City of the Spider Queen: Any experience?

[poilbrun]

Hello all!

My cormyrian PC are soon reaching level 10 and I was thinking of introducing the City of the Spider Queen adventure once they are done with the current campaign which lead them from level 3 to level 10 - the first adventure was an introductory dungeon which had a small part to play in the campaign, but so small that I do not think it is really "part" of the campaign: basically, the BBEG they killed at the end was the son of a wererat guildmaster who they would need as an ally later on. They are allied with the Purple Dragons, and have more enemies than I have fingers: the cult of Cyric is a direct enemy (they were the central enemy of the campaign, even though they are being controlled by someone else, but the PC won't know that until after the City of the Spider Queen campaign) as is the Cult of the Dragon; they also have every evil organization active in that region on their tail (and even some that are not active in the region) because they have an artifact that they need to deliver to Larloch as a service to the temple of Mystra in Saerloon (Sembia).

OK, so that's about the background. The real question is: does any of you have some feedback on the campaign in itself, including (maybe) any conversion necesseray to play it in 3.5e? If such a discussion already took place, can you please point me to it as I don't have access to the search feature of the board. If you have any idea to integrate that adventure with the rest of the campaign, that would be great too. The only thing they need to finish the first campaign is to get directions to a fortress of the cult of Cyric, and storm it (I'll be using the two towers, normally situated in Amn, that are in the Lords of Darkness sourcebook).

Thanks for your help

 

[dbm]

I'm playing this module at the moment. It's fun in a fairly dungeon-bash kind of way. Yes, you have to talk to people to find out what is happening but once you have a handle on the situation it's then down to applied force to sort things out.

The DM isn't strong on the rules, so we are helping him handle the crispy bits of the characters. One thing to watch out for is nearly all of the enemy spell casters have Spell Focus, and this has been down-powered in 3.5 so you will need to adjust the DC of their spells.

We started off as 10th level characters built for the campaign and we are now about 13th level after completing section 1 of the 3-part campaign.

It's definitely fun.

Cheers,
Dan

 

[GlassJaw]

I DM'ed the first two sections and I hated it. I don't think my players were thrilled with it either. It's very heavy on the combat and every other battle is with drow. Annoying, annoying drow. I'll tell you one thing, SR gets old very fast.

If you like uber-dungeon crawls with hoards of baddies, then you'll probably like this.

Overall, it didn't play as well as it read. The quality of the book and maps were excellent and the storyline seemed cool but once we got going, it was just a glorified slugfest.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I'm running it now (though one of the players will have to give you feedback on how they like it).

No real issues with 3.5 conversion other than tweaking a few feats (Spell Focus), damage reduction, and adjusting tactics, since most of the spellcaster tactics assume casting haste first followed by two spells per round.

I completely reordered the "underdark wilderness" encounters in order to expand the options for encounters in the Underdark, so as not to have the crypt section immediately followed by Szith Morcane, which was a bit too convenient. I hadn't planned on using the crypts at all, but the PCs took a plot hook I hadn't anticipated. So at this point the adventure area is a bit of a cross between "Descent into the Depths", "City of the Spider Queen", plus some original and Dungeon mag stuff thrown in -- the original scenario wa a bit too linear for my liking.

Strictly as written it's a pretty combat-heavy adventure, so I'd encourage giving the party some reasons to encourage the use of stealth, as well as offering a few more RP-based encounters. I deleted some encounters in the crypts to eliminate the combat monotony (plus I needed to do some CR adjustment at the start, though the party's now up to a power level where I won't need to).

It can be very deadly, especially if you're using some of the suggested reinforcement tactics, or if you're group is a "kick in the door, kill the monster, take the treasure" style group. My group only survived the last session due to some remarkable success with spell resistance rolls -- kinda sucks when you bring almost an entire drow outpost down on your head. Hopefully, they've learned their lesson for the next session (or hope the key culprit from last time has better luck with his bluff checks).

See the last couple pages of diaglo's story hour (Banewarrens d20) for the ongoing adventure.

 

[Dark Jezter]

City of the Spider Queen is a very combat-heavy module, but I don't mind, since I like combat-heavy campaigns.

If you're going to play, make sure your party has a powerful cleric to help you deal with all the undead you're going to fight (as well as providing much-needed healing). You will also want a rogue to detect and disable traps, because there are a lot of them in this campaign. Spellcasters who cast offensive spells will definately want Spell Penetration and Improved Spell Penetration.

Also, you may want to look for the 3.5 conversion notes if you're running that version.

 

[Crothian]

we didn't get through it all, but it was very combat heavy which is not bad. What was bad is it seemed predictible.

 

[diaglo]

we didn't get through it all, but it was very combat heavy which is not bad. What was bad is it seemed predictible.

you need to involve the players more. get them to open up and help fill in the backstory and plot hooks with some of their ideas. but give them a twist.

we are certainly having a lot of fun with the current scenario.

however, the start was a bit too much. our human cleric was gonna bag on us. which meant we probably wouldn't go. only after much coersion did he take the hint.

still a lot of trouble ahead. gotten get more tactics and even more help controlling the unavoidable... humans, halfling, gnome, kobold, and surface elf don't belong below ground without more magic.

 

[Crothian]

you need to involve the players more. get them to open up and help fill in the backstory and plot hooks with some of their ideas. but give them a twist.

I was one of the players......

 

[diaglo]

I was one of the players......

then you need to take a more active role.

ask Olgar...as a player i prep for hours each day for our sessions. and we are only playing once in a blue moon right now.

i know you have a good amount of material. don't be afraid to use it.

 

[fourthmensch]

Also, you may want to look for the 3.5 conversion notes if you're running that version.

Any idea where these can be found?