banewarrens(no spoilers) (no offense to my close personal friend monte cook)

[alsih2o]

well, i have just finished reading the banewarrens.

my group of newbies wishes to run in a "big adventure" after their first 2 one-shots and i had ordered it upon return from gencon.(i didn't have as much money at con as i thought i would)

i see no way my 4 newbie players can make it anywhere in this thing. i love the concept, ideas and presentation but i am worried it will just be too deadly.

has anyone run this for their group yet? how did vets handle it?

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Running it (modified for the Forgotten Realms). Yeah, it can be tough -- particularly sorting out the competing power groups and motivations (my group is really confused right now by all the possibilities -- see diaglo's story hour).

I'd get them started in something a little more traditional first to build their experience level (and at least get them up to 6th level) -- run a couple adventure path modules first, or maybe Return to the ToEE.

 

[darkbard]

i think olgar's response speaks for itself [but i'll be happy to chime in!]: if someone recommends tRttToEE as more survivable [or, at the least, more manageable], what does that say?!?

on the other hand, it's a brilliant adventure [though i've only read it, not run it]. you may want to check out the banewarrens forum over at montecook.com--in particular snowdog's excellent story hour with tons of useful perspective on how to deal with trouble spots in the adventure.

 

[EricNoah]

Yeah, it has been pretty tough going for a group I'm in. But it has also been a lot of fun. The dungeon has a clearly-defined purpose and that makes a lot of difference, plus there are forces working behind the scenes and appearing at various times to keep us on our toes. It's fun to experience as a player. I recommend that you use hero points or fate points or whatever you want to call them -- something that allows PCs to stave off death now and then.

 

[Yellow Sign]

I'd get them started in something a little more traditional first to build their experience level (and at least get them up to 6th level) -- run a couple adventure path modules first, or maybe Return to the ToEE.

I would NOT run a newbie group through RTTOEE!. It is a loooonng meat grider of a game with little roleplay and lots of hack and slash.

 

[Mystery Man]

It's very deadly, if the new players are still getting familiar with the rules, maybe some pre-adventure stuff leading to the banwarrens is in order using some elements from the module. The Pactlords are good, plus you'll build up some nice healthy hatred of that group. Having the "church" sending them questing. Some dubious encounters with the Pyramid, or whatever you change that to could build some good old fashioned suspicion. You can do a lot with this module just because its so large.


*spoilers*























.

My group just finished it last night! I ran a converted to FR version, heavily trimmed and changed to fit my campaign but stayed as true as I could to the flavor of the Banewarrens.

Highlights:

The battle in the chapel with Heth was about as epic as battles can get, had a blast with that one.

I was for sure they would have to fight Charch Pahn to get out of the Quann but they were able through some great roleplaying (and even better diplomacy roles) to smooth him into letting them go.

One of the deadliest encounters is a group of 8 wights with 4 levels of fighter each. Luckily the cleric was able to retain enough levels after combat to restore everyone.

I was going to make them get to Maleficite the hard way but thought what the hell. They had a blast with that Doomwalker. It made the final battle more epic I thought. The rogue finished with a crit using one of its arms.

All in all it took the entire summer to complete. Lots of fun.

 

[dave_o]

well, i have just finished reading the banewarrens.

my group of newbies wishes to run in a "big adventure" after their first 2 one-shots and i had ordered it upon return from gencon.(i didn't have as much money at con as i thought i would)

i see no way my 4 newbie players can make it anywhere in this thing. i love the concept, ideas and presentation but i am worried it will just be too deadly.

has anyone run this for their group yet? how did vets handle it?

Run it for your Tuesday night game.

 

[Darkness]

Mystery Man said: *spoilers*

Hey, you might want to use our spoiler tag:

Spoiler

quote post to see the code.

 

[alsih2o]

Run it for your Tuesday night game.

oh, yeah!

your second level selves would get squished hard

besides, you have a crazed antislavery druid and 12,000 andgry plains warriors to deal with before idien shows up on the southern front.

 

[Maldur]

My run of the banewarrens ended in a TPK down there somewhere, in a way that the party opened the whole thing up for the bad guys. Clay you should wait a few levels, But you can start anouncing some of the powergroups.