Another happy TPK this evening. This time...
How do you guys survive these accursed modules? What are your secrets? We have at least one TPK nearly every single module. It's getting a bit more than irksome.
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Idk but i usually go for survival characters with as much ac and saves as possible. A brilliant group combo especially with 25 point buy would be a monk, paladin, bard, sorcerer, and believe it or not a rogue. Monks for there high saves, ac, and flurry, Paladin for its high saves, ac, smites, and LoH. Bard for nice buffs, meh heals, and decent support range damage. Sorcerer for a nice amount of summon monsters and aoe blast spells. Finally, Rogue for skill monkey action and if smart went scout for Vital Strike bow attack with guaranteed SA.
Pre-buffing, debuffing and party balance.
We usually try to make sure that there's one skill character, one full-BAB brute, an arcanist and a divine caster.
After that, we pre-buff and keep things real. Death ward is an important spell for our group. We put up long-lasting spells like magic circle and then roll out.
We make intelligent choices as far as debuff spells as well, using readied actions to interrupt spellcasting and positioning to make sure the members of the party that need to go places go to those places. It's tough business.
But...
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Let good intelligence gathering not be discounted: commune, interrogation of flunkies, speak with dead, divination, augury, stealth, summons, speak with animals, scrying. Know you need that death ward ahead of time.
And monks and paladins. Can't go wrong with good saves!
Rolling high on saves helps a lot. Everybody in the party made their saves and then they proceeded to pound the scumbag into slush. The NPC did not have that good spells after his opener.
But, yeah, I as a GM was sweating bullets that the Circle of Death would kill half or more of the party.
Carrion Crown is pretty brutal in a few spots.
We're running in a Gestalt campaign where everyone rolled the equivalent of 35-ish point buys and we've had a few close calls already with me making minimal adjustments to the encounters besides varying enemy types and raising HP a bit.
He can't even caste circle of death with his prestige class levels.
Is that an error listed in the module? Or did my GM change up the character?
The NPC did not have that good spells after his opener.
What? Circle of Death, cloudkill, eyebite, greater invisibility, fly, stoneskin, mage armor, shield, and animate dead are all amazing spells. The first three are essentially fight enders while most of the others make it next to impossible to retaliate effectively. The only reason we had a chance was because he flew low into a building to investigate. It later proved to be our undoing anyway when he trapped a mobile gas cloud in the building and had his minions grapple/delay us until we coughed out our lungs. He could have easily stayed 100 feet in the air with greater invisibility and just laid waste to our entire party.
If it weren't for stoneskin, I might have choked the bastard out. Our cleric managed to dispel it, but we were too far gone for it to have really mattered.
Carrion Crown is pretty brutal in a few spots.
Pretty brutal? It's ******* horrific! This is our fourth TPK in three modules!
This is making me want to play Carrion Crown... And I hate playing modules.
In my experience the lethality of a full caster BBEG is highly dependent on the GM's ability to plan the encounter and anticipate the party's tactics. Since I was able to fairly easily TPK a level 9 party with a single level 9 wizard, I'd say that a skilled GM in this module is going to be very challenging for a party.
However, there are ways to deal with spells like CoD if you have some idea that it is going to be cast. One way is to simply summon some monsters or animals that would have fewer hit dice than the party and let the spell take them down. In situations where I've had some reason to expect spells that affect some number of HD, I've used that tactic before. I've also brought captured minions or henchmen of the BBEG with the party as well.
But that presupposes that the party has knowledge they may not have. In my experience the best way to fight a BBEG full caster is to sneak, disperse and use divination. Being in a group that the caster can hit with spells is like asking for it.
Not knowing the details of this module I don't know the best way to scout out and divine information about the BBEG so that you can plan out a strategy to defeat him. But that's the bottom line. Taking out a full caster requires careful planning, tight execution and all the buffing you can possibly manage.
He can't even caste circle of death with his prestige class levels.Is that an error listed in the module? Or did my GM change up the character?
I mean that it's a module error. He has a mix of levels in wizard and his prestige class that don't allow him access to that level of spell, but his stat block has him with it anyways. Whoops!
Eyebite and cloudkill are okay, greater invisibility is see invis/glitterdust/faerie fire away, and the rest are dispellable. He starts flying, but the flying character flew up to him and the barbarian got fly that encounter and they just put him down like a dog. The hands were a road bump and they killed the archers with a fireball before going in.
I figured he was going to go down so easily that I did up a stat block for when he dies and comes back as a ghost in order to fight the party again.
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Some of the stat blocks are ridiculous. As a GM you really have to run the enemy sub-optimal not to TPK the party over and over. Thanks to the use of harrow cards I have managed to avoid a TPK (/knock on wood.) I am letting my players get one every level. They can only hold 3 at a time and can give up two to stave off a death. So far everyone in the party has hoarded them. They need to because they all would be dead if they didn't. In fact just last week I we had our first character die, die. Poor guy only had one harrow card. I guess the nice thing is that I get to kill my PCs and they get to keep going with characters they have grown attached to.
^Pan speaks truth.
The only reason the Splatter Man didn't kill at least one party member was because I ran him as getting very angry and attacking the Cleric, who was the only one who could hurt him (mostly by ripping pages out of the book) while the rest of the part attacked. He still dropped the Cleric into the negative with his Corrupting Touch but a timely crit from the Eidolon brought him down after about 6 rounds of combat.
Same with the Phase Spider. Thing's pretty much impossible to kill if you use the hit and run tactics it's supposed to use. The Eidolon, Barbarian, and Raptor companion ended up taking lolwut amounts of Con damage even when I just sat him there for 2 rounds straight to attack people without going *POOF* "F&#+ you mortals!"
On the other hand, I'm now resting assured that if I ever WANT to kill a party member, it won't be a real issue. Currently the best way to do that would be to find some way for the party to piss off the Beast.
I'd just like to point out that this has been a problem with published adventures for decades, not some unique sin that Paizo has committed. Here's Dungeon Magazine's list of The 30 Greatest Adventures of All Time, and the ones I've played all have at least one kill you all encounter.
The problem is quite simple. As an author, you can put in as many too-easy encounters as you like, and the party will roll on through, at worst becoming a bit bored with constant victory. But, one too-hard encounter and everyone dies! So, assuming that authors are fairly good at judging difficulty, but never perfect, there will usually be at least one too-hard battle.
Best non-tactical solutions:
- GM tones down the encounter.
- GM has the enemy win without killing everyone. (capture, Geas/Quest, etc.)
Best tactical solutions:
- Flee.
- Always be prepared to flee.
- Plan ahead so much that the game slows to a crawl.
- Flee.
The minimum fortitude save DC for Circle of Death is 19. A "good" save bonus for an 8th level character is +6. Add a Cloak of Resistance +2 and a 14 CON (+2), and that's a total of +10 on the die roll. A "bad" save is +2, for a total of +6 on the die roll. Assuming minimum caster level (11) and minimum save DC, there's approximately an 87.5% chance that one character will die and a better than 50% chance that two characters will die when Circle of Death is cast on an 8th level party.
A 9th level party is completely immune to the spell.
What a strange thing to put into an adventure! If they assume you have some mounts and animal companions along, I suppose Circle of Death would just wipe out all of those first.
I've played a few of those on the top 30 list. Now I will admit that back when I was playing modules frequently, I played with a pretty hardcore group of players who knew tactics and who were not afraid to run, but we rarely had a TPK.
As I said, I am going to try to get one of our group's GMs to run Carrion Crown just so I can see if it's as hard as people say it is. My current group is far more of a casual gamer group than the hardcore group I used to play with. Maybe we'll get our butts kicked.
Just last session I was GMing trial of the Beast. It is a three person party, wizard (evoker), bard and barbarian/cleric.
One of the encounters was against 4 ghasts. Doesn't sound too bad but the ghasts sicken the party first, then force significant fortitude saves vs paralyzation from each of their 3 natural attacks. Those who fail get coup de graced if the ghasts can do it safely. I switched it to one ghast and two ghouls, and almost killed a PC.
I find the TPK situations can usually be spotted ahead of time and adjusted, but some of them kind of sneak up on the GM as much as the players.
My cleric basically died in the CRAZY encounter with the beasty at the end of the first jade regent mod.
What? Circle of Death, cloudkill, eyebite, greater invisibility, fly, stoneskin, mage armor, shield, and animate dead are all amazing spells. The first three are essentially fight enders while most of the others make it next to impossible to retaliate effectively. The only reason we had a chance was because he flew low into a building to investigate. It later proved to be our undoing anyway when he trapped a mobile gas cloud in the building and had his minions grapple/delay us until we coughed out our lungs. He could have easily stayed 100 feet in the air with greater invisibility and just laid waste to our entire party.
If it weren't for stoneskin, I might have choked the bastard out. Our cleric managed to dispel it, but we were too far gone for it to have really mattered.
Look, if your GM uses custom tactics, of course the opponent will be harder than he is supposed to be. I mostly try to stay faithful to what the writers intended with the NPC opponent, unless it is just way too stupid ( like the Splatter Man ).
Here is the tactics section for that particular character.
Before Combat Vrood casts false life and mage armor every
morning. Before combat, he casts stoneskin, shield, fly, and protection from good, in that order.
During Combat Vrood tries to keep his undead allies in front of him, activating his negative energy conduit aura to bolster them, and making ranged touch attacks with spectral hand. If it looks like any enemies might reach him, he flies to the central part of the tower and threatens, “Stuff which could be semi-spoilery (Magnus)” Contrary to these words, he then flies out of sight, casts greater invisibility, and flies back in to continue his attack, using his lesser silent metamagic rod to cast silent spells at foes.
The dude also was boxed into the corner of a tower, with not much maneuvering room. And the party my group was running was very powerful, with a Wizard and a Sorcerer, so they of course had some advantages running for them.
This is making me want to play Carrion Crown... And I hate playing modules.
Read this thread, so that you know what you are going to get into. It's a good AP, but not without its own set problems.
Spoilers abound, of course, so beware of that.
Here is the tactics section for that particular character.
Before Combat Vrood casts false life and mage armor every
morning. Before combat, he casts stoneskin, shield, fly, and protection from good, in that order.During Combat Vrood tries to keep his undead allies in front of him, activating his negative energy conduit aura to bolster them, and making ranged touch attacks with spectral hand. If it looks like any enemies might reach him, he flies to the central part of the tower and threatens, “Stuff which could be semi-spoilery” Contrary to these words, he then flies out of sight, casts greater invisibility, and flies back in to continue his attack, using his lesser silent metamagic rod to cast silent spells at foes.
The dude also was boxed into the corner of a tower, with not much maneuvering room. . .
Thanks for posting that! This really seems to answer the OP's question very well. The authors planned a fight against a tough enemy, but not a bloodbath.
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My party's bard hit him with (several) Save or Suck spells, and the party's barbarian just crushed him and his hands with ease. He never got an action after casting the initial Circle of Death.
I dialed back the Circle of Death, though, or else the barbarian would have been dead right off the bat. I only had three PCs, so I ruled that the Barbarian was protected due to the divine intervention of Desna, manifested through a Harrow card.
But yes, Carrion Crown is chock full of party-wiping fights. They're part of what makes it scary. But I think a good GM can easily adjust them to their party's playing style. If your group likes hardcore lethal combat, run them straight up. My own group is more into RP and creative problem solving, so I've often let them find non-combat workarounds for the toughest battles.
Some of the stat blocks are ridiculous. As a GM you really have to run the enemy sub-optimal not to TPK the party over and over. Thanks to the use of harrow cards I have managed to avoid a TPK (/knock on wood.) I am letting my players get one every level. They can only hold 3 at a time and can give up two to stave off a death. So far everyone in the party has hoarded them. They need to because they all would be dead if they didn't. In fact just last week I we had our first character die, die. Poor guy only had one harrow card. I guess the nice thing is that I get to kill my PCs and they get to keep going with characters they have grown attached to.
We have been lucky so far. The only near TPK we had was in a fight that isn't even part of the AP (CC) but was added by the GM. It was designed so that we could not win but not knowing that we blew all our harrow cards and except for our teleportation wizard were KOed in the end, to be saved by some NPC. All the mayor fights were won by some luck (be it with rolls or party composition).
Our GM didn't use the Harrow system. Also, I remember him offering everyone free Leadership feats early on, so maybe he was trying to go easy on us in his own way.
I'm not really sure how it happened, but only our cleric got a cleric cohort. The rest of us got squat, even when we later asked for it. Oddly enough, the cleric player "forgot" about the house rule in the last game and refused to bring the cohort into play (there had been a long hiatus between games, and the cleric player claimed he couldn't remember much).
That, or he knew the rest of us didn't have cohorts and was trying to save face (though we weren't really giving him a hard time about it).
I seam to be in the minority section of GM in that when I run moduals I never tone it down. I do use the Hero point optional rule set and traits rules.
Experienced characters with Hero Points are extremely TPK resistant. (Inexperienced players can be too, but they often squander hero points showing off.) Should I ever run Carrion Crown, I think I'll institute hero points.
The GM will be starting Rise of the Runelords soon. He's promised to incorporate Hero Points.
Our group uses Hero Points from the APG. Most of the players hoard them until they have 2 points to avoid death. Others burn them pretty quick. Using one to get an extra action or act out of turn can also turn a nasty fight into something much easier.
They work pretty good to keep the danger feel of the game, but make the group as a whole much more survivable.
Finally if you have a cleric or bard, they have spells that grant extra Hero Points for a short period and those can be pretty useful too.
Yar.
On the point of Hero Points, my group has become fairly proficient with finding good and creative ways of using the Hero Point option of "acting out of turn as if you had readied an action" option to help stave off death. We also use plot twist cards to similar effect.
There have still been PC deaths, but no actual TPK's... and even then, the more recent PC deaths were partially player influenced as well (that is, the player decided it was a good time to accept fate rather than fight it). We're a little more than half way through Serpents Skull, btw.
On the other hand, it also seems that I have a rep with my group as being a killer GM who also roots for the PC to succeed while not pulling any punches. Intelligent opponents will be played intelligently and thus can be devastating, but even in the structure of an AP, I try to not simply spring such opponents upon my players. I will play the world around them reacting to their choices, and try to give a decent buildup to such an event.
Still, some events are deadly, especially if it was/appears to be designed with a particular party composition in mind and the group is lacking that particular composition. Heck, I've even used/seen circumstantial environmental hazards take out the most heavily optimized characters in my group. Overconfidence and unpreparedness/not having all of their options ready to go when encountering a hazard are all additional factors in potential deadliness.
In my groups case, overconfidence is the worst killer. When all of my players are able to play, they feel stronger and often go into situations with less reservations. On the few sessions where we've had one or even two players missing (we have 5 and will play so long as 3 can make it), the players present are not only much more cautions (out of fear due to having less man-power), but are also much MUCH MUCH more creative with how they handle potential problems, hazards, and enemy encounters... and actually have a better/higher survival rate than when they are all there.
*shrugs*
~P
~P
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In my CC game I used both Harrow point options. The PCs got a card each module and if they achieved the story goal got a party card to use. So only three PCs have chosen to use their cards and none of the Party cards have been used.
Unfortunately I was robbed towards the middle of part 4 so my harrow deck was taken (along with my laptop in its bag, my gaming bag) so they haven't had the last 2 draws.
--Vrocky Horror
The GM will be starting Rise of the Runelords soon. He's promised to incorporate Hero Points.
Looking forward to hearing any TPK stories you have from that. I am running it currently and their are some toughies.
How do you guys survive these accursed modules? What are your secrets?
First and foremost the party should be looking to gather information about potential foes and work to prepare for difficult combats. Poor decision making will kill off a party faster than anything else.
Also, know how your party works together and how individuals can adjust to combats to better survive. I've been playing a samurai in RotRL. I chose the class mostly because I dig the cool Tian-Min flavor but the buffs to saves, challenge and ability to negate crits against him make him an extremely tough frontline combatant.
I've designed the samurai to have different levels of offense vs defense trade offs and will switch tactics depending on the combat. In a combat with a large number of weaker foes he'll wield his katana 2H, against foes capable of respectable damage he fights defensively (he has three ranks of acrobatics for -4 AT/+3 AC). Against a foe that can do massive amounts of damage he'll strap on a shield and fight defensively. Even in his most defensive configuration he still does respectable damage via crits (with keen katana and critical focus and bleeding critical) + challenge.
Our group is composed as follows:
Human Samurai 11 (usually 2H katana, will lance when entering combat)
Human Monk 10/Cleric 1 (tends to flurry and grapple)
Goblin Paladin 11 (mounted archer)
Human Oracle 11 (of the Heavens)
Halfling Witch 11 (elements patron, has flight hex)
Before combat the Paladin typically casts Shield Other on the Samurai and Sacred Bond on the Monk. When combat breaks out the Oracle and Witch take to the skies, the Oracle usually casting support spells (e.g., Blessing of Fervor) and the Witch casting summons or blasting with spells. The Monk and Samurai (and horse) make up the front line on the ground, keeping enemies away from the Paladin archer and doing respectable damage in their own right.
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Another happy TPK this evening. This time...
** spoiler omitted **
How do you guys survive these accursed modules? What are your secrets? We have at least one TPK nearly every single module. It's getting a bit more than irksome.
That's where my wizard died too. .It was almost a TPK in book 4 with the boss, 2 lucky crits saved the day at the last possible moment.
I still think book 2 was the hardest Adventure Ive played and also the most frustrating a pointless one.
Our whole original party died over the first 3 books, we stopped after beating book 4 I think due to wondering why would these strangers continue on.
Inquisitor: anti paladin werewolf crit on the only good character
Wizard: circle of death and a negative level
Fighter then paladin: falling then falling again and drowning (in book 2, you know where)
Druid/witch/cleric: no death just multiple changes in her character
Players changed in the 5th character slot each book.
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Personally, as the GM, I've found Carrion Crown a bit too easy most of the time for my players. Big epic enemies are only +1 CR over the party APL, like Hagmouth or Marrowgarth. Even the final encounter of the entire campaign is only APL+2 on the CR chart. Most other APs have final bosses around +3 or +4 CR.
Books 1 and 2 of Carrion Crown were genuinely challenging. After that, the only deaths we've had were from poor combat tactics, such as alerting the vampire lair and giving them time to regroup and plan, or charging a band of witchfires alone.
Raving, isn't this the DM that declared in book 2 that your party couldn't see the golem hound that stands in plain sight on a bridge?
Anyways,
I gave Vrood another level so that he could legitimately cast Circle of Death, gave him a black robe of the archmage, gave him double maximum hit points, and made him able to channel negative energy (6d6 damage) in a burst or a cone as a swift action.
I'd given the party advance warning as to Vrood's capabilities a couple ways (he killed the Professor with a Circle of Death, which Vesorianna saw; Desna gave the party a vision of Vrood leading a zombie army on Caliphas, and clearing the main gate with a Circle of Death), and so they went through the trouble of recruiting the Demon Wolves as cannon fodder vs Vrood.
Through some good timing, some intimidation, some bluffing, and some diplomacy, the party convinced the Demon Wolves they'd back the wolves up against Vrood's forces and didn't care what Adimarus did with the Packlord's heart once Adimarus had it.
The wolves bought it and went on the offensive, with a haste spell from the sorcerer to back them up. The wolves tore through the cultists in the town square, hauled ass to the tower, and tore the door down within a couple rounds (power attacking the door with their falchions), where they were then stopped by the giant crawling claws.
The party fought the wight monk and her reinforcements while the wolves got Vrood's greeting. Vrood started the fight with greater invisibility up. The wolves rolled awesome on their fort saves and only half of them died to Circle of Death; Vrood killed all the rest but Adimarus with a cloudkill next round. And then the Sorcerer dispelled the cloud kill and Kendra, who had see invis up, pasted Vrood with a glitterdust. Adimarus made it to Vrood and critted him while the PCs mopping up the giant claws; Vrood nailed Adimarus with Eyebite and sent him scampering. The Sorcerer promptly dispelled Eyebite. Vrood glitterdusted the melee (only one of whom failed the will save to not be blinded) and flew up to the second level to get away from the party and ultimately fly off back to the field to begin animating reinforcements (I'd given Vrood a 10 HD half-dragon large gargoyle mount, which had engaged the party in the town square and died in one round). The sorcerer dispelled Vrood's fly. And then the alchemist got to where he target Vrood and ready to disrupt his spellcasting with his bombs.
One bomb and a lost fear spell later, we confirmed that Vrood couldn't pass the concentration check to cast while getting bombed. Vrood's swift-action negative energy racked up quite a bit of damage, but the fight was pretty much over at that point - Vrood couldn't get away and he couldn't cast any spells that'd turn the tide.
So yeah. The party arranged to have something to soak the initial circle of death, and then stomped the encounter by pretty much aceing all their rolls. Stoneskin is the only buff spell Vrood cast that didn't get knocked out.
On difficulty: Having played through Kingmaker and Serpent's Skull, and having run this AP up to Book 6 (my PCS attack Renchurch this Thursday), I'll say that the AP overall is harder than Kingmaker (except for Armag; nothing's as lethal as Armag), but the later books of the AP are much easier than the later books of Serpent Skull. Book 4 and Book 5 are pretty easy. Book 6 has some really nasty things in it, but I'm concerned that even with the adjustments I've made to raise the difficulty, my PCs will still breeze right through it.
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What was trickiest about Book 3 was the variance in difficulty. My party found all of the werewolf stuff extremely easy (partly because of a Leardership feat cohort with monster AC, soaking melee attacks like crazy). Then once they got to Feldgrau, things were still pretty easy since they had lots of "crowd control" options to deal with masses of undead (I'm pretty sure most parties would find this part a whole lot harder). Then they got to Vrood, and they suddenly all got extremely scared. :)
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My human oracle of life has survived (well technically died once and got reincarnated) to 12th level, but we have had a lot of party deaths. The TPK encouunter you described did kill one of our characters, but me and the sorcerer managed to take the necromancer out. This is a difficult adventure path. You need a lot of surviability (hit points, AC, saves) and good tactics, scouting, and prebuffing.
we are getting ready for our first TPK next session. we're in Trial and went to gather info for trial #2....thought we were being slick be using diplomacy to skip ahead but it totally backfired.
If we stay our five 5th level characters get swarmed by 4 CR5 wraiths. If we grab the horses and run back to Lepidstadt the wraiths are actually faster than us so will catch us along the way and swarm us. The party has exchanged over 100 emails over the week trying to come up with a plan and so far have nothing other than RUN!!!!!!!
Deylinarr, your GM is running that encounter wrong. Read the spoiler if ya wanna see why.
Mostly to avoid scenarios exactly like that one.
Perhaps you should point that out to your GM so your level 4/5 party doesn't get slaughtered by something they're not supposed to fight en masse.
As the GM of our little group this makes me feel like kind of a goob, but our party was 9th level by the time they made it to this battle... that worked out pretty well for my group. Vrood was still plenty dangerous(he used Cloud Kill and Telekinesis to wonderful effect) but not haveing Circle of Death to fall back on hurt.
For my party it was a nearly perfect fight; it didn't take too long, had some wonderful dramatic points, and proved to be challenging without being frustrating. One PC nearly bought it and a cohort did die but after they got the cohort raised everything was good to go.
Got my second near-kill this past session.
Gotta love dem Ghasts. The players loved those nice special enemy tactics that stopped the Summoner from being coup de graced.
I have to say, it seems like my players are enjoying the fact that dying is a distinct possibility in this one. The Summoner's player is the GM in our Serpent's Skull campaign, and while he's cool and it works for him, he has a tendency to pull his punches if he thinks something might be slightly above our level. Makes an interesting contrast.
I'd just like to point out that this has been a problem with published adventures for decades, not some unique sin that Paizo has committed. Here's Dungeon Magazine's list of The 30 Greatest Adventures of All Time, and the ones I've played all have at least one kill you all encounter.
What a great link. I remember playing through pretty much all of the Gygax and Hickman adventures listed there - never realized Hickman was so prodigious, adding Ravenloft and Desert of Desolation to the Dragonlance series...
I think the best campaign I've ever run was the second Ravenloft adventure, The House on Griffon Hill which was run simultaneously with the original I6 Ravenbloft module as a series of dream sequences... when the PC's went to sleep in one they awoke where they had gone to sleep in the other and back and forth, with the 'dream' adventure giving valuable clues to the shared history of Griffon Hill and Castle Ravenloft. Good times.
Anyway, end of threadjack.
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Agreed, Arano. The difficulty throughout books 1 and 2 is pretty tough throughout, but gets uneven starting with book 3. Most of Broken Moon is not challenging, with the exception of a couple of fights within Feldgrau.
And unfortunately, Wake of the Watcher also suffered from a lack of difficulty. Only a couple of encounters through that whole book actually challenged my party, even when buffing the monsters up a little bit.
Ashes at Dawn starts off similarly easy, but the last half of the book kicks the difficulty back up thankfully. And thankfully from there, the challenge is pretty consistently high throughout Shadows of Gallowspire, at least so far.
It's just a weird valley in the middle of the AP where many fights are just under a challenging CR rating. I mean, the final enemy of a book should not be rated at just APL+1. But, overall, it's still a fantastic Adventure Path. It's just a bit uneven in its threat level to the PCs. And in a horror-based campaign, consistently easy enemies starts to break that atmosphere a little.
Two PC party, no deaths throughout all of Carrion Crown.
Secrets:
- Tactics. Run, hide, use terrain, and of course the time-honored tactic of Just Don't Stand There(TM)
- A summoner. The eidolon was our front-line fighter and a very competent grapple-monster. It was ripped in half, exploded, dissolved, dismissed, set on fire, death-attacked, and driven insane. But the eidolon isn't really a PC and can be summoned back the next day, if a little frazzled.
That's about it. Since there were only 2 PCs I started them at level 2 instead of level 1 but that's the only concession I made. They finished at 16th level.
So none of the monsters ever attacked the squishy Summon-man and just hit the tank?
You're a lot nicer than I am, and I consider myself a softy by the standards of many I see on this forum.
So none of the monsters ever attacked the squishy Summon-man and just hit the tank?
You're a lot nicer than I am, and I consider myself a softy by the standards of many I see on this forum.
On the contrary.
Two PCs in a book meant for 4 PCs means twice as much treasure.
They had ACs through the roof. Didn't stop them from getting paralyzed, cursed, drained, lycanthropized, or the summoner from hiding behind things shooting arrows for a whole combat, or having to grab the inquisitor and teleport their asses out of there, or from talking their way through half the encounters.
I don't gun for individual PCs just because. My monsters are less single-minded than that.
I don't gun for individuals either, but unless the guy's keeping way out of the way (which is a valid tactic) he's gonna get smacked eventually.
Mindless undead might go for the meat shield every time, but the more intelligent ones are occasionally gonna go after the tender looking morsel that's conjuring up all the booga-booga.
My Summoner got Ghast'd (and almost coup de graced) last session because the rest of the party accidentally left a lane open straight to him after the Druid used Frost Fall on them (they needed to get OUT of the area). I don't think that's gunning for a specific PC.