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Ok my run on a core table with 7 players was interesting. The APL was 3.0 so up with 4-player adjustment. Had 2 druids, 2 rogues, a paladin, barbarian/fighter, and fighter. So no arcane casters at all.
The party did well on day 1 and day 3, but struggled on day 2. This was because some of the party just kept doing the same thing over and over.
When the party got the the ambush part, they determined that there was no one who could use a scroll or wand of dancing lights so they did not distract the guards. So the friendly cleric appears to offer help and they refuse him!!!
So now they have 8 times the escorts.
The party setup 4 members on top of the cliffs and 3 below. The 3 below each had 2 potions of Invis, and had the druids cast pass without trace and hide from animals.
One of the druids cast swarm of bats that then drifted down to torment the guards. And the guards have no way to deal with swarms!!! You would think think one of the 16 mages would have burning hands or one of the guards would have Alchemist Fire!! But nope. This was going into the report.. let me tell you.
Anyways, the three got into transport. With time already running long, the alter was broken. They found they needed and got out.
I could not find the level of the Mages. Did I miss that somewhere?
Fun adventure. I look forward to running again at GenCon.
The mages' levels are listed in the stat blocks at the end of the scenario. Playing up, they function as investigator wizards (diviner 4, scenario page 23).
That's a hilarious workaround - I never considered swarms as an Achilles' heel for the chosen guards, but kudos to your group for clever problem-solving. That would certainly warrant a strongly-worded letter to Ziralia's superiors!
Venture-Lieutenant, Oregon—Portland
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I apologize if this has been covered somewhere, but it's late and I should probably be in bed. Is the desert ruins map supposed to be treated as 1 square = 50' instead of 5'? The transport is 100' wide and I can't understand how it fits through that route otherwise.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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On high tier the mages are diviners; they may always act during surprise rounds and have a pretty good initiative modifier to boot. That gives them a very good chance to send the alarm before PCs can jump them. Was that intended?
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Venture-Lieutenant, Oregon—Portland
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The inside of the transport is big. The outside is a 10' cube.
...and shunt the transport into an extradimensional space, leaving behind a 10-foot cube of iron that serves as the transport's visible exterior.
That's what I get for reading this late at night. Thanks! So which face of the cube has the trapdoor entrance to area D1? The underside?
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Venture-Agent, Minnesota—Minneapolis
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That's what I get for reading this late at night. Thanks! So which face of the cube has the trapdoor entrance to area D1? The underside?The inside of the transport is big. The outside is a 10' cube.
...and shunt the transport into an extradimensional space, leaving behind a 10-foot cube of iron that serves as the transport's visible exterior.
Nothing I am aware of says exactly where it is.
I put it on one of the sides since without Floating Disc the underside may be resting on the ground -- no wheels. Having it on the side also makes it more reasonable to get people and cargo in and out of it.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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On high tier the mages are diviners; they may always act during surprise rounds and have a pretty good initiative modifier to boot. That gives them a very good chance to send the alarm before PCs can jump them. Was that intended?I would think so. It is high tier after all.
It's hidden pretty deep in the stat block though. I suspect a lot of GMs might not notice.
It's hidden pretty deep in the stat block though. I suspect a lot of GMs might not notice.On high tier the mages are diviners; they may always act during surprise rounds and have a pretty good initiative modifier to boot. That gives them a very good chance to send the alarm before PCs can jump them. Was that intended?I would think so. It is high tier after all.
I actually missed that when I picked that stat block; I was just looking for a suitable mage from the NPC codex and that one fit the bill. Still, I think the guaranteed action in the surprise round helps make the higher tier more challenging, so it's a nice little addition. Good catch, Lau!
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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I was compiling statblocks because I really like having all numbers for a tier of an encounter on 1-2 pages facing each other when I noticed it.
It does bump up the urgency a bit, fortunately even if they do get off the signal there's enough time to do the heist. Even if the players don't have to know just how much :P
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It's hidden pretty deep in the stat block though. I suspect a lot of GMs might not notice.On high tier the mages are diviners; they may always act during surprise rounds and have a pretty good initiative modifier to boot. That gives them a very good chance to send the alarm before PCs can jump them. Was that intended?I would think so. It is high tier after all.
Yea I missed it the first time I ran it at high tier.
I only just noticed last night that the dog stats, being weasel stats, give them blood drain. My party did not appreciate the dog dealing 5 Con damage on a grapple!
Yeah, they're pretty mean for a low level adventure. My hope was that it would add some appreciation for the elixir's defenses and encourage players to use the tricks they pick up on day 1 to neutralize the beasts. It sounds like your group had particularly bad luck fighting them, if they lost 5 Con over the course of the fight.