Possible I suppose - I had assumed that the trap kept trying to squish its victim every round, but maybe it only squishes them once.Scott is correct, I put it down as a minion trap because A) it only affects one PC, and B) because once it goes off and does damage, it is easily avoided by all other PC's. They added minion traps into the DMG2 by the way ;)
My group avoided it anyways, they used a weapon to snag all the loot out of the elevator and didn't even take a step inside. The crushed bones and junk on the floor kinda gives it away.
But...but...its friggen brutal.
Now I admit that the A PC really ought not to walk into the little room with the crushed armour and bones but they will have seen an elevator before that does work so they may choose to investigate and if a PC goes in then the doors slam shut behind him meaning he can't be helped by the other party members. It then proceeds to do 3d8+6 plus immobilized (save ends) to a 1st or 2nd level character. The only real way for the rest of the party to save the trapped player is a DC 17 thievery check (The strength check option is beyond players of this level - they'll fail even if they roll a 20 and the strength check to get the Sarcophagus all the way around will take too long to save a player). Thats not an easy check. This thing outright kills a player in a couple of rounds with the player cut off from help (and healing)
A minion is something that dies from the fighters back hand after doing 10 damage - this is more like players blowing on dice hoping that they can make an untrained thievery check by rolling 16+ or Jim's dead. I understand that it only effects once PC...but it has a pretty good chance of killing that PC - on average this does 19 points of damage every round, if the DM rolls well the player is unconscious before he can do anything at all and dead (past negative bloodied value) on round two.
I'd probably replace this trap entirely now that the DMG2 is out.
Check out page 68 of that book for the crushing walls trap. I'd probably use those mechanics and level the trap way down.
This was kind of a first stab at the trap, and it never was triggered so I never bothered to update it again.
I'd probably replace this trap entirely now that the DMG2 is out.
Check out page 68 of that book for the crushing walls trap. I'd probably use those mechanics and level the trap way down.
This was kind of a first stab at the trap, and it never was triggered so I never bothered to update it again.
Yeah - I think I'll go with that option.
@ Pop 'N Fresh.
In area 11 you list a Doomspore as the opposition but give no stats. That's fine as I assume I have to look up anything that's not your own material - but what book is this from? I don't see Doomspore listed in the MM.
@ Pop 'N Fresh.
In area 11 you list a Doomspore as the opposition but give no stats. That's fine as I assume I have to look up anything that's not your own material - but what book is this from? I don't see Doomspore listed in the MM.
It's a hazard in the DMG. You can replace it with a slime or ooze if you want, but I just kept it as a hazard in case the PC's fight the earth elemental. It's on page 88.
It's a hazard in the DMG. You can replace it with a slime or ooze if you want, but I just kept it as a hazard in case the PC's fight the earth elemental. It's on page 88.@ Pop 'N Fresh.
In area 11 you list a Doomspore as the opposition but give no stats. That's fine as I assume I have to look up anything that's not your own material - but what book is this from? I don't see Doomspore listed in the MM.
Page 88 - got it, thanks.
I should have the Three Faces of Evil conversion document finished and available in the next few weeks. The group has 3 caves left to complete in the caves of Erythnul (or Grummsh in 4e) before they hit the Vecna temple. So far they are slaughtering the poor Grimlocks, but my encounters are way more balanced than they used to be. Also if the group didn't have 2 Clerics and a Paladin, they would be having a lot more problems I suspect.
I should have the Three Faces of Evil conversion document finished and available in the next few weeks. The group has 3 caves left to complete in the caves of Erythnul (or Grummsh in 4e) before they hit the Vecna temple. So far they are slaughtering the poor Grimlocks, but my encounters are way more balanced than they used to be. Also if the group didn't have 2 Clerics and a Paladin, they would be having a lot more problems I suspect.
2 Cleric's and a Paladin...wow. I think maybe your players are adjusting to the style of game your running.
Anyway I'm definitely interested in seeing your conversion. I've been using your Whispering Cairn one heavily as a basis for my conversion.
Hard to say. My encounters are way better than they used to be now that I've seen the game run a lot more and have the monster builder installed.
The only benefit I have seen in having 2 clerics and a paladin is the PC's never seem to get knocked out anymore. As soon as someone is bloodied he has 1 of 3 healers healing him back up.
Their main issue now is they have only 1 striker, the avenger, and he hits almost every turn because of his oath of emnity, but his damage is a bit less compared to a rogue or barbarian.
The paladin ends up marking all the monsters and gets the crap beat out of him constantly, but he has tonnes of hit points and his AC is quite high now that he has Theldrick's +2 plate armor.
Hard to say. My encounters are way better than they used to be now that I've seen the game run a lot more and have the monster builder installed.
The only benefit I have seen in having 2 clerics and a paladin is the PC's never seem to get knocked out anymore. As soon as someone is bloodied he has 1 of 3 healers healing him back up.
Their main issue now is they have only 1 striker, the avenger, and he hits almost every turn because of his oath of emnity, but his damage is a bit less compared to a rogue or barbarian.
The paladin ends up marking all the monsters and gets the crap beat out of him constantly, but he has tonnes of hit points and his AC is quite high now that he has Theldrick's +2 plate armor.
That sounds like a really effective design for a party - but it has the potential to be very Grindy.
Yeah, it seems to be serving them well now. But it was a bumpy road getting there.
Once they had virtually no ranged powers, I think they had 1 character, the wizard, who could hit things at range. The rest were all melee, and they paid for it in the end with 3 characters dying.
4E has the role concept down really well, and you have to stick with your role. There is not a lot of room for making mistakes when designing a character, but even the smallest tweaks can make a huge difference after a few levels.
Yeah, it seems to be serving them well now. But it was a bumpy road getting there.
Once they had virtually no ranged powers, I think they had 1 character, the wizard, who could hit things at range. The rest were all melee, and they paid for it in the end with 3 characters dying.
4E has the role concept down really well, and you have to stick with your role. There is not a lot of room for making mistakes when designing a character, but even the smallest tweaks can make a huge difference after a few levels.
I don't know, I'd also say it's pretty hard to make significant mistakes when designing your character in 4e. You can pretty much pick any powers and any feats, and even if they're not optimal combinations you'll still have a character that can meaningfully contribute.
How did your players do with the scene with Kullen and the Gang. I'm pretty sure I want to use your Skill Challenge here if only to take a break from the combat. However it seems probable that if negotiations break down fighting will break out. In theory I could turn the whole thing into a really elaborate encounter in the bar with random bystanders and viscous dogs in the dog pit.
That said I'm not sure I want to take things to a really elaborate level if chances are the players will pass the Skill Challenge - to much unused work.
Spicing up the encounter with the Owlbears inside Allistor Lands house.
- I suggest that the old farmstead be doubled in size. Also the place is clearly falling apart and I think that provides some fun to the encounter. The Owlbear's (if your using Pop'N'Fresh's conversion) have grab attacks - usually that is fun but here I'd replace grab with forced movement - in fact toss forced movement on all the Owlbear claw attacks. Slide three or four ought to do it.
- OK so here is the scene - all the walls don't get any effective hps. Anyone forced to slide into a wall goes through it and stops on the other side, prone. From now on there is a hole in the wall where the character exited the house (or moved through interior walls.
- PCs (or the owlbears for that matter) take 2d6+3 whenever they go through the walls.
- After the third new gap is made in the walls the whole place starts to come down around every ones ears.
- Gap #3 causes showers of debree, mostly the thatch with a significant amount of dirt and chalky dust to cascade down from the ceiling. Everyone in the building gets partial cover beyond 5' from the clouds of dust and debree floating about.
- Gap #4 There is now enough debree piling up on the floor to and the junk coming from the ceiling makes all squares in the house difficult terrain - here we've added mud and thicker debree from the parts of the room more exposed to the elements.
- Gap #5+ At this point the whole building is quacking and shuddering from the structural damage being done to it. When this gap is created, and again whenever any new gap after this one is created, everyone in the building must weather a +8 vs. reflex attack to avoid falling debree. Fail and your beamed by a beam or other heavy object coming off the roof - take 2d6+3 damage and become stunned (save ends).
- Remember that these effects apply to the Owlbears too.
- After five gaps are made in the house its just a matter of time before the whole place collapses - now dropping a house on your players is over kill so drop the whole place with some suitable flavour text shortly after they all exit.
How did your players do with the scene with Kullen and the Gang. I'm pretty sure I want to use your Skill Challenge here if only to take a break from the combat. However it seems probable that if negotiations break down fighting will break out. In theory I could turn the whole thing into a really elaborate encounter in the bar with random bystanders and viscous dogs in the dog pit.
That said I'm not sure I want to take things to a really elaborate level if chances are the players will pass the Skill Challenge - to much unused work.
My group got into a fight with them in the bar, and it was probably one of the harder fights the group had, even outnumbering the bad guys 6 to 4. The avenger in the group was talking to Kullen, and accused his gang of grave robbing in front of everybody, Kullen took offense to this however, and in the end a fight broke out.
Nobody was knocked into the dog pit but they knew it was there. The encounter ended with the group having 2 members knocked out, and knocking out Kullen's entire gang (no deaths).
They all got put in jail for the night and Kullen eventually gave up the info to the avenger who went toe to toe with him out of respect. The skill challenge was there "just in case" the group decided to talk.
How did your players do with the scene with Kullen and the Gang. I'm pretty sure I want to use your Skill Challenge here if only to take a break from the combat. However it seems probable that if negotiations break down fighting will break out. In theory I could turn the whole thing into a really elaborate encounter in the bar with random bystanders and viscous dogs in the dog pit.
That said I'm not sure I want to take things to a really elaborate level if chances are the players will pass the Skill Challenge - to much unused work.
My group got into a fight with them in the bar, and it was probably one of the harder fights the group had, even outnumbering the bad guys 6 to 4. The avenger in the group was talking to Kullen, and accused his gang of grave robbing in front of everybody, Kullen took offense to this however, and in the end a fight broke out.
Nobody was knocked into the dog pit but they knew it was there. The encounter ended with the group having 2 members knocked out, and knocking out Kullen's entire gang (no deaths).
They all got put in jail for the night and Kullen eventually gave up the info to the avenger who went toe to toe with him out of respect. The skill challenge was there "just in case" the group decided to talk.
Looks like I should stat the whole thing up in this case - I'll console myself that I can use the work in another fight if they don't actually have the fight.
Anyone have some idea's on how to handle non-combatant patrons?
Maybe have some human rabble in there. PC's or NPC's could grab them or shove them around, etc. The feral dog is pretty cramped quarters though so I just had most of the people take off as soon as they saw Kullen stand up.
Maybe have some human rabble in there. PC's or NPC's could grab them or shove them around, etc. The feral dog is pretty cramped quarters though so I just had most of the people take off as soon as they saw Kullen stand up.
I'm not really looking for opposition for the PCs - tough enough fight as is - I'm just looking for ways to make the whole scene unique and chaotic. My experience as a player in Scales of War have made this kind of thinking nearly a requirement - WotC might be weak on story but they create some truly exceptional encounters and I want to make sure I focus on mine as well.
What I'll probably do is treat the NPCs as minions except that they don't attack anyone but run around randmly until they are six squares away from any combatant - after which they will presumably just run away. Kind of like squishy, mobile obstacles - scream a lot and die when hit. That'll pose an interesting dilemma for my plays regarding whether they just blow up the civilians along with the bad guys or not (I'm sure Kullen's crew does not care). I'll have to get some stats for the doggies as well.
Jeremy Mac Donald suggested that I get involved in this thread as I am also converting AoW to 4e. I've only just begun converting the 1st adventure. I'm not sure exactly what I can add to the conversation, other than what monsters I plan to use in certain situations and some traps I designed. Also note that I'm planning to use the AP in Eberron, so I'm making a few fundamental changes.
For an example of what I've done, here's the "wind tunnel" that appears in area 7 of the Whispering Cairn.
Face Trap Level 3 Blaster
Trap 150 XP
The trap blows one down the tunnel until he or she reaches the exit and falls.
Trap: The face at the end of a 10’ wide 70’ long tunnel.
Perception
DC 21: The character notices a 5' x 10' pressure plate 10’ from the face.
Initiative +3
Trigger
The creature stands on the pressure plate.
Attack
Standard Burst 15
Targets: All creatures in burst area
Attack: +6 vs. Fortitude
Hit: 1d6 + 3 force damage and the target is pushed 6 squares
Miss: The target is pushed 3 squares
Attack
Immediate Interrupt (when a creature moves within 3 squares of the face) Close Burst special
Targets: The triggering creature
Attack: +6 vs. Will
Hit: The target is immobilized (save ends)
Countermeasures
• A creature adjacent to the pressure plate can disable the trap with a DC 26 Thievery check.
• Leave the tunnel. A person forced out of the tunnel takes 4d10 falling damage unless he or she grabs the chain on which the lantern hangs (DC 16 Acrobatics check).
• Light all the lanterns in area 7. Face opens (like a door) to reveal area 23
I'm not sure exactly what I can add to the conversation, other than what monsters I plan to use in certain situations and some traps I designed.
Thing is we are all actually pretty close in terms of where we are in the design process. Hence I think just bouncing ideas around should be worthwhile. I'm not sure there is any particular directive to add some specific thing - its more that if your proud of feature X then it might serve to fire my imagination as well.
I'm just updating this thread on my campaign's progress. The group has just taken out Grallak Kur and his minions quite easily. They had more issues with the inhabitants of room 19 in TFoE but ultimately prevailed.
They are taking out room 20 next week, then heading to Vecna's temple.
The group's paladin has been doing an excellent job playing the "tank". He marks multiple foes, get the crap beaten out of him, gets healed by one of the two clerics, or lays on hands himself, and keeps on trucking. The avenger is just insane to watch, he NEVER misses using his oath, and the 2 clerics are just great with their combined healing abilities.
We are having a blast. And as promised, I will post my conversion doc once the adventure is finished.
I'm just updating this thread on my campaign's progress. The group has just taken out Grallak Kur and his minions quite easily. They had more issues with the inhabitants of room 19 in TFoE but ultimately prevailed.
They are taking out room 20 next week, then heading to Vecna's temple.
The group's paladin has been doing an excellent job playing the "tank". He marks multiple foes, get the crap beaten out of him, gets healed by one of the two clerics, or lays on hands himself, and keeps on trucking. The avenger is just insane to watch, he NEVER misses using his oath, and the 2 clerics are just great with their combined healing abilities.
We are having a blast. And as promised, I will post my conversion doc once the adventure is finished.
Has your group fallen too four characters? I thought you designed for a 6 player group?
Nope, we have a standard 5 PC's now, I just didn't mention the wizard.
Human Wizard
Elf Avenger of the Raven Queen
Human Cleric of the Raven Queen
Human Paladin of the Raven Queen
Elf Cleric of Erathis
The group has been having way more fun after the grumpy barbarian player left the party.
Well, one thing I changed that I was pretty happy with was the Wind Duke battle. I had four of them instead of 1, all of them Wind Duke ghosts that came out of the four pictures on the walls. I designed each one with different features and different names (Duke of Defense, Duke of War, Duke of Might, etc.) Many of them have push abilities. I made the pit more shallow, so that if a character fell they would only take 1d10 damage and have a chance to climb up with one successful Athletics check. The scene may be a little too hard - I won't know until I run it -, but I feel like the platforms and the four different dukes make it a really interesting combat.
Well, one thing I changed that I was pretty happy with was the Wind Duke battle. I had four of them instead of 1, all of them Wind Duke ghosts that came out of the four pictures on the walls. I designed each one with different features and different names (Duke of Defense, Duke of War, Duke of Might, etc.) Many of them have push abilities. I made the pit more shallow, so that if a character fell they would only take 1d10 damage and have a chance to climb up with one successful Athletics check. The scene may be a little too hard - I won't know until I run it -, but I feel like the platforms and the four different dukes make it a really interesting combat.
Sounds like a great idea! The angel of valour from the MM has a very good stat block to use for a wind duke if you want something really close to the 3.5 version.
@Pop'N'Fresh
I'm deep into creating the Feral Dog encounter complete with a battle mat (which I just finished). I was planning on using your antagonists for this encounter and will probably post it for others to use when I'm done.
However I can't post something with your work embedded in it without your permission. So can I use your antagonists in this encounter write up if I credit you for your contributions?
@Pop'N'Fresh
I'm deep into creating the Feral Dog encounter complete with a battle mat (which I just finished). I was planning on using your antagonists for this encounter and will probably post it for others to use when I'm done.
However I can't post something with your work embedded in it without your permission. So can I use your antagonists in this encounter write up if I credit you for your contributions?
Sure, go ahead!
I created a more elaborate then normal encounter for the Feral Dog. Anyone interested in checking it out can download it from a Blog I opened to contain this sort of material.
Just for fun I included a Paizo easter egg in this encounter. The Dog in the Dog Pit is a Goblin Dog from Scott Bett's conversion of Burnt Offerings.
I created a more elaborate then normal encounter for the Feral Dog. Anyone interested in checking it out can download it from a Blog I opened to contain this sort of material.
Just for fun I included a Paizo easter egg in this encounter. The Dog in the Dog Pit is a Goblin Dog from Scott Bett's conversion of Burnt Offerings.
Haha, awesome.
Jeremy, for your blog, consider using a Picasa account to host your image files. It's free, and is already supported by Blogger through Google. You'll be able to hotlink directly from the blog without having to go through 4shared's download page.
Also, and it's not a huge deal since it's pretty obvious, but monster powers with circles around the attack icons are the basic attacks. In your document, you have the monsters' basic attacks using the icons for non-basic attacks. It's only a formatting concern, and only holds true if you want to follow the format WotC is using. It's not like one way makes any more sense than the other.
Haha, awesome.
Glad you like.
Jeremy, for your blog, consider using a Picasa account to host your image files. It's free, and is already supported by Blogger through Google. You'll be able to hotlink directly from the blog without having to go through 4shared's download page.
Caught in a bind on this - its a matter of weighing between better layout but almost no space (1 gig) or crappy layout but 10 gigs worth of space.
Also, and it's not a huge deal since it's pretty obvious, but monster powers with circles around the attack icons are the basic attacks. In your document, you have the monsters' basic attacks using the icons for non-basic attacks. It's only a formatting concern, and only holds true if you want to follow the format WotC is using. It's not like one way makes any more sense than the other.
OK went back and fixed this as well as played a tad with the layout.
I've gone and placed a link to a 3D perspective map of the Whispering Cairn on my blog for those curious as to what the tomb looks like when its all 'hooked' together.
The permissions are set so you should be able to download the map if you want to.
Just finished mapping out the Old Observatory (aka Filge's lair) as a 3D perspective map. This kind of map really works well as a perspective maps (buildings in general are particularly good). Anyone interested in checking it out can head of to Kobolds Ate Our Mules. Permissions are such that it should be downloadable and its, of course, actually larger then Picasa would indicate.
Finished off another encounter. This time I did Filge's Operating Theatre. The battle map and encounter write up can be found on my blog Kobolds Ate Our Mules.
With practice come some improvements to the layout - oh and I figured out how to get the spellchecker to work properly - of course I'm still speaking in 'Canadian' but at least its properly spelled 'Canadian' (well for the most part anyway).
I should have an update when I get back to work tomorrow, I've had to collect and save a bunch of conversions from Three Faces of Evil into one word document but I should have that entire adventure posted soon.
The group avoided a near TPK with some clever tactics by their wizard, and destroyed the Faceless One in a feverish fight.
Tomorrow they face one final kenku encounter and then the Ebon Aspect, then move on to Blackwall Keep.
I am planning on staring up a AoW campaign and was oping to see what others had done to convert it to 4e.
Looking forward to seeing your Three Faces of Evil conversion.
I don't know, I'd also say it's pretty hard to make significant mistakes when designing your character in 4e. You can pretty much pick any powers and any feats, and even if they're not optimal combinations you'll still have a character that can meaningfully contribute.Yeah, it seems to be serving them well now. But it was a bumpy road getting there.
Once they had virtually no ranged powers, I think they had 1 character, the wizard, who could hit things at range. The rest were all melee, and they paid for it in the end with 3 characters dying.
4E has the role concept down really well, and you have to stick with your role. There is not a lot of room for making mistakes when designing a character, but even the smallest tweaks can make a huge difference after a few levels.
I've been thinking about this and I think these are two sides of the same coin.
In some sense the players are all fairly well balanced against each other. If we take a generic character from PHB1 and compare that to the most min-maxed character using all the books created by a player who religiously follows WotCs character optimization boards we have maybe a 10% difference in the power level. So we can say that these characters are balanced against each other in the sense that they can adventure together and the weaker character will be able to meaningfully contribute to combat.
On the other hand one can see how gaining that 10% edge can be critical. If your DM is really tough and there is a 30% chance of a player dieing in every encounter and even if you all live your likely to find that the characters are totally spent and most have been forced to dip into the parties healing potion slush fund (they spend every spare dime they find on healing potions) then that 10% increase in power has become a massive and desperately needed edge.
It'll reduce the player fatality rate from 30% chance every encounter down to 20% every encounter and that is an extremely significant drop.
So my newbies are nearing the end of of Whispering Cairn. I've started into serious prep for Three Faces of Evil.
I've created a Zombie Apocalypse type encounter I'm inserting prior to the Dark Cathedral in Three Faces of Evil. The encounter can be found over on my blog Kobolds Ate Our Mules.
Setting up the encounters for the temple of Hextor has proven to be a pretty tricky affair. I've gone with thinking of the material here as being essentially two encounters (One if the players really mess up).
Difficult to balance really. If they fought everything at one time I could kind of go with a 'budget' style build for the encounters but with people entering the conflicts at all sorts of different times its much more difficult. Its not really clear how much a creature adds to an encounter if it shows up 4 rounds after the encounter has started - especially if its modus operandi is likely to be 'try and retreat to draw the players into an ambush'.
Wow...Grimlocks are kind of high level. I thought about modifying the Grimlocks to be more appropriate for the parties level in Three Faces of Evil but it seems just too much of a shift. Plus I don't really like fundamentally changing a creature quite that much in my campaign - I want my players to grow to have some feel for what a 'Grimlock' is if they play several campaigns in my world and that's not possible if they are 5th level creatures in one campaign and 15th level ones in another. Up or down a few levels is fine but 6 levels is overkill and its dangerous to modify monsters by this much.
I think I'll just use Orcs with some Goblin lacky's. Its about the right level for Orcs and their Darkvision should suffice where the Grimlock's used tremorsense.
Up to this point the Age of Worms has not featured Orcs so its not really a case of 'sigh - more orcs' for the players. I might have made a different descision if I had more experienced players that had fought Orcs a great deal but I'm DMing for newbs - they have never fought an Orc.
No darkvision on Orcs...thats a problem. Dum de Dum I'm changing their stat blocks, no body saw me do it you can't prove anything.
Yeah I need Darkvision for these encounters so I'm saying this underdark dwelling tribe has developed darkvision.
I've also got to cut back on the number of encounters in these Grimlock (now Orc) Tunnels, this is kind of overkill. I can't believe even 3.5 parties would normally have gone through this many encounters. I condense the encounters in the U shaped cavern down to two, one on each side of the cavern. I also turn the encounters in the later parts of the cavern into a single big encounter in which the fight will take place in the central chamber with Orcs coming in from all the rest of the rooms over time.
That reduces the total number of encounters in the Grimlock (now Orc) Tunnels down to 5 which is about what I think the players can handle without a long rest. It also keeps things more focused on the more interesting combats. A couple of these did not really have much going for them to make them interesting. This way they should mostly all feel interesting in some manner with the initial ones being the simplest and acting as a kind of warm up.
My players are near the end of Three Faces of Evil and I'm well into my prep for Encounter at Blackwall Keep. I've bumped into various issues with this conversion though I suspect that many of these are not really edition specific but issues stemming from the adventure iteslf.
The big battle at Blackwall Keep itself presents challanges as trying to run something on that scale, while thematically cool, just seems likely to drag the game down into a crawl.
I've handled this by making the the majority of the warriors into minions. That allows for the kind of numbers I feel the encounter needs. I set the terrain to make things difficult for the PCs to get into the actual keep. I'm baiting the hook by pointing out that an attack on the rear will get the Lizard Folk caught in a crossfire as the Keep's defenders shoot them in the back when they rise from cover to engage the PCs. Hopefully it'll be enough to get a combat with the PCs attacking the Lizard Folk from the rear.
I want the Keeps defenders firing, long range, in support. That makes the encounter feel more dynamic and has less of the PCs alone against teh world feel. Here I'll have two keep defenders use aid another actions to help a third shoot an arrow every round. That results in about 3 arrows hitting the battlefield from the keep - should be enough to pick off a steady stream of minions without having it take either to much time or negate the challenge the PCs are actually facing.
I'm not really exactly sure why the module includes a lay out of the whole keep - it makes most sense for a siege but this is not the type of encounter to do a siege with. It'd take too long without enough impact. All the layout really seems to accomplish is putting the chance that the PCs discover the Kyuss Spawn on the actual table. My feeling is handling this sort of thing is all about narrative. If the DM puts a map in front of the PCs and starts reading descriptions they'll go into exploration mode. Just describe the keep in general terms and don't start mapping and the PCs will treat it as a role playing encounter and likely soon be moving on to find the hostages.
The travels through the swamp seem like something that'll work as a skill challenge. In this case one that can be repeated with a penalty for being lost in the swamp each time its failed. I throw in a big positive benefit to the roll after each failure 'cause I want it to be extreme for the PCs to fail a second time. I figure if they roll 1 after 1 after getting lost in the swamp will provide its own fun narrative but normally we probably want to move the action forward if they don't pull off the Skill Challenge the first time.
The layout of the Lizard Folks lair has issues as far as I am concerned. Its kind of set up to hide some of the more interesting encounters off in the corners and will result in a slew of not very challanging combats.
I have that problem with this AP all the time - combat after combat that the PCs can't loose. As I have done before I plan to consolidate things down to fewer more significant combat encounters. Here though I need the map to support me. I redo the map using the original as a guideline.
I consolidate the nasty plant and the Harpy's into one encounter. The plant makes some sense as something that fights with the harpies as its immune to their singing abilities (plants can't hear).
I consolidate the whole basic lizard folk tribe and the Otyugh into a single really big encounter. They Otyugh room is moved to the centre of the main section of the tribes abode and is ringed with rooms that have Lizard Folk in them. The PCs should come upon this room, get ambushed by the Otyugh and then have Lizard Folk appearing at each of the half dozen entrances and exits from this room and start spraying the PCs with poisoned darts.
This encounter presented a few challenges. I need most of these Lizard Folk to actually live, that makes the alliance with the Shaman later seem much more probable. So I can't use minions here. However even lowering Greenscale Darters down a few levels does not turn into very many of them, I decide to have them try and retreat out of the complex when bloodied, and to halve their value in XP, considering that they also show up in waves once the fight with the Otyugh begins this should allow me to get about 15 of them into the encounter. I'd like to have had more but I'll need more Lizard Folk then the module calls for in the next few rooms in any case.
This brings to me to where I am currently in the conversion...at the moment I'm wracking my brain for some cool hazard or trap to had to the lieutenants room - something involving tree roots.
Doing a bit of housekeeping and I tossed another 3D map up on my blog but I'm stumbling in this part of the AP. I never did manage to get the Battle Arena into a 3D map as my players where hot on my heels in terms of prep. The map I tossed up, of the caverns, are problematic - 3D can be really cool and the U shaped cavern would seem to fit the bill for a good candidate for a 3D view but its so complex that its essentially gotten beyond my artistic talents.
I suspect that 45 degree angle is not the ideal view point for the cavern but I can't draw these things except from a 45 degree view - after that its not all just straight lines anymore.
Continuing with the house keeping and I put up the map of the Labyrinth over on my Blog at Kobolds Ate Our Mules.
So the highlights of playing Three Faces of Evil
- The encounters became larger and more dynamic then Whispering Cairn, not necessarily better but a new style was added to the repertoire involving encounters where creatures might enter or exit the fight.
- The battle in the U shaped cavern - the first part was just awesome. It was fun to shoot crossbow bolts out of the dark at my PCs and this encounter became one that featured the Orcs (who have replaced Grimlocks in my conversion) firing bolts and, when the PCs reached the bottom they where under fire and under attack by the Cloakers, finally an Orc hunter type in the passage above was whipping axes at them. A tough fight that ended not with PC victory but with the PCs hiding from the bolts under the ledge - though they did eventually go back and work a way of getting up even under fire and winning this encounter. Lots of fun and easily the highlight of this part of the adventure.
Good terrain effects or other interesting twists just add so much more to an encounter. Its too bad they are often tough to design. I'd like to double the number I use but its hard work and often I just don't have a good idea.
- I did the Labyrinth as a Skill Challenge - I don't regret using a Skill Challenge here in some sense because mapping out a Labyrinth is a major game time suck that only really engages the DM and the parties mapper - leaving everyone else to fall asleep.
Still MY skill challenge did not really work. One big thing I've noticed with Skill Challenges is that the DM and the players really need to be on the same page in terms of objectives. Here I designed a Skill Challenge that, among other things presumed the PCs wanted to sneak past the Kenku's, but the players, once they figured out that there was 'something' out there (they don't know what a Kenku is) instead wanted to set up a counter ambush. I salvaged elements of this but mainly as a small series of role playing 'scenes' not a Skill Challange.
- I was pleasantly surprised that the last part of this adventure ran so well. I was getting concerned that my players had been down in these mines for too long but the last part was reasonably small and was reasonably packed with reveals that the whole thing did not really drag. I made the final encounter with the Faceless One by giving him a lurker lackey, making him basically really nasty artillery and giving him a Red Dragon Wyrmling as a pet. I really beat the snot out of my PCs in this encounter. I was getting frustrated at the lack of mortality in the game and took things too far here - had to tone things down mid encounter to avoid a TPK, hate doing that but lesser of two evils.
- My players neglected to take a long rest before heading to the surface despite some hints on my part - they met the Ebon Aspect and that intersected with my house rules on death (see the thread On PC Death in the 4E forum for a discussion on this) which resulted in the parties Paladin dying and the PCs loosing the Ebon Aspect in the maze before doubling back and escaping.
I had the Ebon Aspect work its way to the surface and kill a bunch of people on a rampage before the out of town adventures along with the guard kill it. So my players take their long rest and head for the tavern to get a new member and there is this celebration going on for the 'Hero's of Diamond Lake' that being the out of town adventurers! My players where so angry! "Those bastards got all our credit! If we ever meet them on the road alone we are going to kill them!". Of course my players have to lie low 'cause they don't want anyone to know that they released the Ebon Aspect as it killed a bunch of miners and guardsmen.
So my players are now in the big city playing through Hall of Harsh Reflections and I wanted to write a couple of posts on Encounter At Blackwall Keep.
All and all this adventure worked really quite well for myself and the players. Its a nice conversion and the scenes can be incorporated into 4E with a fair bit of pizazz.
- I fairly quickly disabused my players that Allustan would help them in fighting things by emphasizing that the PC wizard was a 'Battle Mage' trained for combat while Allustan was not and was past his prime in any case. This combined with the fact that he used an expensive ritual (presumably from his own pocket) to teleport out to get help (they had no such ritual and would not have wanted to use an expensive consumable if they had had such a ritual) cemented the idea that not only was he taking on a leadership role that was best suited for his talents (i.e. not combat) but that he was contributing (by expending an expensive ritual) to the success of the mission.
- The battle with the lizard folk during the siege was a lot of fun. My main concern was that the players would try and sneak around to the keep instead of launching an all out attack. Sneaking around can be a fun part of the game but here everything would be a lot more fun if it was a big fight. Pretty much if the PCs get into the Keep itself there is still something akin to a fight its just one that's not dynamic (because the Lizard Folk just get funneled into the door) and is extremely difficult to simulate (and therefore slow) to boot. The Lizard Folk here where almost all minions except for a shaman and a Black Scale leader type.
This is really the kind of fight that shows off how fun minions can be. The players loved being the 'cavalry' to save the Keep, I had them roll three attacks for support fire from the long bowmen on the walls every round. I worked it out to +11 or some such to hit and every hit removes the minion closest to the keep itself. Very fast to resolve and yet still feels as if the players are not doing this completely all alone.
Minions remain sub par combatants but this was not an absolute pushover - they where scared for maybe one round there when I had a dozen or some such Lizard Folk all throw javelins at one character. Still this really was a 'we are so cool we kick ass encounter'. The players slaughter the bad guys and they even have a grateful audience watching them as they show off their moves.
- I purposely did not map out the keep doing the scene after the players save the keep and are informed that they need to save the prisoners as a pure RP scene as I don't want the players 'exploring' the keep and finding the big reveal in the basement.
Sounds fun, Jeremy. Did you have a set number of minion lizardfolk, or did you just more or less throw lizardfolk at them as long as it remained fun? If the former, about how many did you use, and of what level relative to the PCs?
We were still playing 3.5 when I ran Blackwall Keep. We've since converted to 4e and are in the midst of Kings of the Rift. I've found it trickier to make satisfying conversions as we go along - 3e tends to assume fights in which the opposition is a group of the same creature, or single opponents, so direct conversions tend to be heavy on solos and elites. Kings of the Rift is especially challenging as it stages fights against multiple dragons at once. Be prepared to get your hands dirty creating custom statblocks! (That said, last week's fight against a nearly-stock heroslayer hydra and fire giant lavamaster was pretty memorable and didn't require much heavy lifting on my part.)
Sounds fun, Jeremy. Did you have a set number of minion lizardfolk, or did you just more or less throw lizardfolk at them as long as it remained fun? If the former, about how many did you use, and of what level relative to the PCs?
We were still playing 3.5 when I ran Blackwall Keep. We've since converted to 4e and are in the midst of Kings of the Rift. I've found it trickier to make satisfying conversions as we go along - 3e tends to assume fights in which the opposition is a group of the same creature, or single opponents, so direct conversions tend to be heavy on solos and elites. Kings of the Rift is especially challenging as it stages fights against multiple dragons at once. Be prepared to get your hands dirty creating custom statblocks! (That said, last week's fight against a nearly-stock heroslayer hydra and fire giant lavamaster was pretty memorable and didn't require much heavy lifting on my part.)
While I'm sure there will be some tricky conversions I strongly suspect that I will have it easier then you in this regards. You've really gone in at the deep end doing higher level conversions from the get go. Its likely easier to start at 1st doing conversion and slowly building up to complexity.
Not only that but I'm a player in a Scales of War campaign that is a few levels ahead of the AoW campaign I DM and, best of all, the only common player in both campaigns is myself - I steal good '4E' methods of dealing with things from Scales of War moderately often. Especially how WotC focuses on elements of the encounter itself to make them dynamic. This helps because I get a 'players view' of what works (and whats weak) in 4E before I try and make such encounters myself.
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If the former, about how many did you use, and of what level relative to the PCs?
I don't want to get pedantic about it but I'm avoiding giving out exact encounter design in terms of how many monsters and what the XP budget was. Dove Arrow is doing a fine job of that and I'm sure he'll provide such details once he gets to posting on his experiences in Blackwall Keep.
My interests are in 'game theory' elements of AoW - what worked or didn't for me as well as stuff like 'I used pennies for this encounter and it was great...here is what I did'. I also make unique maps and, if its a particularly unique build maybe, tossing up the odd stat block on my blog.
Still the answer is my players where 5th when I ran this and I designed a 10th level encounter made out of almost exclusively minions except for the shaman and the sub chief, everything at 6th level.
That'd normally be pretty fricken tough but they got some support from the keep itself (the arrow fire that took place every round), they would be coming into this at full strength and had every reason to believe that they could take a long rest when the encounter ended (i.e. start with your daily's and work your way down). Finally minions are weak except when used by the DM in a very tactically effective manner and this was the opposite of that - three clumps of minions, two groups would need to spend at least their first turn just running toward the players. Hence, despite the level of the encounter it did not really challenge them.
That said they probably used all their healing...so it was just hard enough to convince the players that 'this could have been hard - if it was not for the fact that we kick so much ass'.
Next on the agenda, for my players, it was off to the Lizard Folk Lair.
- I did the standard issue 4E deal here of making finding the lair a skill Challenge. I'm a little back and fourth on this kind of a skill challenge. It does make the whole exercise feel like more then 'roll a few track checks', but, on the other hand, there is not much of a candle here they are playing for. All these kinds of 'navigate the wilderness' type skill challenges kind of suffer from this.
I ran this one with players telling me more or less what they where planning on doing but it really just degenerates in 'I'm trying endurance' in this type of situation. There simply is not enough background information in such a scenario (the players know they are going through a swamp, maybe a bit about what the swamp is generally like - that's it) for players to do more then cherry pick a skill and run with it.
If there is fun in such an encounter its inter party fun - its the fun one gets at the table when the (usually male) players are doing digs at each other for failing checks and the DM is ad libbing some player leading everyone accidentally into a deep part of the swamp...and dunk the whole party is soaked and miserable.
My suspicion is we can get to this kind of fun faster through group checks. These should fast track us to the entertaining parts of such an encounter - since they will highlight who's pulling their weight and who is dragging the group down. This also allows the DM to pre-plan a few narrative scenes, a few salient points to try and drive home the 'essence' of what it is to travel through the swamp and finally saves time by eliminating all that humming and hawing while players pick skills or try and negotiate with the DM over whether Streetwise (their best skill) actually should be allowed.
I'll try out group checks for this type of Skill Challenge in the future and see if that does in fact improve such scenes.
And then there was the Lizard Folk Lair.
I did some moderately significant changes here. Basically;y I streamlined the lair so it'd be fewer bigger fights and I moved some of the more interesting creatures from the peripheries of the lair more toward the centre to increase the chance of the players fighting them.
Highlights:
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The rogue sneaks ahead, enters a room with some harpies and a greenvise vine and the harpies use their sing power to draw him deep into the room and then they block the passage. I really beat the snot out of this player while his companions desperately try and save him. Lots of fun for me - not so sure if the player would agree.
I do so in consumables - an absolute ton of consumables...just insane amounts. Like 80 cards or something, 11,000 gold worth of consumables. A few they grow to love in this and later adventures (the bolts that let you teleport beside the target have made for some especially dramatic scenes) - most are not much loved. I think most of the time the alchemy and other consumables just don't give enough bang. I think these need to either have some specific pretty good use (the teleport bolts do that) or they need to be powered like a daily. They just aren't - usually they are between at will and encounter maybe.
I've also so beaten up on the players that I give them a break here and let them take a long rest...The Shaman will see to it that the Lizard Folk King suspects nothing. This is a problem because the adventure turned out to be too hard to do in one go but now it was heading into to easy territory.
I had it so that if the monster broke out of the egg it would 'eat' the pennies - if it got 4 or more then a weaker version would pop out.
I got rushed near the end of the last post and want to talk a bit more about the egg room as it was an interesting encounter.
- One of the big issues I had with it was 'what if the PCs find the trap?' I got lucky in that my normally compulsive trap checking rogue forgot to do it this one room and so I got a good encounter out of it. I was just going to let the chips fall where they may if he did discover the fact that the egg was rigged to fall and stopped that - though I'd be bummed to loose such a good encounter.
- I did seriously consider making it so the rogue just could not pull this off, the encounter would always go off no matter what because it was too 'cool' of an encounter to loose. I'm just a tad to 'Gygaxian' a DM to completely force this however.
- I found the monster here to be super hard to make. The problem is if its to good at what it does then it'll make zillions of spawn who will themselves make spawn and pretty soon the encounter is out of hand. If it sucks at what it does then the players lock it down and just win and thats not so much fun. I think I erred slightly on too easy and only two spawn where ever made but it was pretty clear to me that the encounter really balanced on a knife edge - a couple of bad rolls on key powers by the players and there would just be no way to stop all the spawn from eating all the eggs. In the end I loved the style of the encounter but feel that even having done it once before if I made a similar type encounter in the future it would be almost blind luck whether it worked or not.
- This frustrates me a bit because I love introducing unusual components into an encounter - anything to add a change of pace to the more standard monster smack down type encounters so it really annoys me to do something off the beaten path and then come out feeling like I've not really learned from it and therefore can't do the same type of encounter 'but better' in the future.
- My players also got more gold here then I had originally expected - I'll just deduct it from future treasure parcels. Though this makes me feel a little guilty. In truth the players can never really 'win' here they save more eggs - get a big reward for that and there I am prepping the next adventure and, dum de dum, I'm subtracting their extra winnings from their future rewards. I love the wealth by level system but it is a cruel and heartless mistress.
Final Encounter for Blackwall Keep...the big reveal.
- Having won the prisoners back and agreed to try and make a treaty with the powers that be in the Free City my players return to the keep. Here they encounter the guards at Blackwall Keep who sheepishly tell the players their story. The players have fun calling the guardsmen imbeciles and such. In retrospect I have to wonder if the power goes to their head here. This seems to be the point where my newbs 'morph' into standard role players...by which I mean they start treating NPCs like dirt. I don't notice it immediately but it becomes more of a prevalent theme after this point. An annoyance to be sure - I had almost forgotten how much I dislike such behavior from Players.
- Anyway the players agree to go into the basement and deal with the undead down there while the guards will wait outside. I encounter another meta-game element here as they want to know if the Keeps battle mage, the one they rescued can help. I had said she had been drugged by the Lizard Folk Shaman as well as having a broken jaw so she can't really help. At this point the players note that "Jeremy will never let anyone help us". I break off and explain that while this is not strictly true I avoid allowing people help you since it would simply result in me upping the strength of the opposition and do little but slow the game down. I'm trying to explain to them the concept that DM PCs are less then ideal and should only be used if their value in the story out weighs the issues they bring to the table. I don't think they buy it at all - they need to actually have to deal with a DM PC before the flaws become clear to them.
- I'm really rather cruel in this encounter - I make it hard. Its encounter level +4 but its the only fight of the day so I figured they could take it. I also have just given them obscene sums of consumables. On the other hand its just the kind of encounter that really tough on the players. 4 level 6 PCs facing down with 3 Spawn of Kyuss who are done as level 8 elite soldiers. Armour class is through the roof, they have regeneration any round they have not been hit by a radiant power, they hit hard and it has ongoing 10 necrotic damage. Finally I set it up so that all the spawn are hidden from the players as they enter the basement and no matter which way they go they are likely to be attacked from two or even three sides once they move away from the stairs - and the stairs will be blocked by the spawn trapping them.
- I pretty much decided that these guys where 'normal' Spawn of Kyuss in my campaign. That is all Spawn of Kyuss are elite 8th level Soldiers. They had done the whole campaign up to this point hearing about 'unkillable' undead so I wanted their first taste to be with something that really fit the bill.
- Still the fight turned out to be simply beyond them. In retrospect I suppose level 7 Elite Soldiers would have been a better plan. I mean they even had a nasty aura which I simply did not use in the combat and it did not really matter. The players where just in to bad a tactical predicament. Once attacked from multiple sides my guys are really up the creek because there are only 4 of them and 3 of them can't really go toe to toe with anything. The rogue can dish it out but not really take it, and the wizard and cleric are both range specialists. The consumables prove to be sub par, they go through them again and again but rarely find one that is better then their at wills. Potions have simply ceased to function as viable healing - mathematically if a player spent two rounds using all actions to drink potions he'd drink three, loose 3 surges and gain 30 hps. If he was facing a single Spawn of Kyuss who hit him twice he'd suffer an average of 27 points of damage and have 2 ongoing 10 necrotic conditions...its a loosing proposition.
My players make a good go of it but the dice are not being all that kind either and the fight just does not seem to be going their way. I felt they had a chance of winning when they finally take down one of the Spawn and make this a fight on only one side but it soon becomes apparent that they are loosing ground. They have cycled through all their daily's and encounter powers and the cleric needs to hit at least one of them with a radiant power pretty much every round for them to make headway, meanwhile the ongoing 10 is just killing them. Its a few rounds before I realize that they are orchestrating a retreat. I thought they still had a chance when they had already decided that it was hopeless. Still the fact that they opened up one side meant that they could beat the spawn in an end run to the stairs and they manage to flee Blackwall Keep.
- They tell the guards to cover the door while they take a long rest knowing that with one spawn dead they'll be able to win this for sure if they go back at full strength.
- That makes me smile because of Allustan...three hours into their long rest (so they have not go their daily's or anything back) I have a scene where tromp...tromp...tromp...here comes the army. This sets my players off...they already had their glory stolen in Three Faces of Evil when the God Fetus escaped and rampaged on the town before being put down by the out of town adventurers and some of the party really don't want it to happen again. There is an argument among the players with one of them in particular arguing that they should run back into the Keep and try and beat the Spawn before the army steals their glory. Finally the other party members convince him that it is too dangerous and there is a roleplaying scene with the army commander, one Lord Commander Helina Stormrunner. Of course this is the army so their plan to help is no go its all "Thank you citizen, we'll take it from here".
- At this point the army orders battle mages and crossbow men to cover the door, they set up a ballista and finally roll three barrels of alchemists fire into Blackwall Keep and kill the Spawn in the inferno. My players want to know why they can't do that (roll barrels of Alchemists fire around) "you can" says I. "How much is a barrel of Alchemists Fire?" asks them. "about 2 grand" says I. "So they just rolled 6000 gold pieces worth of alchemists fire into the Keep?" says the players. "Your tax gold pieces at work!" says I.