We finished off Hook Mountain Massacre last weekend and here are some of my comments from the session. I’m DMing and the characters have been rebuilt to reflect Beta rules as much as we can. The players really wanted to stick with some PrCs that they had planned on using. Hopefully, this will reflect how this works with backwards compatibility. I’m running the AP as is.
The party is 10th level. They are a bit above the XP curve for the AP as there are only 3 PCs. The party consists of:
1. Cleric
2. Ranger 7/ Suel Arcanamach 3 (from Complete Arcane)
3. Rogue 4 / Wizard 4 / Bladesinger 2
General Impressions =
Favored Enemy: The ranger’s primary Favored Enemy is giants.
Channel Energy: This also saved this group’s collective behinds. I kept having the feeling that I could have a TPK on my hands with nearly every fight.
Fighting Capabilities: Since the group has fewer members, the players sought to obtain some balance for the missing roles. They also came up with some very good reasons to follow these paths in story. However, the group suffers in that it’s damage output just is not there.
Buff Spells: Thank you for making Bull’s Strength and similar spells a fixed modifier. The simplified version of Enlarge was also appreciated.
Specific Encounters:
1.Black Magga nearly killed everyone and that was the first encounter of the session. One PC was in negative number, and the other two were close. The bladesinger just scaped out 4pts of damage to bring her to the 80hps needed to make her morale falter
2.Skull’s Crossing also presented a problem. I chalk this up to poor rolls, but during the fights the trolls hit the group hard. Again, some Channel Energy usage was the only thing ha allowed the group to continue
3.Barl Breakbones almost punched their tickets too. The ranger took him on in melee. The bladesinger flew around and was rather ineffectual, and the cleric was take out as he tried to close with Barl (AOO). If Barl had not missed a couple times against the ranger, it would have been done. .
Now there are a few factors that may complicate this a little. 1) The adventure may be a little tough. 2) The PCs are sitting on a lot of wealth and have not had the opportunity to buy additional magic items which is partly their own fault. 3) As gamers, we were on our 2nd day of continuous gaming. We were having fun and taking breaks, but fatigue was playing a factor.
I’m open to comments, but I hope the next game will go better once the PCs have leveled up, and upgraded their equipment.
After Clearing out Hook Mountain, my groups PCs were at 11th level. They had learned that giants were massing for an invasion, and they had money to burn. Since the group did not have a lot of down-time in Hook, I gave them plenty of time to upgrade items and gather information.
They had a few giant-bane weapons crafted, and the ranger/arcanamach now possessed a holy giant-bane bastard sword.
Summary of Combats
This turned out to be tougher than I thought it would be. The PCs guessed that the first group of giants might have been a decoy. However, they still spent 6 rounds dealing with them, (A few rounds exchanging ranged attacks from the wall and then finally charging.). When one of the young giants fell, the other two fled.
The group then took a round to regroup and investigate the commotion at Tanner’s Bridge. They took a serious beating, especially from the cave bears. (By this I mean that the bears nearly forced a TPK). The group was forced to retreat to heal and strategize. (The cleric’s Dimensional Hop saved them in this instance.) They healed, buffed, and took to the sky via fly spells.
However, by the time the “heroes” rejoined the battle, it was round 17. Unchallenged, Longtooth was lighting the town on fire. The cathedral and the Sandpoint Theatre were already up in flames. Giants and bears were preventing the townspeople from fighting the fires. Some giants had already left after capturing several prisoners.
The PCs saw several targets, but noticed Teraktinus taking stones from Old Light. Feeling that this was odd behavior for a battle, the group attacked the giant leader. They dropped the lone giant in one round.
While they did kill off a few more giants before the end of the battle, by the time the giants retreated Sandpoint was nearly destroyed. Twenty one souls perished in the attack. Half the town was burned down including the cathedral and the theatre. Eleven townsfolk were taken prisoner. It should be noted that Longtooth was never confronted during the battle.
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DM’s Observations
• The PCs made the mistake of not confronting Longtooth. Afterward, the players admitted that they thought the giants needed to be handled first to allow the townfolk to handle the fires.
• Dire Bears kick ass. Wow. This lesson will be re-learned later.
However, I feel that other factors weigh in on this group.
1. With 3 PCs, the limited number of actions was tough, even though the group was a level higher than a normal party. Looking back, the PCs were very close to 12th. Maybe I should have allowed them to level up before throwing this encounter at them. However, they had gained all XP a normal group of 4 would have attained at this level.
2. The group has watered down their effectiveness in an attempt to be more rounded. The ranger has attempted to become more diversified with the Suel Arcanamach class, but this has weakened him a bit compared to a straight ranger. The rogue/wizard/bladesinger is also a little less effective despite having a wide array of abilities. .
After the raid, the group reached 12th level. However, they still had a tough time on a few battles.
Ogre Cattle Rustlers
The ogres barbarians dropped the ranger (-3) in the last round of battle cutting things a little close.
Stone Giant Patrol
The dire bears again hit the group hard. The ranger was in negative numbers by the 4th round. The bladesinger and cleric were able to turn things around, but things did not bode well in my mind for the heroes once they reached Jorgenfist. .
Thankfully, the PCs decided to quit acting like they could take everything head on and decided to use more stealth. Once they reached the valley, they did quite a bit of recon and singled out specific targets.
Infiltrating Jorgenfist was fairly easy as they left the cleric behind. I did give Conna See Invisibility while she was searching for the PCs as I did not want the group to miss out on this important NPC. With her knowledge, they were able to perform even more exacting strikes against the fortress.
However, I noticed that the group went through great lengths to avoid the bears in the fortress. In fact, the bears were never confronted again.
Also, I noted that the ranger eventually abandoned using TWF altogether in favor or using a two-handed grip on his bastard sword. The extra damage and higher probability to hit were sorely needed.
Some Specific Combat Notes for Jorgenfist.
Longtooth
The PC’s had their revenge at last. They scouted. They planned. They arrived buffed and Longtooth lasted four rounds.
Lokansir
This brute turned out to be the most dangerous encounter above the library (once the PCs changed tactics). This time the bladesinger was dropped to negative numbers. Luckily, this battle lasted only 3 rounds and the injured PC was saved.
Mokmurian
The PCs played cat and mouse with the BBEG for quite a while. They attempted to wait him out for quite some time, in the hope of surprising him. However, Mokmurian knew they were there and went on the offense. At one point, Mokmurian had the PCs trapped within the library where they realized they could not Dimension Door out. I played Mokmurian as arrogant enough not to call for reinforcements within his own lair, but he did not want to damage the library. The stand off ended with the PCs rushing out into the giant’s Solid Fog spell. However, a successful Dispel Magic from the cleric allowed the rogue and ranger to close the distance, and put an end to Mokmurian in a few rounds. .
I forgot to mention a few things on the cleric in this game. Since he is the only single class character, I tried to keep more notes on his actions. He primarily stays out of combat, instead focusing on keeping the two other PCs on their feet. However . . .
Combat Output: I've noticed that his damage in a fight is getting up there. He's not the giant-slayer that the ranger is, but he can put out some nice numbers.
Channel Energy: This did not come into play as often during combat, now that he has access to Heal. It has become more of a utility to be used between combats to keep the game going. With that in mind, I'm still liking this feature.
Travel Domain: The special abilities of this domain has saved this group a few times. The use of Dimensional Hop averted a TPK. I'm interested to see how these powers pay off in Sins of the Saviors.