Finished P3: Assault on Nightwyrm Fortress!

[MerricB]

Well, yesterday my group finished P3: Assault on Nightwyrm Fortress! We've now finished all the Heroic and Paragon adventures in the Wizards AP... next stop, E1: Death's Reach!

Unfortunately, E1 will start at the beginning of next year, as one of my key players is going to be away in Canada for the next few months, and it really wouldn't be a good idea playing it without him.

Shawn Merwin gave me a bunch of good ideas for expanding P3, but - alas - I wasn't able to use them due to the time pressure caused by Nathaniel going away. We only just made it as it was, but the final session, with four combats and a small amount of roleplaying and exploration, was enjoyed by all of us. The final encounter, with Nate's warlock locking down the Shadow Dragon (no standard actions for you!) was less lethal than it could have been... but I managed to make it entertaining enough so that Nate and Adam complimented me on how fun it was afterwards. (And I was worrying about how dull the last combat was!)

The adventure took place over 9 somewhat fortnightly sessions (a session is in the range of 3-5 hours). We began in the middle of April, so it's been a good portion of this year.

As with H3, the final adventure in the tier was the weakest. It had a great concept (unlike H3), and some excellent encounters throughout, but it needed Wizards to allow their designers to go beyond just battle after battle to become something worthy of what it could be.

I'm not unhappy to have run it, though. I'm looking forward for the Epic tier come 2011!

Cheers!

 

[JoeGKushner]

Did you use the Fiery Dragon counters or ?

 

[MerricB]

Did you use the Fiery Dragon counters or ?

I still have a couple thousand D&D Minis. I proxied a bit, but we got there.

The two dragons: Draconic Wraiths
Gargoyle + 2 Shadow Demons are Abyssal Zealots
Rakshasa is a Rakshasa
2 spiritfolk are more Rakshasa warriors.

The party:
Splug (goblin)
Shava (dragonborn cleric)
Underscore (human wizard)
Lienatan (eladrin warlock)
Orthos (goliath fighter)

Cheers!

 

[JoeGKushner]

I must spread xp around again!

Thanks for sharing. I always like seeing what other groups are doing.

And I do not recognize the Dragonborn cleric. Which set is that from? I thought I had them all but apparently I is missing one.

 

[OchreJelly]

Thanks for the report! It's interesting that we started this one around the same time, and you have completed it and my group is just starting The Teeth. Granted we typically play 3 hour bi-monthly sessions. Because of that I'm thinking of editing out some of the more repetitive encounters from the teeth. I just hate that feeling of being stuck in a single adventure for the better part of a year.

 

[the Jester]

Merric- What did you think of P3? It's one of the only two H-P-E modules I haven't picked up, and I've heard it's kind of repetitive and dull. I'd love to get some more opinions on it!

 

[LuckyAdrastus]

I'm curious what role Splug is playing in your campaign? Is he still a DM-controlled source of amusement, or is a PC playing him, or is a competent companion character using DMG2 rules, or what? Has he been hanging around with this campaign since H1? That'd be awesome!

I'm asking because I'm a fan of how people use/abuse the Splug/Meepo character in their campaigns.

 

[Obryn]

Thanks for the report! It's interesting that we started this one around the same time, and you have completed it and my group is just starting The Teeth. Granted we typically play 3 hour bi-monthly sessions. Because of that I'm thinking of editing out some of the more repetitive encounters from the teeth. I just hate that feeling of being stuck in a single adventure for the better part of a year.

Yeah, I'm nuking an encounter from every section.

- The weird positive/negative room in Porapherah's area
- The "omgscary" rakshasa thing in Vorst's
- The arguing ghosts in Dedanum's - combat-wise, anyway. They are noncombatants for me.
- Nothing from the Slaad one, but I'm switching out the lame hydra for a Heroslayer.

-O

 

[MerricB]

I'm curious what role Splug is playing in your campaign? Is he still a DM-controlled source of amusement, or is a PC playing him, or is a competent companion character using DMG2 rules, or what? Has he been hanging around with this campaign since H1? That'd be awesome!

I'm asking because I'm a fan of how people use/abuse the Splug/Meepo character in their campaigns.

Splug has been adventuring with the party since H1. I've statted him out (using the character builder) as a 20th level Goblin Rogue, although in combat he generally just uses an at-will. He's saved the group several times.

As we have 4 players, Splug makes up the 5th spot and allows me to avoid scaling encounters when everyone shows up.

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

Merric- What did you think of P3? It's one of the only two H-P-E modules I haven't picked up, and I've heard it's kind of repetitive and dull. I'd love to get some more opinions on it!

It's the weakest of the Paragon tier. Mind you, it came after the exceptional adventures of P1 and P2, so it had a lot to live up to.

The concept behind the adventure is brilliant. The execution isn't so much, and I'm pretty sure this is because Wizards wanted the adventures to be relatively simple for new players and a lot of hack'n'slash. There's some very enjoyable combats here, and some good non-combat encounters, but it very much feels like a linear hack'n'slash overall.

My group went "backwards" through the middle section of the adventure: they started at the top of the walls rather than the bottom and then hit each encounter area in reverse starting with the boss fight. When they hit the final (first) boss, they had about 3 encounters in the walls they didn't need to fight.

They also bluffed and intimidated their way past a number of encounters. "We've just come from your boss. He's sent us to help. Look, we have the ritual to close these gashes to the Far Realm!" That worked very well.

If there is a really weak point about the structure of this adventure, it's this: the premise of the adventure is that souls are disappearing and people can't get raised. So, you go to the stronghold of the being responsible for it and destroy them. Unfortunately, there isn't enough reinforcement of that central idea through the middle of the adventure. I'm not entirely sure how you'd do it, but reminders as to why you're on the adventure would be good, especially something that takes so long to complete.

I've written a lot more on the adventure here - it's probably worth reading that post.

However, the theme of the adventure is a lot stronger than H3.

If I were to rank the adventures so far, I'd put them from Best to Worst as: P2, P1, H1, H2, P3, H3.

Cheers!