Ok, I officially love running this AP.
First, let me say that I was a player in this AP up through HTBM. That group broke up for a while, and now I am running the AP for a different group of guys.
Needless to say, it's interesting to read up on how things might have gone differently from when I was a player.
For instance, as a player, we had a TPK under Parrot Island because we had no cleric and no slashing weapons. (Yeah, I know...we were stupid, but it was fun anyway!)
As for tonight's session, the group insisted upon splitting up to follow up on several different leads. One PC, a rogue, went with Shefton Rusk (the Vanthus informant) to check out Parrot Island all by his lonesome. I had Shefton using the guise that they were going there to help out with a smuggling run.
I tried so hard to get the group back together, but they were insistent on tackling several tasks at once.
So I figured that I'd sent Shefton down the hole first so that Idae (the PC in question) wouldn't be COMPLETELY alone. Vanthus waited for them to get down the hole, spewed some appropriate taunts, then covered the hole with the boulders.
I played up how scared Shefton was and I think that the players around the table may have been genuinely scared as well.
I thought back to when I was a player and our first attempt TPK down there, and I wondered how I should alter things so that he'd have a chance.
Then I thought, screw it...he isolated himself from the party. He's toast. I'll run it as is.
Well, fate threw me a curve as he ran from the zombies straight towards Penkus's rotting corpse. He used the narrow tunnels to face off against the zombies one by one. (Great tactics.) After dealing with six of them, he moved further back and found the treasures behind Penkus. He then decided to go back out and try to figure out how to get out. When faced with the Huecuva, he retreated back and used the elemental gem to plow through the damage reduction and kill poor Veldimar in two rounds.
I couldn't believe it!
Good fun was had, and there's a lot of Vanthus-hate now.
Can't wait for next session!
A sheer joy to read!
And now for the punishment for the party, the Rogue gets *all* the xp for the PI encounters, as well as all the treasure. There is a lot of loot there and the xp should be enough to put him half way to 3rd level (or higher, depending on what went before).
When the party enters the LD lair, they will hit level 2 somewhere during it (should they survive that long), while the Rogue leads the way at level 3. Hopefully XP-jealousy will keep the party together in the future. :)
Cheers!
A sheer joy to read!
And now for the punishment for the party, the Rogue gets *all* the xp for the PI encounters, as well as all the treasure. There is a lot of loot there and the xp should be enough to put him half way to 3rd level (or higher, depending on what went before).
When the party enters the LD lair, they will hit level 2 somewhere during it (should they survive that long), while the Rogue leads the way at level 3. Hopefully XP-jealousy will keep the party together in the future. :)
Cheers!
Well, that's partially true, in this case. I run a "shared XP" idea and treat encounters as if they were all there as to try and keep people from working against each other in their quest for XP.
I did, however, give the rogue a little extra XP for his efforts.
The treasure, on the other hand...that's up to him to do with as he pleases...
So far, the players seem to like it.