Burnt Offerings difficulty in Thistletop


Rise of the Runelords


Hello! I'm GMing the Anniversary Edition of this adventure, and my players have certainly already been challenged just in book 1 (but not disheartened). They had to retreat from Thistletop twice. First, after clearing the first floor, the ranger and the oracle/paladin were both nearly cut down by Orik. When they returned the next day, they handled Orik and Bruthazmus without too much trouble but the yeth hounds in the chapel were nearly too much to handle due to failed will saves and two party members falling into deep negative hit points. They managed to kill them but needed to retreat again since almost everyone was severely injured.

With all of this in mind (none of my players are min-maxing and one is fairly inexperienced) I am considering having them hit level 4 a bit early so that they have a better chance of taking on the bottom level. Especially since with all of their other allies dead, Lyrie would surely flee down to join Nualia in the lower levels. Nualia of course is far too obsessed with her work to abandon Thistletop. I am worried that being level 4 might trivialize the encounter with Nualia however, and would love some insight from someone who has run this before.

Grand Lodge

If your PCs are struggling to get through Thistletop but have cleared the first two levels, I think it's appropriate to level them up to 4. Here's some thoughts regarding the remaining encounters:

- Lyrie (800xp), Nualia (1600xp), and a yeth hound (800xp) are a total CR 7 encounter (3,200xp), AKA an Epic encounter for a Level 4 party with 4 PCs at a 15-point buy. Suffice to say, that should be sufficiently challenging - even if your party is bigger or stronger than this, that's a tricky bunch to be up against!

- 3 Shadows (800xp each) are a CR 6 (2,400xp) encounter, so Challenging for a Level 4 party. That seems appropriate.

- Malfeshnekor is CR 7 (3,200xp), but his environment significantly hinders him, so you might consider him CR 6 in a difficulty calculation. He's the red herring here, but that still seems reasonable, given there is no time limit for your party to defeat him.

The crab and the tentamort are just roadbumps for a Level 4 party, but I don't think you need every encounter to be a big challenge - just enough of a threat for your party to consider the danger.

That means the remaining conflicts your party has are: CR 4 (Tentamort), CR 5 (Hermit Crab), CR 6 (Shadows), CR 7 (Nualia, Lyrie, Yeth Hound), CR 7 (Malfeshnekor).

That totally reads to me as an appropriate set of encounters to handle while level 4! If you decide not to level them up, I'd say that Lyrie fled for her life (dropping Nualia's encounter to CR 6) and there's one less shadow (dropping that encounter to CR 5).


Thank you! That is very helpful. I think that should work then.


That CR7 encounter is particularly tricky with the Yeth hound. It is very easy to end up fighting Nualia with only half your party, the other half running in fear.


Haldrick wrote:
That CR7 encounter is particularly tricky with the Yeth hound. It is very easy to end up fighting Nualia with only half your party, the other half running in fear.

That's pretty much how the first encounter with the hounds went. It was quite the drawn out fight because of that


There's also the positioning to be considered for that encouter. It's very easy to bottle the PCs up in the hallway with Nualia at the door so only one of them can get to her at a time. With no line of sight for ranged attacks, it could make it very difficult for them to be able to fight well - and Lyrie can sit back and blast whoever's in the door.

I have a group of 4, along with a bear animal companion and a riding dog, facing down Nualia and her Yeth Hound right now. They got lucky in that only the riding dog and the rogue failed their saves against the Yeth Hound, but right now Nualia's in the doorway trying to hack away at the halfling swashbuckler while the bear tries to swat her around the corner.

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