Ancalagon
Dusty Dragon
And it was interesting.
I'll post the encounters below, but the short of it was that a thief (technically speaking, a warlock) stole an altar with a *god* in it (a very minor one, but still) and fled into a dangerous jungle. The party had to give chase before the tail grew cold or the warlock did something dangerous with the god.
The party (All level 7):
Monk (open hand)
Monk (drunken master)
Warlock (tome/topaz dragon, missed session 2)
Paladin (order of the ancient)
Cleric (knowledge, missed session 3).
This took about 3 sessions (of 3 hours each) to do. The party had a single rest during the adventure (plus one at the end). And... it seems to really had an impact on the "long rest" classes, esp the paladin, who was out of spells, out of lay of hands and had 15 hp rest after the big fight. He complained that this really advantaged the short rest classes, but I pointed out that the reverse advantaged *him* so...
So yes, 6-8 encounters/day DOES help with class balance. But even after doing this, I can't help but note that this narrative structure does not work for all adventures...
Encounter one. Ambush by intelligent spiders, a dozen of them (bullied into doing it by the warlock). The party tangled with them at level 3 and routed them. Still took a bit of damage, used a spell or two
Encounter 2: A clearing with an ancient runic path. The party decided to avoid
Encounter 3: The island. On the island there is a hermit who poisoned/enchanted the party to go to sleep, in order to cast a ritual on them to make them his slaves. This did not succeed properly and a fight ensued. Paladin wasted a lot of lay on hand here, and the monk was hit by the wraith-like powers of the hermit, losing 22 of her max HP - ouch!. Party takes a short rest.
Encounter 4: A sinkhole with a hidden Purple Worm in it. See http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...-Run-away!-quot-what-if-they-don-t&highlight=
At this point the paladin starting having trouble with his survival checks to track the warlock and ran into 2 random encounters:
Encounter 5: A deep ravine with sparkling water at the bottom. The warlock uses mage hand to grab a sample and the party moves on
Encounter 6: A jungle Ogre (they have excellent camouflage, but are just ogre) tries a "grab and run" ambush on a party NPC. The 2 monks give chase and beat it down.
Encounter 7: The party catches up with the Warlock - she has pulled the tiny god forth to ask it a question (this is the Beetle of Misplaced Memories, and the party forgot they had that altar....). She took no part in the battle, as she got her answer (not what she expected) and fled. However, her allies - chicken men (see http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2018/06/lay-little-egg-for-me.html but see bellow for stats) did not and engaged the party in battle and attempted to eat the Beetle God. The party was successful at fighting them, using Compelled Duel on the chief to pull him away from the altar.
This fight should have been a *joke* for the party (the chieftain was a reskinned veteran with 15 AC and 70 hp, there was a 40 hp shaman (a druid-ish character who managed entangle, fairy fire and feign death) and 6 tribes-chickenmen (reskinned thugs who also had javelins). But it was actually fairly difficult due to low resources.
Encounter 8. After regaining the altar and taking a second short rest, the party pushed on. They decided not to stop for the night after sun down but pressed to reach the city. They heard voices in the distance. The warlock, invisible, investigated but after falling into a pit trap, decided that these voices weren't worth it, and dimension-door-ed back the party.
I'll post the encounters below, but the short of it was that a thief (technically speaking, a warlock) stole an altar with a *god* in it (a very minor one, but still) and fled into a dangerous jungle. The party had to give chase before the tail grew cold or the warlock did something dangerous with the god.
The party (All level 7):
Monk (open hand)
Monk (drunken master)
Warlock (tome/topaz dragon, missed session 2)
Paladin (order of the ancient)
Cleric (knowledge, missed session 3).
This took about 3 sessions (of 3 hours each) to do. The party had a single rest during the adventure (plus one at the end). And... it seems to really had an impact on the "long rest" classes, esp the paladin, who was out of spells, out of lay of hands and had 15 hp rest after the big fight. He complained that this really advantaged the short rest classes, but I pointed out that the reverse advantaged *him* so...
So yes, 6-8 encounters/day DOES help with class balance. But even after doing this, I can't help but note that this narrative structure does not work for all adventures...
Encounter one. Ambush by intelligent spiders, a dozen of them (bullied into doing it by the warlock). The party tangled with them at level 3 and routed them. Still took a bit of damage, used a spell or two
Encounter 2: A clearing with an ancient runic path. The party decided to avoid
Encounter 3: The island. On the island there is a hermit who poisoned/enchanted the party to go to sleep, in order to cast a ritual on them to make them his slaves. This did not succeed properly and a fight ensued. Paladin wasted a lot of lay on hand here, and the monk was hit by the wraith-like powers of the hermit, losing 22 of her max HP - ouch!. Party takes a short rest.
Encounter 4: A sinkhole with a hidden Purple Worm in it. See http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...-Run-away!-quot-what-if-they-don-t&highlight=
At this point the paladin starting having trouble with his survival checks to track the warlock and ran into 2 random encounters:
Encounter 5: A deep ravine with sparkling water at the bottom. The warlock uses mage hand to grab a sample and the party moves on
Encounter 6: A jungle Ogre (they have excellent camouflage, but are just ogre) tries a "grab and run" ambush on a party NPC. The 2 monks give chase and beat it down.
Encounter 7: The party catches up with the Warlock - she has pulled the tiny god forth to ask it a question (this is the Beetle of Misplaced Memories, and the party forgot they had that altar....). She took no part in the battle, as she got her answer (not what she expected) and fled. However, her allies - chicken men (see http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2018/06/lay-little-egg-for-me.html but see bellow for stats) did not and engaged the party in battle and attempted to eat the Beetle God. The party was successful at fighting them, using Compelled Duel on the chief to pull him away from the altar.
This fight should have been a *joke* for the party (the chieftain was a reskinned veteran with 15 AC and 70 hp, there was a 40 hp shaman (a druid-ish character who managed entangle, fairy fire and feign death) and 6 tribes-chickenmen (reskinned thugs who also had javelins). But it was actually fairly difficult due to low resources.
Encounter 8. After regaining the altar and taking a second short rest, the party pushed on. They decided not to stop for the night after sun down but pressed to reach the city. They heard voices in the distance. The warlock, invisible, investigated but after falling into a pit trap, decided that these voices weren't worth it, and dimension-door-ed back the party.
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