KotS adjustment *spoiler*

[f.e.n]

Tallarn- Splug is definitely being calculated as xp, just not for the encounter xp. This will allow me to adjust his worth depending on how much damage he really does or how threatening (or non-threatening) he is during the battle. It also will look like (*,*** encounter xp + *** splug xp = total, allowing me to altar the encounter xp for the extra player character as if nothing were different, THEN adding in splug as it is more or less an 'unplanned' difficulty. And you know, splug may help out in the beginning until the group looks like it will pull through. When he sees the pc's struggling, that's when he'll decide this is the best opportunity to free himself from captivity.

I'm just wanting them to group around Kalarel, so I can have the wight come down and scare them all through the portal. It'd be a cheap shot, but absolutely and totally awesome. Though, I think that's the reason the module says the wight will stay out of melee and just use ranged attacks.

That is borderline outrageous. I love it. I was planning on having the wight stay near the pit using his 25 square range to haggle pc's until one of them decided to charge over there to take care of him. Then have the wight run around and scare the pc into the pit (60 foot drop!). The book doesn't actually say what it takes to get out of the pit. so i'll assume that if the fall doesn't kill a pc, the wights ranged attacks (causing immobilization) will make it nearly impossible to get out.

I cannot wait to hear from you after the big encounter tonight. I wouldn't mind hearing how well received kalarel is and what you did to make him as 'hate-worthy' as possible.

Also, still haven't heard from anyone that has finished KotS and how they handled the final encounter. Thanks for the input guys.

 

[legiondevil]

My players would kill me if i tried that! And undoubtedly come up with myriad arguments how it shouldn't/couldn't work, some which may even be valid.

That is borderline outrageous. I love it. I was planning on having the wight stay near the pit using his 25 square range to haggle pc's until one of them decided to charge over there to take care of him. Then have the wight run around and scare the pc into the pit (60 foot drop!). The book doesn't actually say what it takes to get out of the pit. so i'll assume that if the fall doesn't kill a pc, the wights ranged attacks (causing immobilization) will make it nearly impossible to get out.

Well, they would get a save in the last square to fall prone and prevent the forced movement into hazardous terrain. So there's that much going for them. All but one of them are playing the pre-gens still though...so there won't be any emotionally attached hissy fits.

As far as climbing out of the pit, if someone is stuck down there and the wight is being left unmolested, I see their death arriving very shortly. If not, (and I'm just working from recollection here) I could see a skeleton warrior leaping into the pit to his doom, only to be reanimated by the wight to solo-fight the PC that got trapped (If the wight's reanimate has range enough for it).

 

[TrainedMunkee]

Tpk

I'm running a mixed group of veteran RPGers and newbs. We have been putting off running 4e, so the players are still getting used to their roles in the party and 4e in general.

In the encounter as the PCs are leaving Winterhaven, I had a TPK. The combo of the wyrmpriest and dragonshields killed them pretty quick.

I don't pull any punches as a DM and I'm somewhat of a strategist. The Dragonshields would surround one character, with wyrmpriest support and then move on to the next. I used terrain and other things also, but the above combo was deadly to them.

They rolled up a new party and this time decided to include a cleric and a paladin in the group. The last group was all strikers and defenders.

I'm allowing their former characters to become captured slaves. I let one of the characters escape back to winterhaven where he joined the new group at the tavern after a night and day of rest.

They left town in search of his captured buddies, at which point they ran into the same group, I had no losses in last encounter.

They handeled the group much better this time, but the former characters had been transported already.

More Later
Space

 

[Dreadite]

Regarding the TPK from the kobolds... why exactly are they acting like tactically sound soldiers? Kobolds are craven little buggers at best, and stupid as given (negative or 0 int and low Wisdom modifiers suggest to me that these guys aren't going to be highly practiced military units.) It always seems to me that the game is better served by having weak monsters be less tactically sound, so that when the PCs hit real threats they can feel the difference. Not saying there's not room in the game for the DM to really play strategically sound, but some pulled punches give the story added entertainment value, plus they leave the players a little less prepared for when you actually take the gloves off for the "boss".

Then again, my (two man...) party has basically stormed through to Irontooth thanks to our paladin NEVER ROLLING ANYTHING UNDER 20. The man's a critical hit machine; he's rolled one attack that wasn't a crit in five encounters. >< I'd question it, but we're using Maptool and the random number generator dice don't lie. Kord favors him.

Irontooth on the other hand, is going to make mincemeat of my group I think. They're exceptionally overconfident since the dice have been treating them well.

 

[Griogre]

I'm still running KotS also online. On how much to add to a encounter because of a 6 man party, if you are comfortable with the level of the encounter then just increase the XP budget by the amount of one monster of that encounter level. IE for a 3rd level encounter add 150 the amount of a 3rd level monster. It's the same as averaging like you are doing but probably easier to do on the fly.

I have done this for all the encounters, except for the Irontooth one, which TPKed them anyway. That encounter had made me nervous so I made them use the pre-gens and now they are running their own characters but I ran a fair amount of “extra” encounters using the side trek and FR conversion to let them "catch up" after the TPK and changed the storyline a bit.

 

[Mad Hamish]

Obryn- I can see a party of level 4 players doing well in this fight. My party consists of level 3 rogue, wizard, warlock, cleric, paladin, and a level one fighter. (I've killed two people so far, so the cleric and paladin just barely reached 3) So i think they will struggle much more than your party. The fighter might hit level 2 before the final fight against kalarel.

I guess i'm doing the adjustments correctly then? Still would love to hear how the final encounter actually plays out. It's so dastardly.

I wouldn't give a full additional amount for the 6th character seeing as he's 2 levels below the rest of the party.
He's not going to be punching at the same weight as the rest of the party so if you add additional monsters assuming that he is I think you'll really hurt their chances on a tough fight.

 

[burntgerbil]

Why would you even have a first level character in there ? He's simply outclassed.

My experience with that has either been the character avoiding combat (that mathematically, he should not participate in) or him showing all of his valor and facing monsters that have no trouble hitting him and bloodying him in a single hit.

I don't understand your logic and I have trouble understanding why the player would accept this. Has he never played d&d before ? Are you prepared to create a string of first level characters until you bump him up to party level ? I had thought there was plenty of guidelines for this in the DMG, keeping the party level the same across the board. I hear that many groups (mine included) have a single xp total now. It makes us worry much less about everything but having fun.

I apologize for sounding like a curmudgeon, but being the guy that far down the totem pole in 4e is no fun.

 

[f.e.n]

Mad Hamish- I have been weighing that out as I run through the encounter in my mind and have settled on not utilizing the full adjustment experience (270 xp worth of creatures). I plan on adding a skeleton warrior (150 xp) which will compliment the two already set for the encounter.

burntgerbil- I appreciate the concern and the thoughts. There was a lot of consideration for adding someone in this late into the campaign to begin with. The circumstances are challenging for both the individual player and the party, but they have stepped up to the plate and agreed to give it their best go. I believe part of your thinking is a derivative of 3.x in that a lowly first level is nothing special. From my experiences, 4th edition gives 1st level players considerable staying power and plenty of combat abilities. The irontooth encounter wasn't a tpk, but two pc's were killed. When they came back as level one, the rest of the party was level 2. That isn't to say that the gap hasn't become greater, but considering the entire party is now level 3, i see the new player catching up quite quickly if he/she manages to survive the last encounters.

The first level pc, soon to be second level (most likely before the final encounter) is a fighter with 30+hp. In comparison to his peers, he is missing +1 half-level bonuses (he will get these at second), a utility power (he will get this at two soon too), a third level encounter, and a feat. He can still act as second defender, provide combat advantage with tactical positioning, hold lesser threats with his challenge, meat shield to a degree, and/or protect the squishies from melee surge. Challenging? very much so. Impossible? i would say no.

I dm fairly black and white. My players pride themselves on overcoming the challenges. I realize this isn't for everyone. So your concern is duly noted. I of course, will report back next tuesday with the result. Than you can say i told you so, but until then, i have faith my pc's will do the best with what they have!

And as i type this, i believe legion devil is running this very encounter right now! So, excited to hear back from him tonight/tomorrow.

 

[legiondevil]

Well, it wasn't a TPK.

First Note: I decided to change the surviving Barbarian into a third skeletal warrior. Also I was replacing a player last night, as he is no longer able to make game. The cleric was eliminated halfway through the fight (Through fair rolls and tactics mind you, agreed upon by the party) and a wizard was freed from the bindings that held him to the alter as Kalarel's final necessary sacrifice to open the rift to the Shadowfell.

The group used rope to get down into the main chamber, giving those inside more than enough warning that something was going on (As if bull rushing the barbarian into it wasn't enough). The Fighter and Cleric hit the ground first (I allowed them a DC 15 Athletics/Acrobatics check to swing their section of the rope over the floor itself, so they wouldn't land in the blood. In the first round the wight immobilized the Paladin as he was climbing down the rope, and the Fighter and Cleric moved to try and fight through the skeletal warriors protecting Big K (I placed the third skeletal warrior over by the wight, to provide assistance for him).

It took several rounds for the group to finally get to Kalarel, when he teleported to the magic circle of evil the rogue (who was at the alter at the time) freed the poor bound wizard and the fighter and Paladin moved to intercept Big K. The ranger started ranged combat with the wight, and eventually Fey Stepped on top of the large statue of Orcus, to provide him with a better position to fire from.

Note: I think the largest damage dealer in the combat was Kalarel's ongoing necrotic damage from his rod. That it's 2d6+5 isn't near bad enough. but they tack on the ongoing 5 necrotic and that's just icing.

As the wight realized it was losing in the war of attrition with the Ranger, it moved to the circle to regain some hit points (The ranger was using Twin Strike almost exclusivly, and the regen from the circle would equal his average damage), and tried to scare a trio of the adventurers into the portal.

Sadly, he only hit one of them. Which was the Dwarf, and he reduced the shift by 1 putting him right at the portals edge. The Thing didn't do much in the encounter, succeeding on only 1 OA and 1 normal attack. I think if the dice were rolling better for him the fight would have ended in a TPK.

The Skeletal Warriors, no longer temporarily stopped by the clerics Turn Undead, proceeded to quickly and viciously tag team bull rush him through the portal. At that moment, the players understood what I was trying to do witht he wight, and good natured name-calling ensued. A round after this point, thankfully for the group, the wizard had recovered his wand from the stash under the alter and joined in.

After playing "Mark Swap" with the Paladin and the Fighter for a little bit, Big K decided to take a pithy amount of radiant damage and get the fighter out of the way. As he was finally bloodied by the Paladin's mark, he slammed into the Fighter and drove him to negatives (He's already used both his Dwarven Chain and his Second Wind). The Thing in the Portal finished him off, and that combined with the evil circle pushed Kalarel back into unBloodied territory.

The group was looking pretty grim at this point. Two bloodied Skeletal Warriors and a wounded-but-not-yet-Bloodied Kalarel remained. The Wight was finished off by the Ranger, and the third Skeletal Warrior dropped due to combined fire from the Rogue and earlier hits from the Fighter.

Then, Flaming Sphere decided to join the party.

And, much like a squad of drunken frat boys, it began to demolish everything in its sight.

The ongoing damage always exceeded the every round healing provided by the circle, and the attacks with it were brutal (2 crits against Kalarel, I believe. And 20+1d6 isn't nice at all!). When the sphere dropped, it made quick work of the remaining Skeletal Warriors, and then the Wizard switched to only sustaining it, and firing in artillery style at Kalarel with his At-Will's. The Rogue and the Paladin (who had his unconscious second wind activated at this point) moved to flank on Kalarel, always keeping him between them and the sphere on one of his other corners. The Ranger wasn't really adding anything to the fight at this point, as every attack from him then was a miss.

Kalarel dropped the Paladin, again (Negative Almost Bloodied) and the Rogue killed Kalarel, and used an action point to stabalize but not reive the Paladin, who thankfully saved against the ongoing necrotic damage.

And that was how my running of the combat went. Two PC's died, one was introduced fresh and full (had he not been, it would have been a TPK). The Dwarf's player is currently statting up a Cleric as we speak.

 

[TrainedMunkee]

They are Kobolds, they are not stupid. They don't want to die, just capture some slaves.

The TPK was actually do to stupid mistakes on the PC end. They all rushed the Dragonshields, including the soft targets. They left the Wrympriest alone and he sat back lobbed his killer ranged attack at them. I rolled well.