So... yeah. I took Rechan's advice. I took it real good. Then I took it again.
Final tally: eight deaths, world drowned, -365 points scored. Spoileriffic details follow.
First, you have to know that my group is a fairly casual group. We've been playing WotBS for over a year, and we played the entire heroic tier of Scales of War before that, but none of us are hard-core D&D'ers. 4e is pretty much the extent of our adult tabletop gaming. Coming into the game, no one had studied the player's handout (and only one person had even read it). This adventure was about to hit them like a Mac truck. And I loved every minute of it.
The entrance brought us our first TPK.
I set the mood by reading the intro from the player's guide (since hardly any of them had read it!). They were appropriately leery of the skull in the entranceway arch. They saw that it was hinged and deciding to tie it shut to thwart a deathtrap. (snigger) Entering the Crucible, they found the eight keys, discovered they were fool's gold, and decided that since all the keys were the same, they might as well pick a portal at random and walk through. And so they did.
Crucible: 4; Players: 0. Elapsed time: 5 minutes.
I took 15 minutes off the timer and restarted the adventure. "You are humanity's greatest hope. Up until about five minutes ago, you were humanity's second greatest hope..."
On to the Great Hub.
They were cautious here, and learned what needed to be learned without any deaths. (I was also a bit nice and reminded the players of the gods' domains when describing the holy symbols on each door.) They almost put a normal skull on one of the pedestals, but then sensibly realized that, with four doors leading out of the hub, it probably wasn't that simple. Then they remembered their rumor about secrets, said they were searching for secret doors "on all the walls" (pointing at every single wall in the hub and corridors) and rolled a great perception check.
What the hell. Secrets a-plenty. They got the tablet in the niche and found the skeleton in the closet. They all did quite well with the dice, with two PCs getting lots of temporary hit points, one getting truesight, and the last losing a surge. They decided that, being strong, now would be a time to take on Kishar's trial.
Starting with the goddess of combat may not have been the best idea.
They go in, the door slams shut, and the hunter strides across the room to examine an obelisk up close. He of course goes right past the dracolisk's line of sight and triggers the encounter. One round later, he's petrified. The cleric had lots of opportunities to grant saves, but didn't realize it because he didn't know the character well enough. Then the cleric drops. Then the mage gets petrified. At this point, only the knight remains standing, thanks to some very bad dice rolls and his truesight. But at least they had figured out the secret to killing the dracolisk.
The fun level was dropping and people were getting frustrated, so I notched down the timer and allowed them to send in replacements. They kept the same characters for familiarity's sake, which I allowed for fun's sake. After a grueling battle, several more statues adorned the battlemat and the heroes were victorious! Knight, Hunter III, Warpriest II, and Mage III celebrated their victory by letting Hunter III touch the sarcophogus and turn into a snake.
Then they found the divine skull, picked it up, and got Mage III's soul sucked out of his body. Luckily, he made the saving throw, saving them the trouble of meeting Mage IV. The skull vanished. Forever, I helpfully told them.
Crucible: 8; Players: 0.
Back to the great hub and into Asar-Segt's challenge.
The timer had long since run out, but we had 30 minutes left in our normal timeslot, so we switched over to tournament rules for the fun of it. Asar-Segt is a pair of skill challenges and the weakest part of the adventure, in my opinion. I've never been good at running skill challenges, and there isn't a lot of dungeon dressing in Asar-Segt's room to build on.
Nonetheless, 25 minutes later, the incantation was complete, but the challenge to reconstruct the golem was botched. They were transported to the great hub to do battle...
...and that's when the gods drowned the world. The end. Final score: +35 for finding the two secret rooms. -400 for 8 deaths.
Despite the challenges, and some wondering aloud at how anybody could ever beat that combat, I think the players had fun. I'm sorry they didn't make it to the southeast corner, with the puzzles, as I think that's the strongest component of the dungeon. The skill challenge was my least favorite part, but I'm not sure how to improve it. We're likely to play it again next time we need a one shot.
Thanks, Sersa V, for a great evening!
Die and die,
And die again,
I drowned the world
Before night's end!
