Heart of Nightfang Spire help sought

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Shadowdancer

First Post

• Dec 22, 2005

• #1

Our group is about to go through the module Heart of Nightfang Spire. None of us have ever played it before. I'm serving as the DM. Does anyone who has played it and/or run it have any suggestions? Any problems I should be aware of?

Your helpful comments and suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

The PCs are:

A dwarf fighter 6/cleric 6
A human fighter 6/rogue 6
An elf fighter 6/rogue 6
Another elf fighter 6/rogue 6
An elf fighter 6/sorceress 5
A half-elf sorceress 8/bard 4

I realize they are a little higher level than what the module is designed for (10th level). But I've also heard this module can be pretty lethal.

 

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Corinth

First Post

• Dec 22, 2005

• #2

Three multiclassed spellcasters? The rest are fighter/rogues? Those spellcasters are dead men walking, which means that the fighter/rogues will be eaten last.

 

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Imruphel

First Post

• Dec 22, 2005

• #3

Have these players ever played before?

That party is simply not going to survive. While they are 6 12th level characters, they probably only have the firepower of a normal group of 4 10th level characters, if that. Prima facie, this group seems to be a masterpiece of suboptimal design. Unless the players are exceptionally skilled I would expect that they will not last too long.

HoNS is quite deadly. Your party will really need at least a pair of "real" spellcasters, as in spellcasters with full caster levels. See if you can talk them into replacing two of the characters with a 12th level cleric and a 12th level wizard or sorcerer. If not, be prepared to go very easy on them.

 

Klaus

First Post

• Dec 22, 2005

• #4

Here's what I learned from DMing this campaign killer:

- It's repetitive as hell, to the point of being boring;
- Gulthias has so many tactical advantages that you must go out of your way to play him too dumb/vain/disdainful to salughter the whole party;
- The maps can't accomodate a 3.5 game, because girallons now have a 10' space;
- Your fighter/rogues might as well not have any rogue levels, 'cause sneak attack is useless in this adventure;
- Unless you use the Complete Divine variant for Turn Undead (turn = 1d6 damage to all undead in a 30' radius, save for half), your cleric shouldn't do any turning at all, 'cause turned undead will only alert the others;
- Deadly adventures are good, but too deadly and they get frustrating.
- Let your players roll new characters in advance.

 

Thanee

First Post

• Dec 22, 2005

• #5

Throw it into the dustbin and get another module.

Seriously, it's one of the worst modules I've ever played.
Boring and repetitive, that fits really well.

Bye
Thanee

 

Plane Sailing

Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!

• Dec 22, 2005

• #6

Shadowdancer said:

Our group is about to go through the module Heart of Nightfang Spire. None of us have ever played it before. I'm serving as the DM. Does anyone who has played it and/or run it have any suggestions? Any problems I should be aware of?

Click to expand...

This party is likely to get spanked because they just don't have the spell casting or clerical turning that they will NEED if they are to survive.

There is an interesting storyhour segment about this by Wulf Ratbane

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=102&page=1&pp=40 from post 26 onwards for details.

 

D

DarrenGMiller

First Post

• Dec 22, 2005

• #7

I ran this adventure when it came out and it was very enjoyable for my group. That said, it was VERY lethal. The party's main tanks were killed by traps while descending the tower. The final battle was just ugly. To avoid the repetitiveness of the adventure, get creative. My group didn't just hack through the girallons. How about replacing them with some other creatures?

The posters who said your party is toast are ABSOLUTELY correct. You need a better cleric for sure. A Paladin would greatly help (though when I ran it, the party only had a Druid and the Paladin got dominated), but at any rate, those Fighters are too diluted to be much help. Ditto your arcane casters. The final encounter is going to eat them alive. The sorcerer in the party when I ran it was helpful until neutralized.

Roll new PC's if you are going to use this one. Also, if you are updating to 3.5, it is even more deadly and some of the encounters need to be changed (girallons, as stated). I like this adventure, but it may not be the right one for this group.

DM

 

Klaus

First Post

• Dec 22, 2005

• #8

Oh, and if you DO run HoNS, try and remove an entire level of the tower, and possibly increase the scale of the tower (change each 5' square to 10' squares). This may add some more room for the PCs to hide/maneuver, so they don't get boxed in by undead.

In order to survive this, you might need a Rogue/Temple Raider of Olidammara, a Paladin/Hunter of the Dead, a Cleric/Master of Radiance and a Sorcerer/Silver Pyromancer. Notice a theme there?

 

Seule

Explorer

• Dec 22, 2005

• #9

The module is basically a meatgrinder of traps and undead. Over and over, more traps and undead, with the occasional construct or Girallon thrown in for variety. That's really all it is. There's some imaginative stuff there, but it's overshadowed by the sameness of most of it.
When I ran it I gave up on actually running all the combats and started handwaving much of it. If I ran it again, I'd probably take out about half the combats/traps, just to make it finishable before it becomes deadly boring. That's right, it wasn't that it was hard (and it was very hard), it's that it was all the same, after a while. Lots of save-or-die, too.

So, I'd either skip half the module, declare that all the random minions are out raiding or something, or just run something else.

--Seule

 

BlackMoria

First Post

• Dec 22, 2005

• #10

The party, as it stands, is 'kibbles and bits' for the adventure as written. Barring phenomenal tactical savvy and a long streak of great dice rolling. They could participate 'as is' but expect a high body count then. Probably not a fun adventure for them if their characters are dropping like flies, even if being raised is easily available in your campaign.

As stated earlier, the party needs a pure class cleric and a pure class wizard/sorceror. And a sound plan for dealing with traps and the hordes of undead....