Upon seeing Redlake Fort, my players quickly tumbled to the notion of blowing the dam to flood the moat; sending an earth elemental in to do the deed from within the dam itself. There doesn't seem to be any mention of the size of the sluice gate or the rate at which the moat fills once it's opened. Anyone have a clue how long it might take before the entire moat is refilled?
I'm crunching some numbers, assuming that the sluice gate is maybe as big as 5 feet square, but it looks be a relatively slow process unless some major demolition work is done to the dam.
In the encounter where Tark and his orcs attack the boat, are Tark's orcs meant to get onto the boat?
None of them have swim or climb and previous encounters have established its hard to climb up the side of the boat (DC15) and hard to swim in this river (DC15 - although maybe its easier here) - so is the intent ?
- only Tark boards and the others lob javelins from the bank
- the orcs get to cheat and no one sees their rolls (its only hazardous terrain for PCs... ;) )
- its really hard for them to get onboard and the party can laugh at their clumsy attems
In the encounter where Tark and his orcs attack the boat, are Tark's orcs meant to get onto the boat?
None of them have swim or climb and previous encounters have established its hard to climb up the side of the boat (DC15) and hard to swim in this river (DC15 - although maybe its easier here) - so is the intent ?
- only Tark boards and the others lob javelins from the bank
- the orcs get to cheat and no one sees their rolls (its only hazardous terrain for PCs... ;) )
- its really hard for them to get onboard and the party can laugh at their clumsy attems
Yes, I felt that their performance, was a bit underwhelming as well. They are pretty useless from the the shore, since the PCs have at least partial cover, depending on how high you imagine the river bank will be in regards to the boat. Luckily, Melira was joined the battle in my round to keep it somewhat challenging. I finally made them come on board, after not hitting a single target on ship for 8 rounds, but the group had finished Melira and Tark already, so those poor fellas were no more than target practice.
If I would re-run this, I would probably make them more annoying by throwing tanglefoot bags or smoke or some other sort of obstacle on the boat, rather than trying to hit one of the PCs, which required a natural 20 in almost all cases (in my group, that is). Option B would be to have them set up something bigger, like, load a whole bunch of Alchemist's fires into a improvised siege weapon, so the PCs have to act fast if they don't want to lose their only safe means of transportation in enemy territory.
While I'm writing I'm wondering about Ingrahild. My group encountered her yesterday and as most of them got annoyed with her, our lawful good shaman, being a dwarf herself took a pity in her and tried to cure her, which she successfully did. I'm running this adventure with 5 PCs, two of which have animal companions. They plan on taking Ingrahild with them, so I wonder how the balance would be effected by the addition of her? Should I downgrade her to level 4, so she won't steal the spot light from the PCs in battles? How did the whole Ingrahild plot turn out for you other guys?
/K
Plot-wise, I had Ingrahild get dejected (after being cured by the party) about being alone and separated from her brother. So she left the marsh to wait for word from the PCs at the patrol landing downriver. I have a party of 6 PCs already, and didn't feel like running a DMPC. Good luck!
I thought ahead about Ingrahild. My PCs all wanted to play dwarves, so I strongly encouraged them to have blood relations. Incorporating the NPC dwarf siblings was a cinch, then, as they were extended family that everyone knew, so the party had built-in give-a-crap. I was running a party of 5 optimizers in the campaign, so she did not prove to be overbalancing. On the contrary, she served a wonderful role as ranged overwatch during the infiltration of Redlake.
I wish I had had Tark's orcs throw smoke on the boat to cover Tark's boarding, that is a great idea. Alchemist's fires would be out of the question if I stay true to the text, of course, since Tark would have forbidden the use of any fires being thrown too close to him.
Alchemist's fires would be out of the question if I stay true to the text, of course, since Tark would have forbidden the use of any fires being thrown too close to him.
You're absolutely right! Fire is out of the question, but maybe some acid or liquid ice would do the job.
Yes, I felt that their performance, was a bit underwhelming as well. They are pretty useless from the the shore
In the end, given I have 8 players, I scaled the encounter up by giving them each a level of rogue, including ranks in climb and swim and had them swim out to the boat after Tark attaches the token.
Of course the party spotted him and them, making the sneaky assault pretty weak, but they had fun firing the ballista at one, casting grease on the side of the ship and the like.
It was made more challenging by the fact the strongest characters are generally doing the rowing the players sensibly assume they wouldn't be wearing heavy armour for that, so when attacked tend to come rushing onto deck unarmoured.
They'd found Melira much earlier - she had proved to be a horrenduous fight with rapid shot and favoured enemey, killing Trunau's half-orc heart-throb the party's ranger, Locke. Ironically the rate she ran through arrows proved to be a huge factor in that fight, with her getting the chance to loot the quiver of an unconcious PC having a big effect.
I created a couple sets of maps to hand out to the players for Red Lake Fort. However, I plan to add some background about the maps being worn and saved from fire. So I did some editing in Gimp, including invaluable help from the burnt-paper script from Patrick Stein...
For the files that include "burn me" in the name I plan to actual burn the paper to see how they turn out. Immersion is the key to an RPG! ...
Hi guys, I came across a question yesterday when my group managed to claim Grenseldek's dowry.
It is mentioned that they find a map of Minderhal's Valley with Grenseldek's handwriting "My future with Volstus starts here!"
Did you give your players an actual map? If so which one did you use? Would the map from Book 3 (page 19) be too much of a help for them? (without the locations of course). Or would you go for some bigger map, like the one in the Mapfolio for the AP and just add a scribbled circle and her text on it?
/K
I created a couple sets of maps to hand out to the players for Red Lake Fort. However, I plan to add some background about the maps being worn and saved from fire. So I did some editing in Gimp, including invaluable help from the burnt-paper script from Patrick Stein...
For the files that include "burn me" in the name I plan to actual burn the paper to see how they turn out. Immersion is the key to an RPG! ...
These are very cool. Thank you for sharing!!
In the encounter where Tark and his orcs attack the boat, are Tark's orcs meant to get onto the boat?
None of them have swim or climb and previous encounters have established its hard to climb up the side of the boat (DC15) and hard to swim in this river (DC15 - although maybe its easier here) - so is the intent ?
- only Tark boards and the others lob javelins from the bank
- the orcs get to cheat and no one sees their rolls (its only hazardous terrain for PCs... ;) )
- its really hard for them to get onboard and the party can laugh at their clumsy attems
I know I'm replying to a thing from years ago, but...
I just ran this encounter as it's written, and the orcs on shore actually really worked. The PCs were preoccupied with Tark, Melira, and Chokehold, and the other orcs floundering on a lot of their rolls ensured that they didn't get to the ship immediately, and when they did, they arrived little by little, basically in waves.
They also gave me an answer to what the captain and crew were doing: operating the ballista. Bloodtusk and his folks took shots at the orcs approaching the ship and weakened them, and called for the PCs to finish off those who'd gotten on board.
Our Druid fell to Tark (but survived), and Melira managed to get our Barbarian into "Only alive thanks to rage" territory, but the party emerged victorious. The Ranger (an archer with orcs as a favoured enemy who had explicitly been spending all her time aboard the boat in the crow's nest, and thus got to start the battle up there) had a particularly good time of this encounter and was responsible for both Melira and Tark's defeats.
In the section “Feuding Factions,” the book explicitly suggests options for how to Yojimbo the uneasy alliance of orcs, ogres, and giants at Redlake Fort and turn some or all of them against each other. At the end of this section, it says that should all-out hostilities break out, the PCs might find themselves targeted by both sides “unless the PC’s have already formed an alliance with one of the factions.”
The book lays out pretty clearly the way the PCs might ally themselves with the Twisted Nails, at least for the short term, but am I missing an opportunity to align oneself with the Gorb family? As written, you interrupt the ritual and Gutterunch & Co attack.
TL;DR: anyone else got a creep-o party that would prefer to work with the ogres against the orcs? How did you manage it, and with what did the PCs entice their putative comrades?
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I am half way through the first book.
So far this adventure has been fun. I really enjoyed the investigation part that flushes out Trunau. Was really fun with a lot of interesting characters.
The only part I had to worry about was the assassins sneaking in as many people have noted. We had the party sharing two rooms and we had the cavalier's dogs to start barking to wake people up. Was a good fight, thou part of me just wanted to tell the party your characters do not wake up. End of AP. Roll new ones, cause that could of been what would of happened if I ran it by the book.
We are looking at doing the invasion this weekend. It is a super long slug, lots of fights. So in the Plague house I gave out extra positions and another wand of cure light wounds.
What I am looking forward to is the fight with the Cave Giant, that just looks like a lot of fun and I hope it lives up to my expectations.