Thunderspire Labyrinth

[Evilhalfling]

Im running it for a three man group - but moved the adventure under a human city. I also planted a lot of hooks before getting near the hall. The PCs cleared the chamber of eyes, presenting the grand Duke with evidence of the Bloodreavers misdeeds. (Although for politcal reasons he has to ignore it.) They got a map to horned hold, but instead took off for the cisterns accompanied by a proffesional guide and a fanatic Dragonborn. There they are investigating the arrival of a gnoll tribe (from a forest PCs were responsible for burning down). Blackfang tribal gear and a few dead gnolls were found when a friend disappeared. Recently they heard gnoll barking echoing through the hallways. Not sure if they are checking the houses of silence or well of the demons next.

Warned by Enworld I created a lot of alternate links between sites, unfortunatly this means they are on edge of fighting the gnolls at 5th level.

The party's response to solving the cistern problem "Crap we did a good deed and no one is going to pay us. If we threaten to finish the job, maybe we can get blackmail money."

 

[OchreJelly]

This is a good adventure. I feel it's a bit more open to explore than KotSF. If the PC's feel like exploring there are plenty of sites and random encounters to use (especially if you use the DDI supplement like I did). You don't have to run it linearly either. For example, my PC's found a way to bypass the duergar and go straight for the gnolls.

As someone else posted the gnoll area is a really nice 1-level dungeon.

One quirk about this adventure is there are surprisingly few minion encounters. THis kinda threw-off my group because they assumed rooms where they were outnumbered had minions. Not so!

 

[Chaldfont]

Frankly, the Duergar are way tougher than their levels would indicate, so Level 6 sounds about right. They are nasty, nasty little guys with high defenses and dirty tricks.

(0) All duergar have those nasty beard quills. Minor action, decent damage, ongoing poison damage, and a lingering effect. Ewww...

(1) The Duergar Scouts will, generally, be able to use their Sneak Attack every other round or more. Their invisibility refreshes on, IIRC, They are damage machines.

(2) The Duergar Soldiers (Guards, maybe?) have really high defenses, hit a lot, and hit hard. Their ability to ignite is just icing on the cake.

(3) Theurges are insane... Their area attacks are huge; their allies are mostly immune to them; and the PCs will spend probably half the encounter blind, prone, or both.

(4) Shock Troopers are really the only somewhat overrated Duergar, although they hit insanely hard after growing to Large size.

Exercise caution. Also, a lot of the Duergar will retreat back with their buddies when they're losing. This makes future fights very, very difficult.... My group had to barricade themselves into a cleared Tower to get a quick night's rest, and escaped through a chimney when the Duergar started trying to smoke them out.

-O

This makes me really look forward to 6:00pm, which is when we start up our next session and will likely reach the Horned Hold tonight.

The beard quills are great. It invokes that player WTF?! that is the whole reason I'm a DM. I had one of these guys come around the back of the party and do this to the wizard. She freaked out until she remembered her Shield power. It was a great gaming moment.

 

[mac1504]

I'm running TS right now for my group- and I've been having a lot of fun running it. As most others have posted, the Seven Pillared Hall makes for a very interesting base, and my players seem to be enjoying the variety and the setting of it. I've been trying to create more plot points and social interactions in the Hall (I've been looking at it as an underground version of Deadwood). The players are in a bit of lurch now as they've run into the (almost) inevitable battle at the duergar trading post. Hopefully this will open up some roleplaying possibilities.

I created a miniature terrain piece of the Endless Stair (part of the Labyrinth) that I'm going to use in this weekend's game- but I haven't decided on what kind of encounter I'm going to run on it. I've also got to come up with a plan on transporting it, since it's over 40" tall and 30" long!

 

[Spreeth]

I agree with the sentiments of those who have written before me. Thunderspire is a superior module to KOTS. I ran a group of 6 players through it and it proved to be a difficult adventure for them. I nearly had a TPK toward the end of the adventure -- even with 6 players. Tactics become extremely important.

I also enjoyed the Seven Pillared Hall. I thought that Brugg made for a humorous recurring NPC.

My only gripe with the module (and with 4th edition modules thus far) is that it didn't have enough pre-fab'd maps.

 

[MacMathan]

So far it has been a been a great adventure for my group.

I find it expands the difficulty and assumed skill from KotS a bit, which is good imho.

I love the potential of the seven-pillared hall, lots of intrigues going on there that the players are just beginning to realize.

The players should hit the end of the Horned Hold tonight but Murklemor is ready for them so it could get ugly fast

 

[LostSoul]

I also enjoyed the Seven Pillared Hall. I thought that Brugg made for a humorous recurring NPC.

The fighter in my game got into a pit fight with Brugg in Rothar's. The fix was in; Rothar was doing stuff to help Brugg, the duergar were messing with the PC; it was pretty cool.

It would have been better if Brugg had more pit-fighting powers. I'd give him an At-Will that either Pushes 1 or allows him to swap places with the target. And maybe an encounter power that does lots of damage, pushes a few, and knocks the target prone.

Oh yeah, make sure that you add spiked walls (that Rothar can move out as an attack!), chains to swing from, a pit, and a tiger in a cage that Rothar can send out when he wants!

 

[Plane Sailing]

One big flaw that Thunderspire shares with KotS is

Spoiler

that the BBEG appears out of nothing at the end. Where is the foreshadowing?

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I think that the module as written relies somewhat too much on a railroad between the main encounter areas, which is a shame - it would have been stronger if it had been written so that the three main areas could be tackled in any order IMO, and if there were stronger links between BBEG's.

So far I've found it to be less interesting to run as a DM than KotS in a number of ways, as the background doesn't seem as rich.

(also it seems funny to me that

Spoiler

The Ordinator Arcanis (mage of Sarun) 'causes people to tremble'. Apparently in most cases the judgement of the Ordinator is swift, harsh and usually fatal... however with three encounter powers and magic missile it seems like his judgement would be a slow grinding down of people who can't quite hit him!

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Cheers

 

[Jack99]

(also it seems funny to me that

Spoiler

The Ordinator Arcanis (mage of Sarun) 'causes people to tremble'. Apparently in most cases the judgement of the Ordinator is swift, harsh and usually fatal... however with three encounter powers and magic missile it seems like his judgement would be a slow grinding down of people who can't quite hit him!

.

Cheers

That's because to the Ordinators, everyone is a minion!

 

[Thanee]

One big flaw that Thunderspire shares with KotS is...

Hmm... I thought in KotS there was plenty foreshadowing... when they got there, it wasn't exactly a surprise for the PCs (i.e. not “Oh, and who are you!?”).

Bye
Thanee