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I want to bring up a few interesting problems I am having, perhaps you have ideas from your campaign how to address these:
CHALLENGE:
The early Castle is really challenging - 3 trolls, 3 troll hounds, an advanced troll, a flesh golem hound, and a huge air elemental (or a DC 31 trap to perceive and disable). All this before the PCs are even into the castle.
The Huge Air Elemental has amazingly high AC, cannot be sneak attacked, has a lot of HPs, and if you are playing it meanly should just whirlwind a PC to pick it up and drop it off the side of the bridge - dead PC. I think the Elemental can only do this for 3 rounds though, which is good. This CR 7 encounter nearly TPKed my party, definitely seemed strange for a trap at the ENTRANCE to a castle.
PACING:
Bloodfire Fever (from the Trollhounds) is quite nasty. I had 3 of my 5 PCs fail their saves (bad rolls). Notice what happens here is a 1-day-onset 1d3 STR, 1d3 DEX damage that takes at minimum 2 days of saves to cure (unless you're casting the requisite clerical spells). This is a nasty disease in my opinion. In a non-timed campaign, the PCs would go seek healing, sleep it off, etc. But the PCs are in a hurry.
These encounters at the front are very challenging. My PCs took out the Gatehouse, and then slept a night. Next morning they took out the Golem Hound, had a major problem with the Huge Air Elemental, and were totally spent by 9am in the morning - again, going back to rest more.
There's still a pacing going on in this part of the story to rescue the Count from his starvation, but the PCs have no way of knowing that. What's the hurry?
SPACING:
Something is clearly wrong with this early area. I think the 5foot squares need to flat-out be turned into 10-foot squares.
1: The troll gatehouse has 3 trolls in it - each of which is 10foot by 10foot. They aren't even big enough to get up the stairs, let alone hang out inside and fight. Also the Gatehouse is described as big enough to hold many visiting coaches - at 20feet by 10 feet?
2: The dog on the bridge is written with the goal of knocking the PCs off with a Bull Rush. Great idea! Sadly it doesn't work. Bull Rush requires charging at least 10 feet and then continuing in that direction, hitting a target, and pushing them backwards. How can you do that on a surface that is 10 feet across? If you charge down the bridge, at best you push someone parallel to the bridge. To push them orthogonal to the bridge you have to get diagonal or perpendicular yourself - which you cannot do while still moving 10 feet in a Charge. So the Golem Hound's dangerous Bull Rush is removed :(
3: The Trap at the end can produce a Huge Air Elemental - which is 15foot wide. I realize it flies, but really? The space at the end here is, again, 10 foot wide. I had it blow back my PCs towards the middle of the bridge and made them roll Acrobatics saves to try and land on their feet.
MOTIVATION:
My PCs came here because the Judge asked them to "follow the beast". The Beast also invited them to the castle. But, having come here and trying to say "we were invited" a few times, they see no reason to keep throwing themselves against this fortress.
They did find the Whispering Way amulet (though I do wonder what possible motivation could exist if they had missed that). That is a huge clue and the first clue that the PCs get that the WW are involved in this module. Some of them are motivated in continuing in vengeance to their dead professor-friend.
However, others want to head back to town, lick their wounds, heal from the disease, and come back.
I am looking for suggestions on how to motivate them. They don't KNOW anything about the Count, never heard of him, and have no idea that they need to rush to save him from death. I could have the Count die due to their slowness . . . that might work.
Ideas? Thoughts?
Fun and challenging start to the castle. Definitely a nice change after the intense role playing of the past few (in-game-time) days.
Yeah the castle can be a bit heavy. My group and I had about the same problems. Give the last entry in my log a quick read.
As for your specifics:
(As your threat has SPOILER written I won’t spoiler-hide it much more)
a) The Gatehouse is actually harder as it is a Siege the characters have to lay on. The only good think about it is that if the characters stand by the door they are shielded by the overhang from the stones.
b) Space is really a massive problem. The areas where you have to rescale are: Gatehouse (I didn’t, I ignored it). The Museum (Blind Guardian, be creative) and the Lightning tower (1square =10 foot)
c) The Air Elemental and later the Demon are suppose (I guess) to be MASSIVE. Learning the characters to RUN and look for other methods. Else they run into the end fight and just get owned.
d) As for cliff diving. I did that to one character and he survived it.
e) Hurry…kind off. My PC’s had to rest three times to get thought it. But that’s what the Manson is for . How do they know that the count is starving?
f) The Hound gets active if the characters are HALFWAY over the bridge. So there is enough space.
g) The Air Elemental doesn’t need to materialize on the Door step….have it start a bit over the falls and move towards the PC’s…that gives them time to RUN.
h) My PC’s had the same motivation problem. That changed quite fast with the point of finding the WW’s medallion on a dead goblin and that when they entered the Manson that they decided to take over the place.
i) Motivation: something is WRONG here. The trolls barricaded the door leading TO the Mansion (clue). The obvious missing engineers, the beginning of a rebuild, no count. Try to use some Perception checks to make it clear to them that the Trolls are rather NEW addition to the Castle or that there is no DUST in the mansion (yes that would be the unseen servants…) The Kitchen still has FRESH supplies. Put some week old Blood stains into the Lab and make it clear that the Lab blow up WAY earlier then the blood stains (Timeline clue). Have them find a ledger form the count about the cost of the repairs and the repair timeline, showing that ATM they should be workers doing stuff.
These are great consideratioons. I plan on doubling the size of all the rooms (but not the bridges, mostly). I agree with Windspirit's ideas on motivations; I plan to play up the fact that the only way to get a hint about where the WW went is by finding the Count. I think they will be sufficiently motivated to keep up the hunt for the WW. As for the pacing issue, I plan on getting rid of the count is starving dimension. it is easy enough to say that Waxwood is able to get him enough food and water.
If others have ratcheted down the difficulty, I'd be interested to hear how.
Right...if there is intrest....I'll start writing it up.
ahh...I "think" I never wrote an HoH log...or if I cant find it anymore...
Here the TotB log. Else click on my name, and troll my post logs.. :))
SPACING:** spoiler omitted **...
It was mentioned in a different thread (sorry, can't recall which) that the spacing for the castle should pretty much be doubled. 1 square = 10 feet, except for the rope bridge. Keep that small.
Edit: Here it is, from the TotB GM Ref thread:Yeah, it should probably 10 feet to a square instead, though I'd recommend keeping the bridges between buildings at 5 feet per square (note that the summoned creature at area G2 flies, so it doesn't need to walk on the bridge).