My players had some bad luck during Sea Wyvern's Wake, with several character deaths setting back the average party level significantly. Currently, one is sixth level and the rest are fifth, and they're well into Journey's End. With some luck, the Mother of All and the Mashers will push the rest of them up to 6th, but that still leaves them behind the curve going into HTBM.
What I'd like to do is to try and tone down the early encounters in HTBM (but not too much - I really want that first scene with the tyrannosaur in there), and add some extra encounters to it, to help them get back on track by the end of the chapter.
What are the big 'risk' encounters here - the ones that tend to seriously tax even appropriate-level parties, and will probably puree a lower-level group?
Any suggestions for extra encounters, or ways to expand existing encounters without making them overpowering, would also be greatly appreciated.
I don't suppose that "All of them" is the answer your looking for, eh?
Well then, the Rex is a problem depening on default party strategy. Its AC is in the toilet, but it's got hitpoints to spare, and an attack with a high enough bonus to equal guaranteed pain each round. The swallow is a problem, as few characters can outgrapple it. But a hammering with ranged weapons can bring it down fast, especially if someone "holds the line with his face" as it were.
The gargoyles aren't so bad if the party has decent AC, especially with a good AOE caster. Definitely need lots of magic weapons for that crappy DR.
Olangru is rough, hands down, each time you fight him.
The terror birds are mostly annoyances, but they can wear down party's with repeated assaults.
Got to make dinner, more observations later if others don't beat me to it.
My PCs had the hardest time with Olangru and the bar-lguras. They were about 6th level when they started HTBM and didn't have to many problems. They avoided many of the fights with the terror birds (partly becuase I rarely rolled under 15%) and figured out a peaceable way past the nest mothers with a combination of wild empathy checks and summon monster.
When Olangru and his mates kidnapped Urol, I dropped the druid's dire ape companion in the suprise and subsequent rounds. The apes taughted them another round and then left, figuring they'd sown enough chaos and despair. Once they reached the temple and hit the harem, a well placed web took out the mates manuverability, allowing the tanks to wear them down. But, also reduced the DR too. When they fought Olangru, the dire ape was buffed with spells and a few more HD. Olangru didn't roll well, the ape did, Olangru got rended to peices.
The main changes I made to offset the level that the party was missing was reduction in DR and I reduced the Lemorian Golem's HD by one or two. Enough to give it lower HP and attack bonuses. They managed okay, burnt a lot of resources, and were scared out of their minds the entire time. I thought it succesfull.
Of course you could also just add in some challenges related to escaping the ship and rescuing additional crew, then give them bonus XP for beating those challenges. If you don't want to kill so many of the crew/passengers, you could have PCs rescue them, defend them from the T-Rex, set up a good hide out for them, then have the PCs head down the coast with Urol to contact Farshore and organize a rescue mission. Give them extra XP for this, boost them to 7th level, and then it's no problem playing hardball with them as they head down the coast.
Just a thought, but could you run "Torrents of Dread" from Dungeon #114, since it's set on the Isle of Dread as well? I seem to recall the level is about right, but I don't remember the plot well enough to know if it would work.
--Eric
Of course you could also just add in some challenges related to escaping the ship and rescuing additional crew, then give them bonus XP for beating those challenges. If you don't want to kill so many of the crew/passengers, you could have PCs rescue them, defend them from the T-Rex, set up a good hide out for them, then have the PCs head down the coast with Urol to contact Farshore and organize a rescue mission. Give them extra XP for this, boost them to 7th level, and then it's no problem playing hardball with them as they head down the coast.
That sounds like a very good idea, thanks. I'll start planning out a few such challenges.
Eric: Thanks very much for the suggestion. Unfortunately, I only have Dungeons #138 onwards.
All: Thanks very much, these suggestions will help a lot in adjusting the adventure.
The T-Rex encounter you can easily do to give the party a chance. The Rex has animal intelligence and is not going to do any sort of tactical thinking, so have the Rex go for the Avner's horse first and spend a round or two chowing down on equine or have the Rex go Avner (if you have played Avner right, the party is not going to break into tears if he gets scarfed down - just tell them not to waste the round that Avner slides down the gullet cheering but laying some smack down to the Rex.
For the terror birds, have the intial attack go for a NPC or the horse (assuming it was not Rex food) and that gives the party a free round to administer a beatdown on the bird.
Hopefully, by the time they get through the tunnel, the party should be closer in XP to where they should be.
In short, use the NPCs and the horse to soak off attacks from the party to give them better chances. And if the NPCs have strong ties to the party, so much the better to motivate them to save said NPCs.
(All except Avner - there is no loss there if that one 'takes one' for the team)
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The T-Rex encounter you can easily do to give the party a chance. The Rex has animal intelligence and is not going to do any sort of tactical thinking, so have the Rex go for the Avner's horse first and spend a round or two chowing down on equine or have the Rex go Avner (if you have played Avner right, the party is not going to break into tears if he gets scarfed down - just tell them not to waste the round that Avner slides down the gullet cheering but laying some smack down to the Rex.
For the terror birds, have the intial attack go for a NPC or the horse (assuming it was not Rex food) and that gives the party a free round to administer a beatdown on the bird.
Hopefully, by the time they get through the tunnel, the party should be closer in XP to where they should be.
In short, use the NPCs and the horse to soak off attacks from the party to give them better chances.
And combining this with one of Peruhain's suggestions, allow more NPCs to survive the wreck. Use them as fodder to distract the T. rex, terror birds, gargoyles, etc. This gives the PCs more time to whittle away hit points, and also helps freak them out as they continue to lose one NPC after another to the unforgiving dangers of the Isle. It's a balance, though, between inspiring dread and depression, so be careful with it.
The T-Rex will wander off when it has a full stomach (two medium creatures); so add a few more snacks (er, survivors) on the beach. Not only will this tone down the encounter, but it adds to the atmospere of danger.
Add even more 'squishies' (npc survivors) and make the PCs play baby-sitter. Offer an XP bounty for every npc that reaches farshore, then try your best to kill them off. Let a few live, of course.
Then add plenty of random encounters (I usually skip these) and a few more gargoyle ambushes to up the XP..
Make sure to give them time to rest before the final Orlangu encounter, or at least tone it down a bit. It will be a slaughter.
Yeah, Random Encounters are the way to go! Its almost sad, how the check once per 6 hours system makes it creepily unlikely to encounter anything. Seriously, even in the worst part of the isle, you only run into an average of 1 creature every 2 days. I'd freak out if I only say 1 creature in 2 days of walking!
Plus, the random encounter tables are so good! There's just a lot of fun with some of those monsters! Like the ahuizotl, that thing freaked out my PCs. I had them spot it watching them through the reeds on a riverbank. They asked the Olman guide with them about it, he shrugged and explained exactly what it could do, like it was no big deal (common monster to them, like an ogre to "normal" npcs). Hearing this olman talk in calm, disinterested tones about something eating your eyes, fingernails, and teeth while it drowned you to death just had my players twitching. They were leery as hell of the river from then on. Never even actually caught/fought the thing either.