Shadow in the Sky - Upscaling Water tunnels part for FAR too effective party

[Luthia]

So, I've just been through the Boneyard, hardly wounded my party due to 3 things
Very effective players
Very good perception (not lucky rolls, just sick bonuses)
Very effective team on range

The last thing in particular makes me rather worried that my players will have a much too easy time with Depora in the last part of Shadow in the Sky, which I'd rather avoid, since I want to give a really epic feel to the last sequences.
Knowing that many people out there are past this point I can't help wondering if anyone have some good ideas for how to improve the last encounter?

To give you as much information as possible I'm running PFRPG (which already makes me want to improve Depora by 1 level), I have 4 players, playing as follows:

Human Cleric of Sarenae (Healing and Fire domains makes him an effective healer and ranged spellcaster, while focus on wearing a full-plate and using a scimitar makes him good in melee and hard to get proper strikes to) NG (played as fanatic good doer and redemption by fire personificated)

Human Wizard (Generalist with very high focus on being the teams craftsman and planner - tends to go for well-planned over good, relatively weak (VERY low hit point due to poor Con and poor rolls)) LN

Elf (recently introduced) Sorcerer (Arcane Bloodline - goes for being renamed to "Artillery and Charm effects" - a very new character, so I don't really have any decisive notes on weaknesses/strengths and style yet) CG

Half-Elf Ranger (Archery Style - works with poisons and (thanks to the wizard) alchemical arrows, runs with a highly Calistria focused ideal and plays slightly Bounty Hunter style)

My initial plan is to get some good hits on "the weak point", that being the wizard, but my problem lies with the rest still being able to revive him or going on without, and not really being troubled by the loss.

Please give me some input to work with,
Thanks ahead for anything...

[Xuttah]

This is all from the perspective of a player -I don't know any of the behind the scenes stuff.

Spoiler:

My party enjoyed considerable success with the initial encounters in this module too. That pretty much changed in the last bit of the adventure though as we did the boneyard ambush and the raid on the GG on the same night. By the time the comet hit, we were down to cantrips and clods of mud, and were mostly badly injured or poisoned.

Darkness and concealment will really play havoc with your party since nobody has darkvision (or blindsense).

IIRC there's something about aqauatic gricks in a magically darkened area. They can grapple the weaker party members and take them for a swim.

The Troglodytes' stench and Dretchs' stinking clouds will also greatly reduce the wizard's effectiveness (possibly others too if they tank on their Fort saves), plus the concealment from the cloud will negate most ranged attacks. Nothing like rivers of barf to slow down the party and give the badguys time to prepare.

Drow sleep toxin is also not going to be fun for the wizard either.

You could also partially flood the tunnel to the cyphergate with ice cold water and force Fort saves or take nonlethal damage to further weaken them.

All in all, I don't think it's gonna be much of an issue to give them a scare. Might even have a fatality if they really do poorly.

[Luthia]

Xuttah wrote:

This is all from the perspective of a player -I don't know any of the behind the scenes stuff.

** spoiler omitted **

All in all, I don't think it's gonna be much of an issue to give them a scare. Might even have a fatality if they really do poorly.

Thanks a lot... My main worry is over intrusive light spells and (so typical for my players) good rolls to them and bad ones to me.

However I really think stuff little the Fort saves might freak them...

Thanks a lot for the aid... really appreciate it...

[gigglestick]

Luthia wrote:

Xuttah wrote:

This is all from the perspective of a player -I don't know any of the behind the scenes stuff.

** spoiler omitted **

All in all, I don't think it's gonna be much of an issue to give them a scare. Might even have a fatality if they really do poorly.

Thanks a lot... My main worry is over intrusive light spells and (so typical for my players) good rolls to them and bad ones to me.

However I really think stuff little the Fort saves might freak them...

Thanks a lot for the aid... really appreciate it...

One question...

Are THEY having fun with the adventure so far?

Not every adventure has to be impossibly difficult or lethal to be a fun adventure. If the party plays well together and uses their abilites and teamwork well, that shouldn;t be penalized or taken away. Otherwise, it feels like character development is a waste of time.

It's OK to make things a bit more challenging (an extra HD or an additional flunkie for the baddies) but making the adventure more deadly just to prey on weaknesses and avoid their strengths is just making it a them vs you scenario.

[Joana]

Major spoilers for Shadow in the Sky:

I also had a party that was walking through combat encounters without breaking a nail, so I changed up the end of Shadow in the Sky to make it a little more interesting to my group. Instead of the final raid on the Goblin, I had Saul go back to his old tricks of faking his death in a fire to get out of town. The PCs returned to the Goblin to find it locked up and dark, discovered Larur's corpse in Saul's chair with the hand chopped off and a key stuck on the stump, and while they were upstairs, Saul lit his alchemist's fire and escaped through the water tunnels. The PCs got much more worked up trying to fight the fire and save part of the casino than they would have killing off mooks. And I let Depora get away, partly because I loved the set piece of her featherfalling from the Cyphergate, and partly because the party would most likely have wiped the floor with her and I wanted them to be more afraid of the drow than that encounter would have left them. She joined up with the drow on Devil's Elbow and contributed to that being their first (and almost lethal) combat with dark elves.

[Xuttah]

Luthia wrote:

Thanks a lot... My main worry is over intrusive light spells and (so typical for my players) good rolls to them and bad ones to me.

Light is useless against concealment that is not caused by darkness. The stinking cloud of the dretches can make for a hard fight for both sides, and smoke sticks to block line of sight work wonders. IIRC there's some on the beast master. He can make good use of them to really mess with the party when they cross him (assuming he's still alive in your game).

The Darkness spell also negates mundane light sources and magical light effects if they are 3rd level or greater. I would doubt that the cleric or wizard are going to have access to Daylight at their level, so there will be some time spent totally blind too.

[Luthia]

Thanks to everyone. I'm playing the session this evening (GMT +1 time) so I doubt that I'll benefit from further help - just to make sure I'm not wasting your time.

Well, so far we're just exactly done with killing of Saul and Bojask just as Saul tries to escape. Made an excellent scene, very funny, but hardly scrathed the guys and I believe they're up for a REAL challenge fot the last part (if they don't ignore it and play "we want base-of-operation" style - already got counters for that though).
I'm hoping to scale up the difficulty for them a little, thanks for excellent advice on doing so, no it's up to the dices and the players, more or less. I do hope there's not some tactical way to circumvent all I get up with - two of my players are extreme tacticians and well, wouldn't want them to mess up things so much that they (once again) don't get any scrathes out of their first encounter with a drow (they'll just allow their characters to loose respects for the threat the drow pose).
But well, as for now it's been a bit too much fun and a bit too little serious play for mine (and most of my players) taste, so I hope that the first real "adventuring" will get that up, especially if it challenges them more than they expect it too.

Once again, thanks a lot. (Will be posting a bit of my result here once the game is done - just so others can benefit from my use of your advices and for any interested people :) ...)

[Xuttah]

So, how'd it go?