Why not have them wake up at the Church of St. Cuthbert, their bodies dropped off by the two mysterious elves? The elves paid for the Raise Deads, but left a note saying the party now owes the Striders of Farlngn 4000 gold?
That way:
1. They don't have to roll new characters.
2. You've introduced the Striders yet kept them mysterious.
3. They're a bit in the hole starting out, though no reason the Striders have to call the loan right away...
Just a thought.
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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Go Grell! It's long been one of my favorite monsters.
That being said, I've run this encounter twice, and the first time was very, very tough for the party, which consisted of mostly melee characters, since they had to spend lots of time running up the stairs, jumping after the thing to hit it with their melee attacks, etc.
The second time, the party was very strong with ranged attacks and took out the grell with barely a scratch.
I'm pretty sure both times the part had already hit 2nd level, which makes a huge difference, as the grell is one of the hardest encounters in Jzadirune. However, I'm one for letting TPKs stand if they're due to the party's poor tactics. In this case, unless the Party somehow found the quickest path to the main doors of the grell's room, they should have had lots of warning. Two entrances have barricades over them, which should be a sign to the party that something nasty is in there. They entire room is not even remotely required for the adventure - the your party felt like tackling something that scared the rest of the dungeon enough to barricade it in, and then failed to use wise tactics, well, that's some of the risks of adventuring. Hopefully it will be a good learning experience for the players. One thing I do when I DM a TPK is point out whatever tactical mistakes they made, so that they can learn for the next time.
Since you were using the hardback, I assume you were using the 3.5 grell rather than the 3.0 grell. Large bit of difference between the two.
If crappy tactics kill them off, let them get killed off. You could even mix up the plot a little here (I love the Stormblades, so heres my blatant plug):
Have the Stormblades rescue the children. They watched the PCs, followed them into the depths, and picked up where they left off. Let stories of their coordinated teamwork flit about the streets, of how they defeated the kidnapping ring, and even had the grace and thoughtfullness to carry out the bodies of the inept commoners who had so foolishly charged in without proper strategy or teamwork. (PCs could be new or raised as per the Strider arrangement at this point). Carry on plot as normal, except in stage 2 the Stormblades pass up the "mere vandalism of trifling goblins" in favor of bigger, grander adventures, which gives the PCs the chance to get back in the limelight.
You could throw a loop in there, have the Stormblades revive the PCs where they fell, or at least bandage their wounds so that they recover on their own. Dead is dead, but it might get a few back on their feet. They can wander the corridors as they please, finding mostly dead hobgoblins or frightened goblins. Then they could run into Prylak, with a chained Terrem in tow. They can rescue the boy the Stormblades missed (either unintentionally, or the petty nobles could have left him behind after interacting with him and coming to dislike him). In a fight with Prylak, you could run the Orbius encounter, with a little modification.
Just some extra ideas for your perusal. Disregard at no cost, since they are free. :)
My party avoided the grell's room entirely. I think it was the only room in the Jzadirune that they didn't explore.
Our party almost had a TPK with the grell. We were second level, and it came down to the wizard taking an AoO to fire his crossbow and kill it.
Sounds like that was a lucky break, since one can't typically make an AoO with a ranged weapon...
I think the lucky break was the attack of opp the grell made when the wizard fired said crossbow not killing the poor sap, along with the bolt actually striking home.
My sarcasm meter is off right now, so I don't know if I'm falling into a trap here, or straightening out a misunderstanding...
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I think the lucky break was the attack of opp the grell made when the wizard fired said crossbow not killing the poor sap, along with the bolt actually striking home.
My sarcasm meter is off right now, so I don't know if I'm falling into a trap here, or straightening out a misunderstanding...
Your right, I suppose a better word would have been "accepting" the AoO for firing the crossbow. That was the lucky part, not getting hit by the grell. He had a pretty decent chance to hit it with the bolt though, but we had no idea how wounded it was - turns out very!
My group got almost TPK'ed with the grell as well... but a perfect-timed critical with a 2d6 psionic power saved the group. It was down to a 2nd lvl Wilder and a Swordsage (with 1hp left). Fortunately the Wilder was the ranged attacker, all other party members were quite foolish to insist on going in melee with the grell.
Quite an encounter
My party waltzed right through J'zadirune with little to no difficulty, including the grell.
Of course, I changed a bit. My party was 4 gestalt character instead of regular builds. As well I put a prelude onto the campaign that brought the party to level 2 before J'zadirune. I feel that even if the party is a regular build the story needs a prelude to bump the characters to second level before they even really start with the Last Laugh encounter.
TPKs totally suck and I try to avoid them whenever possible. The idea of having Fario and Fellian pull their asses out of the fire and drag them back to the church is a great idea.
Actually my party was almost TPK'd by the grell too. It was the first time I sent F&F in, and they promptly got grappled/dropped and knocked unconscious. It was the lamest rescue ever.
BUT, the round that they were busy getting toasted allowed the party cleric to heal the party fighter and get him back on his feet, which allowed the party to finally deliver the killing blow.
Then the party revived their rescuers.
When I played this originally about two years ago, our party took its lumps but handled the grell in stride. The party was 2nd level by that time, as I remember, and had a few extra hit points to toss around.
Our party was a half-elf Rogue, human Ranger, human Wizard, dwarf Barbarian, human Swashbuckler and a half-orc Cleric of Istus... not a bad mix overall. The party rogue did die, trying to jump from one balcony to another and failing his jump check and a consecutive Reflex save I allowed him to grab the edge. Had he not been wounded already, he might have lived. The half-orc cleric gave the grell a beating with twin mace attacks, but was paralyzed in return. Our human wizard used magic missiles but then was out of attack spells and had to resort to his crossbow, with penalties for firing into melee. Dwarf barbarian was paralyzed after a couple blows were exchanged, and the human ranger never got a decent shot in due to running up n' down stairs and switching balconies only to find the grell had floated over to the other one in the meantime. The swashbuckler, true to its design in Complete Fighter, was practically useless as always, unable to do more than 3-8 dmg in a single shot, ever. She mostly did Assist Other actions, and fought defensively. In the end, the grell was finished by the crossbow from the mage, I think.
Important thing to remember about critters with all those attacks is that they can't make 10 attacks if they had to move to use them. Anything more than a 5-ft. Float would've brought the grell down to just one paralyzing tentacle attack that round. I even gave mine Combat Reflexes to discourage stupidity in the players, but it really didn't make that many flurry o' tentacles... the party was too spread out.
I'm in my 86th session DMing Shackled City using an online gaming table. Our group is not big on tactics or combat, and approaches most encounters with as much realism as possible, rather than playing it as a table-top combat game (no offense to warhammer and such games). Anyway, they have managed to stick together, and overcome problems without resorting to slugfests. I. don't know if your gamers are in it for the kill, but it sounds like they're not. Let them know that there's always another way to get things done. D&D is and always was about combat, but it's not the sole resource for problem solving.
If your players do enjoy the combat aspect of the game, then maybe you should coach them on tactics, because the grell is nothing compared to some of the potential TPK encounters they have coming.
Take a look at the final encounter in chapter 1, Kaz and Prickles will eat them for lunch. Drakthar in chapter 2 will rip them apart...and it only gets worse.
My players are constantly just fighting to survive, and have realized that they can't overpower everything in their path. They are always willing to negotiate with sentient enemies, and have been forced to show the wisdom of leaving potential foes alone when they just can't manage. If all else fails, they're never hesitant to hire a few sell-swords to even the odds. When bringing in henchmen, I try to use them to stalemate potential attackers (minimal tactics and die rolling for npc vs npc melee) and let the PCs shine, while the NPCs buy them time (and draw fire).
Anyway, it's a great adventure path. Don't get frustrated or give up, it's easily tailored to the style of gaming that suits your players.