Cooperative Dungeon 04 -- When Heroes Fall

[Conaill]

Thanks The first couple of encounters were far to easy. When one of the sleeping gnolls made his listen check at -16 I smiled and decided to try all 7 against the party. With 2 5th, 2 4th, and 2 3rd level characters I think many of the encounters will be similarly easy. I'd like to adjust some of the main encounters but haven't had time.

Any suggestions on raising the difficulty of some of the combats at least?

Hm... number of opponents is the obvious one. With a party of 6, I wouldn't hesitate to throw 50% more opponents at them in a big brawl like you just had. I doubt they would have fared as well if they had been faced with 4 more regular gnolls in that encounter.

In addition, you have the equivalent of a 5th level party, instead of the 3rd lvl the dungeon is designed for. You could always *double* the number of opponents, but that may get somewhat unwieldy.

Here's some suggestions for the rooms I designed:


14.5 The Howling Winds:

Make sure to fully exploit all the synergies between the various elements of this encounter. For example, anyone attempting to jump over the scythe trap counts as "Flying" for the Gust of Wind effect, and may be blown back as a result. If anyone is blown into someone else due to the GoW or the statue, I would make the second character roll a Balance check, or an extra Fort save against the GoW. Make sure to use all the GoW size penalties as well: familiars and Small characters will have a much harder time here.

Another easy tweak is to make the Howling Winds corridor 10' wide, and/or eliminate the "squeezing" penalties on the animated statue. That means it'll get a speed of 30' instead of 15', and extra +4 to attack and AC, and it can charge to bullrush. Making the corridor wider also means more people can go toe-to-toe with the statue, which should be more enjoyable for the players in such a large party.


20 Yinopu's Vigil:

Increase Yinopu to Clr4, and the Swarm to 4 or 5HD (or simply have *two* swarms). Use the Optional Element on page 39 to increase the CR of the next chamber (at the expense of perhaps not getting as much of the more mundane loot out of rooms 15-21).

 

[Erekose13]

Cool thanks, I'll try those (incl. the wider corridor). I dont mind making some of the lesser encounters easier (like the one I just had) because as a LEW adventure they are typically no where near as combat intensive. But some of the bigger encounters like room 3 and the last two need beefing up.

 

[Conaill]

Some more ideas for other rooms:

3. Shrine to Hrauk: Bagrak and Fang Karak will be overwhelmed by 6 PC's. I would suggest to have Shastrix fly to the hallway to rooms 7 and 8, scream out a warning, and come back to defend Fang Karak.

10. Storage Room: Play Nestiphae *smart*. She knows she's no match against 6 opponents in a straight-up fight. So use that Hide and Move Silently skill - and if need be, Disguise Self as a human captive to gain the party's trust. Also assume she knows about the Wight in #12, and the dire badger in #14. She may try to trick the party into those areas, or close off their retreat (e.g. by spiking closed the door to #12).

 

[Trainz]

Some more ideas for other rooms:

10. Storage Room: Play Nestiphae *smart*. She knows she's no match against 6 opponents in a straight-up fight. So use that Hide and Move Silently skill - and if need be, Disguise Self as a human captive to gain the party's trust. Also assume she knows about the Wight in #12, and the dire badger in #14. She may try to trick the party into those areas, or close off their retreat (e.g. by spiking closed the door to #12).

Yeah... it worked for Mark !

 

[Conaill]

No kidding! The Disguise Self route could have been interesting too though...

Looking over CD04 again, it seems that next time, we should really include some suggestions on scaling the encounters for higher or lower level parties. Many of these encounters are with a single opponent, which only leaves the option of changing the opponents character level or HD, altering the environment in some way, or adding an extra opponent for assistance. Not nearly as easy to do on the fly than, say, increasing or decreasing the number of gnolls in the encounter.

With some forethought in the design phase, it shouldn't be too hard to scale this adventure anywhere from levels 1-2 up to level 6 or above...

 

[William Ronald]

These guys play tough but sometimes the dice betray you and tough just ain't enough.

Tell me about it. I think I may be the person that WoTC thought about in designing action points.

 

[Erekose13]

I think thats a great idea, I haven't had any use for that kind of information in past adventures but it would be invaluable this time.

Any idea when we will be starting up Cd5?

 

[Trainz]

CD's are a lot of work, and me and Mark want to give ourselves (and our team) a break, to be able to tackle the next one full tilt.

 

[Mark CMG]

Yup. I think Trainz and I agreed to discuss what comes next after the holidays/next year.

 

[Erekose13]

Cool, we authors really appreciate all the hard work you two and your team put into these. They are just so fun to participate in. Keep me informed and I'll be there.