Freeman- too bad about your play group. I ran my first session of P2 tonight and was looking forward to updates from your group to compare them/ steal ideas from.
The hooks provided in P2 were borderline -worst hooks in dnd ever- bad. Since my players created new characters to start the adventures (most of them updating their old characters from H1 and 2... the first 4e characters we made), i ran a 'previously, on dnd' episode where they were 'in-mission' for the mages of saruun (which said characters have a history with) to warm them up on new powers and abilities using a very simple encounter, some roleplaying elements to get them in the groove of their characters, and most importantly, running the dream sequence shortly thereafter.
I actually had the p.c's go for a few 'days' in the dream world, instead of being teleported to deadhold, traveling back to the seven pillared hall where they returned to find things slightly askew. It culminated in the halfmoon inn where i had zirithian confront the p.c's by killing halfmoon himself (a favorite of the p.c's). I decided to put my hook "in dream". Very far realms like. During the dream sequence, i altered zirithian to have infinite powers (his dream, his world), so that he reduced the paladin to zero, with healing powers on him ineffective, then i coup de grace'd him dealing lethal damage, and, as i did when i killed halfmoon shortly before, had his skeletonized bones turn to powder and then disappear (killing him for good... or so he thought). I calmly asked for his character sheet and put it behind the screen. Grabbing an older character sheet, i tore it up behind screen and continued with the dream sequence.
The p.c's were completely flabbergasted and had no idea what was happening until after they woke up not even in the halfmoon inn but the place they took their first extended rest. In AND out of game, they were in complete paranoia as to determining the world of reality and frabrication. I spent the rest of the 8 hour play session wowing them with underdark places and events few p.c's get to see and live to tell the tale.
We haven't really hit any book material yet but it's kicking off to be pretty good. As a dm who enjoys tinkering with these pre-written adventures, i find myself completely overwhelmed with the source material for P2. My suggestion for dm's thinking about running this campaign.
1) Know each n.p.c's over all goal. This reduces all the flair from what the book tells you and simplifies it into understandable directions you can give the n.p.c's.
2) as the info book doesn't really give a set conclusion to ANYTHING, i really feel like my p.c's will be able to do whatever they want. This hasn't been so with the other adventures feeling like they were on railroad tracks. For p2, just let it fly. Especially if you are sound on knowing the over all goals for your n.p.c's, i see this module as being as close to sandbox material you can have for a pre-written.
3) Accept that your party is a well-oiled death dealing machine. We have not forayed into levels higher than this so i don't even know how bad it gets later on, but it can feel like your p.c's are just too good. And they are. Set up your encounter levels that are two and above the party's level specifically to deal with party weaknesses and leave everything else as is. Level +1 and below should be absolute cake walks. don't let those fights drag on unless something crazy happens and you have a shot at getting one of them. P.C's are now paragon and they rule your monsters face.
Extra reading
this is already far longer than i anticipated so if you want to cut your reading here, go for it. I will explain the dream sequence a bit more here if you were looking into altering one of the coolest scenes in the campaign.
I pretty much made the ritual a greater dream sequence ritual to which, the studious wizard found out in the mages of saruun library that the component cost included the death of a thousand innocent people. Like i said before, the p.c's were confounded as to what was real and what was not, completely paranoid to tell anyone what they experienced in the dream when returning to the seven pillared hall.
By doing this, i accomplished two things. One, i bound the ritual to reality, having the wizard voluntarily studying up on lost rituals involving dreams and fog, and actually finding sparse information. Secondly, i allowed the dream to become just that; a world in which zirithian could pose a credible solo threat. Most solo creatures the group feels comfortable fighting as an orb-lock sleep usually leads to a horrible horrible monster death. I allowed big Z to shake off any ill effects, essentially hand washing certain things, much to the shagrin of my p.c's and then having him perform the ultimate p.c slaughter. Z is obviously not supposed to duke it out with adventurer's during the dream but if you've got trigger happy players (and... we all do), this allows you to handwave many instances to keep things on track as well as irritate the p.c's as they fail to do much to Z.
In a way, making the dream sequence the actual hook worked incredibly well. The p.c's didn't even realize the hook was real, as they assumed that the dream world was simply smoke and mirrors. As things progressed, the hook became very much a reality, further upping some paranoia's about other elements to the dream, which were, of course, completely fabricated.
This is a really fun little encounter. I would encourage you to make it really stand out as something memorable for your p.c's.
I look forward to more updates from more d.m's. Let me know how this thing rolls so we can try to make p2 awesome for our players.
