Mirrored Moon - Probably the best part of the playtest so far

[MUKid]

We just finished Mirrored Moon and had overall a really good time with it. I think it was probably the best balanced of all the adventures so far. Spoilers ahead, of course...

My characters started off thinking that perhaps they would ally with the lake monster. Not sure what they were thinking... but after trying to "whale talk" to it, they quickly realized it was not going to respond to them and really just wanted to eat them. One character got swallowed whole and spent almost the entire fight trying to cut her way out. The others kited it and dragged it up on land, where they managed to finish it off and cut the swallowed character out. She was a little worse for the wear, but had a good time anyway.

The characters then went searching for the gnome village, which they found. Spent the night there, impressed them with their skills and managed to earn the treasure points (I know they weren't supposed to get them until AFTER beating the rocs, but whatever). Then, using the cleric's locate spell and a bunch of days, managed to find and defeat the rocs.

Following that, they stuck to the rivers for the most part, but missed a lot of Survival checks and burned a lot of time exploring. They wanted to go talk to the cyclops and perhaps ally with them, but they realized they didn't have enough time to go fight a dragon. Still, some good role playing earned them one youthful cyclops that decided to travel along with them to the final battle at Moonmere.

Moonmere began with only two ally points and two research points - so enough to draw off the giants and trolls, and enough to remove two cultists - but I messed up and had them fight all the cultists (just read the entry wrong). It was a REALLY hard fight - we actually did not finish it as we got into the seventh hour of play, and a couple of folks needed to go home. We called it a draw.

Overall, I thought it was very enjoyable. Those fights are taking us a very long time, however, and the final battle was quite complex, with multiple flying monsters, invisible cultists, cursed mummies, and so on. The players really enjoyed the exploration aspect of the game, with the hex map to explore and the treasure, ally, and research points adding a lot to the game. They also appreciated the opportunity to do a bit more roleplaying as well.

Advice to fellow GMs - plan lots of time for that last fight. Even if I had removed two of the cultists, like I was supposed to, it would have been pretty tough to run. It's hard to keep track of what is going on, especially in a new system with everyone playing, essentially, new characters. I fear these last three sessions are going to take many hours each to run.

[manbearscientist]

My experience with the final fight was a little different, largely because my players had maxed out Treasure/Research/Ally points. It took us 5.5 hours to complete Mirrored Moon, but almost all of my sessions have gone really fast (*). I would expect the typical number to be 7-8 hours.

Our party used Invisibility to make sure the whole group got the drop on the Cultists. While See Invisibility could have changed things, the 1 minute duration meant that the cultists wouldn't simply use it unless they got heard/smelt the party first.

With a couple +3 weapons and a lucky crit, the party cleared up a cultist and the boss mummy in just a couple rounds. The fight got extended with Mirror Image, Fly, and Invisibility, but the ambush took the wind out of the sails of the enemy and the fight concluded rather anti-dramatically (as expected with less enemies and better equipped players).

I think the final fight will really depend on how well your players can deal with the exploration and the harder encounters. My players were able to deal with the dragon and avoid the sea serpent, and got extremely lucky with the Rocs (they were soloed), and we had some real speedsters and survivalists (they also split up to cover more ground) so we sped through exploration. Getting a lot of extra treasure really makes a difference; giving your best martial a +3 weapon can by itself make a hard encounter easy.

The biggest thing I've seen extend fights is spellcasting (and looking up spells), and over-leveled enemies. I will put it this way: I expect nearly every group to TPK against a +4 boss mob. With a baked in +3 bonus, they hit on a 2 and crit on a 12, and often the party needs a 17-18 just to hit. To fight this my players played very cautiously, focusing on getting persistent damage on and keeping out of range. Running out of resources also forces slower play. There is some of this in the Affair at Sombrefell Mansion, but it appears more in Heroes of Undarin (3ish such encounters) and Red Flags (just 1, but almost unbeatable without a certain spell).

*
The Lost Star - 5 hours
In Pale Mountain's Shadow - 4.5 hours
Affair at Sombrefell Mansion - 5.5 hours
The Mirrored Moon - 5.5 hours
Arclord's Envy - 5.5 hours
Heroes of Undarin - 7 hours (all events)
Red Flags - 5 hours

[Thebazilly]

manbearscientist wrote:

I think the final fight will really depend on how well your players can deal with the exploration and the harder encounters.

Yeah. My players went into this fight after finding... literally everything in the adventure, I think. They had 5 Ally Points, 2 Research Points, and a total of 9 Treasure points, 6 of which they had spent. (They bought some armor, a weapon, the aeon stone, and the two staffs.) The final battle lasted two rounds, and Hidimbi didn't even get her breath weapon off, it was a bit pathetic. Part of that was due to a crit on heightened Searing Light which took out 2/3 of the mummy's HP, but regardless, my party absolutely crushed the encounter.

[Byron Zibeck]

manbearscientist wrote:

The Lost Star - 5 hours
In Pale Mountain's Shadow - 4.5 hours
Affair at Sombrefell Mansion - 5.5 hours
The Mirrored Moon - 5.5 hours
Arclord's Envy - 5.5 hours
Heroes of Undarin - 7 hours (all events)
Red Flags - 5 hours

In Pale Mountain's Shadow was the shortest? With only 4.5 hours? How?

[manbearscientist]

Byron Zibeck wrote:

manbearscientist wrote:

The Lost Star - 5 hours
In Pale Mountain's Shadow - 4.5 hours
Affair at Sombrefell Mansion - 5.5 hours
The Mirrored Moon - 5.5 hours
Arclord's Envy - 5.5 hours
Heroes of Undarin - 7 hours (all events)
Red Flags - 5 hours

In Pale Mountain's Shadow was the shortest? With only 4.5 hours? How?

We were lucky, well-equipped, and lucky. Bard, Gish, Monk (+1 handwraps), Rogue for characters, Bard only joining in later.

Part 1 we mostly ignored the difficult terrain thanks to a monk that long jumped nearly 40 feet. The monk landed a crit and the hyenas were down to nearly nothing before the fight had really started.

Part 2 took a while, but again we rolled hot and saved on the breath attack and were able to deal with the bug without too much difficulty. At this point, we'd spent maybe 45 minutes (I run combat really quickly, and the players didn't really want to spend much time socializing).

We avoided the gnolls at the river by simply walking around them.

We critically succeeded on the Survival check to avoid climbing, which basically bypassed a major section. The fight versus the flying enemy was somewhat difficult until the monk climbed up a cliff and jumped on it.

At this point a Bard joined in, and they won the Social-fight versus the gnolls, telling them the griffon was dead with proof. So another encounter avoided.

We fought both elementals, with ranged characters plunking them from afar while our two melee fighters (monk + gish) mostly ignored environmental issues (ridiculous Athletics check and Assurance(Athletics).

Got the puzzle with the gems in about 8-10 rolls if I remember correctly.

Killed the zombies rather easily, though the Rogue did go down. Left well before Hannah and the other Night Heralds arrived.

So we avoided 3-4 encounters, had a good set-up for the environmental stuff, and did lots of damage. And pretty much just ran the combat parts of the campaign, with no time taken for pre-combat socializing or character creation.