Terror under Parrot Island

[kenmckinney]

Well,

I almost had a TPK under Parrot Island. Vanthus tricked the PCs into going into the tunnels and slammed the trapdoor shut as normal.

I have 6 players in my campaign, all with 32 point buy (Though the rule I use as the GM is that I get to assign the last 4 points, and I assign them to low stats, generally). So I had thought that I was going to need to bump things up a bit to create a challenge. Boy, was I wrong!

My party consisted of the following:

1 lvl 1 rogue with a rapier and dagger (planned to remain a rogue)
1 lvl 1 rogue with a rapier and dagger (planned to become a swashbuckler)
1 lvl 1 wizard (mage armor, color spray, and 1 open slot for Alacritous Cogitation)
1 lvl 1 Dread Necromancer (with Tomb-Tainted-Soul, of course)
1 lvl 1 Fharlaghn cleric, travel and celerity domain
1 lvl 1 sorcere (mage armor, magic missile)

At first, they encountered 3 zombies... the Dread Necromancer, who by then had bought two scrolls of Command Undead, used both of them and got two Undead Ravenous Pirate Zombie Servants, and they dispatched the other zombie. The only thing that made the battle a little tough was the crabs, but they were also killed quickly. I was starting to thing things would be boring.

So next, in the big room with 4 exits, I had them encounter two zombies in one of the antechambers. They engaged it and the cleric turned them both. But I realized that they were in a room with 5 entrances, which was a perfect place to stage a big zombie attack. So the next round, I had another door open and 4 more zombies pile out. The huecueva cleric followed from here 2 rounds later, and two emerged from the opposite chamber 3 rounds after that. In total 6 zombies and the huecueva cleric, but not all at once, and I figured 6 PCs plus two fully healed zombie pets could handle it.

But the dread necromancer chose to cast 'hide from undead' and basically spent the rest of the battle watching his zombies from safety. The cleric only succeeded in a single turn attempt, and rolled terrible on his turning damage (a 3 on 2d6+1), turning a single zombie.

The sorcerer used a Ray of Enfeeblement on the Huecuva cleric, dropping his STR to 4. The Huecueva cleric tried Cause Fear on the Fharlaghn cleric, but the PC made his will save.

From then on , the Huecueva cleric mostly made rebuke attempts, trying to shut down the Dread Necromancers two zombies, and un-turn his own.

The problem was, the rogues couldn't do any damage (they finally figured out that daggers were slashing weapons), the wizard had inappropriate spells and just kept trying to shoot his crossbow (not hurting a thing), and the whole fight basically fell to the sorcerer and the cleric (who had a cure light wounds wand) and the two pet zombies.

Eventually, everyone but the hidden dread necromancer was grappled and eaten, but not until after the sorcerer managed to kill the huecueva cleric with magic missles and a burning hands scroll. The dread necromancer actually ended this battle still having two rebuke attempts, which he didn't use because he didn't want to become unhidden!

The dread necromancer slunk away, avoiding the sea urchins, and swam out, barely making his swim checks (I let him level to 2nd level in the dungeon from the XP, and he spent all his skill points on swim cross class!) and escaping, after finding Pinkus' note. So the campaign is still on track (and all the players who had dead PCs were really good sports).

I feel a little bad because I railroaded the party a bit, the wizard, who was the last person to go down, actually looked for hidden people first, and got a 23 on a spot check (natural 19, alertness, elf). I didn't let him see Vanthus because I figured either Vanthus would kill him, or Vanthus would be taken out, and I really wanted to set up Vanthus as a recurring NPC since he is so central to the campaign and thought the wizard would survive in the dungeon. But, I was wrong.

So now, I am deciding what to do next. The surviving dread necromancer wants to hire mercenaries and go back into the tunnels to take out the 4 surviving zombies and get the treasure of all the dead PCs. So we may do that next, though I am hesitant because I don't really want the Dread Necromancer PC to get all that treasure, since he basically stood by and let his whole party be killed rather than expose himself to any personal risk.

Any ideas? I'm thinking the right thing to do is to just have the other players make lvl 2 PCs that get hired by Lavinia.

Ken

[Hired Sword]

Here are some ideas to consider.

If the Dread Necro goes back to Lavinia first, have her send the Jade Ravens to clean up the mess on Parrot Island while the DN recruits new members. The Ravens return the loot to Lavinia who uses it to help equip the next group of adventurers.

If the DN hires his own thugs to help him retrieve the stuff, make sure that the group is unsavory enough to take all the goodies for themselves (leaving a "fair" share for the PC, you decide).

The rest of your players could roll up level 2 characters and go with the DN as the new party and then loot PI.

If you let the DN get the loot all for himself, make sure you adjust the next couple of treasures found, to make sure that the party doesn't get too much extra loot.

The good news is that in the grand scheme, the party didn't have that much loot at this point, so its not *that* unbalancing an advantage.

Cheers!

[kenmckinney]

I guess you are right...it isn't super unbalancing.

I can't use the Jade Ravens because I already told the players that they went to Cauldron to look for Lavinia's Aunt and Uncle. It has only been two days since then; there is no way they would be back.

I think what I will do is this: let him hire mercenaries, but give each player the option of having his new PC be one of the mercenaries.

Then, when they are down there, have the mercenaries take some of the loot as booty, possibly provoking a fight, but probably not.

The DN knows that Vanthus is associated with the Dragon Lotus due to Pinkus' note. I have already got him worried that any mercenaries he hires might be infiltrated by Lotus Dragons. So I think he will be quite happy to have some of the mercenaries be PCs, and of course they will be interested in a share of the loot.

Ken

Hired Sword wrote:

Here are some ideas to consider.

If the Dread Necro goes back to Lavinia first, have her send the Jade Ravens to clean up the mess on Parrot Island while the DN recruits new members. The Ravens return the loot to Lavinia who uses it to help equip the next group of adventurers.

If the DN hires his own thugs to help him retrieve the stuff, make sure that the group is unsavory enough to take all the goodies for themselves (leaving a "fair" share for the PC, you decide).

The rest of your players could roll up level 2 characters and go with the DN as the new party and then loot PI.

If you let the DN get the loot all for himself, make sure you adjust the next couple of treasures found, to make sure that the party doesn't get too much extra loot.

The good news is that in the grand scheme, the party didn't have that much loot at this point, so its not *that* unbalancing an advantage.

Cheers!

[MrFish]

I like the idea of the continuity of having the pcs possibly be the mercenaries, that's a good solution. Really, this is a nice buildup too, quite cool. I too found that the pcs' first encounter with undead was really nasty, one of them being dragged off to (horribly) be devoured, another totally failing almost every roll...

[Kirth Gersen]

kenmckinney wrote:

The sorcerer used a Ray of Enfeeblement on the Huecuva cleric, dropping his STR to 4.

SRD wrote:

Traits

An undead creature possesses the following traits (unless otherwise noted in a creature’s entry).
Not subject to critical hits, nonlethal damage, ability drain, or energy drain. Immune to damage to its physical ability scores (Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution), as well as to fatigue and exhaustion effects.

I'm not familiar with the Dread Necromancer--does it have a special ability to affect undead with stat-reducing spells? Or did you rule that ray of enfeeblement doesn't count because it's a "penalty" to Str instead of Str "damage"? Or is there some other ability at work here that I'm unaware of? I'm curious, because I'm always on the lookout for ways to bypass undead immunities (truedeath crystals are great!)

[kenmckinney]

Kirth Gersen wrote:

kenmckinney wrote:

The sorcerer used a Ray of Enfeeblement on the Huecuva cleric, dropping his STR to 4.

SRD wrote:

Traits

An undead creature possesses the following traits (unless otherwise noted in a creature’s entry).
Not subject to critical hits, nonlethal damage, ability drain, or energy drain. Immune to damage to its physical ability scores (Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution), as well as to fatigue and exhaustion effects.

I'm not familiar with the Dread Necromancer--does it have a special ability to affect undead with stat-reducing spells? Or did you rule that ray of enfeeblement doesn't count because it's a "penalty" to Str instead of Str "damage"? Or is there some other ability at work here that I'm unaware of? I'm curious, because I'm always on the lookout for ways to bypass undead immunities (truedeath crystals are great!)

We actually had a discussion about this at the table, and decided that Undead were only immune to ability Damage, not Penalties. While it seems thematically wierd, I was thinking my PCs needed a few breaks at the time!

Ken

[nevermind]

well, the "undead" type renders a monster immune to all necromantic effects except those specifically described as doing so from the sage's FAQ, but I am a bit lost for the precise issue ). Besides ability penalty being simply a weaker (non-stacking, capped by the limit of a minum of 1 in an ability score and a shorter duration to boot ) variant of true ability damage.

Incidentally, this would lead to the low-level necromantic rays (enfeeblement, clumsiness and stupidity ) becoming even better than they already are, since it would turn them into almost the only magical debuffs capable of affecting undead.

Just saying

as an aside, pretty bad massacre, although I have the nagging feeling the players helped quite a bit through being not very prepared (like bringing some oil, fighting with a narrow front etc. ). And, well, having no 'tank'

[StrifeAKAWarmage]

Well if you havent done parrot island part 2 by your group lol yet have Vathis go and take what little loot they did have to supply some of his men and have them waiting for them to come to make a side quest lol good luck

[Kirth Gersen]

kenmckinney wrote:

We actually had a discussion about this at the table, and decided that Undead were only immune to ability Damage, not Penalties. While it seems thematically wierd, I was thinking my PCs needed a few breaks at the time!

Yeah, I ended up carefully timing the entrance of the zombies for the group I just played through it, and gave them plenty of warning (they had no cleric, just a druid). A few breaks are not unreasonable!