I'm running the Carrion Crown AP. My players just played through Hergstag, and I was looking for impressions from anyone else who's already gone through this part of Trial of the Beast.
Put simply, it drove my players to distraction. They found it to be a slog-fest. Doing 1-4 damage per round, 6 if they got lucky, was very frustrating for a team of 4th level characters with few ways to bypass half-damage-from-everything incorporeality. This was compounded by the fact that the wraith children could use terrain and obstacles to deny several party members the ability to attack in a round and that they were going to be fighting six such monsters in a row plus a super-version of them. It was so daunting that eventually, they just went, "We want to tear the houses down and kill the wraiths while it's still light out and they're helpless. Please just say we can do it."
I let them do it because they clearly weren't having fun anymore.
Ironically, Brother Swarm was easier for them because they felt they could afford to spend more resources annihiliating him.
My thoughts are that a lot of this could have been avoided by giving the children-wraith-spawn less hit points. I think if I had it to do over again, I probably would have used the stats for Shadows (giving them 19 hp as opposed to the 37 hp they have now,) but with the wraith-children damage output and made up the XP difference elsewhere if I needed.
I agree. I eventually just had Brother Swarm swoop in. They had already fought 4 spawn, the cleric was absent for the session (and hadn't left his sheet to be auto piloted), and the arcane caster dropped group, so I was worried about a possible TPM. They pulled through, but it was definitely my least favorite part to run thus far. I may end up swapping out some treasure for a ghost touch or undead bane weapon, just to prevent this stuff in the future.
Same here. My players were bored and frustrated. They just tore through house after house (because nothing really indicates to them they're at the house of some child that died they went through every house in the village until they reached Karen's house and Church) and while doing that, the children came with their hit and run tactics. When they reached Beast's former home I just made Brother Swarm appear with all the children and when they killed him I ruled that children were destroyed also to end the agony.
REALLY?! That's too bad that your groups didn't enjoy it so much. It was one of my group's favorite sessions yet in Carrion Crown. Admittedly, it was very difficult and I am a new-ish GM so I probably didn't use terrain, etc. quite as effectively as a more seasoned GM might. They also only discovered 3 of the wraith spawn before finding and defeating Bro Swarm. (This actually gave them major anxiety to think that they were responsible for letting 3 wraith spawn become full-blown wraiths that fled to cause mayhem elsewhere.)
The biggest problem we had was that they hadn't really done any leg-work to find out what they were looking for in Hergstag, so when they got there they just looked at each other and said "Now what?" I had to give them a bump to get the investigations started. We had some great moments with a bear trap and the quicksand though, and the wraith-spawn-children gave them the willies. LOVED IT!
My PCs were using the spirit planchette board in the house of the girl who'd died after the Beast had left. Two PCs sat out of divining while the others helped, and as they finished, everyone realized there was another set of hands on the board...
I had them fight a wraithspawn, then Brother Swarm, then another wraithspawn-- which turned into a wraith when big brother died. That was it and they were done.
When I was first starting out GMing I was told "never make the PCs fight the same thing twice" and I've been sticking to that since.
|
Your group obviously has finished Harrowstone. They should have a few magic items and weapons (a +1 handaxe, +1 mithral dagger, +1 longsword, +1 heavy mace, & likely a bunch of +1 arrows/crossbow bolts left) that can damage incorporeal foes and should know how to fight them in general. I mean they faced a poltergeist, a variant wraith, and a ghost.
I do agree the wraith spawn and a full wraith is probably too much wraithy badness. Having them act as shadows isn't a bad idea though.
--Vrocky Horror
Well, the problem wasn't the ability to hurt the wraiths at all so much as the thought of half-damage forcing them to nickel and dime (potentially) six of the wraith-spawn to death.
Against all probability, the PCs didn't get the magic long-sword. I might talk with them about this next session, and revise this into their inventory, because they did find it... plot and rescuing a potential death in the party just kept them from going after it, and by the time that was done, none of the players remembered to think about looting Harrowstone anymore, let alone their characters.
Also, the heavy hitting half-orc paladin couldn't roll above a 4 with his power-attacking magic mace.
That left them magic daggering & hand axing and magic missiling chips out of the wraith-spawn. Again, in part they were saving up for Brother Swarm... like I said, they blasted him out of the sky before I could barely start to use his tactics.
===
I'm glad some parties enjoyed Hergstag. There's a lot of atmosphere to be had there. I love the idea and the feel of the place. But sometimes players (at least mine,) get discouraged by the sort of slow-progress numbers there too.