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Message: <blockquote data-quote="vandaexpress" data-source="post: 6609651" data-attributes="member: 6790472">Finished up running Castle Naerytar last week. Here's some stuff I implemented and how it turned out:- Undead ambushed the party as they entered the Mere of Dead men. Ogre Zombies, ghouls, and ghasts. It makes sense, given the location's history.- I remixed the top of the barbican by having the drum be gigantic (like 25'x25') and the bullywugs sounded the drum by jumping on it in synchronized patterns. Flavorful and fun. The party timed the lizardfolk revolt with their attack on the top of the barbican, they cast silence on the drum and killed the bullywugs. I handwaved that the rest of the bullywugs above ground were slaughtered by lizardfolk, after which the lizardfolk fled from the castle into the swamp. This had the net effect of eliminating most potential encounters above ground except the cultists.- When the party found a room to attempt a short rest, I triggered a random encounter with Pharblex and 4 of his elite bodyguards, they were also looking for a place to hide from the murderous lizardfolk. Pharblex is a pushover and his spell selection is pretty awful. I didn't have a problem with this; he's a bullywug. But if you want him to be challenging, you'll need to seriously retool his spell list as a first step, I think. I gave him the voice of Boss Nass from Star Wars Episode 1 <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />- I strongly recommend reading up on and familiarizing yourself with Borngrey and Azbara Jos's spell lists and potential battle tactics. The challenge of the battles against them depends in large measure on how intelligently you utilize their spell slots and actions. I found that fog cloud was a great spell for Jos to use to control the battlefield and limit party visibility. Remember to use shield, misty step, and Azbara's counterspell to maximize survivability. Otherwise, fireball away. If you want these battles to be challenging, it is essential that you give the NPCs a lot of backup. I had the party face Jos, Borngrey, Mondath, 6 guard drakes, and two berserkers. Even with amped up HP, Borngrey still went down pretty fast.- Consider putting in consequences for taking rests after they attack the castle - this is Rezmir's personal stronghold, she's not just going to abandon it without planning to retake it. If the party takes a long rest, have Rezmir send reinforcements through the portal. In my case, I had her send a bunch of heavy hitters, her personal "cleaners" that she sends in to take care of any mess. I used a veteran, a half-dragon veteran, a mage, and a gladiator (along with drakes). These guys were all named NPCs with scary portraits. When the PCs watched them from a distance, I had the cleaners straight up kill Dragonwings for their incompetence, throwing them off of towers, etc. This helped put their power into perspective. Then I had them organize room-by-room searches with lots of cultists. The party fought one or two of these search parties (deadly encounters) and quickly realized that they were in over their heads. It was a great feeling when, instead of the standard "let's rest after this tough battle" mentality, the players said "We need to get out of here now. If we rest, they're just going to keep sending more reinforcements and they'll find us. I don't want to mess with these guys." As a DM, when I manage to successfully instill urgency into the party, it's a real win for me personally.- I had the entire bullywug population of the underground cave attack the party at the same time, along with their giant frogs. Yes. All of them. The PCs took a choke point and deployed their spells intelligently, wound up killing 27 bullywugs/giant frogs after taking only one hit the entire battle. I'll be honest, I don't understand why they have bullywugs at this location, they just feel like a waste of time and have no hope of dealing anything close to meaningful damage against a level 5 party. If I were doing it all over again, I would have had the lizardfolk wipe out the bullywugs underground as well. Unlike Kobolds and Dragonclaws, they don't have pack tactics, or any other sort of 'horde' mechanic like martial advantage, etc so they don't even fight that well in large groups. They're weak, stupid enemies. Now that I think about it, if I were to redo everything, I would probably replace the bullywugs with undead. I don't know, maybe I just didn't really give them a chance.Currently prepping the Lodge and Skyreach. Will let you know how it turns out.</blockquote>

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