I am about to start running the AP for 3 players using 3.5.
They only want to run one character each.
They are not much into optimizing.
They will probably be a druid, barbarian and a rogue/scout.
Are there any places where the encounters are likely to be too lethal?
I think you should add an NPC to help out and make it less lethal
And there are alot of places that can be very lethal we have 6 players who optimize somewhat and we have had some pretty close PC deaths in the first book (Malfeshnekor im looking at you buddy)
I don't like using DM PCs but perhaps a warrior type, lower level than the PCs might off to join them in going to Thistletop. He could act as a redshirt - dying to show the threat of the demon whilst giving the party time to act.
I suspect gestalt would be too complex for my players' tastes.
I think I will be generous with rewards, and try to get them a limited use item or too that will help with the barghest. Maybe a wand of Prot vs Evil with just a few charges left.
Personally, I think you might want to consider starting them at level 2 with maximum hitpoints. Also give them some sort of hero-points or action points. I had 5 players and the only thing that let them live through the whole story-arc were their hero-points (1 per book) that allowed them to either replace a kill shot with just enough damage to leave them with 1 hp or score an auto-critical.
I would expect them to be OK starting at 1st level against the goblns.
That's assuming the druid gets an combat worthy animal companion.
It might help them develop cautious habits.
They should level up a bit faster with there being fewer of them.
I am about to start running the AP for 3 players using 3.5.
They only want to run one character each.
They are not much into optimizing.
They will probably be a druid, barbarian and a rogue/scout.
Are there any places where the encounters are likely to be too lethal?
I would strongly suggest that you have *lots* of healing potions/wands as extra treasure. They will need it.
My guys are playing this with 7 characters, in the 3rd book now, and while there has been only one character death, the cleric usually runs out of healing bursts ever adventuring day! (Xanesha of course!)
I planning of suggesting that the rogue take plenty of ranks in UMD or the barbarian takes a ranger level so that the druid isn't the only one who can heal.
I may ask the druid to consider the Touch of Healing reserve feat at 3rd.
I probably will get PFRPG at least to read, but for now I am sticking with 3.5, which is what RotRL was written for.
One player had changed her mind we have a human barbarian, a human druid with a wolf companion, and a elven bard.
The druid has expressed an interest in Master of Many Forms.
The bard did not wear any armour or carry her main weapon to the festival.
When the fight started I allowed her to use countersong to negate the effect of the warchenters song - not strictly by the rules but it felt right. She was knocked out (0HP) by a critical hit from a goblin in the second fight, was healed by one of the local priests and went to put her armour on.
That left the barbarian, druid and wolf to rescue Aldern. The barbarian charged and killed the commando with his first blow, then badly woounded the goblin dog who ran off, befor being taken down by one of the other goblins, who then went for Aldern rather than a coup de grace, allowing the druid to risk an AoO (missed) to heal him.
I had allowed the wold max HP for its first HD and a good role on the other enabled hit to survive a lot of small hits by goblins.
The druid is female with 13 Cha so Aldern has become interested in her.
They were starting to wonder where the goblins came from when we stopped.
I am currently DMing this with 3 players, Pathfinder initial builds but mostly following 3.5 rules. Group currently is a fighter, cleric, and sorceror. We are just starting Hook Mountain. We have had only one death but multiple players down in many fights. Has been a bit of a challenge for them, but fun. Make sure you let them frequently find potions and I have been using the reserve hp system I found somewhere on these boards to keep downtime reasonable. The only fight I had to seriously tame down was Xanesha. Hook Mountain has the addition of some npc's so this should take some of the pressure off. Overall has run very smoothly.
My players have just killed the quasit, after the best part of 2 sessions.
After they ran out of ideas and spells the first time they withdrew and got some cold iron spears and arrows. I decided when they went back that she would be in the meditation chamber - they had decided not to enter it and had got a net to fish the items out this time. So they opened the door ans she flew pass them invisibly and fought in the zombie pit room.
She had the bard at -4 HP at one stage thanks to inflict moderate wounds, but when she used cause fear only the bard failed and she had a clear path out of the room. Eventually she decided she needed to go heal up, and got reduced to 1 HP from an AoO as she did so. Unfortunately for her the barbarian has a good listen skill and good rolls was able to follow her and try to hit her. He got a 20, avoided to miss chance and she hadn't healed enough. He then dismemebered her to make sure she wasn't coming back.
They got a priest to come down to clear out the zombies, and he will be coming back to 'desecrate' the altar to Lamashtu. The sage insisted on seeing the ruins. They haven't decided what to do about the runewell yet.
We're about to take a large step with RotRL. Our regular group had a couple of ongoing campaigns we didn't want to convert years ago, and never switched from 3.0 to 3.5; I was a charter subscriber to the Adventure Paths but we're only just now gearing up to start RotRL next month, and we'll be using Pathfinder core rules for it. Add to that the fact that I haven't DM'd in 10-12 years, and let the fun begin.
I too will be running 3 players. I've said I'd allow 2 characters per player but so far no one has expressed interest in doing so. I will be watching this thread with interest...
We're about to take a large step with RotRL. Our regular group had a couple of ongoing campaigns we didn't want to convert years ago, and never switched from 3.0 to 3.5; I was a charter subscriber to the Adventure Paths but we're only just now gearing up to start RotRL next month, and we'll be using Pathfinder core rules for it. Add to that the fact that I haven't DM'd in 10-12 years, and let the fun begin.
I too will be running 3 players. I've said I'd allow 2 characters per player but so far no one has expressed interest in doing so. I will be watching this thread with interest...
I would highly recommend Gestalt characters for a group of 3 players from the 3e Unearthed Arcana book. They can hire chump warrior 1's, albeit at a relatively steep cost at 1st level, to help soak up some hits, cause fears, sleeps and so on early on. (Especially after the first encounter of the campaign, where they may be able to use the good will generated to attract some hirelings from the locals of Sandpoint.) The primary "currency" of the game remains the number of actions one can take, and missing that 4th action definitely hurts.
If the players are disinclined to gestalt, I would suggest a "x.75" rule of thumb be applied across the board to make the baddies easier to take down, mostly in terms of hit points. Certain solo baddies you will want to consider toning down - but then, certain elements of the AP lose a lot of their punch if the baddies are too easy to drop. A tough call! You will want to gauge this specifically to your particular group's tolerances.
Be sure to give yourself enough lead time to do the necessary conversions! The custom critters of the AP (the ones in the back) are unlikely to be in the first Bestiary, and the classed persons will all have to be converted 'by hand'.
The druids animal companion seemed to help a lot with the early encounters, effectively acting as a fourth character.
I had some NPC healers at the festival provide healing between the initial encounters at the festival, otherwise they wouldn't have been able to do all of them.
With only 3 of them they are advancing a bit faster which is helping.
The druid has taken scribe scroll and that has helped keep them going for longer.
I'll likely be running this for TWO players. My sister and my nephiew. We ran a dink arround game last week where they fought some stuff out of one of the numbered monster manuals, but after we rap that up I'll likely have them head down to sand point.
Right now we have a druid (my sister) which we forgot to make the animal companion for, and a cleric (nephiew). Hoping to be second level when we start. My brother in law (who taught me to play D&D in the first place) might play, which, if he does he'll be a warrior of some sort, likely barbarian. If not I'll make up a dull witted fighter type to follow them arround and watch their backs.
The original plan was to run them through the Age of Wurms path, but I've somehow lost the first two magazines...grrrr...stupid moving three times in the past year...
I'm running this AP for three players (one character each) using the True20 conversion. True20 directs that levels be increased when everyone playing agrees. Which means the GM gets to decide! :)
My solution is to run it as written, but increase their level slightly sooner than normal.
plot spoiler:
For most of the stuff beneath the town, they were level 2. Got their butts handed to them by the quaist. Level 3 was okay. They're about to enter Thistletop, either this next weekend at GenCon or the next weekend.
They added an NPC fighter, and their classes include sorceress, thief (urban) and thief (ranger-type). The addition of "Grogg the Red" has significantly improved their combats. With the addition of Grogg, I'll return to a more normal advancement route.
I'll likely be running this for TWO players. My sister and my nephiew. We ran a dink arround game last week where they fought some stuff out of one of the numbered monster manuals, but after we rap that up I'll likely have them head down to sand point.
Right now we have a druid (my sister) which we forgot to make the animal companion for, and a cleric (nephiew). Hoping to be second level when we start. My brother in law (who taught me to play D&D in the first place) might play, which, if he does he'll be a warrior of some sort, likely barbarian. If not I'll make up a dull witted fighter type to follow them arround and watch their backs.
The original plan was to run them through the Age of Wurms path, but I've somehow lost the first two magazines...grrrr...stupid moving three times in the past year...
The AoW is *rough* for a 4 or 5 player group - it would be brutal for just 2. RotRL should be fun for 2 or 3 though!
At the last moment before they crossed the bridge the barbarian decided to check that the ropes were firmly attached and noticed that one side is rigged to come loose easily. So they ran across one at at time. I think the party think that it is rigged so it can be easily collapsed deliberatley, not that enough weight will do it, so it might get them on the way back.
The sneaked around the fort, killing the guards in one tower and interrogating one of the goblins from the barracks in the presence of their bodies. They found the throne room, prepared an attack and carried it out, killing everything in 3 rounds. The chief didn't get to mount up.
This got the druid and barbarian to 4th.
The next session they explored some more, then headed downstairs happening to choose the route to the temple. Inside they were attacked by the yeth hounds, The bard and animal companion failed their saves and panicked. The druid and the barbarion found that the hounds were hard to hit and harder to damage, even when they tried the cold iron weapons they had had made for the quasit. They retreated closing the doors behind them.
Regrouped they charged back in, the bard slept one hound and the barbarian killed the other using the silver dagger they had found.
This brought the bard up to 4th.
The players were not happy with the yeth hound encounter. They said that that high AC and DR made them feel helpless. I don't entirely agree with their specific complaints, but do not like that they were unhappy. If I were running it again for 3 players I would remove one of the hounds, and look to drop more hints as to their presence.
On the other hand, I would probably add a couple of goblins to the throne room. Perhaps a groom holding the mount and a servant pouring drinks for the chief.
I decided not to have the hound's yells cause an alarm - deciding that the inhabitants were used to them.
The party was a little battered and very low on spells - down to cantrips. They thoughr about withdrawing, but decided to explore a little first.
Spoiler:
They initmidated the cowardly wizard, questioned her, took her scrolls and wands, then let her go. I added a few extra scrolls, including one of Dispel Magic.
They spotted the trap, tried to get past without setting it off, but the druid failed the easy roll to do so and took a bit more damage.
A good listen roll let them know of a woman and a "dog" to the north. The thought a bit but then charged in. The barbarian got a solid hit in, Nualia shattered his TH sword, but the druid had Mending prepared. Some low rolls on my part helped the party to win without taking much damage.
The druid used her last spell - cure minor - to stabilize Nualia so they could take her back alive. The bard used her last spell slot to detect magic.
So the module is basically done. The druid and barbarian have just reached 5th level and the bard is close. They intend to head back to Thistletop. I am thinking to have it mostly abandoned apart from the bugbear, and the "whispering beast". I suspect they will want closure on that, so I might give them a clue, perhaps having the old druid in town give them a prophecy of money leading to evil.
They need a bit of time to buy equipment and write scrolls. So I won't start the next one immediately. The Druid is called Katrina, so a bit of name confusion with the murdered girl seems likely.
I'm about to begin the same process. Three players: cleric/wizard, druid, fighter.
Rather than beef up the characters artificially, I decided to let the players make Pathfinder characters (including new feat progression, etc) and keep everything as written in the AP.
However, I am still concerned with the limited number of actions available. Sometimes you just NEED four characters, so an NPC may be a possibility.
I'll post back after a few sessions to update how it goes. But I'm pretty comfortable with the following:
Fighter has 17 hit points at 1st level.
Druid has raptor companion with 21 hit points.
Cleric has 5/day channel energy and spontaneous healing (no heal domain though).
If things are still too tough, I could reinstate action points or "hand of fate" rules.
The animal companion is making up the number for my group.
The only real problem has been the two hounds in the temple under thistletop. There howls caused the companion and one PC to flee and their high DR made them too tough for the other PCs, who chose to run away, after taking significant damage.
Partly this is because my party is a bit weak in the area of offensive magic. They are planning to buy a wand of CLW and one of lesser vigour so the druid does not need to have healing prepared (within Sandpoint's 800gp limit). They are also thinking of going to Magnimar to get a +1 TH sword for the barbarian, but want to find the "whisperer" first.
The characters took a few days to spend some of the moeny they had been accumulating, then headed back to Thistletop to try to find the "whispering beast". The players knew this was optional but decided the characters would want to tie up the loose ends.
They had captured Nualia alive and the mayor sent to Magniamar for a justice so that she would get a fair trial. Justice Ironbriar turned up, questioned the PCs and sentence her to death. He left after watching the hanging. The body was burned. The PCs seemed impressed by him.
Spoiler:
Before they set off I had the old druid seer give them a prophecy/clue - basically a tarot reading - "money leads to evil"
Almost all the goblins had left. They mer a group sneaking out and found out that the bugbear had set himself up as chief with the old chief's wives. They dealt with him with nothing but mental scars, then went down and searched the bits of the first dungeon level they had missed. The (female) elven bard was attacked by the tentacle monster, but luckily it fail to hit.
Then they went on down again. The used detect magic and normal searches on the column of apparent coins, but went to the other door before finding anything.
The three shadows were more dangerous than I had expected. Their touch attacks and the miss chance, plus my rolling 4 or higher on every 1d6 damage roll left the party badly weakened. If I hadn't misread the MM entry the druid would have died. I missed that they kill when they reduce strength to zero. I was think that after they had rendered their victim helpless that way they would have to coup de grace or use and action to create spawn to finish the character. I think that is a better way for them to work, allowing for last second rescues of helpless characters. Which is what happened as the barbarian at last managed to hit despite the miss chance and finished the last shadow.
The animal companion had taken a critical hit and run off with strength 2. The bard had taken one hit and is down to strength 7. The druid had wild shaped (for the first time) to a lion and then lost all 21 of the lion's strength.
I think for a party of 3 without someone who can turn undead than remving one of the shadows would be best.
My group just finished Part One (we heavily roleplayed for a good 3 hours before combat even started).
Spoiler:
They finished off each of the three groups with a moderate challenge - each character took some damage and used up most of their spells or abilities by the end. The most dangerous encounter was the last, as the ranger was dishing out as much damage as the party fighter. The dinosaur companion was very useful, dishing out and taking most of the damage along with the fighter. The cleric went through a few channel energy attempts to heal up the party instead of using his spells.
Overall I can definitely see a power bump from 3.5, but I think the dynamic and balance will work with 3 characters. If a fourth joins, as he said he may (as a fire-elemental sorcerer) I may actually need to increase the challenges.
An update on my campaign as they finished Burnt Offering and started Skinsaw murders.
Spoiler:
The party went back and with one playing taking 20 on a search and another using aid another manage to find how to open the column of coins.
The barbarian entered Malfeshnikor's(sp?) room first and barely survived the first full attack from invisibility. His main weapon is not magical so he did very little return damage. The druid with call lightning was more effective, so Mally decide to ignore th barbarian the next round and charm the druid which was successful. The barbarian backed out to swap weapons and they found that Mally could not follow. But with the druid charmed they retreated back to town.
They used a scroll to try to break the charm which failed. Then there was a fight and the druid was locked up. In the morning she wild shaped and escaped but was caught again. They worked out with the local priests that they would cast a prot vs evil each day to get the druid to cooperate in using up her abilities so she could be kept locked up until the charm wore off. They decided to leave Mally until they are stronger.
Afew days after the charm wore off I started Skinsaw and we had a session of them investigating the murders. (It was a shortened session due to traffic problems.) The druid's name is Katrina so I had the last letter be unclear whether it was an 'a' or an 'e'. They visited the sanitorium and the bard recognised the Misgivings as Foxglove manor, and we had a lot of jokes about ghoulfriends and the like. Katrina decided to vist Aldern and try to seduce him into revealling what is happening :D But Famrer Gump arrived before they set off in the morning so they went to the farm. They kill a few ghoul scarecrows and some made of straw then cleared the buildings fairly easily.
The druid and barbarian have just reached level 6.
We were supposed to have started RotR in August, but various non-game events conspired against us. As part of that confusion, due to one player's shifting work schedule, we went from three anticipated players to five anticipated players, then back to three -- each of whom will now be running two characters (easier that gestalts.)
Our first game will be this weekend. PCs are: cleric(Saranrae), bard, barbarian, sorcerer, rogue and spellblade (from Tome of Secrets.) The first three goblin encounters may be problematic for a couple of reasons: at least some of the characters will not be wearing armor at the Swallowtail Festival, so they'll be fairly easy to hit; the half-elven female bard has an 18 CHA, and is the only one in the group to already own a horse, so she's Aldern's obvious point of interest on more than one level -- but she's less likely than most of the others to rush into combat and so almost certainly will not be the one to save him.
Spoiler:
Things should get interesting later, though. The cleric's backstory has her related to Jervis Smoot, and she just refuses to believe that Uncle Jervis (I don't remember what relationship she specified but her last name is Haladan and she's the granddaughter of the proprieter of the Curious Goblin bookshop) would ever be capable of those horrible murders; clearly he must have been the victim of some sort of demonic possession.
I believe later parts of the adventure call for the PCs to make use of the runewell to obtain or enhance weapons. I'm going to have to be careful here, because this group of players traditionally destroys magic items they consider to be inherently evil. They may not try to gain access to runeforged weapons if they consider them to be sin-tainted.
the half-elven female bard has an 18 CHA, and is the only one in the group to already own a horse, so she's Aldern's obvious point of interest on more than one level -- but she's less likely than most of the others to rush into combat and so almost certainly will not be the one to save him.
That is similar to my group, but it has worked well with the feamle druid being the one. Partly due to her name being coincidentally similar to one of the murder victims, and partly due to invitations to join a pack having interesting connotations for a druid.
Just go with whoever is in the right place at the right (wrong?) time.
I've been running this for a while with 3 PCs. So far it has been fairly smooth. They are advancing slightly faster as they only split XP between 3. I've noticed that most battles have gone smoothly if they take the time to investigate and plan. For example, the fight with Xanesha was tough, but they handled it well. On the other hand, they could not handle the Raid on Sandpoint. They didn't die, but Sandpoint will take years to recover.
The PCs will be heading to Xin Shalast in the next game. Hopefully, we'll wrap up the game in December. They'll be 16th level as they enter the city, and I'm guessing they will be 18th when they face Karzoug.
So, first game with 3 players each running 2 characters. I was fighting off severe allergy symptoms and not at my best, DM-wise, so I neglected to bump up the CR on most of the encounters.
The initial goblin attack featured 6 goblins rather than 3, but the second encounter (warchanter + 4 goblins) was run as written as was the encounter with Aldern Foxglove; consequently these were no challenge at all.
Both the female characters in the party took an instant dislike to Foxglove -- "You coward! Letting your dog fight your battles for you, while you can't be bothered to do so much as throw a rock!" and both had in-character reasons for not participating in the boar hunt a few days later, so that didn't work as well as it might have.
The PCs "slept" and tied up one goblin from the initial attack, then stowed him under the raised platform and forgot about him (he rolled a 20 for an Escape Artist check and snuck away while they were dealing with the burning wagon); they similarly knocked out one of the goblins at the burning wagon but forgot to secure him, so he also escaped once they moved off.
Gresgurt, the starving goblin in the closet, ended up being a solo encounter for the group's cleric, while the bard was otherwise occupied and the rest of the group was hunting boar with Foxglove. I had a bit of a problem here: Gresgurt is unarmed and goblins are not statted for natural weapons, so how was he supposed to hurt the cleric?
Gresgurt, the starving goblin in the closet, ended up being a solo encounter for the group's cleric, while the bard was otherwise occupied and the rest of the group was hunting boar with Foxglove. I had a bit of a problem here: Gresgurt is unarmed and goblins are not statted for natural weapons, so how was he supposed to hurt the cleric?
He isn't. He is supposed to demonstrate that the goblins actually are evil. But he could still grapple.
I'm almost positive that in the description it talks about how his dog slicer broke and he fashioned a curde knife out of it. I'd give him an attack that does 1d3 slashing. I agree with the above poster though, he's not really there to act as a challenge, just get the point across that goblins aren't all just bumbling goof balls, but chaotic evil menaces. Not much threat to a heroic PC, but dangerous to the average commoner that PCs should be protecting.
I'm almost positive that in the description it talks about how his dog slicer broke and he fashioned a curde knife out of it. I'd give him an attack that does 1d3 slashing.
He did indeed fashion a crude knife from his broken dogslicer, but the module specifies that the knife is sticking out of the dead dog's ear (in the bedroom beyond the closet) when the PCs arrive. I ended up improvising an unspecified natural attack (claw/bite?) that did 1hp pf damage, so after a couple of hits the cleric wasn't entirely unscathed.
I hope this party will be able to save the horse when they get to Thistletop; some of them are pretty sentimental about animlas, and they've have three dogs die on them in the first session of the game (stray in the initial attack, Aldern's hunting dog and the family pet in this encounter.)
Maybe I'm missremembering where the horse is, but when I ran Thistletop we had a hell of a time with getting the horse out. I just ruled the goblins beat the horse half to death and drug it through all the briars. Then when the party shows up the cut a path from one high spot (I ruled that the "rooms" had highspots because we kept forgetting to take the penalties to attack) to another and eventually out of the thistles.
I have been running RotRL with two players and this is the start of my DMing "career." The players I am DMing for are fairly experienced. However, to make up for the fact that there are only two of them (ranger who has now taken a few levels in paladin and a rogue later took levels in wizard):
-They were second level before starting RotRL
-I added a few more items that would give them AC bonuses so they wouldn't get hit as often. For example, I moved the Ring of Force Shield to somewhere else in Thistletop where they could get at it at level 2 instead of in the barghest's room, and added some bracers of protection to one of the monsters.
-I took away a few enemies from larger/more difficult encounters, like the yeth hounds.
-Or if I can't cut out monsters, I tune them down. For example, my house rule for the two player game is that an animal can have its two claw attacks or a bite attack in one round, not both.
-Turned the glassworks into a glassworks + alchemy shop. Now Amieko gives the PCs several potions of Cure X Wounds corresponding to their level whenever they drop in to see her, and sometimes gives them other items like tanglefoot bags, alchemists fire, etc.
-You could also send Shalelu, the elf girl to Thistletop with them and play her yourself.
-The players have done pretty well themselves since they realize there are only two of them. They usually stake things out and do some research or information gathering before diving into a situation to learn about what types of foes they'll be facing. And in the dungeon itself, they take care to be quiet and listen for their enemies. They also try to capture enemies to find out what lies ahead in the dungeon.
-They also loot everything and sell it, and they use the money to buy more items. Using the "Arms and Equipment Guide" has helped them pick out some pretty interesting and very helpful items (I believe it goes with 3rd edition D&D but it's very easy to convert the items to 3.5).
-In Skinsaw Murders, they completed the ghoul farm area without any help from the guard NPCs.
-When going through Skinsaw Murders, I didn't have to change the haunts because of the ranger/paladin's high fort saves and the rogue's good spot and listen checks.
-The PCs found a wand of dispel magic in Foxglove Manor, which turned out to be useful in combat against Xanesha so that they could dispel some of her magical armor and actually hit her.
-The Seven's lumbermill in Skinsaw Murders isn't too bad. My players staked the place out to find out how many workers were there, followed the mysterious mill overseer home, discovered he was Ironbriar, and then waited a few days to attack through the rookery on the top floor of the mill at night.
-I was very worried about Xanesha and actually toned her down too much. I took away her fly ability for the encounter, removed the silence from the area so she could cast spells on the PCs, took away her mask, and removed the wisdom drain from her weapon. It took awhile for them to kill her, but both PCs had about half of their hitpoints left and hadn't used potions.
An update on my campaign as they have almost finished Skinsaw Murders
Spoiler:
The haunts worked well and they met just about very one. They release Iesha and though they were delayed following her they cam on Aldern soon after he had fought her. I ruled that he had defeated her but only had half hit points left. 2/3 or 3/4 may have been better as he died quickly.
They followed the clues to his town house and defeated the creatures there.
They went to the Seven's mill at night and climb the walls to enter through the Rookery. The druid killed all the Ravens according to the beliefs of her homeland. I did not want them dropping in on the Justice with him being completely un prepared so I decided that he wasn't in his room, but would return at a dramatic moment. He got a confusion off which only the bard failed to save against. They quickly killed the rest of the cultists, even though they were all together.
There levels were now
Barbarian 4/Rogue 1/Fighter 2
Druid 5/Master of Many Forms 2
Bard 4/Swashbuckler 3
Spoiler:
They learned Xanesha's location from a captive cultist.
When they turned in the cultist's masks (which I decided were also their unholy symbols) to the temple od Desna I gave them a bit of extra money as a reward, and had a priest offer to help them with the final fight, but he was turned down.
They decided to enter from the top again first trying to climb the tower with spider climb for every one, but the druid with no skill and a strength penalty still managed to fall. So she changed to a large bat and carried the bard up. The barbarian continue climbing without problems, until he looked in where the wall had collapsed and was seen, but shapechangers weren't able to follow him. They had seen an elf woman in a semi luxorious place at the top of the tower, so the druid decided to drop the bard off and go fetch the barbarian.
So the bard was alone facing Xanesha, who had not had any warning and so had no buffs up.
Xanesha tried Charm Monster and the bard failed her save, putting her on the sidelines for a second fight. The barbarian and Druid then managed to make every save they needed. The barbarian sundered Xanesha's spear, so she DD'd outside (she had cast fly after charming the elf). The druid cast earthbind to stop her flying, took a fair amount of damage from a scorching ray, then fetched the barbarian to hack at Xanesha as she drifted to the ground.
Xanesha still had about 50 hp left, but I had given her a small cricumstance penalty to her concentration checks and tolled a 1 when she tried to cast defensively. The two AoOs and the barbarian's next full attack took here to 2 HP, and the druid finished her off.
We have played through HMM and have just started FotSG
At one level higher than a party of 4 they have had no significant problems.
If anything most of the fights have been too easy.
The barbarian has died once - to the leader of the ogres in the fort. He took and AoO when charging, failed to kill him in one round. The first full power attack attack missed but the second hit and killed him.
Since then they have been more cooperative and even more effective.
Last session we did the attack on Sandpoint at the start of SotG. They killed 2 of the first 3 in a couple of rounds, then started running after the third, hasted, so nearly missed the rest of the battle. They cam back and were fighting a second group when the dragon arrived.
The druid asked to use handle animals to break the giant's control of the Dire Bears so that they would leave. I gave her an oppose roll for each bear with the giants getting +20 to resist. Even with on roll of 20 for the giants she succeeded for all three - wild empathy helping. I thought that was a good use of a skill.
The dragon rested on the cathedral which was next to where the group was. The barbarian decided to climb to the top. As he was hasted (second casting) and got over 30 for the skill check I let him do that in one round. The dragon took a bite at him. That let the barbarian get a full attack, helped a bunch of arrows from the bard. The dragon's next action per the module was to cast true strike. So he took another full attack from the barbarian, the druid in troll for arrived and attacked, more arrows from the bard, so the dragon died without doing much damage.
The tactic given for the dragon seems poor. True strike then full attack with maximum power attack. Giving up six attacks to get one good attack the next round and 5 at a low BAB does not seem good to me. Is it intentionally weak?
From the top of the cathedral they spotted the leader of the giant's walking though the town and went after him. After killing him the other giant's fled.
It was a good session. Lots of fun, and the players got an idea of how powerful their characters have become.
Resurrecting just to note that the campaign ended last week.
The final session started with the characters finishing clearing the final "dungeon" - that had taken 5 or six sessions.
They then returned to the reliquary to workout how to get to Karzoug.
They were not able to work it out, but eventually the barbarian got fed up and it the lens with the sword he happened to have treated in the Runeforge.
The elven bard died to the Wail of the Banshee, the barbarian used a reroll when he failed a save, the druid/MoMF ran through the Prismatic Sphere twice, and eventually Karzoug died.
