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Questions about Mad King's Banquet
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<blockquote data-quote="rangda" data-source="post: 5629052" data-attributes="member: 86125"><p>This is way too late to help you but...</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>My group isn't that fond of skill challenges (it's more an old school 70's style kick-the-door-down-kill-everything kind of group), so I ran it as combats. I set it up as them being part of the army assigned to protect against flanking maneuvers, and they had been given basically the same response as entire units, i.e draw a line in the snow on the piece of terrain they were tasked to guard and not let anyone past.</p><p></p><p>This helped them feel a bit special (as paragon characters should be amongst the army rank & file). When I ran the combats I ran them as the monsters trying to break through the party rather than actually engage them, and it worked fairly well for my group.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I used Morrus' alternate joust rules which were posted in a thread in this forum. In those the prize is specified as an L10 Elite warhorse. I also ran archery and spellduel tournies. Amazingly PC's won all 3 of them. The joust is very hard to win; my group has house rules where you can spend an action point to take 10 or reroll a d20, a couple of AP is what gave the PC the joust win, but w/o that beating the NPC is largely luck. </p><p></p><p>In the archery competition that I ran I rolled poorly for the final NPC. (I used variable AC's for the rings of the target what AC you hit dictated what part of the target you hit, and allowed called shots to split arrows which was worth extra points but was very hard to hit.) I gave the player the effects of crossbow expertise (ignore cover/concealment) as a wondrous magic item.</p><p></p><p>The spellduel was very, very close. PC was L13 sorcerer going against a L14 Elite wizard at the end. Sorcerers do way more damage, but wizard had 3x the HP and range. Sorc made good use of slow, slide, and teleport (taking the damage) effects to keep the wizard adjacent which kept the wizard worried about OA's (sorc do get a basic attack and that would be a lot damage if the PC had it). Came down to die rolls right at the end, sorcerer won with 6 HP left and an ongoing 5 damage effect on him. Gave him familiar as a bonus feat (tied to a magic item) with a familiar that had a few extra abilities (basically 1.75 familiars rolled up into 1).</p><p></p><p>Everyone had fun with the tourneys and it ate up a fair amount of action points, consumables, and dailies; which the party was then without for the final fights.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>This has been one of my peeve's of the series; the series reads as if the party knows far more about trillith's than they actually do. My party after finishing the first 5 modules has yet to hear the word. I've dropped a few hints but the whole thing is very subtle, w/o getting it more in front of their faces I don't think they will figure out what is going on.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Unrelated to these questions, this module has two fights that are far too dangerous IMO. The harpies at the cliff and the tragedy monsters in the frozen zombie pit. The harpies get a green pull power which turns the entire encounter into "make multiple saves or die" as they try to pull the PC's off the cliff. I had to basically have them not use that ability/fudge some dice to avoid a TPK yet every player knew the harpies could do this as a green. The tragedies are were even worse with a recharging area unconscious power. I didn't catch this until I ran the encounter, and w/o me removing the recharge I don't see how it couldn't be a TPK. As it was every player was unconcious for the first 2 rounds, and 3 players were unconcious for 3, and that was with them making <strong>every</strong> save.</p><p></p><p>The final fight, by contrast was pretty anti-climatic. Too many actors in the room (GM hell), and aside from possession (admittedly a pretty nasty power) Madness can't do much. She went insubstantial and promptly rolled a 1 for her first attack, guaranteeing she couldn't possess in round 1. A PC promptly started singing the song of forms and she spent the rest of the fight trying to shut that PC up so she could possess someone. But the PC's did a good job with dazed effects and kept her actions to a minimum.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="rangda, post: 5629052, member: 86125"] This is way too late to help you but... My group isn't that fond of skill challenges (it's more an old school 70's style kick-the-door-down-kill-everything kind of group), so I ran it as combats. I set it up as them being part of the army assigned to protect against flanking maneuvers, and they had been given basically the same response as entire units, i.e draw a line in the snow on the piece of terrain they were tasked to guard and not let anyone past. This helped them feel a bit special (as paragon characters should be amongst the army rank & file). When I ran the combats I ran them as the monsters trying to break through the party rather than actually engage them, and it worked fairly well for my group. I used Morrus' alternate joust rules which were posted in a thread in this forum. In those the prize is specified as an L10 Elite warhorse. I also ran archery and spellduel tournies. Amazingly PC's won all 3 of them. The joust is very hard to win; my group has house rules where you can spend an action point to take 10 or reroll a d20, a couple of AP is what gave the PC the joust win, but w/o that beating the NPC is largely luck. In the archery competition that I ran I rolled poorly for the final NPC. (I used variable AC's for the rings of the target what AC you hit dictated what part of the target you hit, and allowed called shots to split arrows which was worth extra points but was very hard to hit.) I gave the player the effects of crossbow expertise (ignore cover/concealment) as a wondrous magic item. The spellduel was very, very close. PC was L13 sorcerer going against a L14 Elite wizard at the end. Sorcerers do way more damage, but wizard had 3x the HP and range. Sorc made good use of slow, slide, and teleport (taking the damage) effects to keep the wizard adjacent which kept the wizard worried about OA's (sorc do get a basic attack and that would be a lot damage if the PC had it). Came down to die rolls right at the end, sorcerer won with 6 HP left and an ongoing 5 damage effect on him. Gave him familiar as a bonus feat (tied to a magic item) with a familiar that had a few extra abilities (basically 1.75 familiars rolled up into 1). Everyone had fun with the tourneys and it ate up a fair amount of action points, consumables, and dailies; which the party was then without for the final fights. This has been one of my peeve's of the series; the series reads as if the party knows far more about trillith's than they actually do. My party after finishing the first 5 modules has yet to hear the word. I've dropped a few hints but the whole thing is very subtle, w/o getting it more in front of their faces I don't think they will figure out what is going on. Unrelated to these questions, this module has two fights that are far too dangerous IMO. The harpies at the cliff and the tragedy monsters in the frozen zombie pit. The harpies get a green pull power which turns the entire encounter into "make multiple saves or die" as they try to pull the PC's off the cliff. I had to basically have them not use that ability/fudge some dice to avoid a TPK yet every player knew the harpies could do this as a green. The tragedies are were even worse with a recharging area unconscious power. I didn't catch this until I ran the encounter, and w/o me removing the recharge I don't see how it couldn't be a TPK. As it was every player was unconcious for the first 2 rounds, and 3 players were unconcious for 3, and that was with them making [b]every[/b] save. The final fight, by contrast was pretty anti-climatic. Too many actors in the room (GM hell), and aside from possession (admittedly a pretty nasty power) Madness can't do much. She went insubstantial and promptly rolled a 1 for her first attack, guaranteeing she couldn't possess in round 1. A PC promptly started singing the song of forms and she spent the rest of the fight trying to shut that PC up so she could possess someone. But the PC's did a good job with dazed effects and kept her actions to a minimum. [/QUOTE]
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