Collaborative Cave!

[der_kluge]

Oh, they WILL screw around, I´m sure of it
These guys..well, you really don´t know what´s going to happen when you have them at your table.

Asmo

I ran it Saturday with Bento, DannyAlcatraz, and two other non-ENWorlders.

The rust monsters in area 1 didn't appear. So, that took out some time.

I cut off everything past the kobold's lair. That saved a huge amount of time.

It still took almost 4 hours to the nose. It ended in a draw. The dragons really gave them a run for their money, and I took the life of one PC. Technically, the PCs won since the dragons had to retreat, but where sitting targets in their underwater lair (which the PCs never found).

But I run a VERY fast-paced game. If the game doesn't continue to move at a brisk pace, it could easily take 6 hours to run.

 

[der_kluge]

Some thoughts from the playtest:

It's amazing how paranoid players can be over mundane pools of water!

Party went in, and absent any sort of rogue, sprang every trap in the fork. The kobolds, once again, really gave them a run for their money. First From the Forest tossed up his spider climb immediately upon hearing the alarm, and hid on the ceiling. Through the fog cloud, no one could see him, and he proceeded to cast blindness spells EVERY round until he was out of 2nd level slots. Unfortunately, everyone made their save, and I targeted every character at least once. Then he breathed acid, and that really freaked them out, and so went the resistance from acid spells. Once they figured out where he was, he was toast. The party got slowed up pretty well with a web spell, but it's hard to stop a 9th level party, so it was just a matter of time that they were doomed. They put up a sound fight, though.

Proceeding back towards the main area, they decided the water was basically death in disguise and set about hammering some pitons into the wall to tie ropes onto. Of course, this sound could be heard through the entire dungeon, and the dragon knew they were coming at this point. All attempts at stealth were gone. The party never discovered the underwater tunnel.

The chokers in area 7 put up a decent fight, but one of the characters had a reach weapon, which proved too much for them. They fought valiently, but couldn't hide from the reach weapon very easily.

The dragon battle last MANY rounds - way more than I had expected. The elf fighter/magic user cast fly and was able to get to the dragon, but it promptly grappled him and tossed him in the water, where the second dragon was waiting. He was grappled, but activated some boots of dimension door and got back to safety. The party knight was really stymied by his inability to really *get* to the dragon - which took full advantage of the difficult terrain to hamper his opponents. I also rolled a "1" on just about every dragon breath refresh rate, so I was breathing acid on them just about every other round. But, they managed to get some protection from acid spells on about everyone, so for most it wasn't much of a problem.

In the end, I think it was just a nearly perfectly balanced encounter. It's challenging (the fighter/magic user ended up dying when the dragon scored a crit on an AoO), but not impossible. A very difficult battle, but one that I think will challenge a seasoned party.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I went through this thing...and had a blast!

Kluge had been rolling hot all day- first in Bento's True20 game in the morning, and later in this thing.

One major factor was also a result of statistically odd die rolls- the party members with the least HP were the ones who were getting hit hardest and the most often. The only spell that even slowed down my PC was the web.

My PC waded into combat to take on the dragon that had our mage and still only took 30HP of damage (the acid resistance helped, but she had evasion anyway- other BW blasts before the acid resistance spell did nothing to slow her down).

The guy playing the straight Knight- one of the owners of Generation X games (and thus our Host)- spent most of the dragon fight chasing the beasties. They wouldn't sit still and "fight like men," much to his chagrin.

As far as the challenge of the final encounter goes, I'd have to say that it was balanced against a smallish party run by players in a one-shot. Players who have run their PCs for months wouldn't make some of the tactical mistakes I know we did. All other events being unchanged, my forgetting to use my PC's abilities to their fullest actually cost us an outright victory and indirectly caused the death of the Ftr/Mage...My forgotten damage bonuses to my last successful attack were exactly equal to the amount of HP the dragon had after the Ftr/Mage hit him with a spell and when he subsequently critted the Ftr/Mage.

Players who have been playing the same PCs for months probably wouldn't make mistakes like that.

OTOH, they'd have to go through the whole cave...