I am running this tonight, and am seeking any advice from any who have run this before. Aside from Zyrog's save for his stun attack being wrong is there any other things I should be looking out for?
Yes. Get ready for your PC's to die. The Sodden Hold, the jailcell/watertrap room was a TPK if I hadn't fibbed a few die rolls. The invisible stalkers can prove to be too much, even if they get their equipment back after disposing of the dopplegangers in the opposing cell (assuming your running it as they got captured). I had 2 powergamers in my group and they both died, even with a warmage full of spells. Very sad, and I take no pleasure from pc death. Course, that was just me. Be very careful when rolling the damage.
That invisible stalker fight is utterly brutal. It's difficult for healers to even get to unconscious PCs because of the bridges/spikes, but it's much easier if they can fly somehow.
Make sure you understand the flooded pillar mechanism -- took me a while to properly wrap my head around that device and how the different bits of the room relate, height-wise.
If you've replaced one of the PCs with a doppleganger, make sure they don't hit/get attacked very often in other fights.
Lastly, that mirror maze can be kind of tedious; I wouldn't dwell on it too terribly beyond a doppleganger or two pretending to be a separated PC.
The illithid's lair is pretty straightforward. Your party might use the pigs as trapspringers, if they're as messed up as my players are.
There's been loads of pasts about this one, both recently and some time back, have a good look through old posts and the archives.
Without repeating my old posts, I'd simply add that it all depends on how cautious, prepared and stuborn your party is... if they are ill prepared, gung-ho, and/or will not back down from a poor situation they find themselves in, yes, there's potential for a lot of death. Only you can judge how your players might go when faced with the situations in this module, and even then you never can tell sometimes. My group did really well, no deaths, many easy fights until near the end of each part (the hold, and the mindflayer lair), and even then they triumphed against heavy odds. Sometimes it was a bit of luck (like finding Zyrzog via the balcony rather than the main entrance, so he struggled to mind-blast them all and set the advanced octopin on them), often skill (like sending the fighter to smack him down, flying and hasted).
Why did my group do well? Mainly because they can smell an obvious trap a mile off (the room with the planks & stalkers), the magic user always has good spells prepared like see invisibility, fly, locate creature/object, etc, and anything that looks tricky gets them thinking about a good way to handle it (e.g. the fighter takes the bottle of air down into the water room, and slaughters the octopus single-handedly even though he could have called for backup had he got in trouble). Generally they do not press too far ahead too, and will back off before it's too late (although camping for the day in the sodden hold was an overly bold move, not one they have since repeated). So yes, many have dies here, but also many have triumphed even like in my case where I spiced the module up a bit here and there to increase the danger level, make it more realistic, etc.
Do a search for HOHR here - you'll find a lot of good threads.
Remove one of the stalkers, or be prepared for a long, dull, deadly fight. I also eliminated the octopus in an effort to speed things up.
The upper well room is a good place to camp - it's a natural chokepoint.
Do get one of your players to backstab the others. It worked surprisingly well for us. Use a code word and roll the other dopps' attacks in secret. We were helped by the fact that the traitor was a halfling - I just had the bad guys 'ignore him because he's so small'.
Have the mechanics of the pit in D10 written out and hand it to the victim. The note should tell him to roll all the dice at once. It'll freak the other players out.
Don't let the party get split up in the mirror maze, if avoidable. Don't waste time trying to have the dopp guards mimic the players - they're deadly enough with their knowledge of the maze.
If anyone's interested in some of the stuff I came up with for this module, feel free to email me on hotmail at khays3.
Stay sober! I vaguely remember them getting past the octopus last night but I'm buggered if I know how. When I asked a friend today if he knew he couldn't really remember either. No doubt some rule-mistakes were made then. Thankfully the one player that had to drive home was sober (naturally) so I can ask him
I do remember they all had a blast almost dying from fighting both the dop guards and the stalkers simultaniously because of their blitzkrieg approach. I hope they remember enough to recall the error of that tactic.
I'm sorry I can't really give you any real advice. Do make sure to read the adventure a few times and try to get the locations and descriptions in your head, there are quite some areas that are "3D heavy". It wouldn't hurt to use google sketchup to visualise some of the rooms even if only for yourself.
Most of the party members jumped the plank room before the
stalkers could deploy.
The doppleganger posing as the NPC fighter intentionally missed
the invisable stalkers.
I rolled just out of sight of the Players.
I ignored the rolls and just said he missed.