Well, we're two sessions into Whispering Cairn, and I think it's going pretty darned well! It's a tough module - all but one of my four players is a veteran, and we are using a high powered point buy along with the gestalt rules. No deaths so far, but we've had some very close calls, which is something considering that I have run it straight out of the magazine so far. Last session, they went through the Lair of Laborers and nearly died fighting the water elemental (who managed to snuff their light source) and Ulavant back-to-back. I sort of wonder if that combat area shouldn't have been fully submerged, because the warmage/wizard couldn't do -anything- underwater. Maybe that was the point, but it still made for a boring hour for one of my players...
Progress Report: They've tackled the Lair of the Architect and the Lair of Laborers. They have all of the lanterns and understand the puzzle, but they took a one week break (in game) to rest, sell their treasure and level up. When they get back, they'll discover that their exploits have reached the ears of Auric, Tirra and Khellek, who they will discover upon their return in the false tomb, trying to figure out the sarcophagus puzzle. I hope they don't jump the gun and attack - I'm looking for a tense roleplaying encounter rather than a TPK.
No questions or anything, just sharing my experience so far. My players are having a blast, and so am I.
I think Whispering Cairn is one of the best 1st level adventures to be published for D&D, personally. It's challenging, to be sure, but it's also a nice change from a straight-up dungeon crawl. There's a dungeon that leads you into exploring the town, which leads to another small dungeon, which leads back to the original small dungeon. It never got boring for me or my players when we ran it, not a single part drags.
I think Whispering Cairn is one of the best 1st level adventures to be published for D&D, personally. It's challenging, to be sure, but it's also a nice change from a straight-up dungeon crawl. There's a dungeon that leads you into exploring the town, which leads to another small dungeon, which leads back to the original small dungeon. It never got boring for me or my players when we ran it, not a single part drags.
It's definitely up there. I spotted a few rules inconsistencies that my players kindly corrected (even at their own peril, such as when they reminded me that you can only hold your breath for a number of rounds equal to your Con score, not double your Con score as it says in the magazine). But rules inconsistencies are easily fixed - the meat and potatoes of this adventure is its pacing and mood.
I'm really looking forward to the Observatory. I have a cleric of Nola who is itching to try out the variant turn system we are using. I just hope he doesn't blast the skeletons in the dining room without seeing what they do first!
I spotted a few rules inconsistencies that my players kindly corrected (even at their own peril, such as when they reminded me that you can only hold your breath for a number of rounds equal to your Con score, not double your Con score as it says in the magazine).
Er, actually your players are incorrect. You can actually hold your breath for twice your Con score before risking drowning.
Doh! You are right. I didn't even check - I assumed since they were arguing so enthusiastically against their own favor that they had already looked it up.
I emailed them about it. One of them is running Savage Tide for us starting in January, so knowing how long you can hold your breath will be sort of important. Thanks for the correction!
Say, while you are at it: their other rules contention in that battle was that you can't hold your breath while paralyzed (in the magazine it says you can). I can't find anything that says either way, although I have had a character die to paralysis + water before (damnable chuuls!). Then again, that character was thrown into the water after being paralyzed, so he wasn't holding his breath to begin with.
Say, while you are at it: their other rules contention in that battle was that you can't hold your breath while paralyzed (in the magazine it says you can). I can't find anything that says either way, although I have had a character die to paralysis + water before (damnable chuuls!). Then again, that character was thrown into the water after being paralyzed, so he wasn't holding his breath to begin with.
Paralysis, like all D&D conditions, has specific effects, and unless the game would end up being less fun or fulfilling for all involved if a condition did not have additional effects, it's generally best to stick to what it specifies. In the case of paralyzation:
A paralyzed character is frozen in place and unable to move or act. A paralyzed character has effective Dexterity and Strength scores of 0 and is helpless, but can take purely mental actions. A winged creature flying in the air at the time that it becomes paralyzed cannot flap its wings and falls. A paralyzed swimmer can’t swim and may drown. A creature can move through a space occupied by a paralyzed creature—ally or not. Each square occupied by a paralyzed creature, however, counts as 2 squares.
It does specifically mention swimming and that a paralyzed swimmer "may drown," but this can be more easily inferred to mean that if a character remains paralyzed long enough, he runs the risk of drowning as normal.
For another take on it, consider a plant. An ordinary plant (not the creature type) effectively has a Strength and Dexterity score of 0, so it is effectively paralyzed. However, it still breathes just fine.
Paralyzed does not mean no internal muscle control - it just means no movement. Otherwise paralyzed characters would wet themselves, loose their bowels, begin drooling and fall prone. They would also begin to suffocate, since their tongue would fall into their throat.
Granted, you could use that as another condition - a greater paralysis I suppose. Perhaps purple worm poison causes a greater paralysis if it drops your Strength score to 0. But at low levels such effects would unduly increase the challenge of the encounter.
Finally, the module takes a good deal of space to point out that the characters can indeed keep holding their breath while paralyzed. I'm sure if the ruling was incorrect, one of the editors at Paizo would have corrected it - that would be a bit larger of an error than one or two words.
Good points on the paralysis, but one of my players has a clarification on the first question. I'll quote the pertinent part:
"But if you look under the swim skill (PHB and SRD) it says 1 round per point of constitution. This is repeated in Stormwrack as well. The PHB is considered the primary source according to Wizards. It also makes sense logically. An average constitution of 10 would allow you to hold your breath for a minute. The average person cannot hold their breath for two minutes."
Going by the SRD, he seems to be correct. So either the PHB or the DMG is wrong about this.
http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/35/sovelior_sage/skillsStr.html
*busts out the leatherbound books*
That SRD website is outdated. My leatherbound copies of the PH & DMG are in agreement that the time before risk of drowning is twice a character's constitution score. I recommend http://www.d20srd.org/ as it is kept up to date more than any other SRD website I have seen.
I don't currently have access to Stormwrack, but I'll check on that when I'm able.
As for the realism factor - well, you're welcome to change the rules of course, but this is fantasy gaming we're talking about. I don't know about you, but when I go to make a running jump, I usually go about seven feet (I think), whereas the average human commoner goes anywhere from 1 to 20 feet. You can focus on these details forever, since the system isn't perfect - but it's good enough to let you put the smack down on a demon lord - if you've killed enough goblins.
Weird, my copy of the PHB is showing the following text:
"You can hold your breath for a number of rounds equal to your Constitution score, but only if you do nothing other than take move actions or free actions."
I dunno. Your book says something different than my book, the SRDs don't agree with each other and one of the SRDs can't seem to make up its mind. I just checked the 3.5 PHB errata and it mentions Swim not once. I'll probably just make a DM fiat ruling in favor of Constitution x2, which seems more likely to not get all of my PCs killed anticlimatically the next time they go for a dip.
Well, like I said, my *leatherbound* copies. They were special edition prints that contained all the updates. The latest run of regular PHs have the same stuff (but don't have that cool feel to them, heh). Not sure why the 3.5 errata didn't mention the swim change, since it adds a lot of time to swimming encounters, but...
Rest assured that your ruling will make for more climactic death scenes. :-)
I think the only lesson I really learned from this is that I need to refresh my knowledge of complicated rules subsets before they come into play :) Thanks again for your help.
It's been fun (albeit in 30 min-1 hour increments...) :-)
We are having a hard time with the begining of this module. All of the adventurers feel that the are being porposely misled/lied to/cheated. We are in the Cairn and have all but the red latern. We climbed up the chain where the blue latern was but were blown off. Then went down the yellow elevator and fought the brown slime. But that led nowhere. Now we went back up and turn the dial to green. It dropped down and we were swarmed and killed the "spidereye"?? Then left and only got 750 exp. Can you help us.... please??
It sounds like you are a player in the adventure. That said, I would simply recommend you keep doing what you are doing. Explore and THINK. There are traps a plenty and you should be careful, but it sounds like you guys are doing ok. Just keep going...
Sean Mahoney
Players read these boards?! Eeshka! I would stop running the adventure path if I thought my players read here.
Players read these boards?! Eeshka! I would stop running the adventure path if I thought my players read here.
You can usually tell if a player has an unnaturally accurate read on your campaign. If that happens, just change it up.
I think most players want to actually enjoy the game and feel the risk and probably don't come here to get a leg up. Speaking for myself, although a long time DM, I'd like to be a player through the Shackled City adventure path. Now I actually own the Shackled City hardcover and I have easy access to Shackled City posts here, but I don't read any of it/them because doing so would make the playing not worth the time.
Then again, I also don't read the last page of a book I'm just starting. Why do some people do that?!
I would like to chime in and say that this, for us anyways, has been the single best module that I've ever run from Dungeon Magazine.
Like one of the posters at the beginning stated, its not just a dungeon crawl. The adventure builds in the need to return to town, return to the dungeon, etc, etc. Most authors assume it happens but in my group (and with different groups over a 20 year period) we rarely return until the dungeon is done. This gives a concrete reason to leave. Not only that it builds in the need to do town roleplaying. What a module. My only gripe is that some of the room descriptions are a bit wordy.
Contrary to that, my group is just finishing 3 Faces of Evil and we have found it to be on the other end of the spectrum. For us, its been terrible. The beginning was interesting as the roleplaying required to enter the church was fun and during my initial reading the tactics the NPC's had seemed fun but during play it was not fun at all. 5' wide hallways are boring, searching a labrynth is boring, etc. The skeleton room with chimes was an interesting idea, but with the tieflings as far from the hall as possible they wound up being boxed in the room and couldn't alert the complex. I was never able to release the boar nor warn the complex as the PC's had everything clogged up well.
The grimlocks tactics of targetting light sources was interesting but my PC's used everburning torches which produce no heat and I can think of no conceivable way for the grimlocks to discern a light source from a sword. Not only that but the Wispering Cairn gives the PC's an everburning torch so its likely they use that instead of a normal torch.
The only fight that was interesting was against the faceless one as he used up a lot of the PC's resources. Since he was the last to die my players are in some major trouble as they don't have time to rest and recoup spells before facing the Aspect. The only saving grace is that the healing wands has everyone back to full power. The only other bonus is if they face the Aspect in the 5' hallways it is at a slight disadvantage.
Anyways, the initial read of 3 Faces of Evil made it seem like an excellent adventure but it sure plays out differently. Anyone agree?
I disagree. 'Three Faces', while complicated, was one of the best adventures in my opinion. The main NPCs, The Faceless One, Grallak Kur and Theldrick, are memorable, it's the best opportunity for the players to enter the political world of Diamond Lake, it personally introduces Smenk (Best NPC Ever Award winner) and it offers and excellent smokescreen against the true plot of the AoW.
The labyrinth was done so well, I found it simple to run it. My players are all under twenty years old and have never taken psychotropic drugs, but they were having Nam' flashbacks with the Kenku dropping in, attacking, and disapeering into the maze. My players have ceremonially named Kenkus the 'Vietcong' of D&D.
Lots of memories and encounters, I think 3FoE is one of the best of the low level AoW adventures.
Fear the Crows of Nam'!
I disagree. 'Three Faces', while complicated, was one of the best adventures in my opinion. The main NPCs, The Faceless One, Grallak Kur and Theldrick, are memorable, it's the best opportunity for the players to enter the political world of Diamond Lake, it personally introduces Smenk (Best NPC Ever Award winner) and it offers and excellent smokescreen against the true plot of the AoW.
The labyrinth was done so well, I found it simple to run it. My players are all under twenty years old and have never taken psychotropic drugs, but they were having Nam' flashbacks with the Kenku dropping in, attacking, and disapeering into the maze. My players have ceremonially named Kenkus the 'Vietcong' of D&D.
Lots of memories and encounters, I think 3FoE is one of the best of the low level AoW adventures.
Fear the Crows of Nam'!
Perhaps my opinion of 3FoE is a direct result of how much we roleplayed during Whispering Cairns. By the time we started the 2nd adventure the group was already familiar with the political landscape including a brief meeting with Smenk. For the most part, other than learning that Smenk was involved with the Ebon Triad, there has been very little new info, although the fallout from that tidbit has yet to be determined.
I agree that each leader was interesting and yes they had their own styles and tactics which made the adventure slightly interesting but once inside its a basic dungeon crawl. At no point did I find it complicated to run I just found that the fodder that was there were not strong enough to worry the PC's. The Kenku's were never able to drop in, say hello, and flee as the PC's consistently beat them with initiative rolls. The best part of the Kenkus for me was when the rogue with the Necklace of Fireballs opened a secret door and lobbed a 5d6 fireball into the parties midst and then managed to get away. He was able to do this twice before being caught.
Perhaps the other downer, was that all the players were veterans of the Cauldron campaign and already were aware of what the Ebon Triad was all about. Maybe that caused it to be a little anti-climactic but on the whole, I just didn't get a good vibe from the module. I felt it was a little over engineered in terms of tactics. Oh, and another thing I didn't like is that the Faceless One summons a Huge Centipede in a room that has benches on either side of the wall causing it to be squeezed. In addition, if he had no warning he was in serious trouble right from the get-go. 1 Full round to summon a monster for protection while he puts buffs on isn't a good tactic. Luckily he was warned and was able to prepare before combat otherwise he would have fallen very fast.
Back to the overengineering thing. It just seemed that a lot of things had to go right for the NPC's otherwise it was a cakewalk for the PC's with maybe the exception of Theldricks area. Like I said, it seemed like a good module based on the read but it played out not so well...
That's too bad, man. My players loved it. To each his own. I did change 3FoE a bit, so I guess I can't really talk about the adventure as is.
Changes include;
--Revamped tactics for all enemies
--Glaring moves by the players to alert all factions of their arrival ((They warned Dourstone about Smenk, not realizing Dourstone was in on it the whole time))
--Previous knowledge of the Ebon Triad in a previous game I ran for the same players. They had little information and were hungry for more about the Triad.
--My own tweaking to NPC stats
--Updated map and revision of the maze
So, yea, as the adventure was printed, there were several glaring problems.
I realize we've moved a bit past the Drowning/Holding Breath discussion, but I believe the rule is:
- You can hold your breath for a number of rounds equal to 2x your Con score if you take no actions.
- If you are doing stuff (swimming, fighting) then the amount of time you can hold your breath is halved (so in the Swimming rules it refers to 1x Con score).
I'll try to remember to look in my books later and see where exactly we found this clarification...
I thought both adventures were great. I made some small modifications to the tactics of the main bad guys and also came up with contingency plans that they would use if they were not forewarned. The kenku maze was meant to burn resources, not kill PCs. I ran it on tact-tiles, erasing behind the PCs to create a fog of battle effect. It took two or three ambushes for the PCs to figure out exactly how the kenku were appearing and disappearing suddenly. It isn't stated outright in the module, but I think you have to assume there are peepholes in all the secret doors, otherwise they don't do the kenku much good. Anyway, even once they figured out about the secret doors, it was a very interesting tactical battle, and it took some time before the players had the maze memorized.
I had TFO's on watch apprentices warn him and hold off the party with web spells while he and the other apprentices buffed and arrived to drop the monstrous centipede into the main temple--summoning it in the lab (where it would thrash about and destroy his experiments) was an obvious and easily corrected gaffe. That turned out to be a great battle--lasted about 25 rounds and left the party at the end of their rope when the aspect arrived.
I don't see how the party could get the drop on the kenku, unless they've got a wand of secret door detection and 2-3 party members with impossibly high spot and listen modifiers. The secret doors are supposed to be silent and they open without the kenku expending an action, so the kenku can essentially get surprise and sneak attack almost every strike. The party gets at most one counterattack before they flee around the corner and slip into another secret passage that the party hasn't found yet. They can also use sounds to lure the party a ways into the maze before attacking, which worked well on my party. Maybe an elf rogue autodetects the secret doors half the time, and if he gets lucky near the entrance he finds the one the guard is using to keep an eye on things--but even if you roll inish right there, the party takes down one kenku guard and the rest scatter into the maze, warn the other group of kenku, and probably TFO's on-watch acolytes as well, and then proceed to ambush the party multiple times. If run intelligently, I don't see how the kenku can be a pushover for a 3rd level party, though it might take a whole session to run the encounter and bore the hell out of those who aren't interested in tactics and aren't into the game enough to get pissed off at the damn crow men who keep appearing out of nowhere and slitting throats.
As for bottling both the tieflings and the commoners into their quarters at the entrance to the Hieroneous temple, assuming your party managed to prevent the guards in the cathedral from knocking on the front door to trigger the skeletons, there are still enough skeletons there to keep the party busy for a round or two. Remember the skeletons are wearing full plate so it shouldn't be immediately obvious that they're undead--until the party slashes one's armor open with sword or axe and sees only bone beneath. That gives the commoners a full round or two to mobilize, and even if they're bottled, they have longspears, so two of them can attack even in a 5 foot passageway. Bullrush is also an option for unbottling the passage, and they are fanatics, so they're probably willing to take attacks of opportunity to slip past and raise the alarm. Combined with the tieflings' darkness-coin trick, which dims the lights and provides a 20% miss chance, they ought to be able to slip at least one or two guys down the hall to release the boar and warn Theldrick.
On Grimlocks and light-sources, this problem was mentioned in an earlier thread. I've always figured grimlocks have vestigial, lid-covered eyes and can perceive bright light even though they are "blind". The technique of targeting torches is kind of dubious anyway, and I don't think it's essential--the first couple of rooms of the grimlock caves are just a warmup anyway--the U-cavern is the serious challenge of this section, and it's pretty challenging if you run it well. The obits thread provides evidence.
I realize we've moved a bit past the Drowning/Holding Breath discussion, but I believe the rule is:
- You can hold your breath for a number of rounds equal to 2x your Con score if you take no actions.
- If you are doing stuff (swimming, fighting) then the amount of time you can hold your breath is halved (so in the Swimming rules it refers to 1x Con score).
You're mostly right. The number of rounds remains 2x your Con score, but ticks down by 2 in any round in which you perform any strenuous action (such as fighting, casting a quickened spell, or eating a dagwood sandwich as a full round action ;-)).
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I don't see how the party could get the drop on the kenku, unless they've got a wand of secret door detection and 2-3 party members with impossibly high spot and listen modifiers. The secret doors are supposed to be silent and they open without the kenku expending an action, so the kenku can essentially get surprise and sneak attack almost every strike. The party gets at most one counterattack before they flee around the corner and slip into another secret passage that the party hasn't found yet. They can also use sounds to lure the party a ways into the maze before attacking, which worked well on my party. Maybe an elf rogue autodetects the secret doors half the time, and if he gets lucky near the entrance he finds the one the guard is using to keep an eye on things--but even if you roll inish...
This all assumes the party does not contain a worshipper of Vecna. I think the secret doors immediately reveal themselves to all Vecna-worshippers. Since my group contains a neutral worshipper (though not Cleric) of Vecna, i am thinking of changing that fact. I consider it besides the point of Vecna anyway. He wouldn't give away valuable secrets just like that.
I am thinking when I run three faces of evil I will seperate all of the parts of the dungeon to force RP sessions in between. Likely there will be a puzzle that will lead to another temple... so for instance the grimlocks temple might still be under Dourstone mine, but the other two would be in completely other location. So getting to the mine would be the same as it is now (changing some of what Smenk saw to get them there) but there would be a clue of some kind that would need some RP to give the rest of the pieces of the puzzle. My PCs would then need to solve a puzzle to determine where the next dungeon is located (my players will love puzzles).
At the next dungeon (Theldrick's temple) the PCs would then find yet another clue that combined with some info from the first and perhaps further info from around town would lead them to the Faceless Ones sanctuary.
Only by combining info from all three would the PCs be able to figure the location of the final sanctuary with the pool. (A meta-puzzle if you will)
Upon reaching the final sanctuary the PC will witness many of the cultists (people from around town they know, many of whom they had no idea were cultists) be drained of their life energies to feed the Ebon Aspect and bring it to life. I am imagining something like a scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
That is my thoughts anyway. I think one of the strengths of The Whispering Cairn was that it broke up the dungeon and I think 3FoE lends itself to this as well... it just wasn't made this way.
Sean Mahoney
That's too bad, man. My players loved it. To each his own. I did change 3FoE a bit, so I guess I can't really talk about the adventure as is.
Changes include;--Revamped tactics for all enemies
--Glaring moves by the players to alert all factions of their arrival ((They warned Dourstone about Smenk, not realizing Dourstone was in on it the whole time))
The Smenk warning is kind of funny. My players almost spilled the beans to Dourstone in the same manner. They even (almost) went a step further when they were looking for a buyer for the owlbear. They wanted to be sure that it wasn't going to come back to haunt them so they almost sold it to Dourstone (who would have thought that it was a perfect guard for the elevator).
I had TFO's on watch apprentices warn him and hold off the party with web spells while he and the other apprentices buffed and arrived to drop the monstrous centipede into the main temple--summoning it in the lab (where it would thrash about and destroy his experiments) was an obvious and easily corrected gaffe. That turned out to be a great battle--lasted about 25 rounds and left the party at the end of their rope when the aspect arrived.
That is essentially how the battle went for me. The web was a great tactic to delay everyone and the allip is what kept the fight at a very dangerous level. I'd say our battle lasted about 15-20 rounds so it was a pretty memerable fight. After that fight the PC's searched bodies and then heard the sounds of the Aspect going to town on the elevator. I let the session end with "The sounds are getting louder!" The PCs at this point are out of resources and in for a very tough fight. They have been talking and plan on fighting it in the maze (whiich I will allow to give them a chance otherwise its likely curtains for the party as they are so drained).
I don't see how the party could get the drop on the kenku, unless they've got a wand of secret door detection and 2-3 party members with impossibly high spot and listen modifiers. The secret doors are supposed to be silent and they open without the kenku expending an action, so the kenku can essentially get surprise and sneak attack almost every strike. The party gets at most one counterattack before they flee around the corner and slip into another secret passage that the party hasn't found yet. They can also use sounds to lure the party a ways into the maze before attacking, which worked well on my party. Maybe an elf rogue autodetects the secret doors half the time, and if he gets lucky near the entrance he finds the one the guard is using to keep an eye on things--but even if you roll inish...
Several things I will add to your points. The kenku stats were never good enough to allow sneak attacks. The move silently and hide were usually trumped by at least 1 - 2 party members on a regular basis (either via high rolls or pretty comparable skills). Therefore the sneak attack does not come in play as often as one would expect. The other was after the surprise round, I rolled a lot of low inits allowing 2-3 party member go before the kenkus. They would take 1 to 2 down putting a sizeable dent into their ability to be effective. I did have the kenkus warn other groups and indeed I did have 2 groups coordinate an attack which wound up being somewhat effective.
I agree that the Kenkus were a resource drain and not there to threaten the party but tactically it only goes well if the kenkus outroll the PC's otherwise they are in deep trouble pretty quick. I guess from a mechanic perspective its tough to run. If you fudge a bit to actually give the kenkus surprise then it might be more interesting. It just didn't turn out that way for us.
No questions or anything, just sharing my experience so far. My players are having a blast, and so am I.
Thank god for copy/paste,Paizo ate my post! Thought I'd share mine so far...
My players started as prisoners/slaves working for Gelch Tilgast. While in town they hear rumors of children disappearing (more on this later). Tilgast hears Smenk has commissioned Auric and co. to check out the Stirgenest and, not to be outdone by Smenk, picks the PCs to investigate the Whispering Cairn. This involved stealing it from the cartographer's office. The PCs did some research into the garrison's layout and found out a secret tunnel ran from the garrison dungeon to Deepspike Mine. I made up that the petty lord who used to live in the garrison also owned the mine and dug an ecape tunnel to it and it has never been discovered. Anyways, the players had to play stealthy and obtain the map, which they did.
Next they were off to explore the cairn, along the way they find the abandoned mining office (Dragon #?), where I put a splinterwaif lurking in the cellar and the reason for the missing children. This was really creepy for the players as they slowly investigated the rooms, finding all these strange shrubs and kids toys, clothes, etc. They eventually found and killed the splinterwaif and rescued a kid who was about to be lunch. This threw an interesting twist on things as the PCs are mainly CN or evil (criminals) and didn't know what to do with her. In the end they took her back to use as leverage for some leniency in town.
At the cairn, the PCs have made it to the submerged chamber where one of them died from Ulavant. The kicker is the rest of the group don't know what happened to him but they know he was in the water for too long and presumed the worst. So they're headed back to town for recruits. Little do they know when they return thre will be two ghouls waiting for them...
That's it so far, this dungeon has been a blast.
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I'm probably starting WC in a few weeks. I will have 4 PC's with 600 xp and 600gp each from an introductory adventure and two new characters at 0 xp and no extra stuff.
The players are all experienced and the four should level up to 2nd pretty early on in the module. A party of 6 1st level PC's is APL 1.5 and then they will jump to APL 2.5 when the first four level up. My question is how much should I scale up the adventure to keep it challenging? Any thoughts?
That is essentially how the battle went for me. The web was a great tactic to delay everyone and the allip is what kept the fight at a very dangerous level. I'd say our battle lasted about 15-20 rounds so it was a pretty memerable fight. After that fight the PC's searched bodies and then heard the sounds of the Aspect going to town on the elevator. I let the session end with "The sounds are getting louder!" The PCs at this point are out of resources and in for a very tough fight. They have been talking and plan on fighting it in the maze (whiich I will allow to give them a chance otherwise its likely curtains for the party as they are so drained).
I had a similar experience. They started fighting the allip, the acolytes entered the frey before that fight ended, then the Faceless One, who's out of site of the PCs, casts his Monster Summonings and buffs before entering the battle himself. Web kept the cleric out of the fight for about 25 rounds. The fight actually lasted 42 rounds, ending when the Faceless One escpaed by casting his last non-cantrip spell, Hold Potal, getting away with 5 hp, while the two standing PCs had 1 and 3 hp. Very memerable fight.
The party actually did the Vecna temple first. The Faceless One stayed hidden while they took out the other temples, and I had him present and summoning the Ebon Aspect as they were leaving for the last time. He went down in 2 rounds this time, but the EA was a pretty tough fight.
I'm probably starting WC in a few weeks. I will have 4 PC's with 600 xp and 600gp each from an introductory adventure and two new characters at 0 xp and no extra stuff.
The players are all experienced and the four should level up to 2nd pretty early on in the module. A party of 6 1st level PC's is APL 1.5 and then they will jump to APL 2.5 when the first four level up. My question is how much should I scale up the adventure to keep it challenging? Any thoughts?
I would just keep it as is. Six PCs will level up slower in the long-run, and being 2nd level early on will help with some the early challenges (like the swarms)
My group just started tWC today. So far, no one dropped to negatives or killed (with some good rolling at key moments).
I'm playing in this one (as well as acting as an assistant to the DM; it's his first time behind the screen) and our party for this session consisted of an Elf Cleric of Wee Jas, a Half-Elf Ranger (Favored Enemy of Aberrations), a Half-Orc Paladin of Freedom (UA, worships Kord), and a Human Wizard (Abjurer). Our fifth player couldn't make the first session (he'll be our Rogue). Three out of four are experienced players, so we were playing cautiously.
We were able to handle the wolves with the Paladin and Ranger being the only ones wounded (both resisted being tripped). We didn't try opening the sarcophogas, but set off the stone block/poison gas trap in the Architect's Lair (only the Paladin and Wizard failed saves). As we were running out of the gas (down the hallway), the Ranger rolled a natural 20 on his Spot check and then the Paladin rolled a critical (with a greatsword) on the strangler before the beast could act. The Paladin did fail the second save against the poison and rolled a 6 Str damage on the die (ouch!). The Ranger was able to identify the Brown Mold, so we avoided it (the Wizard didn't have Ray of Frost prepared) and explored the rest of the lair. We didn't collapse the Laborer's Quarters entrance (got spooked by the "broken machinery" sounds and moved the sarcophagas after one round), rolled a 22 Search in the face passage and climbed back down after exploring about 20ft in, and we didn't like the look of the trapped elevator.
After going back to the abandoned office to Detect Magic on the loot, Cure Wounds, and rest/regain spells, we killed the Brown Mold, identified Ogremoch's rune on the stone egg (which the Paladin confirmed was evil, so we left it alone), grabbed the petrified wood staff, and collapsed the remaining elevator (as the only place left unexplored). We all readied ourselves on and around the sarcophagus, so we were prepared when the beetle swarm and mad slasher showed up.
Round 1: Beetle gyser from hole, mad slasher moves, Ranger uses readied action to throw a dagger (hits for 7 damage), Paladin throws a dagger (hits for 2 damage), Wizard casts Magic Missile (4 damage), beetles move, Cleric shoots light crossbow (hits for 3 damage)
Round 2: Ranger moves and attacks with longsword (hits for 5 damage), mad slasher attacks Ranger (hits once for 8 damage), Paladin invokes Righteous Fury (RoD substitution level) and charges (hits for 13 damage, killing it), Wizard casts Mage Armor, beetles move, Cleric moves away
Round 3: Ranger takes off cloak (dropping longsword) and lights it on fire with the lit torch he's holding in his left hand before throwing it on the beetles (DM rules that it will do 1d3 damage for one round) and backing up, Paladin grabs Ranger and drags him farther away from the beetles, Wizard takes off cloak and hands it to Ranger before moving, beetles take 3 damage and move, Cleric moves
Round 4: Ranger lights Wizard's cloak on fire and throws it on the beetles before backing up, Paladin drags Ranger farther away, Wizard takes a double move, beetles take 2 damage and move, Cleric takes off cloak and hands it to Ranger before moving
Round 5: Ranger lights Cleric's cloak on fire and throws it on beetles before backing up, Paladin drags Ranger again, Wizard holds an action, beetles take 3 damage and die
We decided to consult with Allustan and sell some of the loot (to purchase a few flasks of alchemist's fire) before venturing down the collapsed hole. The session ended after dividing/selling the loot. The Paladin will be out recovering from his Str damage for a bit, which will give us an opportunity to work in the Rogue.
Overall, the adventure is tough but survivable with smart play (we were lucky when it counted, which made it a bit easier).
Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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Thanks to everyone on the kind comments about "The Whispering Cairn." I had a chance to run it for a second group at MACE in North Carolina last month, and it was just as fun as it was in the Paizo offices. I'm thrilled to see that people are having so much fun with it. It was a joy to write.
--Erik Mona
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Erik,
My group is loving (and hating) the Whispering Cairn. We started in April, playing twice a month and using the "abandoned mine office" intro.
Diamond Lake is a living, vibrant community for my players--and they're terrified of running afoul of "The Law," which has made for a lot of amusing role-playing.
They are currently trying to figure out some way of trying to uncover who has the bones of the Land family--while simultaneously trying to avoid following the obvious clues that lead to confronting Kellick and his gang. The half-orc is the big bugaboo that no one wants to confront.
The community is so real for my players, so much more so than anything I've run for them before, that as 1st & 2nd level characters they are virtually paralyzed into inaction, so fearful are they to make a fatal mistake.
So while we seem to be making little/no progress, all are having a great time. Certainly, as the DM, I know I am.
While I have been a little concerned at the relative lack of progress, I however feel that the relationships (both positive and negative) that the players' characters are currently building with the various NPCs of Diamond Lake (both the canned NPCs and those of my own creation) will pay off in huge dividends when the PCs eventually return to discover the devastation caused by Ilthane.
Thank you once again for creating such a "living" setting in which to start off the campaign. While I am impatient to move on, the setting is so rich that I am almost loathe to do so.
We're having so much fun!
While I have been a little concerned at the relative lack of progress, I however feel that the relationships (both positive and negative) that the players' characters are currently building with the various NPCs of Diamond Lake (both the canned NPCs and those of my own creation) will pay off
Hope you don't mind if I interject, David. I wouldn't worry about the lack of progress too much if you're all having fun with Diamond Lake. This town is one of the best fleshed-out towns I've ever read and my players are loving it, too. It reminds me a lot of Nulb from Temple of Elemental Evil. Back in the day when we played that my group had more fun and spent more time there than the actual Temple, which is really saying something. Anyways, enjoy it while it lasts!
My group is loving (and hating) the Whispering Cairn. We started in April, playing twice a month and using the "abandoned mine office" intro.
.... While I have been a little concerned at the relative lack of progress, I however feel that the relationships (both positive and negative) that the players' characters are currently building with the various NPCs of Diamond Lake (both the canned NPCs and those of my own creation) will pay off in huge dividends when the PCs eventually return to discover the devastation caused by Ilthane.
Your group's experiences mirror my own.
We've been playing twice a month since February, and we're still only halfway through Three Faces. The culprit: The many and interesting story lines that are developing from interacting with all the various npcs throughout Diamond Lake. We've had encounters with the Cult of the Green Lady, Chezbeth, Smenk and his allies, the chess parlour and, most recently, the other mine managers. Diamond Lake, as a setting, is a real gem.
I can't believe it's been a month since my last session. We had another tonight (many delays as we all struggle through finals and holiday madness).
I thought Whispering Cairn was good fun before, but tonight it totally rocked.
If you want to skip my wordy recap, I do have an actual question at the very end (last paragraph).
They started the session back in Diamond Lake, taking a week off after their first successful trip to the Cairn. They had loads of loot to unload, and they achieved second level. Since I had skimmed over Diamond Lake to get them into the dungeon as quickly as possible on the first session, I took some time to acquaint them with the town's vibe tonight. They met with Allustan, who is already mentoring the party (one of the PCs is Allustan's apprentice, and exploring the Whispering Cairn and discerning its full history is his journeyman project).
Allustan warned them that their exploits were now well known, and that Khellek, a member of the rival adventurers' group in town, had taken special interest in them. Allustan is aware of Khellek's affiliation with the Seekers, and figures that the mage has seen the PCs selling Seeker rings on the market. They used this opportunity to recap what they have learned so far, and Allustan told them a little bit about the history of the Wind Dukes of Aaqa and the Queen of Chaos.
When they returned to the Cairn, they met up with the rival adventurers, including an enraged Khellek who wanted to fireball the lot of them and be done with it. Tirra prevented this; she has a crush on Kellen, the PC cleric/shadow (non-Oriental ninja), who she knows from the nightly dart contests in the Feral Dog. Tirra and Khalavas (the party's bard/barbarian) worked together to smooth the situation over, and eventually the rival adventurers left.
They already had all of the lamps due to their first expedition, so it only took them a few minutes to figure out the puzzle in the False Tomb. Because of this, they never even had to deal with the Face in Darkness trap, which I'm enormously glad of.
They had much more difficulty in Alastor's Haunt. After defeating the grick (Quince the wizard/warmage greatly simplified this with a couple of magic missiles), Alastor showed up and possessed the warmage after weakening almost everyone with his horrific appearance. I know it recommends in the module that he only blast one or two PCs with this, but they told him to show himself, so he obliged ;)
Anyway, Alastor told his sad tale and they agreed to bury him with his family, so we dotted-red-line traveled to the Land farmstead. That whole scene played out exactly as the module says it should. I'm really glad one of the PCs has Track. The knight/fighter Darion got a critical at the opening of the owlbear fight, knocking out 21 of its 22 hit points, and Quince finished it off with a signature magic missile before it ever got to act.
The baby owlbear immediately became attached to Khalavas, and the player was quite happy with this development. They discovered Skutch's arm and made some Knowledge checks to get an idea of what had happened. They at first believed that Balabar Smenk was digging up graves so he could have tireless zombie laborers to work his mines, which is actually a really good idea for an adventure. They checked a few other isolated graves in the area, and when they saw that none of these had been disturbed, they briefly entertained a conspiracy theory that Smenk didn't want them to get into the final chamber of the Whispering Cairn.
Allustan popped their little bubble of paranoia when they next sought his counsel, and they decided that seeking out Kullen was their best route to locating the remains of Alastor's family. They smartly decided to not just barge into the Feral Dog. Instead, they would corner Kullen when he was at his home alone, preferably asleep. Kellen (the PC, not the albino half-orc) told the party that he was in fact the Baneshadow, a mysterious dark avenger who had recently been prowling Diamond Lake's streets at night, scaring the Nine Hells out of criminals and thugs. He offered to go to Kullen alone under his alias (masked, of course!), so that they could question him forcefully without fear of later reprisal. They decided this was a good idea.
Quince first went to the Feral Dog alone, supposedly to get a drink. He sat near Merovinn and Kullen (who were at a different table), and managed to overhear Kullen trying to convince his mage friend that they could kill Filge without Balabar ever knowing. Merovinn nixed this (carefully tredding around Kullen's temper). Quince reported this new info (including the name 'Filge', which not even the locals in the party recognized) to the others, and they decided to deal with Kullen that very night. Kellen trailed the drunken half-orc from the Feral Dog to his shack on the outskirts of town, and snuck in while Kullen was fast asleep.
When the session ended, Kellen was hanging on the rafter over Kullen's bed after plastering the half-orc with a tanglefoot bag, pinning him in place. He is about to interrogate Kullen, who is feeling rather vulnerable without his greataxe. Especially since he has heard of the Baneshadow's exploits.
So yeah, everyone had a really, really good time. We play at a pretty breakneck speed with very little dilly-dallying, because we only get together (at MOST) every other week for three hours. So it was good to have an excuse to have them actually hang around Diamond Lake with a purpose, as we probably wouldn't have done it in session otherwise. I'd like to play through Age of Worms before 2010, you see...
Also, we are all Eberron fans at heart, as you can probably tell from the comic book inspiration behind Kellen "Baneshadow" Kor. We just tend to run rather than stroll through adventures, always eager to experience the next scene before we have lingered in the current one for very long. It's great to have a group like that when our time is so limited.
Next session I anticipate they will quickly wring out of Kullen everything they need to be at Filge's doorstep within fifteen minutes. At the rate they've been going, I wouldn't be at all surprised if they bulldoze through the observatory in the first half of the session, and spend the second half fighting the Wind Warriors and wrapping up the adventure. I'm pretty happy with the possibility of completing the adventure in 4 sessions, or 12 game hours.
Actual question: if the PCs are 3rd level (and keep in mind they are gestalt), will 2 CR 4 Wind Warriors be too much for them to handle? It'll most likely be their first and only fight that day, so they'll have lots of resources to blow. I guess the Wind Warriors are technically CR 3s under the gestalt rules, but I usually don't start lowering the CRs until the PCs hit level 4. At levels 1-3, gestalt characters are almost as fragile as standard characters of the same level. They are just more versatile.
Players read these boards?! Eeshka! I would stop running the adventure path if I thought my players read here.You can usually tell if a player has an unnaturally accurate read on your campaign. If that happens, just change it up.
I think most players want to actually enjoy the game and feel the risk and probably don't come here to get a leg up. Speaking for myself, although a long time DM, I'd like to be a player through the Shackled City adventure path. Now I actually own the Shackled City hardcover and I have easy access to Shackled City posts here, but I don't read any of it/them because doing so would make the playing not worth the time.
Then again, I also don't read the last page of a book I'm just starting. Why do some people do that?!
I have a plyaer who has read quite a bit of the SCAP HC and practicly ruined my campaign because of it. I would love to play the Istivin mini-campaign and likewise have never read either of the modules or city guide. It drives me crazy becasue i really want to read them.