Hi,
my group is going to enter the mansion soon ans I was wondering,
having a 5th level cleric of Saranrae with them, aren't zombies
just too easy? She can channel energy at least 7 times a day.
How did you handle that?
Let the cleric shine. Turn the zombies to dust.
Also- let them burn their free healing killing things. It just means fewer free healings later on.
-S
I agree with Selgard, and think you should leave the encounter as is.
The Zombies aren't the main enemy in this encounter, it's Jolistina.
The zombies are there I think for three reasons: 1) as a diversion so that Jolistina can get off a few shots at the PCs and 2) to give the encounter more flavor and atmosphere and 3) to perhaps give the PCs pause in puzzlement as they see a scene of zombie nobles acting out a dinner party.
I guess you could substitute a higher CR mindless undead for the zombies, but I feel that CotCT features many encounters with CR that seem too low for the expected party level, like the Cow Hammer Boys in All the Worlds Meat in the first adventure, but are still a lot of fun when played out.
I say: let the cleric feel awesome. That player will have a blast.
That said, crossbow sneak attacks from Jollistina can leave a nasty mark--at least enough to make the cleric think about healing before frying undead. Also, if the zombies are encountered room by room and not all at once, then the channel ability is neutralized a little bit, and that cleric has to make some decisions.
Have fun!
Cheers guys,
I'll let you know how it turns out.
They just tonight barely managed to defeat the sea hag,
the fighter was sent into a coma and the rogue and monk
were into negative hp several times during the fight.
The Manor encounter as written was going to be too easy for my players. (I have a large group.)
To compensate, I threw in a few more zombies as meat shields and changed Jolistina to a Witch. Her opening salvo was a Web spell followed by a Stinking Cloud (nasty combo) while the pathetic zombies swarmed them. It made for a more challenging and memorable encounter I believe.
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In my campaign, I made the Carowyn manor encounter about Rolth doing a terrible experiment, where he came up with a new kind of undead and wanted to create a few to test them out, so he sent Jolistinia to the manor, where she and a few other goons killed all the guests. Most were brought back as the normal zombies written into the adventure, but some she raised as Juju zombies. The idea is that while the cleric will burn his positive energy on wave after wave of regular zombies, a group of 4 Juju zombies will wait and watch, and on Jolistinia's command attack after the cleric extinguished most of his power.
Those are really nice twists.
I'll have a look at them and see what I can do.
Thanks!