo though fell for a Suggestion and Charm Monster, else it might have been TPK. They used him to finish off the ettins and the hags. He's a bad mother.