A lot of adventure

[MerricB]

At present, my fortnightly Sunday afternoon is proceeding towards the end of P1, King of the Trollhaunt Warrens. Looking back over the adventure - and indeed, the campaign of all the H series - I'm realising just how much adventure there is in each of the new Wizards adventures.

Now, if you don't like combat, you're not going to think they're that good. Thankfully, I have a group who really enjoys combat, but also takes advantage of the roleplaying opportunities that are there. (I'm going to be fascinated by what happens in P2). Some actions have really amused me: in one encounter, they negotiated with a dragon and promised it a gift. In a later encounter, they Intimidated a Galeb Duhr into surrendering. The gift to the dragon? It ended up being the Galeb Duhr as a servant! (Great for enlarging lair, that sort of thing).

Combats are now taking us in the realm of 40-60 minutes for each one; closer to the 40 minutes except for really big ones. The "grindiness" of a few early combats has eluded us for the most part. Instead, these paragon-level characters are well-built and use teamwork brilliantly, dismembering opposing forces with ease - mostly. Every so often, their enemies start ripping into them and we get something a lot tougher than they were expecting.

The final encounter with the Troll King? It could have gone better for the Troll King.

We've played six sessions of this adventure so far, and I'd say it'll take another 2 or 3 to finish. Sessions are in the 3-5 hour mark in general, although there have been a couple of shorter ones recently due to other events and natural break points. Say we've taken 20 hours of play to reach this far, with another 8-10 to finish the adventure. That's been typical of all the adventures in the series. I originally balked a bit at the price of the new adventures, but they've repaid me with a lot of fun adventuring.

Most disappointing was H3, which offered a lot but didn't quite come together. H1 and H2 were good and I think that we could have done a lot more with them; both have home bases that offer much in the way of expansion, which really helps an adventure IMO. (H3 doesn't have a home base, which hurt it terribly. P1 has the dungeon too far away from the home base for the home to be too important).

Meanwhile, my homebrew Greyhawk game has the characters just approaching Paragon levels, and I'm now introducing nobles and the like as important NPCs the PCs will interact with as they become People of Power.

Good fun!

 

[Rechan]

I'm surprised you're going with P2 instead of Revenge of the Giants. I guess you really want to run through all the modules, instead of deviating with the big gnarly giants, huh?

 

[MerricB]

I'm surprised you're going with P2 instead of Revenge of the Giants. I guess you really want to run through all the modules, instead of deviating with the big gnarly giants, huh?

LOL.

Actually, I really like where the next few P and E adventures will be taking the group. Revenge will - with any luck - get played at some point. Of course, it has to arrive here first. (It might get here tomorrow).

Cheers!

 

[Connorsrpg]

Our group has just started the Trollhaunt. In fact the party have just arrived in Moonstair.
It is set in Dark Age England (a very fantastical version of course). We started at paragon level, so this is first main module, though we player most of H2 and the players seemed to really like it.

Not sure about all this 'there is no roleplaying' in modules - you mostly add that yourself in my xp. In fact I have already added several intrigues. The mayor and Bax actually betrayed the missing prince and allied with the Mercians set to overrun this Briton realm of Rheged. PCs were sent to deal with trolls whilst rest of realm going to war with the Angles. When they leave the Trollhaunt the Briton South Rheged will be no more.

In fact, I still use an old article from "Dragon" where you roll random parts to add to adventures: inc help, hindrances, gifts, complications, etc.

Glad to hear you liked the module and the fights weren't too bad. I was worried with a lot of fights with trolls. Have run a delve involving them and they seemed to take a long time.

Any tips for DMing the Trolls whilst it is fresh in your mind?

Cheers, C

 

[MortalPlague]

Any tips for DMing the Trolls whilst it is fresh in your mind?

Seconded. I'll be watching this space for a reply! I really enjoyed reading through Trollhaunt, and I'd love to run it at one point for one of my groups. Moonstair seems like a really neat town, at the very least, with some great opportunities for roleplay.

 

[Connorsrpg]

I noticed a lot of the trolls are referred to as 'warren trolls' in the adventure (merely trolls from MM +2 levels (and a bite I think)).

I have already gone through the module and randomly swapped several warren trolls. I made a list of possible substitutes from others sources I had (all should be on the compendium), but now my warren also has some normal trolls (ie weaker ones for variation), war trolls and several varieties from the Delve from DDI featuring another troll king at 11th level. (Some that have nasty bites, some that grab and throw enemies and troll minions).

I love mixing up the types...and randomness. All still came in at a similar encounter level, though I ma happy to give encounters that vary in level. One thing I like to add to adventures are some very easy and the odd very hard encounter. Modules (understandably - being written for a wider audience) don't vary much on this.

I now have to go through and modify the trogs (if I have other stats).

PCs finished last Friday clearing out the gate way, after the goliath barbarian smashed through the gate in one hit! (He was very happy to finally have a good use for his power that lets him x2 damage vs objects).

I believe I had changed one warren troll to a fell troll (or whichever troll has the nasty bite attack). Made it a lot easier distinguishing the trolls and PCs really hated that guy. All went well - PCs have brought alchemical fires to dowse fallen trolls. Overall it was a fun fight - I drew up the map on photocopied grid paper (something I am definately ging to do more of), but I wished I had used the terrain more (other that just the ledge).

egs: picking up pieces of fallen gate, torches on the walls, minor cave-ins, and especially the river.

Cheers, C

 

[Connorsrpg]

So Merric - has your group gone further into the warrens? How is it panning out.

Our group seems to enjoy the adventure, though last session was really one big fight. Seems to take us forever. But we do have 6 PCs (and as Dm I played one as NPC) and some are quite new to the idea. Still seems to take a long time though.

Still the fights were enjoyable. The PCs went into the Skullpile cave and attacked the crazy troll. (The bear protected its food for some time, but eventually got mad and attacked). The troll went down easy. (My group don't have fire spells, but stocked up on alchemical fire and one has a flaming dagger to deliver the killer blow). So my fears for fighting trolls have been allayed for now. The fireskulls caused a little bit of havoc, but if our ranged guys had have focused more on them, instead of the big guys, I am sure it would have went smoother. The bear took forever to bring down.

At the end of the battle, before the PCs could complete their short rest a hunting party of trogs came into the cave (after seeing the destruction in the cave entrance). They attacked, but quickly tried to flee as they were completely outclassed by the PCs. All but one were brought down.

I like giving the PCs an easy fight too. Helps them feel powerful (which at 11th level they are - highest we have run a campaign).

Connors

 

[MerricB]

We're finished! Our last session was missing Josh, so it was 3 PCs plus an NPC (Splug) against the six Feywild encounters - and we finished it in three hours!

Boy, my group is good.

(There's a short overview of the session linked in my signature).

A couple of role-playing notes:

There are no humans in my party. Skalmad kept calling the party "humans". It really annoyed them (Skalmad just couldn't distinguish, so called everyone human). Good fun!

It's hard building a rapport in Moonstair; the party really aren't there enough.

During the warren sessions, I used "random encounters" at times (especially when the party retreated) to give the sense of the warrens being active; so, trolls getting behind the party and attacking.

I didn't add encounters into the Feywild/Wilderness portions of the adventure (a bit pressed for time), but they'd help a lot with giving the sense of scale the adventure needs.

Cheers!

 

[Connorsrpg]

Whoah! 6 Enc in the night!

Read blog post. Thanks. I like reading other DMs' takes on the same adventures. (Does anyone know of a thread that has a lot of DM tid bits, rather than story, for the Trollhaunts?).

I wish we could move more faster. Perhaps I need to do more too.

As a DM, are there any ticks yo use to 'fly' through the encounters. Is Splug an NPC (monster stat) write-up, or full choices of a PC?

I have even drawn all battle maps ahead of time, but might need to do more study on monster owers beforehand (but it seems so easy with the new statblocks).

To the players' credit, there is a bit of RP during battles, (which is 'good slowing down' . But we are still far too slow resolving powrs, etc.

C

 

[MerricB]

Splug is a full writeup. I have the character sheet builder open on my laptop when we play the game with Splug on it, but mostly he just uses his At Will powers (which are still doing something like 1d6+3d8+13 damage a round!)

I occasionally miss his or monster powers, but it doesn't really matter that much. What matters is how good Adam and Nate are at shutting down monsters, allowing the damage to focus on one monster. The fewer combatants, the faster fights go. If three combatants can't have an effective action, then it goes faster - and then if the remaining opponent is slain, it'll be faster from then on!

They are particularly scary vs solo opponents.

Cheers!