D&D 5E Dreams of the Red Wizards: Dead in Thay (spoilers allowed)

[MerricB]

Question: The group I'm in nearly killed the lich in the encounter prior to entering the blood gate. In the event he would be killed, how is the adventure supposed to proceed?

Did they destroy his phylactery?

One of the lovely things about liches is that they can come back. Plus, he probably had contingency spells and the like - the Forgotten Realms NPCs are very fond of those.

Cheers!

 

[Argyle King]

Did they destroy his phylactery?

One of the lovely things about liches is that they can come back. Plus, he probably had contingency spells and the like - the Forgotten Realms NPCs are very fond of those.

Cheers!

From my understanding, the gate was unable to be opened without him. His death would cause the gate (and the only way the PCs have to continue the adventure) to not be opened.

Honestly though, I'm not aware of what his stats are (haven't read the adventure; just playing it.) It's possibly that my perception of almost having killed him was very wrong. The fight simply seemed pretty heavily in our favor.

V(spoiler alert)V

spoiler alert


He does end up dying anyway due to being connected to the energy of the portal, and that's what ended the fight prematurely... the options seemed to be to enter the gate or be killed by the ensuing arcane explosion.

 

[machineelf]

One of my questions is how this adventure would run in a home game of only 4-6 players. I bought the adventure and have only skimmed it so far because I don't plan to run it until sometime next fall, but it seems quite difficult to have a single group go through it, particularly in the beginning section.

--Spoilers---

The beginning section with the elemental nodes seem to have to be tackled by several groups. The instructions suggest having NPCs tackle the other nodes that the players don't get to. So I was thinking of having my PCs take on one node, and then they meet up with all the other NPCs helping them in the nexus. Easy enough. But then when they get sucked through the portal and find themselves in the dungeon, what will have happened to the NPCs? Do they NPCs have to be in the dungeon as well?

 

[MerricB]

Honestly though, I'm not aware of what his stats are (haven't read the adventure; just playing it.) It's possibly that my perception of almost having killed him was very wrong. The fight simply seemed pretty heavily in our favor.

Depends an awful lot on how your DMs chose to run him. I had him cast Cloudkill at one group, which almost destroyed them - only one PC conscious after that, and they needed rescuing.

It should be noted that, as written, he is immune to spell damage and has resistance from all damage.

(And the module does note that he comes back thanks to his phylactery if he's destroyed).

Cheers!

 

[Argyle King]

One of my questions is how this adventure would run in a home game of only 4-6 players. I bought the adventure and have only skimmed it so far because I don't plan to run it until sometime next fall, but it seems quite difficult to have a single group go through it, particularly in the beginning section.

--Spoilers---

The beginning section with the elemental nodes seem to have to be tackled by several groups. The instructions suggest having NPCs tackle the other nodes that the players don't get to. So I was thinking of having my PCs take on one node, and then they meet up with all the other NPCs helping them in the nexus. Easy enough. But then when they get sucked through the portal and find themselves in the dungeon, what will have happened to the NPCs? Do they NPCs have to be in the dungeon as well?

Good questions, and they are ones I can partially answer.

For the launch event where I played, the crowd was smaller than usual, so we ended up having one large party instead of multiple groups. The GM's solution was to NPC the other nodes and have us meet up with them later. That worked out fine.

After that point, I'm not sure. The launch session ended with the group being sucked into the portal.

 

[MerricB]

The beginning section with the elemental nodes seem to have to be tackled by several groups. The instructions suggest having NPCs tackle the other nodes that the players don't get to. So I was thinking of having my PCs take on one node, and then they meet up with all the other NPCs helping them in the nexus. Easy enough. But then when they get sucked through the portal and find themselves in the dungeon, what will have happened to the NPCs? Do they NPCs have to be in the dungeon as well?

The NPCs are also there, but the adventure covers what they're doing while the party are in the dungeon.

Cheers!

 

[Argyle King]

Depends an awful lot on how your DMs chose to run him. I had him cast Cloudkill at one group, which almost destroyed them - only one PC conscious after that, and they needed rescuing.

It should be noted that, as written, he is immune to spell damage and has resistance from all damage.

(And the module does note that he comes back thanks to his phylactery if he's destroyed).

Cheers!

Cloudkill had no effect on the party. Most of us are warforged... don't breathe. While he did have damage reduction, a few members of the party hit hard enough to get through it.

 

[machineelf]

Cloudkill had no effect on the party. Most of us are warforged... don't breathe. While he did have damage reduction, a few members of the party hit hard enough to get through it.

I like keeping the warforged to Eberron, but that's just me. I'll be curious to see how well my players do against him when I run them through the adventure.

 

[Argyle King]

I like keeping the warforged to Eberron, but that's just me. I'll be curious to see how well my players do against him when I run them through the adventure.

It was an Encounters event, so warforged were allowed as part of the packet.

The other thing which came into play was the party having a cleric; the Lich had a risk (though a very minor one) of failing a turning save. Damage-wise, a few members of the party I was playing with have multiple attacks and attacks which hit very hard.

 

[MerricB]

It was an Encounters event, so warforged were allowed as part of the packet.

Actually, there are no warforged in the Dead in Thay packet.