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We ran Pale Mountain with 1 GM and 2 players each building two PCs.
The party composition was as followed:
Dwarven Crossbow Ranger (played by me)
Dwarven Evocation Wizard (played by me)
Dwarven Wild Druid (played by my friend)
Dwarven Warrior w/ Dwarven Waraxe (Played by my friend)
General comments and impressions
-Healing-
All healing was spread between the Druid w/ the support of a lesser staff of healing and the wizard w/ the support of a lv. 1 wand of heal and the extra resonance feat. This healing solution worked well enough, actually. The party actually managed to complete 3 encounters per day even with our limited healing capacity but we played it pretty carefully and got lucky here and there.
-Crossbow Ranger Impressions-
I actually found this to be reasonably effective. I used hide armor and maxed out my dexterity while also prioritizing wisdom and constitution. I dropped strength like so many hot rocks. When I used hunt target I could attack at a range of 240 ft w/o penalty and deal 1d10+1 damage. This comes in handy! This build kind of leans on critical hits and favored aim (which brought his attacks to +12) to be effective. This guy is a real one trick pony in combat and honestly kind of boring to play, but out of combat he was pretty useful because his skill list included survival (in which he is an expert), stealth, and thievery. Even though this build seems to work best when staying at range and out of trouble, I often found myself walking slowly towards my enemies while reloading my crossbow in the hopes of taking heat off the party’s casters due to my relatively high HP, AC, and saves. It made me feel like a low rent medieval judge dread except that my “gun” sometimes only does 2 damage.
-Evocation Wizard Impressions-
I really should have picked up armor proficiency but with my charisma penalty meant that I would be unable to help out with healing w/o remarkable resonance so I tried to muddle through by blowing a 2nd level spell each day on mage armor. I’d call him a “glass cannon” but that would actually imply he was particularly dangerous. He was more like a “glass slingshot”. On my first day of adventuring, I realized that I readied some bad spells. Namely, I readied flaming sphere and a couple other spells that had no effect on a successful save. Flaming sphere is g++%&#n worthless. Every monster in this scenario besides the mummies has reflex saves high enough that they seem to almost always succeed and this spell does no damage on a miss. The wording on it makes it seem like you can only ever effect one monster at a time per round and it does not seem to do damage to the monsters that it moves through. This is a sorry state for a one time favored spell. On days 2 and 3, I switch my level 2 evocation spell to heightened burning hands. On separate notes: Tasha’s hideous laughter ended up being nice and magic missile was indispensable reliable damage in the Manticore fight.
-Great Weapon Fighter impressions-
This build seems really straightforward and good. The GM handed this fellow a +1 dwarven axe and then the fighter proceeded to hand fools their asses. He only had a rough time in the Manticore fight because it stayed out of axe range. It felt real bad when this guy missed because he was like ½ of the party’s damage usually.
-Wild Druid impressions-
I feel like my friend didn’t do this build particularly well but it still seemed serviceable enough. Between his healing staff and readied heal spells, this guy kind of planned on being our main healing source. The plan was to fight as a giant frog or whatever and save most of his spells for heals and those few situations where frog combat seemed untenable. This strategy kinda sorta worked. He also had an 8 charisma so he could only use his healing staff twice a day. Moreover, he had middling dex (14) and no magic armor (to maintain resonance) so he took some crits for sure when he wasn’t frogging it up (which he could only do twice a day cuz he only had 14 strength).
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The Adventure
Day 1-3: Getting to the Mountain
We took camels to the mountain and my ranger did well enough on his survival checks to get there in 3 days. My understanding is that there might be some sort of issue with the riding rules and how they interact with exhaustion but the GM's ruling was that our movement speed was the mount's movement speed and went from there.
Day 4a: Hyenas and difficult Terrain
We had marching orders with the ranger in front searching around and the fighter in back. My ranger guessed lucky with his search cone and spotted the two hyenas before they could attack us and the big hyena guy got behind us and attack the fighter. After some cantrips, crossbow bolts, and axe swings, this fight was over in 2/3 rounds. It was a mistake to get into melee with the fighter, Mr. Big Hyena.
Day 4b: Quick Sand and Ant Lion Guy
This was mostly pretty open and shut. Using the same marching orders as before, my ranger was going “step, seek, step” and managed to spot the quick sand and the monster. The ant boy’s acid Damage Over Time (ON A SUCCESSFUL SAVE!) was really rough on our healing resources for the day but we had already spotted the quicksand so nothing here was particularly dangerous. The wizard blew a magic missile on this fight but most of his spells were still intact. We also managed to find the corpse in the sand and we—of course—loot it.
Day 4c: Gnoll Camp
My ranger set up 200 ft away from the gnolls and shot them with his crossbow. The rest of the party decided this was an unsportsmanlike tactic--I suppose--so they closed distance. The wizard set up on the other side of the river and caste the aforementioned disappointing flame sphere while the fighter and druid spend a turn or two getting across the river. The wizard caught some bow damage and I believe managed to land an acid arrow at some point in between sad flame sphere attempts. The GM eventually ruled that I could place the flame sphere at the edge of two squares to attack the adjacent gnolls. Once the fighter and druid got to the other side of the river, they made reasonably quick work of the gnolls and scorpion as they had been softened up by ranged attacks. Having murdered our foes soundly, we are disappointed by the lack of plunder in the camp so as to teach the missing gnolls not to be poor, we cut the ropes to their tents and throw them in the river before making camp near the mountain’s cliffs.
Day 5a: The ascent
We brought climbing gear but we thought better of climbing. We don’t find an easier path up at first but we spend another 2 hours searching and manage to find the easy path. We then find a whole bunch of gnoll corpses in a manticore nest. We continue our trek with weapons drawn.
Day 5b: The Manticore
In the first round, the fighter switches to a bow and proceeds to miss because his dex is bad. Also in the first round, my ranger crits for middling damage, my wizard misses with an acid arrow, and the druid manages to hit with an acid arrow. The acid arrow damage over time really helps us out here. My wizard blows through a magic missile and actually drains his focus to magic missile a second time even though it is just a level 1 spell. The druid focuses on healing and burns through his readied heal spells mitigating the damage from the Manticore spikes. If the Manticore had focused fired on the Druid in this fight, he probably would have been a dead dwarf. However, the DM decided that he would mostly attack my ranger since he was clearly the most consistent threat to the Manticore round to round who was both pretty tough and had an AC of 22 so a bunch of his spikes missed. Between the acid DoT and the continuing middling ranged damage of the fighter, ranger, and wizard (including the aforementioned magic missiles), the Manticore flees after round 4 and is then laid low in the 5th round by a bolt in the back. We carve it apart for macabre trophies.
Day 5c: We Avoid a Fight
It’s a good thing we like macabre trophies because when the gnoll leader sees us walking along with bits of the Manticore’s face affixed to our armor he wisely decides not to fight us.
Day 5d: The door
We find the lightning trap on the door but none of us have the skill to disarm it. We break the door apart with hammers.
I will probably add more later.
So anyways, we get into the crypt. For those of you keeping track, the only fight we had so far was the manticore which largely drained our Druid's healing resources but we are on a time limit so we decide to trudge onwards. My wizard takes 10 minutes around some of his spellslots with his level 4 feat and my ranger takes point, crossbow loaded and drawn.
Day 5e: The Rock and Water Room
I don't know how this room is supposed to be run but we essentially fought this battle from the room's landing and the hallway beyond. My ranger was reasonably good at perception with his 16 wisdom and he was able to spot the water elemental after a lucky roll and he began firing into the water. Since my ranger could attack indefinitely from the doorway, the elementals were forced to come to us. That said, this fight was simultaneously tedious and harrowing. Critical immunity is antifun in this system. My ranger's build essentially needs the possibility of critical hits to be competitive damage-wise and there were several instances where our party would have crit had the immunity not been in play. After spending so long being genuinely happy to roll a high number, results of 15+ were just sad to see in this fight. My wizard also had a pretty tough time here since elementals are hard to hit with touch abilities. I forget the specifics, but most of my wizard's tech would only hit on a 13 or 14+. The wizard also caught a critical hit from the earth elemental in the second round which forced him to flee into the halls and spend two round using his heal wand on himself. The earth elemental's reaction ability was pretty annoying too, of course. It took forever to kill and the fighter spent most of his time running around and playing wack-a-mole with it. The druid did this fight in frog form and he didn't give a damn when the water elemental would push him off the landing. My ranger cared a little bit more but the ranger was MOSTLY just a flanking partner for most of this fight anyways so having to spend most of a turn re-positioning was not the end of the world. The fighter still did respectable damage and the frog did too. We eventually reduce the elementals to gems and then burn through all our resonance healing up with potions and wands of heal. The wizard is still down like 1/3rd of his max health but we figure "w/e, he'll stay far back".
TLDR: No crits and a high touch AC made both of my characters suck for this fight but the Fighter and the Frog carried the day.
5f: The Elemental Puzzle Room
It looks like the gems go into color-coded gem holes and we figure that we want more gems. Huzzah! Around this time, my wizard takes another 10 minute break and moves his extra cast of Acid Arrow into Hideous Laughter to avoid another earth elemental situation.
5e: The Fire and Air Room
I feel like the rock and water room also had a lot of air in it. I also feel like the fire and air room had a lot of rock in it.
Whatever, this fight is a lot like the last one. My ranger fired bolts from the landing and forced the elementals to come to us. I don't know how that dumb fire horse managed to climb that wall but I guess he did somehow? I am almost immediately vindicated for readying hideous laughter when the air elemental take a bolt to the chest and disappears. Hideous laughter is a useful spell in this situation. The air elemental made its will save but it still couldn't take any reactions to disappear while my wizard concentrated on his spell. The air elemental dies in the 3rd or 4th round, I believe, after flying over the party to try and 1v1 the wizard. The fire elemental sticks around for long but can't seem to hit us for some reason and he had to waste a round and some change just to get up on the ledge with us. Looking at the Fire Elemental's stat block, I know this fight could have gone way worse for us. He barely lands a hit though. My ranger still feels lame and the fighter and druid--not a cat of some sort--whittle the elementals down.
TLDR: No crits and a high touch AC made both of my characters suck for this fight but the Fighter and the Kitty Cat carried the day.
We decide to sleep for the night outside before solving the jewel puzzle.
I'm psyched to see someone using hideous laughter like that. I'm sure I missed other reports of it, but I've been on the lookout for the first person to give that a try. It's a really good spell against weird reactions!
I'm psyched to see someone using hideous laughter like that. I'm sure I missed other reports of it, but I've been on the lookout for the first person to give that a try. It's a really good spell against weird reactions!
For sure. I can see my future wizards readying that spell every day at higher levels just as a precaution. I actually had Hideous Laughter readied in the manticore fight and then unreadied it for an extra casting of acid arrow and then readied it again because I wished that I had the spell for the earth elemental fight.
Hey Proxy, were you using a light crossbow or a heavy? Did you have any thoughts on how it would be wielding the other one?
I kind of want to play around with a halfling sniper with a heavy crossbow, but I'm not if it is worth the extra damage over the light crossbow.
And that is to say, I'd like to hear how it actually worked in play. Did it seem like you needed the extra action to reload?
Hey Proxy, were you using a light crossbow or a heavy? Did you have any thoughts on how it would be wielding the other one?
I kind of want to play around with a halfling sniper with a heavy crossbow, but I'm not if it is worth the extra damage over the light crossbow.
I used the light crossbow with the Favored Aim 2-action attack so their representative turn was move/reload as 1 action and then shooting at a +2 as 2 actions. Comparing a light crossbow (w/ favored aim) to a heavy one, I think it is hard to justify passing up that +2 to accuracy just for an extra +1 damage per die. That said, I did consider another version of this build that had slightly higher strength and quick draw at level 2 rather than favored aim. That version of the character would switch to a short sword when enemies got too close.
Sorry it took me a while to answer. I have been busy and/or on vacation.