#3-19: The Icebound Outpost *** SPOILERS ***

[harmor]

DO NOT continue reading unless you are prepared for spoilers...you have been warned.
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So #3-19: The Icebound Outpost.

Any suggestions for this scenario that you would suggest? I've played it and will be GM'ing it soon.

[Fromper]

There's already an older thread for this adventure. Start by reading that (after reading the adventure, of course).

[Cpt_kirstov]

Spoiler:

Make sure you read the tactics. Many of the encounters would be a lot easier if not for the tactics. Slaver: make sure you know the cover rules for hiding behind a person. dome fight: make sure you know where she'll be and how her UM class works. Last fight: make sure the ninja is on the roof like she's supposed to me, otherwise its s a steamroll. Haunt: read the backstory on the haunt... as written its hard t get that backstory fully to the players, but to know it allows you to get the right feeling

[Thomas LeBlanc]

My Session:

We just ran this scenario last weekend. One party, consisting of 4 players, 2 of which played up a tier, was killed. My party, consisting of 4 players (two lvl 1, two lvl 2), fled during the final fight. Stress the cold conditions before starting the scenario if you plan on having the charcters suffer due to the cold environment.

The party went towards the room with the twins (A2), skipping the trap and haunt room (A4). The battle was pretty messy for my group due to slipping on the ice.

They next fought the slaver (A5). I followed the tactics, after the companion was killed the slaver went for help. Then it got ugly. I used the slaver's obscurring mist and the party failed the percentile roll to hit 5 out of 6 times. The slaver just used spells, then tripped. Since the rogue had no tactics for this fight, he attacked tripped characters with his sap. The healer and inquisitor were tripped and knocked unconcious by the rogue.

The fight versus the scrollmaster was a cake walk. During/after which the party used up their remaining spells and healing. And were surprised by the final encounter.

I set up the ambush in the courtyard (A3). Immediately the half the party ran for the ratfolk. He got hit one time and fled past the trap. One PC failed the Perc check to hear him, ran to A4 to see if he fled there, and was affected by the haunt. The other PC heard the ratfolk , followed him, and was caught by the trap. The remaining 2 characters didnt do so well, were near death, and decided to escape. The guy in trap got free and fled. The guy hit by haunt fled as well.

Afterwords:

One guy (playing a lvl 2 samurai) angrily ripped up his character sheet. Apparently this was the first character he had actually made, rather than use pregens. He had dropped his sword to use a bow and left the sword when he fled. Apparently he feels his character is now disgraced and had to commit ritual suicide or become ronin. I talked him into the later, but he was still upset.

Quite a few weapons and a wand were left behind when the party fled. They had also used up 14 wand charges during the scenario.

[Fromper]

I'm surprised to hear your groups had such a hard time with this one. When I played it, it was pretty much a cake walk, but we also played with 7 players at the table.

When I GMed it, we only had 4 or 5 players (I forget now - was a couple of months ago), and they had a relatively easy time with most of it. The one tough part...

Spoiler:

... was the final ambush. I had forgotten that the ranger's favored enemy was dwarves until we got there, and I realized that the group's two front liners were both dwarves. Ouch. One of them went down hard in the first round, not just unconscious, but within 1 HP of death. The other one and the rest of the group managed to win the fight, though the ratfolk got away pretty easily, which had them scared that he'd come back.

[Serum]

Perhaps you might want to read this.

[Fromper]

Serum wrote:

Perhaps you might want to read this.

Yeah, that's the older thread I mentioned in my earlier post. I was just too lazy to look it up. :p

[Odea]

Spoiler:

I'd suggest you write out the scrollmaster's scrolls, by level, and decide in advance which ones are getting used in what order, there's quite a bit of info there to deal with all at once. (You might even want to list them with tick-boxes like: Scroll of _______, Lvl ___ HP: ○○○○ or whatever so you can keep track of them (though if players 1-shot her or something then you wasted a bunch of time)

[harmor]

Fromper wrote:

Serum wrote:

Perhaps you might want to read this.

Yeah, that's the older thread I mentioned in my earlier post. I was just too lazy to look it up. :p

Sorry about that...I did a search but must had mispelled the scenario's name or something, my bad.

Can an Admin merge the threads?

[Serum]

Yeah, that thread is misspelled: "Post" instead of "Outpost". If the admins could change the name of the thread, it'd be easier to find.

[kinevon]

Thomas LeBlanc wrote:

** spoiler omitted **

** spoiler omitted **...

Spoiler:

Remember that Trip attacks would also suffer any miss chance from concealment that a regular attack suffers from. The same holds true for any combat maneuver,

[Thomas LeBlanc]

kinevon wrote:

** spoiler omitted **

Spoiler:

I know that. He just never failed the percentile roll and combined with the Improved Trip made him a pain.

[kinevon]

Thomas LeBlanc wrote:

kinevon wrote:

** spoiler omitted **

** spoiler omitted **

Spoiler:

You hadn't mentioned the miss chance, so I was just being a bit proactive. No insult intended. Some people forget that combat maneuvers are attack rolls, and suffer all the benefits and penalties that apply to any other attack roll.

At least he doesn't have Greater Trip. That, and Combat Reflexes together can be ugly. I know, I have a PC with both of those and Greater Disarm. And an absurd Dexterity.

[BretI]

Preparing this scenario for this weekend.

Spoiler:

So it talks of Skell being behind a wall and watching for anyone coming.

The stealth rules require cover or concealment to even be able to stealth. He has cover from the wall. No ranks in Stealth skill, Dex +1, ACP of -4 (masterwork chainmail) or -3 (masterwork chainmail plus armor training) makes his Take 10 Stealth a 7 or an 8 depending on Tier.

Even figuring in the distance penalty on Perception, that is DC 11 low tier and 12 high tier.

Is Skell supposed to be that easy to see?