I am running the AoW and the group is almost at the SoLS. I've heard how nasty this one is. Any suggestions or things I need to know before running it?
Make ressurection available/feasible, not just raise dead. There's a lot of death effects flying around.
If possible, hint to the players that they need to make copious use of death ward. Bring a cleric, even if it's a paid henchman or a DMPC.
Emphasize also that this type of dungeon requires careful, step-by-step exploration. Retreating to rest after one or two encounters is not a bad thing in this context. I.e. treat it as a sort of archaeological expedition, not as a raid. They are there to explore the place fully and find out all of its evil secrets, not to zip in, snatch the artifact, and run. Since this place has lots of evil secrets, and they can expect one (or three) behind virtually every door, it makes sense not to proceed with a half-empty magazine.
Pursuant to the above, the PCs should bring plenty of supplies to sustain themselves while they're in the jungle. Have Tenser loan them an account of the famed Matreyus expeditions to explore ruins in the Amedio Jungle, which will tell them all they need to know about jungle expeditions--what equipment to bring and how careful they need to be when exploring the dangerous ruins hidden by the jungle foliage.
Oh yes, and always have a heal spell or three handy--they're good for killing undead and good for fixing some of the conditions caused by undead special attacks.
The adventure hints at other power bases/denizens in the local area of the spire (such as the beholder, displacer beast pack, etc.). They do not interact with the spire itself, but if you run a campaign with "value added" material, you may want to spice up the adventure with side-treks dealing with these forces. Are your PCs having too easy a time? Have these forces ambush them (or just encounter them) while resting. Someone get off'd? Have the PCs meet (I wrote meat originally - oops, hope C.Healer didn't see that!) an NPC whose lone bodyguard (a PC) has been captured while valiantly defending his client. "Why are we here? You haven't heard of the famed stone of the Lost Archolopolis Empire?!" Instant side-quest. Don't worry, the inhabitants of the spire have been there 1,500 years - another couple days won't hurt them.
Don't downplay the ancient taint that festers at this site. This is ground-zero of where an evil god was born. Do you use taint in your game? Time for some saving throws! Don't use taint? Now is a good time to reconsider.
The adventure is not short of good fights, but it is short of good roleplay opportunity (PC to PC interaction excluded) and colorful enemies. A little extra work in these area could shore this up however.
I have only run one session in the Spire, but general consensus here earlier matches my experience, i.e. the place can be pretty deadly!
In my game, due to players coming in and out I split the party in two, with one PC and her animal companion recruiting two other characters for an initial foray into the Spire. One of these was Celeste (yes, she's more powerful than the PC's), and accomanying her were a 14th level Cleric, and a 14th level Druid / Wizard / MT / Arcane Heirphmant. No real weaknesses in this party, as Celeste can swing a good sword and the animal companion is an advanced brown bear. They struggled in the first encounter outside the spire (admitedly I added a spawn of kyuss mob, but that was neutralised with one spell). When they went inside, I had most of the upper level denziens come at the party once combat started. While the party walled off half of them, the two sword archons killed Celeste in about one round. At this point, the rest used a word of recall to get the heck out of there. This is actually perfect from my DM's point of view, as I wanted Celeste to die so she can come back as the corrupted eladrin (deleted from the module initially), but I was surprised at just how quickly her death came about (as was her player).
One of the few cases where I wouldn't allow the monsters to buff themselves unless the PCs are absolutely bang their swords against the walls yelling, "Monsters, come out!", are the corrupted celestials. I haven't experienced a TPK the whole path (just beat Dragotha), but Kelvos and the WormAngels were the closest thing. I made the mistake of letting Kelvos fully buff himself, which put his AC in the 40s. Coupled with some freaky primstic spray results and a couple failed saves against the Archon's dive resulted in the deadliest encounter in my campaign so far. Too bad Mak'ar is such a pushover if you run it as is...
Oh, and I ran the Beholder with ten trolls. Nonething is worse than not being able to heal rends, or rather getting schooled by trolls to begin with. My group got lucky thanks to a sneaky burrowing druid PC who baleful polymorphed the thing. Somewhere in the world of Greyhawk is a very smart and angry pigeon...
I always regretted not using Ballaxxus (the beholder), as I felt that a beholder was one of the few D&D classic creatures not to be more prominently featured in the AP. (The yuan-ti in the east quarter of Kuluth-Mar were the other.) But as my party was already 14th level going into the Spire, I decided to just plow ahead.
As for resurrection, I had Agath of Thrunch (in Magepoint) offer to resurrect/true resurrect any PCs, with the usual fees. As this adventure kicks of the beginning of high-level play, resurrection becomes a legitimate consideration. I found that most players will foot the bill on true res if it's offered than lose a level.
One of the ways I developed an atmosphere in Kuluth-Mar of infestation and squirming terror was based on the author's suggestion on p.70. Any time the party was in the city, and stopped to consider how to approach the spire, cast a spell to divine information, etc, I would comment that "a small green kyuss worm poked its head out of the dirt, and is crawling toward you...slowly." After a few times, the party went back to the Obsidian Ring, and sat up there, planning. I don't think you can stress the presence of the Kyuss worms enough in this adventure.
As for the Kyuss Knights, however, I felt that they lacked some of the serious offense of the Swords of Kyuss--they don't even have a ranged attack! To compensate, I gave my Kyuss Knights the Evolved template (Libris Mortis). This grants them a the +2 Str/Cha, +1 deflection to AC, fast healing 3, etc, but more importantly, gives them access to a spell-like ability of your choice--or random, if you prefer. It bumps up their CR by one, but makes them far more capable opponents.
I haven't run this one yet, but I plan to turn the journey to Kuluth-Mar into a major sidequest. No "picture of teleportation" in Tenser's tower for my campaign!
The PCs will have to take ship from Hardby for Gradsul, where they must visit the Matreyus manor (this is where clues about Bucknard's itinerary will point to). After defeating some Pomarji privateers on the way, the party will have to deal with a rival mystic theurge of necromantic bent, (and his minions), who is also searching for Kuluth Mar and has temporarily taken over the Matreyus manor while he searches for clues of its whereabouts.
Once they defeat the necromancer and find the clues that Bucknard went to Kuluth-Mar (and info on where that is), they will encounter Rhialle, the Olman guide of the Matreyus expeditions into the Amedio jungle, who will help them get to a coastal jumping-off point for the PCs jungle expedition, in exchange for help assaulting a coastal fort held by the Scarlet Brotherhood.
The PCs will then have to make a Heart of Darkness-style journey upriver, coping with hungry piranhas, vampire bat swarms, nasty but mundane parasites and diseases, etc. When they finally make it to the outskirts of Kuluth-Mar, they'll definitely run into one or more of the inhabitants of the outer ruins. I also plan to have them run into another party of worm-hunter types from the Amedio Jungle. I'll hold this party in reserve until they are partway through exploring the Spire--if one of the encounters goes awry I'll have someone to bail the PCs out--if not I'll have a tense encounter when the PCs come back to camp with these "interlopers," who are a bit creepy (one has "wormhunter" PrC levels, one has the necromantic bloodline feat from Dragon) but not actually evil.
I figure I'll probably end up reducing or doing away with the story XP for experiencing the visions, depending on where the PCs stand in relation to the recommended levels. It shouldn't be too hard to beef things up a bit if the PCs get a bit ahead on XP anyway, and since we're making limited use of the Complete books, etc., the challenges in the last adventures should be pretty tough even if they are a level or two ahead of where they should be.
I ran a beholder scenario as well. After they killed the beholder and ran off the remaining trolls, they found the behoder's lair where they conveniently discovered the beholder's notes on a failed excursion over the wall.
I gave them information on the need for silver weapons, and that the beholder experienced a vision as he got close to the top of the spire. It was a nice spot for some extra potions, wands, rings or whatever you want to hand over to your players in the treasure.
I ran a beholder scenario as well. After they killed the beholder and ran off the remaining trolls, they found the behoder's lair where they conveniently discovered the beholder's notes on a failed excursion over the wall.
I gave them information on the need for silver weapons, and that the beholder experienced a vision as he got close to the top of the spire. It was a nice spot for some extra potions, wands, rings or whatever you want to hand over to your players in the treasure.
Perhaps I am lacking in imagination, but how do beholders write notes?
mage hand + pen?
I guess--I didn't think mage hand gave one such fine coordination.
People with no arms can learn write, paint and so on with their mouths. So I amagine a beholder could learn to write using its mouth too.
Anyway, thanks for some good advice in this thread, there are some new gems posted here so far. I'll be running it again in another month or so, and am strongly considering using the beholder this time around now. It will be interesting to see how my modified Kelvos and the WormAngels goes - the players won't be expecting to see Celeste again, especially not on the side of the bad-guys!
Perhaps I am lacking in imagination, but how do beholders write notes?
Telekinesis.
Perhaps I am lacking in imagination, but how do beholders write notes?
Very fine application of the beholder's disintegration ray...on slabs of granite.
There's an illusion cantrip called Chalkboard. Combine it with permanency?
Touche. I guess I don't have much imagination!
Touche. I guess I don't have much imagination!
(Nonsense! Perhaps we have too much!)
I like the idea of getting rid of the magical paintings bit. It always struck me as a little too convienent. A long journey at sea might be a welcome change of pace.
On that note, are you playing the Savage Tide? To avoid the risk of giving away any spoilers, I'll just say that this might be a good point of material, provided you aren't playing it. When you mentioned bats, I thought of the appendix in issue #143, p. 58. Check it out if you aren't going to PC in Savage Tide.
I made my group get to the Spire the "old fashioned" way, i.e. via boat. But they passed through Sasserine and Cauldron fairly quickly - probably a bit more time in Cauldron, but overall I just whizzed them through (same with the boat trip). Kind of like the Indiana Jones method - pull out a map, and point with finger saying "you go from here to here, via this place".
What I did do, though, was have them hunting for the Spire's actual location - they knew it was "in the jungle" somewhere, but of course it's a huge big jungle! I also had it sheilded from divination spells (otherwise Find the Path would have found it). So they dug around for any rumours, eventually finding an old retired adventurer who had once seen an anciant map with it on. "Conveniently" (for me), the map was a large fresco on the wall under Shatterhorn, so the PC's had to go investigate the ruins there.
I used the Shatterhorn adventure (from an earlier Dungeon magazine, or the Cauldron hardback) but modified it a lot, taking out the cagewrights but leaving a couple of traps and the crystal snake and demodand (who had found and trained a fiendish gelatinous cube monk). It worked well enough as a side-trek to help pin-point where to look for the Spire.
On that note, are you playing the Savage Tide? To avoid the risk of giving away any spoilers, I'll just say that this might be a good point of material, provided you aren't playing it. When you mentioned bats, I thought of the appendix in issue #143, p. 58. Check it out if you aren't going to PC in Savage Tide.
I had the party arrive in dense jungle, several miles from the Spire, but still in sight of it. I read a suggestion on the forum to make sure the party is mostly 14th level by the time they reach the stone ring, so I added several encounters.
Soon after arriving, they witnessed 4 of Ballaxus's troll hunters slaughtering a village of dakon. They killed the trolls, but not before their inaction ("I slowly sneak up toward the screaming to see what it is") resulted in most of the village being slain. Communicating w/ the surviving dakon, they learned of "the Eye" that lived in the ruined city, & promised to kill it.
The next day as they were about to leave the village, they were attacked by a pair of advanced T-rexes, which killed one party member & almost another. One raise dead the day after, they were attacked by 4 more troll hunters on their way to the city. Later that day, they were attacked by 9 advanced terror birds (from a Savage Tide issue), after which they rested.
The next day, they faced a tribe of gorillons before reaching the city. They were greeted by 6 revived fossil megaraptors (Kyuss's town, there should be plenty of challenging undead I figue), which they handily destroyed thanks to the cleric of Pelor at their side. I then threw 4 more troll hunters at them, one of whom escaped & was able to alert Ballaxus. Then they ran into a casurua (from the Dragon Conpendium), & finally a charnel hound, which slew the Pelorite. The survivors, looking for a place to camp, found a mostly-intact building with large statues of Nerull outside, which turned out to be stone golems. After destroying them, they rested for another night.
They learned the next day that they had slept in an old temple to Kyuss's old god, Nerull, when an Aspect of Nerull suddenly appeared. Lucky for them, the mage had memorized banishment & the aspect failed its save. Out in the city, they were ambushed by 9 troll hunters sent by Ballaxus. They then tracked down the beholder's lair & were able to kill it & its 4 remaining troll guardians. After taking inventory of its treasure, they've decided to greater t-port back to Greyhawk to better prepare themselves. Since they're doing this, & 3 of the 6 party members are now 14th level, I plan to give them no more resistance before reaching the Spire.
My players started 5 miles away from the Spire. I added a series of effects from the Book of Vile Darkness that I described here:
Taint amd the Spire of Long Shadows
As far as encounters I had two. The first was really cool.
they encountered a Hullathoin, one of my more favorite undead creatures from Fiend Folio. the great beast was accompanied by 12 Spawn of Kyuss and 4 giant Zombies (I used stats of a Grey Render zombie, they can take a lot of punishment, but can only give out a little, basically tanks for the Hullathoin). It was awesome. My players were totally sicked by the Hullathoin, its pustules and fly infested body.
They also had to make the most horrible choice of all. The Cleric had forgotten to pray for any Remove Disease or Remove Curse spells and the Paladin only had one/week. Both the Cleric and his Cohort were infested by Kyuss worms from the Spawn and so the Paladin had to choose between saving his friend or his friends guardian. It was a great moment for my players. Needless to say the Paladin saved the cleric and the Cohort turned into a Knight of Kyuss (my ruling, because it will be so cool when they fight him in Alhaster or the Wormcrawl fissure later on).
The second enounter, wa muich less cool, but worked well. The palyers were worn out and one man short after beating the Hullathoin, and so moved closer to the city, encountering four ranger trolls (as per the Monster Manual). The trolls told them they were working for their master and that they had to pay a toll, which after some haggling ended up being 2,000gp each plus 50% of the gold and gems they find in the ruins, but none of the items of power. The players partially only agreed to this as they were so beat from the previous encounter and lucky they did as the Trolls were the ground forces for the Beholder who was invisible and floating high above the mounds of ruins, speaking through the lead troll via ventrillquism.
And then there was the Spire in which their other cohort was killed by one of the Sword Archons! Dang I had no idea this would turn out to be the coolest adventure yet, at least rivalling the Champion's City Games, in terms of my players enjoyment anyhow.
Hastur, dir you really use "a fiendish gelatinous cube monk"???
I can't believe that... but maybe I lack imagination.
Hastur, dir you really use "a fiendish gelatinous cube monk"???
I can't believe that... but maybe I lack imagination.
I'm afraid so; my players found it somewhat unbeleivable too, and it still gets comment from time to time. From memory, I used the creature exactly as presented here, reasoning that it was tainted by the demonic presences under Shatterhorn, then trained up by the Farastu Demodand that still lurked within.
So my party ended up fighting the Demodand to their right, and the cube ahead across a pit-trap. It was a bit of Greyhawk-style fun, nothing serious, with an interesting fight which included the Cleric dropping to about 1 Strength due to a lucky ray of enfeeblement from the Demodand (she couldn't move due to plate armour, blocking the passage allowing the Demodand to skip about the place for a while), and the fighter-type being tripped by the cube (so she just hit the cube from prone and killed it). All up everyone had fun with it, and the PC's were never in real danger; my game is mostly quite serious and gritty, but every now and again I stretch the fantasy aspect out a bit, and of course we all like a good laugh here and there.
Funnily enough, I've run another Monk in my game - a Hill Giant Were- Dire Boar Monk 4. I think I posted about it in the General discussion forum here - it was funny when the PC using a bow finally rolled a 20 after many misses, only to see his arrow swatted to one side and the hybrid giant laugh. That one was much nastier - if the were-thing didn't have to spend an action transforming hulk-style mid combat, I reckon the party would have had at least one PC dropped / killed due to the ferocious damage output of that creature when power attacking with such huge Str.