Hey ya'll, going to start DMing Curse of the Crimson Throne within the next few weeks. I've been reading through and it looks like a great adventure! But I have heard down the grape-vine that chapter 2 can be exceedingly lethal based on mission order and a couple of seemingly innocuous decisions. So I'm curious, what is the deal with that?
I've heard the sea hag encounter is really deadly, and it's the first one presented in the chapter. Are the party meant to go there later in the chapter?
I've also heard that the vampire spawn can be really deadly if you approach the encounter the wrong way. Does that mean approaching at night?
And the temple of urgothoa looks on paper pretty dangerous to me. Is it meant to be completed in a single run, or is the party supposed to fall back?
At low level I prefer not to kill my party members, because they don't have access to revival spells. So I would appreciate any assistance in keeping them breathing (or at least, giving them a fair chance to stay that way!)
The sea hag is deadly because you're fighting underwater. If you can overcome that, then your party isn't taking the huge hampering effects of aquatic combat. She can still do some scary stuff, but its just her and the shark.
The Vampire spawn are deadly because there's four of them that can dominate the party all on the first round. Depending on how you run this and what strategy you give the spawn really will set the difficulty more than the numbers alone. Yes energy drain can really suck, but they have a +4 to hit, no ranged capabilities (beyond said dominate person), and a level 5 fighter should be able to hit an AC 15 at least 80% of the time without buffs.
The temple of Urgathoa is dangerous more because there are alarms immediately on the doors after the lift, and the entire dungeon can quickly become 1 single fight with every enemy but Lady Andaisen herself in it (although the surviving enemies will likely retreat back to her). Because of Rolth, a non-agro party will not do well here, as they need to find a way to push past the 9 rogues and 12 clerics (and 4 skeletons), so they can shut him down before he starts debuffing them for the rest of their run. Keep in mind that Arkiminos is an optional fight, and the Leukodaemon should have some sort of warning/way to prevent his escape. (Personally, I make it take two turns of whacking by retreating clerics before it manages to bust out on the third and immediately goes to eat whoever was freeing it, then the rest slip past the doors.)
The party can fall back through the lower level of the dungeon, but they are clerics too, so they can rest and recuperate whenever the party does, and likely even adjust tactics (because amazing cleric spell list). Realistically though, yes you are meant to be run the entire upper levels and then the dungeon level back to back, and I've had many groups come perfectly close to a wipe, and barely pull through when they get bamboozled by the Daughter of the Dead. I think the biggest thing that will affect your mileage though is always how you as the GM control enemy tactics. This is especially true at later levels when you have Ileosa, who on paper looks like a wet noodle of a final boss fight, but can boost herself and the entire room by a mile, and have her clones act as control bots, and still pump out some amazing spells.
My group absolutely walked the hag encounter. Really good rolls on their behalf and really poor roles on my side. The vampire spawn started off the same way, so I decided to start dominating and whoa, they barely made it out alive. When the group invaded the temple they had a fairly decent plan and cake walked it right up until the leukodaemon. And then it was “why do you hate us” and what CR is this? The fight was hard but they persevered. They chose not to fight the nosferatu and instead deal with him. The rest was a cake walk as well. The sorcerer had kept most of his spells back so the big fight with Rolth was simple. When it came to fighting Lady A the swashbuckler pretty much solo’ed her in two rounds.
The hardest thing about this module is the group needs to keep expending second and third level spells to remove the disease on themselves or others. My group is very charisma based and they suffered a lot due to blood veil.
Also as a note, I am running the adventure 100% as written. So no level bumps or whatever on the encounters.
Thanks both of you! That helps a lot. I forgot spawn still had dominate (I thought they didn't for some reason???) so that would certainly make the encounter more difficult depending on how many of them use dominate. I might err on the side of caution and limit it to half the vampires using it at a time. I can definitely see, now that you point it out, that these fights are going to be VERY tactics reliant. That's kind of good though, I can play it as hard or as easy as the party can handle.
I have learned what my party will be; lunar totem barbarian (themed like a werewolf for rage, bites and swings a big weapon), star-soul sorceror, alchemist, and paladin. Given the Alchemist gets delay/remove disease and will probably prepare it a lot, and the Paladin is immune to disease, I expect they'll be pretty safe from blood veil honestly. Not that I'm complaining, I imagine it gets more annoying than scary or entertaining once the party knows how it works. I am excited for our alchemist to race against the clock to try and come up with a cure, I think that will be a fun narrative, especially with the group trying to unravel the conspiracy and going up against the Queen's Physicians. I expect the alchemist's player will get a kick out of that.
Hmm, your party is pretty stacked, no cleric which is a bit of a hit, but the paladin is so powerful in this module. I am not sure about low level alchemists but high level alchemist are powerful death dealing cannons.
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Paladin can also have the mercy to remove disease at level 6.