Tyranthraxus
Explorer
THanks. I was just looking at all the variation tables inside for the combat encounters and thought with the space being used how easy it would be for linked battles. as a Grid only DM , Ill have to plan for that.
DDEX3-10 Quelling the Horde *Spoilers*
Steve_MND
First Post
Grid only DM? Well, since I did these so early, compared to most, you (or anyone else that wants to use them) might be interested in the grid maps I did then for the caverns. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/swlwdx5ynlon4sa/AADRo9SIv1BVcwI2B_34TejWa?dl=0
I think that should work. Unzip it, spend a few gallons of ink printing out the pieces, trim them as needed, tape them together, and voila (I use the post-it-brand sticky tape to hold them together on the backsides as I lay them out).
I have a couple of questions about this mod for those who have run it. The treasure section lists a magic wand as the permanent item, but I don't see where it is in the adventure. Also, the adventure synopsis mentions the players running into dangerous fungus patches, but I don't see those either. Am I missing stuff, or are those typos?
The adventure took us about 3-1/2 hours to run, I think, which for me is a very long adventure. I didn't catch the level misprint until halfway through the first encounter when I was sending the group up against seven scarecrows...
...oops.
I adjusted things on the fly to avoid the TPK, and then just adjusted things from then on.
One of the things you really need to do when running the level 1-4 adventures is pay a LOT of attention to the CR of monsters. If you have a party of six level-one characters, they're not an average party for an APL 3 adventure. Don't use CR 2+ monsters unless you know what you're doing, because they are very likely to wreck the party.
Cheers!
...oops.
I adjusted things on the fly to avoid the TPK, and then just adjusted things from then on.
One of the things you really need to do when running the level 1-4 adventures is pay a LOT of attention to the CR of monsters. If you have a party of six level-one characters, they're not an average party for an APL 3 adventure. Don't use CR 2+ monsters unless you know what you're doing, because they are very likely to wreck the party.
Cheers!
Ran this at an adventuring league meetup over eight hours with a full table of six level 2's: Fighter, Sorc/Warlock, Rogue/Warlock, Barbarian, Bard and Tempest Cleric (me) and a level 4 Paladin. The DM was a pro with decades of XP. I spent my gold on healing potions to pass out before we set off. We barely survived. If the sorcerer didn't land a natural 20 against Agrak it would have been a TPK for sure. Two of our party members got charmed (one by the Incubus, the other by Agrak). My tempest Cleric got KO'd by the charmed barbarian. Everyone was tapped out and a hit away from death. Apparently the other table running this adventure killed the Incubus, but by the time we encountered him we were already in bad shape.
It wasn't all razor's edge though. The fight against the scarecrows went ok. The goblins on mastiffs at the cave entrance got put down pretty fast. We managed to stealth our way into the mushroom cavern and the bard got close enough to put 3/4 of the goblins around the first toad to sleep, someone managed to frag the last one. The Rust mosnters could have gone a lot worse. Wearing chain mail I was indifferent to the pleas of the Zhentarim who wanted to capture them alive but we managed to subdue 2/3 of them. I didn't have mending so people lost a bit of armor and weapon value. Lesson learned.
The big
up was in the goblin living quarters/beast pen cavern. We climbed the roof of the big beast pen after tying a rope to the metal bar 'barring' it when the goblins surrounded us. We pulled the rope to remove the bar but the beasts hadn't emerged yet and the Goblins were volleying arrows at us so I cast sanctuary to climb down and open the doors to the pen. The giant boar emerged and while I was hoping it would run amok and trample some of the goblins, apparently the Barbarian and Fighter had other plans. They jumped from the roof and tried to mount the abused, ill-tempered and enraged wild boar. Because somehow merely getting on its back will turn it into a willing mount... for reasons. Needless to say, the big boar followed by the regular ones in the pen were all like Orlly? and the Barbarian got gored (he lived because, hey I'm a Cleric, that's what I do). In retrospect, I should have cast fog cloud at prone level on the roof so the party could stand, make a ranged attack then drop prone into concealment, the beasts would have opened the door on their own we just didn't know that they hadn't due to initiative order being kept secret'ish.
If anything the whole experience has convinced me to rebuild as a Life Cleric. Sure I'll be a glorified walking medicine cabinet but in these large parties of partially unfamiliar players I think it will pay off to specialize. Frying people with Wrath of the Storm was fun (and I saved the Paladin with a channeled maxed out WotS against one of the toads). The utility spells are interesting but perhaps situation dependent whereas the Life domain spells are often ones I would want to prepare anyway. My Cleric is a Hill Dwarf so I'm not even losing the martial weapons I carry other than the heavy maul for when I'm out of spell slots. I can still swing the hammer for 1d10 instead of 1d8 at that point anyway. Besides, my buddy is playing the bard, so he can do the battlefield control a hell of a lot better. He has more kills from insulting people to death with vicious mockery than I do from cracking skulls.
It wasn't all razor's edge though. The fight against the scarecrows went ok. The goblins on mastiffs at the cave entrance got put down pretty fast. We managed to stealth our way into the mushroom cavern and the bard got close enough to put 3/4 of the goblins around the first toad to sleep, someone managed to frag the last one. The Rust mosnters could have gone a lot worse. Wearing chain mail I was indifferent to the pleas of the Zhentarim who wanted to capture them alive but we managed to subdue 2/3 of them. I didn't have mending so people lost a bit of armor and weapon value. Lesson learned.
The big
up was in the goblin living quarters/beast pen cavern. We climbed the roof of the big beast pen after tying a rope to the metal bar 'barring' it when the goblins surrounded us. We pulled the rope to remove the bar but the beasts hadn't emerged yet and the Goblins were volleying arrows at us so I cast sanctuary to climb down and open the doors to the pen. The giant boar emerged and while I was hoping it would run amok and trample some of the goblins, apparently the Barbarian and Fighter had other plans. They jumped from the roof and tried to mount the abused, ill-tempered and enraged wild boar. Because somehow merely getting on its back will turn it into a willing mount... for reasons. Needless to say, the big boar followed by the regular ones in the pen were all like Orlly? and the Barbarian got gored (he lived because, hey I'm a Cleric, that's what I do). In retrospect, I should have cast fog cloud at prone level on the roof so the party could stand, make a ranged attack then drop prone into concealment, the beasts would have opened the door on their own we just didn't know that they hadn't due to initiative order being kept secret'ish. If anything the whole experience has convinced me to rebuild as a Life Cleric. Sure I'll be a glorified walking medicine cabinet but in these large parties of partially unfamiliar players I think it will pay off to specialize. Frying people with Wrath of the Storm was fun (and I saved the Paladin with a channeled maxed out WotS against one of the toads). The utility spells are interesting but perhaps situation dependent whereas the Life domain spells are often ones I would want to prepare anyway. My Cleric is a Hill Dwarf so I'm not even losing the martial weapons I carry other than the heavy maul for when I'm out of spell slots. I can still swing the hammer for 1d10 instead of 1d8 at that point anyway. Besides, my buddy is playing the bard, so he can do the battlefield control a hell of a lot better. He has more kills from insulting people to death with vicious mockery than I do from cracking skulls.
klobbermeister
Explorer
Okay, nobody's mentioned the Incubus encounter. How did you all deal with that? There is NO scaling for lower level parties (it's a CR4 beastie). The *average* damage for the kiss is 32 hp, with no hope of Death Saves if you have fewer than 32 hp. Was this just an editing oversight? I had to abort this (stylishly and within the confines of the narrative, of course...), as it was going to TPK my APL 2 party. Thoughts?
Well the other table managed to kill him. I haven't had a chance to ask anyone how they managed it with all his abilities. All I know is the bard got the killing blow with Vicious Mockery because their Monk came over to our table during a break to grouse about it. We didn't fight him. In fact the two Tieflings in the party started kissing his ass the moment we noticed him. We were so messed up by the time we encountered him that he decided to issue us a wager that if we could kill the Goblins and free the remaining hostages without any more of them dying he'd stay out of it because he was bored and contemptuous of the Goblins anyway. He still charmed our Bard to have him use Vicious Mockery against us.
ArlenFrostlockes
First Post
just played this on saturday - actually had lively discussion regarding this with I believe my RC - our party consisted of a lvl 4 fighter (me), a lvl 4 Paladin, alvl 3 warlock, a lvl 3 wizard, a lvl 1 archer, and a lvl 1 Barbarian. We were considered a "strong" party. after the first encounter our DM quickly realized that adjustments needed to be made. even with the adjustments, The incubus charmed and soul kissed me down to 8 HP, the archer and Barbarian were constantly down, and the Paladin had blown both his smites on the guy and it was still standing. I would say that a party of 5 at lvl three would find this to be extremely challenging and outright fatal if the dice Gods are not favorable. no way a group of 1st or second lvl parties can do this.
