Mista Collins said:
Thanks for all the information. I was curious on what level your player's were when they decided to tackle the City of the Glass Pool? And how many characters were there in the group? I am just wondering if I should scale anything down a bit or up a bit.... or any other adjustments I should make.
My players were 14th level with their first encounter of the City of the Glass Pool; but most of them leveled after that. There was a thief, a wizard, a cleric, a paladin and his paladin cohort. The paladins and priests had AC's around 29 to 31.
The group had pretty much completed everything up to this point as well as some unrelated side quests. Additionally they made use of some item creation feats and had access to some high level NPC's for some (for-pay) help.
If I recall it went something like this for me:
Encounter one - the party found the back way in through the secret door. They're prepped for a rescue mission and are packing a scroll of Teleport Circle (purchased and which they're hoping they can cast successfully - they have a designated spot they hope to bring the refugees to). They begin exploring a bit and make it to the front door. They bluff their way in past the guards and get sent to the derro barracks. They use an ethereal jaunt to make their way to the slave barracks and are immediately spotted by wandering kuo-toa.
They hustle in, kill the guards, and start rounding the slaves up. That's when they look at the casting time of Teleport Circle and realize they have to spend 10 minutes protecting Jallarzi
Meanwhile the city mobilizes and converges on the slave barracks.
It was a slaughter. There was only one front door and there's only two ways to get to it. The priest and the thief made it a killing zone. Eventually I started having the giants bang on the back wall - bursting through it, but the party was able to handle that and actually free the giants from their compulsion and get them out of the city too.
Lesson Learned: Don't send the bad guys down a narrow corridor to be killed. All the derro were slaughtered as well as two mind flayers and all three dukes. No one was really pressed for damage.
Second Foray:
The party decides to explore a couple more buildings - specifically the mind flayer and duke residence. They gave me some time so everyone who was killed was 'raised'.
Result: Better - certainly more challenging. The mind flayers caught the players a little by surprise - but it was pretty much a cake walk. A Mind Flayer Priest 11 isn't really a CR19 though. The Dukes were more challenging however and three of the characters were down to single digits before it was all over. The dukes were defintely challenging when used right. The group teleported out after that with the heads of the dukes and the mind flayers they could retrieve.
Third Foray
The party got silly and I let them. They have access to teleport and a series of mage gates to important cities. They decide to get as many earthquakes as possible together as possible and use them on the city (the priest can already cast them). They get five total (to purchased scrolls, one self created scroll, one in memory, and one in a ring of spell storing.
They teleport in and let loose over the temple, the barracks, and the palace. That's when they find out about the wall of force over the palace. They then assault the temple.
It's mostly cleanup work though and while they feel pressed for a few rounds, again no one is in serious danger. This is the foray where the firestorm went down the central plaza from temple to front gate.
The group spends several days after this dealing with summoned monsters
Fourth Foray
The party teleports in, goes through the temple and assaults the palace. It was a cake walk. I made some bad calls and in general it was a black day as a DM - still it was pretty darn easy regardless. I almost put the module aside for awhile. Instead I tried to figure out where I screwed up.
Things I did right:
1. I had cheat sheets of all the spell casters at hand and I made notes of their highest level spells and what they could do. I noted who could raise dead especially. Planar Ally, Commune, and Scrying are also important spells.
2. In converting the dukes I made sure that they kept the minimum level to cast their highest level listed cleric spells and then made the rogue levels match the converted levels.
3. I used Planar Ally and Scrying and Commune as soon as I thought the bad guys had a reasonable idea of what was going on. The kuo-toa have access to a boatload of resources - they should use them.
4. When the party gave the bad guys down time, I made sure the bad guys used it.
Things I did wrong
1. I didn't follow the timing well enough. There was about a week between the party wiping out the derro outpost and their assault on the City of the Glass Pool. Granted they made sure there were no visible survivors (rock to mud on the ceiling over the corpses and a dispel magic). But the city should have been on a higher alert - possbily summoning an earth elemental to look for bodies to be raised for descriptions of the attackers.
2. I let the party dictate the battlefield - this is hard not to as they have far greater tactical resources than the bad guys. I didn't make use of Hallows or Forbiddances until after the first assault.
3. I wasn't ready to defend the palace - I should have canceled the game where they assaulted the palace.
Gray areas
1. I gave the party too much the benefit of the doubt on what the bad guys could reasonably get on the party. The mind flayers are super intelligent and between commune and scrying maybe they could have learned more about the party - or not.
2. Additionally the initial spell load out for all the priests was set for a city load out. I didn't add a combat load out until after the first assault.
3. I kept levels and magic the same. Upside is that it was easy to convert and run. Downside was that the defenders were underpowered for their level - maybe significant, maybe not.
4. The defender's position sucks. The party can teleport in when and where they want (you can't Forbiddance the city). That's an enormous tactical advantage.
That said, would I do anything different?
I might (might!) up the levels of the high priests so that the chief mind flayer and kuo-toa king could cast 7th level spells (maybe 8th).
I might also consider more usage of the Book of Vile Darkness and the use of Illithid Grafts from the Fiend Folio.
I would certainly use the Watery Death domain from Underdark.
The party would have been attacked nearly every day. My most effective tactic was to send an eryines into Haranshire and have the party try and defend against her depredations - it bought me about a week or so of time.
Regardless, more spellcasters who can withstand (or evade) some damage and who can cast dispel magic (or scrolls of greater dispelling) would have been nice.
That said, be careful of adjustments. None of the encounters in the second or third book scale very well to the CR system because of the sheer number of monsters in each encounter - and sometimes that doesn't mean anything.
In the second foray the alarm went out pretty early and I attacked the party in waves - a 15th level mage and a 15th level priest quickly decimated the bad guys - leaving the paladins and thief feeling like 5th wheels.
In the end, I think I recommend some customization for flavor, but I would hesitate on giving additional levels across the board. However it wouldn't be out of line to give the chief bad guys 2-3 more levels just to get them in shouting range of the party.
If you're using Underdark or the Forgotten Realms in general, consider the City of the Glasspool in the Middledark and implement appropriate teleportation rules (Spellcraft check in order to successfully arrive on target).
