Did Keep on the Shadowfell result in a TPK for your group?

[Calico_Jack73]

Unfortunately it did for mine (well, almost... the Eladrin Wizard and Human Rogue got away). I DM'd my groups first 4E session last Saturday Night and I thought we had a pretty well rounded group. We had a Human Fighter, Dwarven Cleric, Tiefling Warlord, Eladrin Wizard, and Human Rogue. The classic D&D party. They got through the first 2 road encounters with the goblins (the first was a bit hairy as the group was getting the hang of their powers/exploits and the Warlord hadn't shown up yet) and they also defeated the kobolds outside of the waterfall. They didn't stop the kobold slinger from running into the cave to warn those inside and after that they didn't get into the cave within the 3 rounds to keep from having to deal with both waves at once.

Dear lord... it didn't go well at all. The party dealt with the minions with no problem but the dragonshields and the skirmishers set up the party by shifting into flanking positions around key party members. The dragonshields were at times getting +4 to their to-hit rolls because there were 3 other kobolds adjacent to the PC. The Skirmishers would shift into flanking positions to get their additional damage. The dragonpriest just sat back lobbing his force balls at the party. Once the kobolds saw the dwarven cleric healing his party members with Healing Word they focused on dropping him. For most of the melee none of the party members were able to get around to deal with the dragonpriest so round after round the dwarven cleric was getting hit as his Reflex defense was only 10. It got REALLY nasty when the goblin got involved. The party tried to focus attacks on him but that only played to his strength of getting two attacks per round in if he didn't have to move. That and two of the 3 dragonshields and both skirmishers were still alive at the time. Long story short... the dwarven cleric died and the fighter and warlord went down shortly after. The kobolds moved to engage the eladrin wizard but he shifted out of melee and teleported away (and kept running after that). The rogue got hit by 2 of 3 attacks of opportunity as he ran out of the cave but otherwise survived.

It was a long and difficult encounter which obviously the party was not up to. How many other DM's inflicted a TPK due to some encounter in Keep on the Shadowfell? How many players were involved in a TPK in this module?

 

[Nifft]

After seeing your poll, it's hard to respond to your post seriously.

There are a number of threads on Irontooth; nearly everyone agrees that particular encounter is too hard, which isn't much of a surprise when you realize that it's a 6th level encounter.

Cheers, -- N

 

[DM-Rocco]

I actually played through this one instead of DMed. That was a very hard fight as we had both waves come at us too. We only survived for two reasons, one, as the party wizard I knew it was do damage to the party with my spells too or they would take more damage from the tons of kobolds in the room so I cast area spells (note: the party didn't see it that way and of course frowned upon me casting damage spells on them).

Two, once Irontooth fell, the DM gave us an aqtion point that he allowed us to use right away. Without this, we would have died, or it would have been a mostly party wipe, me and the cleric could have gotten away but the others would have fallen.

That was a very hard fight to win and killing a single kobold with 20 plus hit points with one ranged shot to avoid a massive fight is almost impossible. The cave should have had a sign that said, "warning, meat grinder ahead."

 

[Maggan]

There are a number of threads on Irontooth; nearly everyone agrees that particular encounter is too hard, which isn't much of a surprise when you realize that it's a 6th level encounter.

I've got a very different view on what people think of the encounter, mostly based on the following poll:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?t=237644

Being that most people didn't lose even one PC in the fight, it doesn't seem too hard an encounter.

/M

 

[OchreJelly]

No problems here, although I admittedly adjusted the infamous Irontooth encounter down. The rest of the module I ran pretty much as is with 4 players, which includes the last two major encounters. It was tough with 4 but they managed to do it.

 

[w_earle_wheeler]

I'd have to vote in the middle. It hasn't been a cakewalk in certain places (Irontooth, Hobgoblins who are aware of the PCs), but it hasn't resulted in a TPK yet.

 

[Yair]

I bearly had a TPK at this point too. The tactical situation was different, but essentially the party had little trouble handling the minions and finished with the warpriest easily, but found hadnling the skirmishers, dragonshields, and especially the goblin together with them practically impossible.

One character, a tiefling warlord/paladin, managed to escape and at that point I decided that Ninaran, the elf who's supposed to be a traitor and who led them to the cave, will actually be a good little ranger and come to their aid. He managed to save them from the TPK, slowing down the goblin and peppering him with arrows until he dropped and the remaining kobolds fled.

I totally forgot about the slinger, who also got in; he should have made the TPK come even sooner.

The end result was one dead character, and all the rest unconscious or nearly dead. And one uber-NPC that came to save their hides.

Anyways, definitely an ecnounter to be wary of.

 

[Obryn]

I had Irontooth and company do non-lethal damage, and had a total-party capture.

-O

 

[Duncan Haldane]

I had Irontooth and company do non-lethal damage, and had a total-party capture.

-O

hhmmm. My party was taken down by Irontooth too, but none of them were dead at the end of the combat, some had stabalised and the others hadn't got to 3 failed saves. And so I had intended to have them captured at that point, so now I'm wondering where you took it after that.

However, that was weeks ago now, and we haven't met again since - the players were pretty unhappy with the difficulty and the way it went, and I was sick for a few weeks.

Duncan

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

I've got seven players, and we're about to hit Irontooth on monday - so I'll get back to you next week!