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

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

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

We (or rather: the party I run) didn't lose anyone - but 3 characters were making death saves.

Well, I can't make a final verdict - the party is still in the middle of the Keep and has just dispatched all Goblins (on the 1st level - Hobgoblins are still running about), but there are still a few encounters they have to run through...

 

[Calico_Jack73]

Since the Wizard and Rogue got away we are going to take another stab at it next week. In talking to my players I've come to the conclusion that the 4th Edition Paladin would be absolutely awesome in the fight against Irontooth or any fight where the party is outnumbered. The Paladin's at will exploit "Valiant Strike" gives the Paladin +1 to hit per adjacent enemy. That kinda counteracts the Kobold Dragonshield's ability where they get +1 for each kobold who is adjacent to their enemy. They player of the dead Human Fighter is considering going back in with a Dwarven Paladin, especially if the Dwarven Cleric character brings in another Dwarven Cleric. We had great fun in Winterhaven as the Dwarven Cleric is something of an evangelist for Moradin and the Fighter player is wanting to get in on that action.

 

[Plane Sailing]

So far I've had two TPC (Total Party Captured) in KotS. Once at the Kobold Waterfall, and once by the Goblin torturers. Since everyone is interested in money from off-screen slaver factions it seemed like the obvious choice to make when the PCs went down. Subsequent rescues and/or escapes then continued the adventure.

 

[Ginnel]

We've played through KOTs now pretty much Calorie (Ok Kalarel) has been put in the dead book, and we've had two very close fights the Iron tooth one and The Kalarel. We've had 5 characters start on death rolls but no deaths and no TPK but we now have 2 characters unconcious after defeating Kalarel (no healing surges left).

and I think these to encounters according to the DM are about party level +4 each, it seems like that is whats needed to be a challenging to the death fight, the other encounters seem to be easier with only one other being really challenging, and another being challening by our party heroically advancing onwards without rest.

Our party has 6 characters with both defenders & leaders from the PHB a wizard and a warlock, the encounters have been upgraded respectively to keep the difficulty up.

EDIT: Shabe below is the DM

 

[Tikigod]

I had adjusted the encounter after reading similiar threads on this forum. The party wizard almost died and no PC had more than 12ish hp by the end of the fight. The party got pretty lucky too. The fight landed a critical Steel Serpent Strike followed by a high damage Brute Strike. I think the fighter did 50ish damage in 2 rounds.

The most significant change I made was taking away Irontooth's Blood Crazed ability.

 

[Shabe]

I just finished running KotS for my party of 6, the only fight that nearly resulted in a TPK was the last one, and that was because i had chucked in an extra(un-needed) monster (I doubled up on the guy next to the statues and added a chillborn zombie), that resulted in me going easy on them (read that as fluffing two close rolls within 2 of the target and not hitting players on the ground) and resulted in a very tense encounter (that kept us playing till 1.30am in the morning, fight started at 10.15pm with the SWAT team descending) with several players down and dying with no healing surges left.

Overall i felt that the encounter difficulty balance was pretty good, some encounters were easy and some were not so easy, it didn't stop the module from being a pretty stale dungeon crawl, but overall I'm going to persevere with the published modules as I've heard good things about Thunderspire Labryinth and can't wait to run the Pyramid of Shadows (Plus I'm going to set aside quite a bit of time to study the module and adjust it to be relavant to my players and correct any glaring errors, KotS was the first published module i had ran).

 

[Wolfwood2]

My party managed to stop the kobolds outside the waterfall from warning those inside. I made sure they got the message that this was important by emphasizing to the party scout how loud the waterfall was and how the kobolds had to shout to hear each other so as to plant the seed in their head that they could take out the ones in front without alerting those inside. They then adjusted their tactics to make the initial strikes at kobolds near the waterfall entrance.

Even so, the Irontooth battle was tough. They had some bad rolls and I had some good ones. To save the party, I had the kobold spellcaster turn on Irontooth at the end, seeing the party as a chance to regain control over the tribe. (Irontooth had dominated the kobolds through sheer intimidation.) I made them pay by having the caster take all of the treasure with him when he left. That was the deal, and enough of the party was down by that point that they didn't feel like trying to renegotiate.