City of the Spider-Queen question (possible spoilers)

[Jer]

Okay, I'm ramping up to run a modified version of City of the Spider-Queen for my group. I recently purchased a used copy of this and (with some modification to the NPCs) it should make a good "capstone" to my current campaign.

However, I have a slight problem -- the adventure is standard 3e and we're playing 3.5. Now, I've been running 3.0 adventures for my 3.5 game for the last few years and this hasn't been a problem so far -- I generally keep the stats for the NPCs and monsters roughly the same and tweak things where there have been major rules changes, and this has worked out fine for the most part.

But in this adventure there are a TON of spellcasters who use the same tactic -- drink a potion of haste and then fire off as many damage-dealing spells (like lightning bolt) as they can until the potion wears off. This is the first time I've had to deal with the differences between the 3.0 and 3.5 haste mechanic with regards to spellcasters in an adventure and I'm not quite sure what to do about it. On the one hand, the mechanic is horribly broken and it would be unfair to my players to have NPCs who are using it when they can't. On the other hand, I want to maintain the level of challenge that the encounters with these spellcasters is supposed to have, and I'd rather not completely restat all of the spellcasters who exploit this tactic if I don't have to to keep them challenging. Especially since most of them are one-off encounters and not recurring villains -- I'm replacing some of the major villains with my own campaign villains, so it's mostly the "mook" encounters that need to be fixed.

So I'm looking for any suggestions on how to handle this. Specifically, if there's a change in the tactics that the spellcasters can use where they don't have to depend on haste but can still act primarily as damage-dealers every round. I'm not necessarily looking for a way to get them casting two spells per round, but instead some suggestions on things that can pump up the damage that they do so that their one spell that they get to cast each round is more threatening. I haven't run a lot of high-level D&D since the Companion/Masters set campaign I ran a decade ago, and this is the first group of 3.5 characters I've run that have gotten to 10th level without a campaign restart, so any suggestions on running 3.5 spellcasting NPCs is appreciated.

 

[BlackMoria]

Rods of Metamagic are one choice. The trouble with those is that they will fall into the party's hands, which could be problematic or undesirable as they will sharply spike up the party's wealth.

Scrolls are a better choice as one shot items. Make the scrolls hold spells the spellcaster couldn't cast due to level. That gives you the higher level damage potential you desire without the down side of loading up the party with all sorts of magic when they defeat the spellcasters.

Another option is to change out feats on the enemy spellcasters and give them metamagic feats like twin spell, etc

 

[shilsen]

Don't do damage. Damage-dealing is one of the least effective ways for spellcasters to use their ability. The big advantage with spells is that one can bypass an enemy's hit points and affect them. So spells that weaken enemies, slow or hamper their mobility, affect their vision, etc. are much more the way to go at these levels than damage-oriented spellcasting.

Sample levels and caster types would probably make it easier for people to provide suggestions.

 

[Jer]

Don't do damage. ...

Sample levels and caster types would probably make it easier for people to provide suggestions.

I'm unfortunately at work right now, so I don't have the caster levels. As written, they're wizards specializing in evocation. I'll grab the adventure when I get home tonight and post the levels (I think that they might be 8th or 9th level casters -- I'm leaning towards 8th but I can't remember).

And I agree, if I were writing the adventure up myself I'd do the same thing - tune the spellcasters to be more focused on softening the party up or dividing them and letting their brawler partners do the brunt of the damage. But like I said, I'm trying to not do a lot of heavy-lifting work on converting these guys over to the way I would do it (especially because, like I said, these are the "mook" encounters for the most part -- I want to spend the time I have dealing with the elements I'm adding to the adventure). The adventure was written with these damage-dealing casters and I'm trying to make it work, for the most part.

(It helps that my players are not the most ... tactically focused bunch of people in the world. A set of spellcasters hurling lightning bolts at them is probably going to scare them enough that in the end it won't matter whether I'm throwing 1/round or 2/round at them, but it helps me going in if I have some idea of the tactics these guys could reasonably use against them.)

Rods of Metamagic are one choice. The trouble with those is that they will fall into the party's hands, which could be problematic or undesirable as they will sharply spike up the party's wealth.

Scrolls are a better choice as one shot items. ...

Another option is to change out feats on the enemy spellcasters and give them metamagic feats like twin spell, etc

I thought about the scrolls, but I hadn't thought about the Metamagic Rods. I'll have to think about that -- my gut reaction is that you're right and it would be a bad idea from the treasure standpoint, but I know that one of my players wants to get one eventually. I may have to work one into the adventure somewhere, and that might be a good place to put it.

I thought a bit about feats, but I'd forgotten about twin spell. My fear with using feats was that because their spells would need to be a higher level to cast with a feat that they'd burn through them too quickly, but that may not be an issue. I'll have to check that out tonight.

Thanks for the help guys.

 

[ericlboyd]

There's a long thread about converting City of the Spider Queen to v3.5e found here:

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=255217

--Eric

 

[Jer]

There's a long thread about converting City of the Spider Queen to v3.5e found here:

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=255217

Thanks! I'd hoped there was a thread around somewhere with conversion info in it and this looks like it has a lot of info in it.

I see that there's some indication that even without the "haste" tactic, the evokers still present a challenge to the PCs. Since these guys are only 7th level evokers, metamagic feats like Twin Spell aren't going to work out very well. I'm thinking right now that I might just add a partner for the evoker in those encounters. It will increase the CR a bit, but have the same effect of doubling up the number of damage causing spells getting thrown out each round.

 

[Pathanus]

Use spells that let the other drow get in favorable positions (able to sneak attack if possible) or new to 3.5 spells, like Scorching Ray (instead of Flaming Sphere)

Defenstrating Sphere (Spell Compendium), may increase dmg potential as well, but you may not want your player wizard/sorc to get their hands on it.

Another option would be to give baddies Sudden Metamagic feats (like Sudden Maximize) instead of Metamagic Rods.

 

[Imruphel]

One other thing to consider: IMO, this is actually a pretty horrible adventure that has the potential to derail a campaign and turn people off gaming for life. Perhaps my opinion is worded a little bit too strongly....

One way to ameliorate this is to include, for example, some sort of neutral trading post (Mantol-Derith in the northern underdark of Faerun is a good example) else the never-ending series of deadly encounters becomes too draining.

It's the one thing that is sadly lacking in this adventure (well, one of several things: chief of which is the extraordinarily silly reason for the underlying plot... something that was only resolved in the novels some four or so years after the module was published).