I just finished running the Skinsaw Murders for four players. I really loved it, but I have a few thoughts for DMs who have not yet finished it. I particularly want to share things that I wished that I had done.
I wish that I had made Aldern A LOT tougher. There's a massive amount of fun build-up to meeting him again as a ghoul and it was a real let down to my players when they killed him in 2 rounds. If I did it over again, I might add levels or give him potions to drink that would have extended his staying power so that he could have lived up to expectations.
There's some cool mechanics for fighting at the bottom of the Seven's Sawmill that my players missed entirely because they decided to enter the mill at the 2nd floor and work their way up. I think if I did it over, I'd redraw the map so that they would have had to go through every level. Also, I think I would have made the Cultists tougher. The party's fighter was killing two per round whenever they stood next to each other. If I could have gotten them into position, they might have gotten a few flanking sneak attacks in, but they just killed them too quick. Another level or two of Rogue might have been in order.
Xanesha was just way, WAY too hard. If I did it over, I'd either make her easier by changing her spell selection so that she had less buffs at her disposal and maybe more spells having to do with seduction. Or I would have given broad, obvious hints at just how tough she was going to be and what sort of tactics she would be using if she has time to prepare. It was a near TPK the firt time the PC's attempted to fight her (one PC death with the rest fleeing badly wounded.) They defeated her the next time with only limited trouble because of massive preparation that included lots of buffs, plus the use of the Silence spell and Invisibility potions to get them to her chamber without alerting her so that she would not have time to prepare.
I might have changed the way treasure is distributed throughout the adventure. There actually is enough treasure in the adventure, but the PC's don't get the better part of it until the end IF they kill Xanesha and get her stuff, plus the 6000 gold each from the lord-mayor. I think I would have spread that out a little more so the PC's would not have been a little bit poor when they went to meet the massively difficult final boss.
Thanks for reading, anything you wished you had done differently?
Yeah, I agree completely on beefing up Aldern. In my campaign, I have 6 PCs and they all have good stats (made great rolls), so Aldern needed a lot of beefing up. So I upped his stats to a 32 point buy, changed him to a Rogue 4 / Aristocrat 2, and added the Negatives Energy charged template from the Advanced Bestiary.
It worked very well, pushing the party right to the limit, and they only succeeded because of liberal use of a wand of Magic Missile. If you want to see a preliminary stat block for this beefed up Aldern, check out this thread.
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I wish that I had made Aldern A LOT tougher. There's a massive amount of fun build-up to meeting him again as a ghoul and it was a real let down to my players when they killed him in 2 rounds. If I did it over again, I might add levels or give him potions to drink that would have extended his staying power so that he could have lived up to expectations.
Guardian Animal Tattoos to go with his undeadness. Summons a "ghost dog" to fight...implying someone even more powerful had access to the corpse...
Mind you I would have spent 5000gp of the reward on construction of an Amphitheatre on the site of the old light ruins in Sandpoint...and then skipped town.