Thunderspire Labyrinth

[Nebulous]

You know what i would love to see? Someone who has run or is running the whole H/P/E series, and has read ahead into the current modules released, and they sit down and brainstorm plot seeds to spread throughout the entire arc to tie them together. I can do this partially, but i'm skipping Pyramid myself, and i haven't read Trollhaunt or Demon Queen very closely. It will take us a long, long time to get that far.

 

[Verys Arkon]

I too have been trying to link the adventures together a little more clearly.

I've decided that I'll use the Ashen Covenant (from Dragon) as one of the campaign's reoccurring villainous organizations, with their goal being Orcus' eventual overthrow of the Raven Queen. Since Kalarel as a scion of Orcus, it was easy to add after I was halfway through TM.

I removed a few of the demons from Well of Demons' final battle with Scarmaker and added a few undead instead, including a mad wraith with a symbol of Orcus. Scarmaker was getting the secrets from the Well of Demons for Paldemar, and he sent some undead to assist. I've been toying with some sort of alliance with Yeenoghu - perhaps as shock troops or as a destraction? In a future adventure I would have the PCs either confront the forces of Yeenoghu, or get him to betray Orcus (shouldn't be hard - he seems to betray everyone eventually).

I've kept Paldemar as a worshiper of Vecna, who is working with the covenant to uncover the location of the Pyramid of Shadows. Paldemar is working on his machine, but instead of taking over the warders in TM, it will draw all the knowledge from the Mages of Saruun, as an offering to Vecna in exchange for the secrets of the Pyramid of Shadow. In hindsight, it may have been better to change him to another follower of Orcus. I'm not sure Vecna would help Orcus, despite them both being related to the undead.

Kalarel was drawn through the portal at the end of KotS IMC, so I've had him resurected into a half-dead reoccuring villain (think Chronicles of Ridic necromonger). He will be at the final battle in the Tower of Mysteries, but will make an escape though a portal to the Shadowfell - will the PCs follow? Don't know!

I'm recasting Karavakos as a general who lead the undead through the rift under KotS that the Ashen Covenant wishes to free from his imprissonment. I'm moving the actual pyramid to the Shadowfell itself (got to make use of the MotP!), as a domain of dread.

I can see sometime in the future of the campaign an adventure around the rebuilding of the Keep on the Shadowfell.

I'm not sure how I'm going to incorporate the P-series of adventures. Perhaps I'll just homebrew after that, or use some of the Dungeon adventures that I can link more easily than P1+.

 

[Enforcer]

We've been enjoying it so far. I do think the module suffers mechanically from the utter lack of minions though. It's just fun to mop up some guys sometimes. Since we just added a 6th PC (held as a slave in the Horned Hold), I'm going to sprinkle some minion guys in for fun and extra XP.

 

[Blastin]

here is a link to a very well done conversion for H1 and H2. He links them together with the cult of Orcus. It's on a PDF. Lots of great ideas, I think he did a remarkable job with it.

H1-H3: Demon Prince of Undeath Conversion - Wizards Community

 

[The Antra]

I second Blastin´s suggestion. Myrdraak did a very cool job linking the adventures in the Gleemax forums. His PDF not only does the job (and looks cool too), but he´s been updating the whole thing every time a new module is released.

I´ll be starting my campaign with the modules and my intention is to follow the whole run (H, P and E), but I´ll definitely use his work to link everything up.

Cheers!

 

[Soel]

Id like to see your Bulezau conversion - I have 3.5 stats from Dragons Demonomicon article, and was considering converting them.

Very cool Dretch! Here's my Bulezau...

Bulezau
level 3 Brute Xp 150
Initiative +2
HP 54 Bloodied 27
Resist 10 variable (1/enc)
AC 15 Fort 16 Ref 12 Will 13
Speed 6
Basic Melee - Glaive +7 vs AC; 1d10 +4 damage,

Battle Frenzy - (standard; recharges when Bulezau takes damage the Bulezau makes two basic attacks at +2 to hit and 2[w)damage (+9 vs AC; 2d10 +4 dmg)

Bloody Gore - (Immediate Reaction; when bloodied +5 vs Fort; 1d8 +4 dmg, and the target is pushed 1 square, and the Bulezau can shift 1 square.

Str 17; Dex 13; Con 20
Int 11; Wis 12; Cha 14

 

[Evilhalfling]

St Valentines Day Massacre (horned hold day 2)

well total party capture anyway, they are slavers after all.

**going to bed, details later**

The party hid out having killed everything but the last two encounters. The duegar thought they were too weak to try and reclaim the fortress from the invaders, (and if they did it would waste all the cool terrain in the last 2 rooms).
A surviving scout saw the party coming and alerted the last two rooms. The party dithered on choosing which one to enter first, so Murkuel had his men open the door. They got him all the way down to 20hp, but his healing recharged twice and he got out his exit, leaving a expanded guard to block the door. The Theurge got pinned in the bathtub by the party Thief, who made every attempt to drown him. before giving up and stabbing him to death.

From about the fourth round, Surina was mostly holding the door closed against the dwarves trying to barge in. The door finally gave way, just as the Murkuel escaped. The fight against the second group slowly started to turn against our heroes, the elite Theurge was not going down, and the last guard lasting 3 rounds with 5 hp, while the PCs ran out of encounter and daily powers. The spined devils could not hit to save their lives, mostly due to poor target choice.

Although Murkuel's healing failed a lot of recharges he returned to the fight with 70hp. He began smashing down the PCs one at a time. By the time he went was slain it was too late for the rest of the party, and they were finished off by the Elite theurge, his devils and a single surviving dwarf from the day before. One devil was unwounded, but the other 3 enemies had all been bloodied.

At this point the PCs could have had their throats slit, and it would have been a TPK.
This would have ended the campaign and the next game would be a return to 3.5.

So instead the theurge killed only Surina and then tried to take the others captive. It took slightly longer than 5 minutes to get the PCs tied up, allowing a recharge of powers and PCs awakening with 1 hp.
The elf rogue was able to escape, and fled with the healthy devil following. A skill challenge allowed him to escape. The NPC they had come to rescue used a healing word on the warlord and she was able to escape as well. They armed the kitchen slaves with crossbows and massed fire was able to bring down the devils, while the rouge bushwacked the theurge and dropped him into the water pit.

Both theurges were allowed to bleed out in water, by the rogue. I hadn't noticed.

They rescued the other slaves, including a elf beserker that they been offered a reward for when he was sold to the Bloodreavers, before the PCs set foot in the Labyrinth. He was immediately tagged the Paycheck Barbarian.

 

[Klaus]

I'll be tearing Thunderspire apart and using the locations for separate adventures. I'll probably turn the Horned Hold into a tiefling-controlled fortress with devil minions, or a Hobgoblin fortress. Dunno yet.

 

[legiondevil]

My group has just finished the Well of Demons, the final encounters went well. Smoothly for them, even.

Party Composition (All 6th Level)
Drow Warlock (Dark Pact)
Eladrin Wizard (Orb)
Human Cleric of Tempus (Strength-based)
Minotaur Fighter (Battlerager)
Halfling Rogue (Artful Dodger)

Blood Pool Room
The PC's had the most trouble with this room out of all of the four they went through last night. The lashing statues kept them in the blood and savaged by the Evistro who were continually getting cover by going underneath the blood. Once the PC's figured out they could break the statues and destroyed the Eastern one, however, the tempo swung fully back into their favor.

The Drow Warlock went down during this fight, and the Rogue went down for a round when she ended up flanked by two of the demons. If I were to run this encounter again, I think I would have held off on the Western Evistro's entrance into the combat until a character was riding across the blood on a Tenser's disk after the players disabled the second statue with Magic Missle and Eldritch Blast.

Pillar Room
The PC's destroyed this room with very little difficulty. The Wizard kept the two northernmost Evistro back through repetitive use of Thunderwave and orb-sustained Icy Rays while the rest of the party cut through the other demons with a barely restrained vengeance for the troubles they were given in the previous room. Once the Barlgura was marked by the Fighter, it was all over.

The rogue did end up losing her save against the Dagger from the Blood Pool room, however, and shanked one of the party members (dropping him to negatives). She was thumped unconscious and restrained until the end of the counter...thankfully for her, she only lost the save on the next to last round of the combat.

If I ran this room again, I would have used the Barlgura's climb speed more judiciously, moving him past the front line of fighters and back to the squishy second-line sooner.

Dragon Room
The PC's pulled out of all the trapped rooms in their first two rounds, only suffering from one crossbow shot, and one scare. The elemental vortex missed the rogue, and they gathered up in the skeleton room. The Cleric kept the skeletons out of the fight by continually hitting them with radiant damage, and the others walled up against the western door of that room and played "tempt fate" with the dragon.

Righteous Rage of Tempus + Fighter Daily Power + Walking Wounded = Bad Time for the skirmisher dragon. Even though the dragon managed to drop the rogue, no lasting damage was inflicted on the party.

Were I to run this one again, I would have had the dragon take a hit from the Doom Sphere to use his Luring Gaze to pull someone out into the hallway with him, and then savage them horribly.

Maldrick Scarmaker
This room was a little tricky.

The Wizard and his Master's Wand of Magic Missile's helped out a lot, pushing an Evistro into one of the bubbling cauldrons. The Fighter tanked the skeleton AND the Barlgura by hitting the skeleton with a power that kept it marked until the end of the combat, and then ignoring its melee attacks and focusing on the Demon.

The Warlock bounced back and forth between melee and range cursing targets and hoping for their death, while Maldrick kept the group away with one of his at-will's. After the first villager died, the wizard had the bright idea of getting the other villager out of the circle by pushing it with a magic missile (due to the Wand's power). Unfortunately, this killed the villager and ruined Maldrick's plan anyway.

Eventually, the fight came down to Maldrick and one Evistro against the group. And, I got to pull the move I asked about earlier on the forums. He hit the minotaur with Infernal Moon's Curse and levitated him, then the Evistro pushed him over the cauldron. That round, the PC's killed Maldrick and the minotaur fell into the bubbling pot of evil. The damage drove him to 2 HP, and the damage from the beginning of his turn put him deep into negatives.

A Healing Word saved him after they tipped the pot over, however. If I ran this one differently, I would have had Maldrick move into more of a floating melee role, despite his artillery role. With his tail strike and his powerful warlock abilities, he'd be much better in a mixed-melee with the other monsters.

Welp, hope that was helpful!

 

[legiondevil]

And tonight, the group runs through the final encounters in Thunderspire, leading up to and including Paldemar. I'll try and get a post up after game, and if not, first thing in the morning.