I've been running a pair of players through this campaign on a bi-weekly basis for nearly a year now. We're nearing the end of Chapter 3 and the party is exploring the Spellweaver Ruin beneath Cauldron looking for the wands of control water.
Since my party size is so small and I didn't really care to revamp ALL the encounters beyond Pathfinder-izing them, each player has a main hero that's level 5 and each player also controls a sidekick who's level 3. The sidekick roster has been slowly expanding as the party meets more NPCs, and I've found that to be a fun way to really get the players invested in the people they meet. They never know who they might be able to recruit to their cause in a more active, participatory way. I also padded their coffers a good bit, giving them about 150% what they should have according to the Wealth by Level guidelines and it's worked out great thus far.
But I digress. This Spellweaver Ruin has been SO FUN. I can't tell you how delighted I was for my players to walk right into the eastern pit trap in the main hall off the repurprosed breeding chamber. And then, after puzzling over the arrow slits and not figuring them out, blunder right into the western pit trap too! Then stand there, scratching their heads trying to figure out, "How do we open the door now?" The one player slapped his hand to his forehead, gestured to the map, and incredulously declared, "This hall is perfectly symmetrical! How did we not expect that!"
In all honestly, we haven't laughed like we did this past session since the ridiculously trapped halls of Jzadirune. I, as the GM, am having a ball and the players are enjoying it too.
I eagly await their reactions the horribly creepy spider tunnels Skaven's fled too. They hate spiders! =D
It'll take us quite a while before we get that far yet. While we have a session coming up this Friday, I suspect the furthest along we'll get is maybe clearing out the Spellweaver Ruin and finding the rest of the wands.
I am so excited for their run-in with Skaven though. I expect that encounter to be particularly fun.
I get to take my player's back into the Kopru Ruins in search of the wands for the 3rd time tonight. They leveled up at the end of last session and opted to retreat back to Cauldron to regroup. They don't know it, but they picked the perfect time to do so, having killed every cultist except for Skaven and the huecuva.
Coming back down, the heroes will be level 6 and their sidekicks level 4. The oracle finally figured out that he'd contracted lycanthropy from Tongueeater and loved it so much he asked about keeping the affliction. In the interest of not sending his power level through the roof, I developed a Werebaboon "class" so to speak, built off the old 3.5 racial paragon classes that are only 3 levels long.
So now I have a half-drow Oracle (Ancestors) 5/Werebaboon 1 and elven Magus (hexcrafter) 6 along with two of the following:
Should be great!
Yeah, I said Spell-weavers before, but I meant Kopru. mea culpa!
After a more than 2 month hiatus, we'll be picking things back up again this friday night. Triel and her bandits have all been routed and we left off last time with the group halfway through the web-choked tunnels to the south of the complex. Much poison courses through many veins at this point and the group has been really stingy with their lesser restorations to date, so I'm hoping they stumble into the big fight all weak and droopy =)
Should they survive, they'll then have Tarkilar to tussle with! <insert DM cackle here>
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This was possibly the greatest campaign I had ever run despite us TPKing a little before the halfway point. I ran this as it was running through Dungeon magazine. The way my group interacted with the NPCs of Cauldron was phenomenal.
It is a potential meat grinder though, be careful in Zenith Trajectory specifically, certain encounters there can possibly TPK your group.
Shackled City and Castle Whiterock (even though I didn't get a chance to run it) are my two favorite campaigns of that era.
So, this past friday my guys had their run-in with Skaven in the spider tunnels.
They danced on the very scary edge of a TPK for the majority of the fight.
The magus, wearing the cloak of arachnida recovered from the slaad, dashed ahead of the group through the first web-choked cavern and spotted Skaven in the even larger cavern beyond. He charged in after the halfling wizard, only to then get savaged by the harpoon spider lurking in the room.
The others, meanwhile, all failed their reflex saves against the sticky webs on the floor and could only cross the adjoining cavern in arduously slow 5-ft steps. They also stayed clustered, and suffered a painful fireball from Skaven (who, instead of converting straight up I just replaced with an equivalent CR wizard from the NPC Codex).
The fireball killed one of their sidekicks outright (poor Shensen!), the next round Skaven dropped the other sidekick (who stabilized, thankfully), just as the magus finished off the harpoon spider with a desperate attack (the magus had dropped to 0 hp).
I ruled that Skaven's fireball burned away the webs hampering the rest of the party, so the oracle closed, just in time to watch Skaven magic missile the magus down into the negatives.
That began a back and forth dance of the oracle reviving the magus, only to have Skaven magic missile him back down again, cackling like a crazed maniac the whole while.
Finally, both PCs stayed up for longer than 1 round and the magus cast vanish, then shocking grasp-spellstriked Skaven to death by hitting his flat-footed AC.
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I had a blast pushing my player's to the edge, and while they were frustrated with how hard the fight was, they were both really satisfied with it too. The magus felt awesome for having the two, clutch hits that dropped both baddies, and the oracle felt awesome for not going down and relentlessly healing his allies.
All in all, it was an awesome session. I can't wait for their encounter with Tarkilar now <insert evil DM grin here>
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Fun read.
Skaven phantasmal killered (!) the charging dwarf PC when we played. Yes. The dwarf. Horrible, horrible rolling. Everyone was on the floor laughing at the player's terrible luck.
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When I ran SCAP the korpu ruins (I made them drow in my game) were the worst grind of the campaign and as awesome as it was, was probably the low point of an otherwise phenomenal good time that we had. I reworked a lot, using advice on the boards, and it was easily one of the best campaigns I ever ran.
I have to say, this Kopru ruin is proving to be more and more fun the more my players work their way through it.
This weekend, they returned to the ruin for what they hope is the last time, intending to clear the northern tunnels and finally defeat Tarkilar. They headed down the western most tunnel to start (because, like little meta-gamey cheaters, they glimpsed the corner of the large t-rex token through the fog of war and decided to go the other way) =P
So, first thing they bump into are some glyphs of warding, then two gigantic zombies. To tie in the group's association with Dugobras a little more and foreshadow a bit, I replaced the zombie ogres with zombie giants (two CR 3 creatures, not too tough) but the choke point! Oh man, the choke point at the end of that tunnel was brutal! My players put the Oracle up front (he's the party super-tank) and the poor guy was getting hit constantly, an event he's not used to at all. He dropped unconscious just before the second zombie was killed, but it made for a fun, tight quarters slug-fest where the party gave as good as it got round after round.
They then turned left and found the treasure room guard by the two spawns of kyuss.
What a different type of fight!
So, after just getting through an hp-grinder of a battle, now the enemies are barely doing any damage. But the worms! Those creepy, nasty worms started crawling and digging and working their way to the brain, nibbling away as they went. Because the spawns were going to go down so quickly to my group, I bumped their fast healing from 5 to 10 and I also added a little caveat that a worm would affix itself to the attacker's weapon after each successful attack.
The group had to keep juggling between ripping off/cutting out worms and attacking the spawns. While the fight only lasted 4 rounds, my players were breathing heavily at the table when it was done. The sudden shift from targeting their full AC's and hps to touch AC's along with a race to catch the worms before they got to the characters' brains left them reeling. It was the perfect curve ball to throw at them.
Now, part of what also made this so fun is the fact that the oracle took his last level as a werebaboon. Since I used the Master Chymist PrC as a skeleton to build this little 3 level class off of, I kept the part about involuntarily changing after a failed fort save. Well, it just so happens that everything in this room with these two spawns requires a fort save. And the oracle FINALLY tanked one!
Just as he was about to change though, the magus recalled that Shensen was still maintaining her bardic performance, which lead to one of the most clutch uses of saving finale that I've yet seen. The oracle got to reroll his fort save and he passed this time. I shudder to think what a crazed werebaboon with a worm in its brain would have done had it gotten the chance =P
After that doozy of a fight, the magus opened the chest and got hit with the poison from the trap and failed HIS save. It dropped his Con to ONE. ONE! I should have taken the time to convert the poison over to a Pathfinder equivalent, but I'd forgotten to. The original poison does 0 initial damage, then 3d6 Con damage secondary. I actually rolled 16, not realizing the magus only had 15 Con to begin with, so I left him unconcious with 1 Con as a mercy. The oracle burned through most of his 2nd level slots restoring him, the party looted a huge haul of coins, and they pressed onward.
They then found the t-rex skeleton but, after watching one of the magus' mirror images get bit in half with a staggeringly big attack roll for nearly as much damage, they decided to err on the side of wisdom and retreat, circling around and keeping a safe distance.
They plowed through a room full of zombies and then we called it a night (right at Tarkilar's proverbial doorstep!) as one of my players was nearly falling asleep in his chair.
Next time, the show down with Tarkilar and the search for the remaining wands!
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All in all, this was probably one of the stand out sessions to date. The feel of each of the fights was just so different from the one previous that it kept my players off balance and on edge constantly. They also suspect that Tarkilar turned himself into a lich, so the belief that they're wading into a show down with an undead powerhouse as well known as that has them trying to fight as conservatively as possible in order to tightly manage their resources.
Fun, fun stuff. What a great adventure!
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Interestingly enough, the kopru ruins (I made them drow ruins in my game because I made a fallen drow empire subplot) were probably the part of the campaign my party liked the least. It has so many rooms that it starts to get grindy in my opinion and that isn't something my group enjoys. It took us something like three or four 8-10hr sessions to finish the ruins and by the time we were getting close it was just tedious. Thankfully though, it is by far the largest dungeon in the campaign and doesn't get grindy after that.
My party went in the dungeon and seemed to make a beeline right for Tarkilar so he was the first significant encounter. Then they walked right to the spawn and the treasure room. It was crazy that they hit it so soon and trucked away the bulk of the loot on their first foray.
It took us something like three or four 8-10hr sessions to finish the ruins
It is proving to be a long dungeon for us as well. Though I don't expect this last showdown with Tarkilar to take a full 5 hour session, it will still mark our 5th session in the ruins.
My player's aren't big on talking in character or really heavily roleplaying; they prefer the tactical stuff: being on a battle mat, managing their resources, and overcoming challenges with violence. That's sped things along a bit for us, as they prefer I gloss over most of their time in Cauldron recouperating, which with my other group would probably get just as much "screen time" as it were.
Different strokes and such! =)
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Different strokes and such! =)
Indeed!
My players are more about advancing the story and finding out what is going to happen next, so the ruins really caused that to slow to a crawl, especially in comparison to how quickly it moved once we were past it.
However, if your group is more into the tactical stuff, I can see that dungeon being a blast because it has some really neat encounters. there are some on the way they will love too. :D
We got stuck in a long hiatus, but my players started Zenith Trajectory on Friday!
I was really, really looking forward to driving them bonkers with the umber hulk and it's gaze attack, but the very first thing the magus did when he realized what was happening was use a precious plot twist card to prevent the gaze attack from functioning for the remainder of the encounter. While my evil fun was curtailed greatly, it at least cost them a really powerful and limited resource.
The night ended with their first ever encounter with a bone fide dragon. I asked them several times if they felt prepared for their journey to Crazy Jared's and beyond, but they kept insisting they had everything they needed.
Hehehehe! Not for a flying dragon they didn't! The bloodrager only had 3 javelins (they all missed horribly), the magus had a dinky shortbow, and the oracle had a masterwork light crossbow that wasn't worth firing thanks to his 10 dex. They eventually managed to chase him off (mostly due to the slayer being a boss with his bow), but not before using up a large allotment of the oracle's spell slots on resist energy (fire) and the magus using up most of the duration of his fly hex. It'll be a real hoot next time if they decide to hurry on to the underdark before the dragon has a chance to regroup. They have no idea what lies in wait at the bottom of those magnificent and noisy stairs! >=D
I found Jzadirune to be five sessions of mind numbing slog. The kopru ruins were good, though. I ended the campaign after Thirteen cages, though, seeing as Strike on Shatterhorn is... Problematic.
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I found Jzadirune to be five sessions of mind numbing slog.
Really? I enjoyed playing up the creepy abandoned warren aspect, and the hit and run nature of the skulks made it interesting.
The kopru ruins were good, though. I ended the campaign after Thirteen cages, though, seeing as Strike on Shatterhorn is... Problematic.
Oh yeah. I highly recommend some of the home-brew fixes, especially regarding entering Adimarchus' dreams through the Dream Realm.
Jzadirune is creepy and abandoned. It is also some 100 locations
So my players have now pushed into Bhal Hamatugn three times, and we ended the last session with them hiding in the workshops just across the hall from the stairs leading up to Dhorlot's chambers.
The first trip through, they wanted nothing to do with either prisoner and after an hour of my roleplaying the two arguing with each other and trying to win the PC's favor, my players decided to leave both in their cells and move on by.
The mummy burned them out pretty well though, so they retreated before they got into too much more trouble. Their next push, they made it into the large statue room and finished off the last of the kuo-toans 3 rounds before Aushanna appeared. When she did, my players lost their MINDS! Total panic set in and they cashed in TWO plot twist cards to make their immediate escape. They didn't even try to fight- they ran without hesitation, barreled through both trapped doors back into the main foyer, ran out the front and didn't even bother looking for a boat. If they could have run any faster, I'm pretty sure they'd have run right across the top of the water until they were out of sight of the temple.
Their third trip in, they had to deal with more kuo-toans in the statue room, though not as many as they had to deal with at first. This time, they cleared the room with a full minute to spare before Aushanna's arrival but they couldn't decide which doors to try. As the portal summoning Aushanna expanded fully, they lost their minds again, ran through the lower set of doors, and jumped behind the first curtains they could find in the room with all the workshops, then spent ANOTHER plot twist card to ensure the erinyes wouldn't find them!
I don't know exactly what I did to terrify them so badly, but my players turn into scared little mice whenever Aushanna shows up.
It. Is. GLORIOUS! =D
So much fun!
While you are absolutely right, my players have no way of knowing that =P
They just saw some lady with shredded wings and a flaming bow step through an infernal portal and they crapped their pants and ran! =)
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Ah, Bhal Hamatugn... My group contained a drow who spoke undercommon so when they arrived she talked their way inside without a fight. However, upon returning to the city, they put together a force and returned to end the threat a few days later. They spent about a session and a half dealing with the place and it was a lot of fun.
Yeah... Bhal Hamatugn.
My players got brutalized so badly in there.
Oh man! Bhal Hamatugn is SO AWESOME. Bwahahaha!
So last time, after hiding from Aushanna and spending some precious Plot Twist cards to ensure she didn't find them, our so-called heroes crept out from their hiding places after waiting for about fifteen minutes and were like, "Dude. We can't go back through that stupid statue room. We have to find another way out." "Yeah, ok, but that means we only have 2 ways we can go. We go over that way where we hear the water, or we can see what's behind those doors there to the south." "More water? Ugh. Let's go south." "Agreed."
So they open the door where all the dead kua-toans are interred (read as: spiked into the walls) and manage to notice and disarm the floor trap before entering. They have a decent cat/mouse fight with the wraith and I was proud that my players started utilizing readied actions to swing and zap the wraith whenever it emerged from the floor/walls.
They got through without much hassle, but the ruckus drew the attention of the surviving kua-toans from last session over in the spawning pool. So the guys got ambushed on their way out. A few minor wounds were suffered, the hexcrafter magus then proceeded to one-by-one air lift each of the party members over the pool (and thereby bypassing the wonderful draconic fingerling swarms lurking within) and onto the stairs on the other side.
They noticed and managed to disarm/dispell the trap on the door AND the trap in the next room, then proceeded to eavesdrop on Dhorlat and one lone kua-toan who had the gumption to warn the Dragon Father of the intruders.
The were-baboon/orcale of ancestors opened the door after hearing Dhorlat roar in anger and frustration and thus began a most memorable fight!
Dhorlat wound up going 3rd in the order of things, and my wonderful, delightful players were eager to get a pair of free shots off on him. Rushing in, they swung and swung their weapons with no success. And when I then described Dhorlat as rearing back and taking a deep breath, my player's groaned, then looked at the map and groaned louder and began accusing one another of idiocy: they had lined up in perfect breath-weapon formation. >=D
It is at this point the dice truly betrayed them as only one character succeeded on the reflex save.
One round and one full attack later, the blood-rager is unconcious on the floor and the hexcrafter magus provoked an AoO by flying into the far corner of the room so the oracle could hopefully cast his cure spell without suffering a nasty bite.
The tactic worked, but the NEXT full attack left the bloodrager unconscious again and the magus at 6hp.
Realizing I was on the verge of finally killing at least one of the characters, I began to apologize as there seemed to be no way the magus could escape his current predicament without getting hit at least once.
The oracle though stepped into the room (provoking the one AoO), then cast his spell to bring the bloodrager back up onto his feet. Abandoning his treasured greatsword, the bloodrager ran away, then the magus flew away thanks to the orcale soaking the AoO, then the oracle SURVIVED a full attack and got away as well.
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They've now had one fight with a dragon at a distance, one fight with a dragon up close and in your face, and now they are curled up in a small cavern some where near the temple arguing with one another that Zenith isn't worth it and that they should just pack it in and go apologize to Davked.
Funny how if they did that, Cauldron would be slightly better off for a little while. =P
They've now had one fight with a dragon at a distance, one fight with a dragon up close and in your face, and now they are curled up in a small cavern some where near the temple arguing with one another that Zenith isn't worth it and that they should just pack it in and go apologize to Davked.
Do they have a rivalry with the Stormblades? Because I would totally have them get the job done and completely rub their faces in it. ;)
They *hate* the Stormblades soooooo hard. That's a wonderful idea should they turn tail and run back to Cauldron. =D
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My group will be resuming our game tonight! Yay! I've decided to use the Stormblades as a means of clearing out the lower levels of the temple; I'll have the party overhear the noble brats departing for the surface as they themselves sneak back toward Bhal-Hamatugn for their fourth attempt.
The Stormblades will be boasting about slaying a dragon and all the accolades they're sure to get and how slaying a bone fide dragon is much better than finding a decrepit old dwarf.
Should be a decent bit of salt in the wound for my players but also still gives them the chance to find Zenith. Fun fun fun!
Plots were made and assassinations considered as my players' characters overhead the Stormblades walking out the front door of Bhal Hamatugn with a black dragon corpse as a trophy on Friday.
It. Was. GLORIOUS.
They spent at least 20 minutes of our 2 hour game session discussing between themselves whether they should jump the Stormblades now, follow them until they camped, how best to fight them, if assassinating them was an option, or if they should just let them go.
Such fun!
Guys. GUYS. It's finally happened. My players finally got Zenith and have, at last, left Bhal Hamatugn behind!
We haven't been able to play together at the same table for some months as one of my players recently became a father and driving to my place for a 6+ hour session on a Friday night is too demanding, so we've been playing over Roll20.
That, as it turns out, worked out wonderfully for the fight with Zenith, because the super angry bloodrager lost his temper and charged right through the teleportation circle.
Being able to move that player's token to a different room and not have the other player have any meta-game idea where he'd gone really helped ramp up the tension and confusion. The Stormblades will have been back in Cauldron several days ahead of them, with the head of Dhorlat as their rather public trophy - an aspect I'm rather looking forward to playing up.
I also caught one of my players scribbling some notes while Zenith was spouting some of his prophecies, nearly all of which I tried to fashion into seeming non-sensical ramblings that were actually foreshadowing. The note-taking makes me hopeful!
Awesome.
You having the Stormblades with the black dragon corpse was truly a thing of beauty.
(My players would have gone bananas.)