Speed record vs the Last Laugh

[Corian of Lurkshire]

Just played through the beginning of Lords of Oblivion with my players. Sure, it says resistance is somewhat underpowered, but I really couldn't have imagined this would happen.

It took them THREE ROUNDS to destroy the Last Laugh hideout. Utterly, completely and hideously. Everyone inside was red paste over the walls or had surrendered. Jil was captured. The house was a burning ruin. Not one of them had taken even the slightest bit of any kind of damage.

Even worse... they pondered actually just detonating the house from the outside, then going in to find the kidnappee's body for raising.

*shudder*

Anyone else with similar experiences of this episode?

[Colin McKinney]

One round.

My party took the rough info from the mental link to figure out where in the building Fario was being held, created a Dark Way (magical ramp) up to the outside of the building, cast Passwall to open up the wall into torture chamber, killed Jil, grabbed Fario and left.

They came back a couple hours later, after taking care of Fario, and found that the Last Laugh had cleaned the place out.

[Lee Hanna]

Not that fast, but we were quick. We figured out roughly where the room was, used disintegrate on the outside wall of the room below, and then on the floor under his torture table. He dropped down to us, and our flyer zoomed up in Jil's surprised face. She got away, but our dwarf fighter got crazy-good dice, and ginsu'd the various thugs. The one he didn't kill was pretty much in shock by the time I got to interrogate him.
About 4 or 5 got away by jumping out a window, plus Jil.

We were riding pretty high after that.

[Shmoopie]

About six rounds. But they were taking there time to enjoy. Two of the five (Scout and Rouge) swung into the second story in the room with the monks, destroyed them in about a round and a half, like I said taking their time. While that was happening the Monk and the Sorc kicked down the main door and fireballed both sets of hiding archers. The cleric walked into the next room, eating an apple, and disarmed the balistas... The monk ran upstairs, kicked a new doorway into one of the walls to the torture chamber and killed Jil. Then the looting commenced.
They had fun. I had fun. They got to act like Rambo, I got to sit back and dream blissfully of the upcoming chapters where they wouldn't be able to do that again.

[Skyknight]

What do you guys think about simply making the hideout larger? The hardcover mentions that the PCs may want to attack the Last Laugh's main guildhouse at some point. I am seriously considering getting rid of the map as provided, and using a guildhouse of my own construction, with more encounters and traps included.

Then when they finally get to the end where Jil is holding Fario hostage, it can be Jil AND one of the guildmasters they must fight. Not Velior Thazo but one of the other masters, someone appropriately difficult to defeat.

The players will get much more satisfaction out of sacking the Last Laugh HEADQUARTERS than they will just a random safehouse.

[Gonturan]

I wanted to make this a bit more of a challenge, so I dropped in a couple more traps and two or three new NPCs (mostly taken from supplements like Complete Scoundrel and Cityscape).

I also inverted the building, so that the Brass Lantern had a main floor that was set up just like a normal bar, and then the "first floor" listed on the map was actually the basement, and the 2nd floor was a sub-basement. This required a bit re-jiggering (especially with the pit traps), but it prevented the PCs from doing any of those upper-storey tricks, and it gave them the impression of a mini-dungeoncrawl.

With all that preparation, they still wiped the floor with everyone except Jil. But I think the atmosphere contributed a lot to the encounter.