Forge of Fury: Deathtrap? (spoilers)

[Epametheus]

Jeez, now I'm proud of the party of nut-cases that I went through the Forge with. The DM made the mistake of placing a bounty on live orcs brought back to the town, so we actually managed to take the bulk of the orcs alive and led them back to the town in chains.

The group idiot trying to use his Handle Animals skill (he had a +2 or so) on the hungry brown bear was a bit of a disaster, though. Also, we lucked out a bit on the Roper -- the DM screwed up and thought that damage inflicted on the tentacles counted towards the Roper's HP.

 

[Piratecat]

Fifthly, I have to respectfully and strongly disagree with an above poster who suggested that you provide some "intelligent sword" to the party as a way of dropping hints, etc. Never, ever do this. You would be stripping the players of part of the fun of playing the characters: muddling through by yourselves, winning the battles yourselves, figuring out the puzzles yourselves, and (yes) sometimes dying yourselves.

Hmm. I might not have been as clear as I wanted to. I also think a weapon (or NPC) who simply points out all the right ways of doing things would be dreadful. What I had in mind, though, was something a little more complex that would suggest possible options that were both good and bad.

"My esteemed wielder! If you want a frontal assault, we should go in loudly and obviously; it's full of glorious danger, but we could clear out more of the enemy at once. If you prefer to be cowardly and sneak, we should take some way that they won't necessarily expect us to come from. We could also use that bridge to either funnel the enemy, or dishonorably wait until they're on it and then cut the rope. Either way, mighty one, I will do your bidding in smiting our foes."

Even that may be a little obvious. The trick is to slowly educate the players while still allowing them all the hard decisions.

Yeah, that guy has got a ton of posts here and he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about most of the time.

Hey, waittaminnit!
Link 1.
Link 2!

 

[Saeviomagy]

Ok - here's the rundown of how we did in the FoF.

We marched up to the front door, killed both orcs quietly, and then had a conversation about what we'd do next, which of course meant that the guards in their hidey holes heard us.

We rushed through, mostly avoiding injury.

At the rope bridge, we quickly crossed, and killed the orcs on the far side, however not before they'd loosened the bridge. We held the door shut, and engaged in ranged combat with the orcs from the hidey holes, and ended up bullrushing some of the orcs that came through the door into the pit.

I think we just left the bear locked up.

We killed the roper - I'm pretty sure that it attacks you as soon as it's within sight. It dragged one person all the way too it (and they then stood up and attacked the body), and someone else charged it. We ended up with one person being knocked unconscious and washed away in the river IIRC, but we managed to rush ahead of them and save them.

Not one of us even considered negotiation, which is supposedly what the encounter is supposed to suggest - the thing was killing our buddies in an unprovoked attack!

The dragon was the biggest pain, because our DM had advanced it one category, and thus it had darkness 3/day, which it could see through.

Naturally a low level group doesn't have anything which could possibly counter that spell, and that meant all we could do was attempt to damage it a bit with lucky shots and then retreat.

Luckily, each time we managed to damage it enough to make it not want to pursue us.

I think the stalemate ended with it retreating from the lair entirely.

 

[delkain]

My FoF Player experience.

At the time I was running a grey elf wizard 3rd level. 3.0 rules in effect.

My Encounter with the FoF entrance went as follows...

My party was at the bottom of the mountain after our Halfling rogue scouted the mountain. He did not mention the chimney, just a couple of Guards and arrow slits. The group was arguing about when to go. They were about to rest and then proceed the next day. I saw no reason for the delay and told them we should go now as we do not know if they are scouting the area (And thus be alerted to our presence before getting there. (I STILL can't believe the dwarf fighter was against me on this.) Well the party ended up offending my character and said they would never follow his lead. I said well fine I'll get in myself! So I left the camp and cast Invisibility and went up the mountain. (back when Invis was useful for this sort of thing)

I approached the 2 guards, stood just before the corner of the trail that would have exposed me to the arrow slits and cast Ghost Sound at a spot off the cliff. When the orcs were looking off the cliff I cast Magic Missile, killing both and sending them plummeting off the cliff. Luckily they did not make much noise as they fell and I managed to get by the first arrow slit without being seen or heard. I then sat down and waited for the rest of the group as I did not want to push my luck with the arrow slits. Well my gamble paid off and the group eventually came up, hoping to find a dead wizard.

We then rushed through the arrow gauntlet and reached the doors. I covered as the Cleric and the dwarven fighter managed to open the door. Staring at 4 orcs at close range after the door was open gave me the perfect launch area for Color Spray. All four in front went down.

After gaining the entrance one of the 2 orcs fled through the back door and the other fell to a ranged assault. We then proceeded to kill the orcs at the arrow slits, and then tackled the "Bridge of DOOM". We almost lost the cleric and the dwarf she was roped to... We then proceeded to the cavern beyond to face the battle royale with the Orc chief, sorceress, the Ogre and all their pets. We nearly lost that battle and the terrain and lighting really hindered us.
The Cleric was the savior of that battle.

In summary, it was not an easy assault and we got lucky. Surviving the rest of the adventure, now that was a challenge. Many chances for a TPK were narrowly avoided. It was tough.

 

[Darthjaye]

give em a quick kick along

Mayhaps you should recommend that the guy making another char go with something like a sorcerer or even go with a sorc2/fighter1 elf and lead him towards the idea of becoming a spellsword (i think that's the right name). It gives him his fighter and the group a psuedo mage to help out. Just a alternative to a plain ole wiz/sorc or fighter. And maybe plants a idea for future levels for him to work towards. Maybe even help him with a good hook for why the char is in the mountains then? As for their tactics....hmmm....maybe have them read the books a little more and figure out that headlong is not always the way(good god this is coming from a combat monster mind you!!)

 

[S'mon]

It sounds to me like the adventure went about like it should have.

Yeah, I don't see a problem with the game as described. Occasional PC deaths have always been part of standard D&D, a few DMs avoid killing PCs but that's hardly common practice. You seem to be letting new PCs in at the same level as old ones, so the party shouldn't even take a power hit from the fatalities.

 

[S'mon]

There's a significant number of players who just want to win, and the story of what happened along the way is what's important in play. For groups like that, it's best to just run modules that are intended for characters a level or two lower, and softball any very nasty dicerolling (big crits against them, for example). This insures that they are challenged, if not too far, and still feel like they are in danger, even if not too much. One or two levels difference makes a small enough difference in challenge ratings that they are unlikely to notice.

I definitely agree with using scenarios a level or two below the party's standard for weaker-tactics groups - it makes them advance slower, but given 3e advancement rules that may not be a bad thing. The standard of PC coordination required to survive in a typical Monte Cook style scenario seems way above what I've seen most player groups be capable of.
Personally I don't like dice-fudging to keep players alive though, I like the XP to be fairly earned or it seems kinda pointless. As a player I'd rather beat an orc fairly than beat an ogre only because the DM fudged it.

 

[RangerWickett]

When I ran this, it was a comedy game, so I can't weigh in precisely. Hell, my roper was actually RPed to act a lot like the green space alien Kolos on The Simpsons, complete with flailing tentacles and pompous voice. They lured him into the room, whose door he was never able to open, and then they locked him in.

 

[WizarDru]

We killed the roper - I'm pretty sure that it attacks you as soon as it's within sight. It dragged one person all the way too it (and they then stood up and attacked the body), and someone else charged it. We ended up with one person being knocked unconscious and washed away in the river IIRC, but we managed to rush ahead of them and save them.

Not one of us even considered negotiation, which is supposedly what the encounter is supposed to suggest - the thing was killing our buddies in an unprovoked attack!

That's not a function of the module, that's either your DM or how you entered the area. The encounter is staged so that you can neogitiate with the creature, offering it food, even if you don't currently have any, or talking your way out of fighting it.

If a party of 3rd-5th level characters beat it, then I usually suspect that the DM 'softened' the encounter a tad, or gave them a freebie involving it's fire vulnerability. Any creature that can deliver 6 attacks at 50 feet, has an AC of 24 and SR of 30, and each of those attacks does 2d8 Strength damage and grapples the target should be ripping up a party of that level.

 

[JesterPoet]

I strongly, STRONGLY recommend against removing the roper. You said you're trying to teach your players to be good players. The roper (if run properly) will teach them that combat won't win every situation. If you have a TPK, that means the players didn't even try. The roper is willing to negotiate pretty easily, and it really does teach the characters a good lesson.

We had little problem negotiating our way past him. Sure he did some damage first, but that's how it works.

Don't take him out... you aren't doing yourself or your players any favors by doing so if you have any interest in having role-playing in your game.