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Looking for feedback on altering the Foxglove encounter just a bit. I want the characters to see the table w/ the personal artifacts of Foxglove's obsession BEFORE encountering him. Plus, with 6 PCs plus a medium sized animal companion, my party of PCs is pretty big. I want them to be able to move around a little more freely.
So, here's what I'm thinking ...
The PCs are getting to the caverns just when Foxglove is returning from his latest outing. Some ghouls are hiding in the cavern (B36) atop the ceiling (and maybe the cavern ceiling should be much higher ... like 70 or 80 feet) and Foxglove and remaining ghouls are coming up from underwater. After the PCs explore the last room (B37), see the personal artifacts and other items there, they exit as Foxglove emerges from the water in the cavern. Just when they're about to attack him, ghouls drop on top the party from the ceiling. Wicked, eh?
My group is pretty tough, which is why I want a lot of the ghouls in 1 room. In addition, fighting in the cavern would tactically be a lot more interesting than in room 37. It's more open and the floor presents some good challenges with Balance skill checks.
What do you think?
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Looking for feedback on altering the Foxglove encounter just a bit. I want the characters to see the table w/ the personal artifacts of Foxglove's obsession BEFORE encountering him. Plus, with 6 PCs plus a medium sized animal companion, my party of PCs is pretty big. I want them to be able to move around a little more freely.
So, here's what I'm thinking ...
The PCs are getting to the caverns just when Foxglove is returning from his latest outing. Some ghouls are hiding in the cavern (B36) atop the ceiling (and maybe the cavern ceiling should be much higher ... like 70 or 80 feet) and Foxglove and remaining ghouls are coming up from underwater. After the PCs explore the last room (B37), see the personal artifacts and other items there, they exit as Foxglove emerges from the water in the cavern. Just when they're about to attack him, ghouls drop on top the party from the ceiling. Wicked, eh?
My group is pretty tough, which is why I want a lot of the ghouls in 1 room. In addition, fighting in the cavern would tactically be a lot more interesting than in room 37. It's more open and the floor presents some good challenges with Balance skill checks.
What do you think?
I like the idea Zil. However, could you post your player classes and why you like the openess of the cavern more than room 37?
Is it just so you can get more ghouls in there and pull off the tactic of dropping from above? Or is there another reason?
I would simply caution the use of "alot" more ghouls. If you are going to get a surprise round from the ghouls, that, in and of itself, could paralyze multiple members of the party. Then you are left with alot of ghouls on fewer PC's which is a TPK in the making.
If you get a surprise round, using the stated number of ghouls could be more than enough for an extreemly hard encounter without adding anything extra.
The entrance to B37 is narrow and very long (4 squares). I'm afraid of ending up with another roadblock, as PCs try to force their way in and can't maneuver. The cavern is just much bigger, and if AF pops up out of the water when they're in that room, all my PCs can see him and react to him. Plus the cavern room has more interesting terrain with the ledge and the possibility of fighting in the water. And, there's also a chance of some non-lethal damage being delivered.
Plus, don't you like the idea of the party seeing the personal artifacts of one of their own displayed in an empty room? I just think it's so creepy!! So, the likely sequence is the party scours the cavern area (it's a pretty linear pathway) with B37 being the last room. Nobody's home, but yikes, there's my stuff!! WTF?? Where's the BBG? Oh well ... let's go back and look for secret doors in the other rooms. AIGGHGHH!!!
My PCs are:
1 rogue
1 wizard
2 fighters
1 druid and 1 medium-sized anklyosaurus companion
1 cleric
I don't want to be contrived on the timing though. Maybe the revenaut being loosened signals to AF that intruders are about, so AF hides with a couple of ghouls deep in the water and commands the goblin ghouls to clamber and hide along the top of the ceiling. And, then when they spot the PCs, they mentally communicate this to AF, so he knows to come up the ledge. I'm assuming since a ghast can command ghouls, there's some kind of mental link, but maybe not.
I can always clue the PCs in about the ghouls, to give them a slight heads up so they're not taken down by surprise ... you know if you're in a real cavern, you typically get dripped on and the drips are pretty cold, right? Well, one of the drips is warm. It's from a drooling ghoul!
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Plus, don't you like the idea of the party seeing the personal artifacts of one of their own displayed in an empty room? I just think it's so creepy!! So, the likely sequence is the party scours the cavern area (it's a pretty linear pathway) with B37 being the last room. Nobody's home, but yikes, there's my stuff!! WTF?? Where's the BBG? Oh well ... let's go back and look for secret doors in the other rooms. AIGGHGHH!!!My PCs are:
1 rogue
1 wizard
2 fighters
1 druid and 1 medium-sized anklyosaurus companion
1 clericI don't want to be contrived on the timing though. Maybe the revenaut being loosened signals to AF that intruders are about, so AF hides with a couple of ghouls deep in the water and commands the goblin ghouls to clamber and hide along the top of the ceiling. And, then when they spot the PCs, they mentally communicate this to AF, so he knows to come up the ledge. I'm assuming since a ghast can command ghouls, there's some kind of mental link, but maybe not.
I can always clue the PCs in about the ghouls, to give them a slight heads up so they're not taken down by surprise ... you know if you're in a real cavern, you typically get dripped on and the drips are pretty cold, right? Well, one of the drips is warm. It's from a drooling ghoul!
I do think the viewing of the artifacts is cool and creepy. With 66% of your players having high fort saves, this makes the surprise round not as devestating (potentially).
I think you could set this up to work 2 different ways. I like the dripping druel for the PC's to have a chance to circumvent the surprise drop of the ghouls on their heads. If they dont make the perception check, then surprise goes off as normal and you have a chance to paralyze multiple players. If this happens, that is enough to make the pc's crap their pants. You could wait a round or two to see how the battle goes, giving the PC's a chance to turn the battle in their favor. If they do, you can then introduce AF with the extra ghouls (with the paralyzed PC's still having a round or so left on their paralyzation). That gives another oh crap moment, and extends the battle into something epic. I would concentrate the ghouls in this part of the encounter on those that were not paralyzed, giving those that were in the surprise round a chance to do something and contribute.
I am not trying to dictate how you should do this encounter, so please dont take it like that. I am liking this idea alot and my mind is racing with how I might handle something similar. I mean, there is a bit of time before the PC's will encounter and fight another major bad guy, so play this one up and make it memorable. I think you have a good premise for an epic encounter with undead.
Lastly, Lets say everything goes the PC's way, and they are not surprised, and in round 1, none of the PC's get paralyzed. You can then, at the end of the round, have AF come out of the water with the other ghouls in tow turn an encounter from -oooo this will be easy- to, "oh crap!"
Either way, you dont have to burden your mind with the mental communication between the ghouls and ghast. You could have the ghouls with AF have a body that they are returning with. Perhaps someone the PC's care about from Sandpoint. (At minimum, this is a good place to insert a character story point or insure that the PC's will be chomping at the bit to get to Magnimar to uncover the force behind AF if this is a problem that is building in your campaign.)
I hope this helps.
CC
These are great ideas! I'm really glad you provided your input and I'll post back in a few weeks and tell you how it went. Thanks again -
Looking for feedback on altering the Foxglove encounter just a bit. I want the characters to see the table w/ the personal artifacts of Foxglove's obsession BEFORE encountering him. Plus, with 6 PCs plus a medium sized animal companion, my party of PCs is pretty big. I want them to be able to move around a little more freely.
So, here's what I'm thinking ...
The PCs are getting to the caverns just when Foxglove is returning from his latest outing. Some ghouls are hiding in the cavern (B36) atop the ceiling (and maybe the cavern ceiling should be much higher ... like 70 or 80 feet) and Foxglove and remaining ghouls are coming up from underwater. After the PCs explore the last room (B37), see the personal artifacts and other items there, they exit as Foxglove emerges from the water in the cavern. Just when they're about to attack him, ghouls drop on top the party from the ceiling. Wicked, eh?
My group is pretty tough, which is why I want a lot of the ghouls in 1 room. In addition, fighting in the cavern would tactically be a lot more interesting than in room 37. It's more open and the floor presents some good challenges with Balance skill checks.
What do you think?
I had AF tumble out of the small room so that he had some room to maneuver in the cavern,
with his jump and balence he had no chance to fall, and the ability to move about by jumping made His lordship almost too much to handle. I even made a 36 foot jump from one end of the room to the other. You could even retreat into the room that has the piles of ghoul garbage, to jump down into the cavern again maybe for some sneak attack. My group was falling and sliding to the bottom of the ramp. They were having a real hard time moving around in there. One thing I did add was add quick heal/5 to Aldern, Even claiming that the mansion wouldn't let him die. Because with 6 hero's he would not have lasted inside Vorrels study, The paladin would have torn him to shreds. The look on their face when I said he tumbles out of the room with a 28 was awesome.
With the Goblin ghouls a well placed channel Pos. energy and I failed every save, took care of them real quick. I had them at the bottom by the pool. They had scrambled up the walls right up to the party, climbing at a 30', they get to the top, and the cleric unleashed the goodness and they fell to the power of the gods.
I had Aldern escape into the caverns to regain some HP and hide for some sneaksy atacks, I hid under the spiral stairs till I had a good opportunity to suprise. Then went after the Mage who was the object and drew them into a cloud of yellow mold. I could not paralizeee anyone much to my chagrin, but it was a fun fight for me. I could not make another good tumble check out when they boxed me in, and perished at that point.