Running the Well of Demons in Thunderspire Labrynth -Warning Spoilers!

[Hazard_53188]

And that drags on - the skill challenge lasts too long, in other words.

I agree. For us, the players lost interest before they obtained enough successes or failures. So when I realized it was no longer fun I simply ended it with the successes currently had.

I think my group is still learning how to play in a skill challange. There are often players just sitting there waiting for the end rather than attempting to figure out new and interesting uses for their skills.

I think in this particular example, many thought the only useful skill was going to be diplomacy dispite my hints otherwise. Those that didn't have diplomacy trained justed waited for the end.

 

[Obryn]

I agree. For us, the players lost interest before they obtained enough successes or failures. So when I realized it was no longer fun I simply ended it with the successes currently had.

I think my group is still learning how to play in a skill challange. There are often players just sitting there waiting for the end rather than attempting to figure out new and interesting uses for their skills.

I think in this particular example, many thought the only useful skill was going to be diplomacy dispite my hints otherwise. Those that didn't have diplomacy trained justed waited for the end.

Ironically, there are still only a limited number of useful skills, as written. Diplomacy helps a very few times, Athletics helps once, Bluff may help once... and then it's all just Arcana and History.

What's more, it gives the DM little information to go off of... It's "So-and-so is like this!" but then never really translates that into game terms.

I just think it was a poorly-written skill challenge. It would have been just fine if it had been a 6-success version, or maybe explained better.

-O

 

[Evilhalfling]

My experiances: last 2 entries

Well we haven't gotten there yet, my party has only gotten the Tome, obtaining it from Darkseeker's tiefling ex-wife. Nothing like running into an ex-wife in the middle of a dungeon crawl.

They are zeroing in on the hall of mirrors, cause they have been told that a captive friend is stuck there. Im thinking of changing the mirrors into a single occupant space, holding 1 person in suspended animation. I'm sure the PCs can find someone to exchange for which ever PC gets caught. Plus it would be an interesting way to get a wounded person to sanctuary. I also like the idea of a 1on1 fight in the midst of a larger battle. The PCs are accustomed to working as a group.

 

[winndwalker]

I like hearing how other people do props, i'll probably steal some of your ideas. I was able to find all the internal maps for Thunderspire on Cartographer's Guild, so i'll eventually get around to printing those out. But i like to add 3-D things and your Howling Pillar idea is a good one. But what gives the pillar "shape" Wouldn't the glue just make a big gooey mess?

I used an army man standing vertically as a base, then cut torsos, legs etc and glued them diagonally up it. They aren't perfect pillars but they look a bit unsettling. What's fun about them is when you look close you see dogs, firemen, grenades ETC. and though that isn't in theme with the game it's something interesting to look at. Plus if you're sloppy with the glue it makes fro a really goopy effect. Be ready to go through a lot of gluesticks though. Make sure to undercoat them black and dry brush them flesh.

Really for a prop used only once, they were fun. I don't think I spent more than thirty minutes on the lot of them, and the goopiness means rushing makes them look good.

 

[Evilhalfling]

I tried to compress 3 tests and the fight with the guardian to a single session.
it lasted 5:30 -130 am.

In the Hall of mirrors they lost a character to the opening trap. They used the curtains draped over their heads, to cross the chamber. They all grouped up again before opening the 2nd curtain. The curtains got shredded in the first skeleton explosion. The funniest bit was when the ranger headbutted a teleport mirror. Thus provoking the OA, so he could return to the battle.

They hit the chamber of Blood next, and the dwarf failed a jump and spent several rounds in trying unsuccessfully to climb out onto the statue base. I changed out the carnage demons for Dretch (HR Brute 4). They were great with a special ability which stopped anyone next to them from concentrating enough to get their normal minor action. This prevented marking, paladin challenges and one PC from drawing weapons. I really enjoyed making a low whine when ever a PC was taking actions adjacent to one of them.

the Sure Climbing feat (climb at normal speed) made item retrieval easy once the demons were killed off.
hmm - maybe I hand waved too much at the end, ah well on to the next -

The Howling pillars featured more Dretch! this time as minions.
The pillars were mostly a minor problem, and actually helped set the rogue for flanking once. The party was very frightened of the BarLarga, an earlier one nearling having killed the rogue.
The pillars spat out a new minion dretch each round, and the ranger just shot most of them with the spitting cobra stance.

The Guardian:

The party figured out the pools, and everyone had poison resistance for the test. The traps were mostly ineffective, the crossbow turrets hit twice, the fear projectors once, the elemental vortex twice, and the skeletons twice. Mostly the party concentrated around the opening door. I decided that the skeletons could move 1 each round, but not more than 1 space from starting potions. otherwise they would have made one attack the entire battle. The party wasted a large number of attacks on them - eventually overcoming the threshold 7 times. when the dragon finally breathed on them, they were reduced to 0 Attack bonus and quit even trying to attack.

The Dragon got hit with walking wounded, which really limited its mobility, and it was only able to damage 2 party members seriously. The Doom Sphere was avoided carefully, and made only a single attack the entire battle. It was a huge tactical concern for both dragon and PCs. Both sides spent a lot of time trying to force others into bad positions. It was the centerpiece of the battle.

They had the dragon past bloodied after 10 rounds, but I felt the players would have felt robbed of the kill if it just vanished. So I extended the fight to 14 rounds, and they finally killed it, and took the head as a trophy.

2 problems with the ball: I moved it 12 each round instead of 24. Secondly it became very predictable, as the track divided evenly by 12. So it always stopped at the same place. Increasing the speed to 13 would have added more randomness - although realizing it was taking double moves each round might have made the speed so fast that this would matter less.

The party loved the adventure, even with the grind at the end.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I thought that the trapping mirrors would be too much, so I decided that the oubliette could only hold one person at a time - one goes in, one goes out. The gnoll comes out when the first party member is trapped, then when the second party member is trapped they get some idea about what is actually happening and realise that they don't want to kill the gnoll, they want to trap him - which the burly dragonborn fighter eventually manages to do.

For the rest of it, I allowed them to play 'averting their eyes' which effectively gave them -4 to hit and -4 to all their defences - which made the skeletons a more credible threat, but kept them safe from the mirrors. I made the handprint a deactivater for the mirrors to turn them off for a while after someone had successfully reached the altar.

Cheers

 

[iyalovoi]

My experience

Just want to share my experience with you guys.
Well of Demons was the most interesting part of the whole adventure. I and my players like 3 test room (blade, mask and bell). Party consist of paladin (defender), ranger (striker), warlock (striker), warlord (leader) and invoker(controller). "HALL OF ENFORCED INTROSPECTION" wasn't hard at all. Paladin was teleported to the oubeliette of empty mind, but he succeed to warn party about danger pillars, so all the rest party went with closed eyes to the altar in the chamber's western end by rule of left hand. There, they defeated two boneshard skeletons and took the mask. The funy is that, elf ranger decide to wear this mask, after she found out that it give darkvision.
HALL OF THE CRIMSON WHIP was a bit harder. Party decide, that paladin should go by himself only, other party will only cover him by range attacks (ranger, warlock, invoker) and support (warlord), since he has great defences, resistances, lots of hp and hs. Elf ranger disabled first minotaur statue. Paladin used athletic skill to jump as much as he could. Paladin almost didn't take damage from blood pool, since he has 5 poison resistance, as well as from statue and evistro because of his 24 AC. He didn't fight with them, just leave area using double moves, while other party support him and attack enemies from platform.
HALL OF THE HOWLING PILLARS most the most fun from three trials. Random effects of pillars was exciting, because of different effects and good descriptions. Whole party started the fight with demons. Pillars do not have much effect except screaming warp, which was aslo funy due to it's random nature. After several rounds party took position in which almost all pillars attack can't reach them, so they killed all demons and took treasure, bell.
PROVING GROUNDS disappointed me. Party found out that green pool give resistance 5 to poison, so guardians ongoing damage didn''t work. Also, party was aware of traps, so they decided to not split. They used ropes to place all items on magic circles, while whole party was in center of proving grounds wating for something from hole in the floor (its also obvious). Guarding was not chalenging, because he can't make any formidable damage (ongoing poison didn't work, his attacks only 1d8+5), also he has low defences 21/17/19/17 and 260 hp. Party lay down him for three rounds using daily powers, action points, encounter powers. The only great opportunity of guardian was to throw down character to the pint using Luring Glare, but he failed it.
PS English is not my native language, so excuse me for my mistakes.

 

[LightPhoenix]

I'm in the middle of running it even now. It's pretty cool. My group has made it through the ghostly encounter, the hall of introspection, and the bloodwhip room. That was nasty!

<snip>

For the blood room, I used red felt for the pools and set dungeon tiles on top of it. I spraypainted some old Mage Knight minotaurs gray for the statues. The characters hooked grapples to the horns and shimmied across, and when the traps were sprung people were falling in blood and battling evistros all over the place. About half of the party dropped and I was being nice. No TPK's or anything though, I'm looking forward to running the rest of the encounter. I made howling pllars out of cut up army men and hot glue, and I'm excited to see how they look when I drybrush them with a flesh tone. Hopefully the players think they're cool. Happy to post the rest here if anyone cares.

The other encounters went pretty easily for them--the rogue had Water walking put on him and he just ran in, grabbed the dagger parts and ran out of the Blood room. And the Pilar room they had no issues with (besides missing the hidden treasure there).

HALL OF THE CRIMSON WHIP was a bit harder. Party decide, that paladin should go by himself only, other party will only cover him by range attacks (ranger, warlock, invoker) and support (warlord), since he has great defences, resistances, lots of hp and hs. Elf ranger disabled first minotaur statue. Paladin used athletic skill to jump as much as he could. Paladin almost didn't take damage from blood pool, since he has 5 poison resistance, as well as from statue and evistro because of his 24 AC. He didn't fight with them, just leave area using double moves, while other party support him and attack enemies from platform.

As a player, I can say that my group was incredibly aggravated by the Crimson Whip room. For my group, they stayed at the door while my Wizard "ghetto flew" with Levitate to grab the items and Mage Hand so he didn't have to come down. The others tried at first to jump across the islands, but some bad rolls and some bad guys put a stop to that real quick. If we had actually bothered to fight the demons, it would have been bad... maybe not TPK, but bad.

The rest of the rooms we had a lot of fun with.

 

[yagyuninja]

I'm running the Hall of the Crimson Whip this weekend and I'm pretty excited, mostly because I got some Goristros to be the statues. I think I'll use the felt for blood too, that seems like a cool idea.

It sounds like it works pretty well, but I'm not quite sure how I'm going to modify it for my larger group (7 players). I'm thinking of making one or two of the Evistros elite, but perhaps this encounter is tough enough without bumping up the threats. If you've played through it, it would be great to get some input before my game.

 

[wedgeski]

As a player, I can say that my group was incredibly aggravated by the Crimson Whip room. For my group, they stayed at the door while my Wizard "ghetto flew" with Levitate to grab the items and Mage Hand so he didn't have to come down. The others tried at first to jump across the islands, but some bad rolls and some bad guys put a stop to that real quick. If we had actually bothered to fight the demons, it would have been bad... maybe not TPK, but bad.

Just DM'd my own group through this room last week. They played it very tentatively at first, and the Rogue started showing off with his awesome acrobatics to reach the plinths about 10 squares ahead of his compatriots, who next round proceeded to activate all three of the hidden demons.

Suffice to say we all thought the Rogue was a goner, and he was two death saves down before the Fighter managed to get over to him and stuff a healing potion down his throat.

Tense, very exciting, and very dangerous room. Everyone loved it.