Forked Thread: The Lethality of Keep on the Shadowfell (Paging Mr. Mearls or Cordell)

[Wolfwood2]

After a little hinting, my group creeped up and ambushed the group outside the waterfall. They were able to prevent anybody from warning those inside, and I ruled they had time for a short rest. They decided to split their forces and go in all three entrances at once, with the main group going through the middle falls and paladin and rogue going in at the top and bottom respectively.

They started okay, but the minions of the first wave were able to move around the fighter and put an awful hurt on the wizard. The wizard eventually had to burn an action point just to get away. (It would really have helped if he had Thunderwave.) Meanwhile, the skirmisher on the paladin managed a lucky flanking hit and rolled natural maximum damage even without a crit.

They had finished off most of the first wave by the time Irontooth, the brutes, and the artillery rolled in. (To prevent having to fight the same old monsters, I switched out the two Dragonshields for two pikers and turned the dragon shaman into a severely powered down wild mage.)

Irontooth gleefully went after the paladin and hacked him down in short order while the other PCs were disengaging from their remaining first wave opponents and moving in. Meanwhile the two pikers knocked the rogue back a few squares and took up a defensive position in front of the wild mage, who gleefully targetted the wizard with repeated successful attacks vs. Reflex.

About the time the wizard went down, having already used his second wind and the cleric out of healing words, I realized they weren't going to win. So I had the kobolds turn on Irontooth. It wasn't really a stretch, since I had established he had taken over the tribe by force. The wild mage offered to turn on Irontooth if the PCs gave him all the treasure and let the remaining tribe members go free.

The pikers scooped up an unconscious PC as a hostage and the wild mage started taking careful, cautious shots at Irontooth. Even so, it was nearly not enough. By the end of the fight, the wizard, the fighter, and the paladin were all down. All that was left was the rogue and the cleric, and either of them was about one hit from being taken out. Lucky for them, Irontooth rolled low single digits on the last three attacks (I was rolling in the open), and the rogue finally managed to put him down with a sneak attack.

Incredibly close to a TPK, though admittedly the bad guys in the first wave got some really good rolls. Because I had to intervene to save them, the PCs not got one coin of loot. They did, however, find a crumpled up note with the next hook for the adventure on it.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I ran this encounter recently. The party (four, not five, and I had decided not to tone down the number of enemies because they'd done very well in the other encounters) had a Warforged Fighter, Dwarf Cleric, Tiefling Rogue and Dragonborn Fey-Pact Warlock (yes we laughed at that too), so they were decently balanced, and they were all smart and on their toes.

They splattered the outside encounter utterly, managing to draw the minions together an hit them with the Rogue's shuriken-hurling daily (stupid Kobolds!), and didn't let any of them get away into the cavern (they outmanuevered the kobolds and the ones who fled, fled away from the cavern and the one who nearly made it into the cavern caught a shuriken to the back of the had - albeit at maximum shuriken range, kind of a lucky shot but not really).

The Rogue made some VERY good stealth rolls and scouted the front of the cavern well, so they had a very together plan and managed to take the Kobolds by surprise. If they hadn't been so togther initially, I'm pretty convinced that this would have been a very bad situation. I followed the adventures instructions that the second wave comes three rounds later, and I believe doing otherwise, again, would be TPK material and somewhat unfair, at best.

Irontooth could have been a real menace, as he got to charge the Cleric (who was pretty much alone, as they thought she was safe), but the Fighter and Warlock acted fast and decisively and Rogue engaged in some very smart manuevering. Then Irontooth proceeded to miss pretty much every attack role after he got bloodied, and whilst it took a while to kill them, he wasn't much of a threat. Had he hit more often, I don't think it would have been a TPK, but it'd have been bloody.

I do think it's a risky encounter design. Honestly, KotS is VERY FAR from the best designed adventure I've ever seen, and has some spectactular plot holes (like the whole Sir Keegan idiocy) and things that just plain don't make sense (giant rats on the ceiling? WTH? Are they Spider-rats? I know rats, I live in London! They don't go on the ceiling!), but if you play this encounter as suggested, and if they players short-rest before coming in, I don't think it's extremely likely to TPK them. If you don't give them the three rounds for Irontooth comes, though, I think not having a TPK is more a matter of luck than judgement.

I should add that we did nearly see a TPK at the Douven Staul encounter, oddly enough, when the Halfling Slinger got two crits in a row and they just couldn't seem to separate those two dragondogs from each other (whilst being shot at with a crossbow and sling). Only the Warlock's high manueverability saved them, in the end, and everyone used their daily.

 

[Center-of-All]

What was the problem with the Sir Keegan thing?

 

[Rakor]

I TPK'd the party at the Douvan Stahl encounter. They were very new to the game and didn't realize how dangerous the guard drakes were. By the time they started to use daily powers and focus on the drakes they were already too far gone.

They did okay against Irontooth. Took care of everything outside except that a slinger warned the people inside, all the Kobolds inside took up ambush positions and waited for the PCs to enter. It was a little odd, the fighter stood toe-to-toe with Irontooth so that Irontooth only got one attack and he couldn't really move to engage more PCs. Turns out Dwarf fighters are really hard to kill. The dwarf also failed to bloody Irontooth, Irontooth was one hit point away from bloodied when the party ganged up on him. Villain's Menace and the warlord power which gives everyone huge bonuses just took him apart. The party used a ton of healing potions which is the only way they survived.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

What was the problem with the Sir Keegan thing?

Sir Keegan flips out one night, right, stabs everyone, gets chased into the catacombs, nearly mortally.

That's all fine.

However, it is then UTTERLY INEXPLICABLE how he comes to have a fully-built tomb (!!!!) when none of the previous commanders have had (apparently), and was presumably not exactly ailing, considering how many people he killed one-on-one and that he was wife + young children age, and that this tomb is beneath the castle (?! Rather in y'know, a graveyard or somewhere), and that this inexplicable tomb is guarded by GOOD GUY undead who serve BAHAMUT (WHAT?!?!) and who are infinite in number (WHAT?! Bahamut has infinite undead?) and that this is despite it all being in a place where Orcus holds power. Note that the fact that they serve Bahamut is made clear by the way praying to Bahamut makes them calm down and go politely back into their sarcophagi, rather than blowing up or being searing with light or whatever.

Now, it's just about possible the "infinite undead" are there to keep Sir Keegan in (though I don't believe he's allowed to leave his room anyway), but they still don't make any sense. And it's just possible he decided to go into someone else's tomb(!!!) and hide in the coffin (!!!!!!!) before drinking his poison, but that's pretty far out, I think you'll agree.

It's severely one of those "Don't think about. At all." things, like the ceiling-rats.

 

[the Jester]

I just assumed that he had had his tomb "pre-built" and that the undead were the result of the actions of those that sealed him in after the fact.

 

[questing gm]

Sir Keegan flips out one night, right, stabs everyone, gets chased into the catacombs, nearly mortally.

That's all fine.

However, it is then UTTERLY INEXPLICABLE how he comes to have a fully-built tomb (!!!!) when none of the previous commanders have had (apparently), and was presumably not exactly ailing, considering how many people he killed one-on-one and that he was wife + young children age, and that this tomb is beneath the castle (?! Rather in y'know, a graveyard or somewhere), and that this inexplicable tomb is guarded by GOOD GUY undead who serve BAHAMUT (WHAT?!?!) and who are infinite in number (WHAT?! Bahamut has infinite undead?) and that this is despite it all being in a place where Orcus holds power. Note that the fact that they serve Bahamut is made clear by the way praying to Bahamut makes them calm down and go politely back into their sarcophagi, rather than blowing up or being searing with light or whatever.

Now, it's just about possible the "infinite undead" are there to keep Sir Keegan in (though I don't believe he's allowed to leave his room anyway), but they still don't make any sense. And it's just possible he decided to go into someone else's tomb(!!!) and hide in the coffin (!!!!!!!) before drinking his poison, but that's pretty far out, I think you'll agree.

It's severely one of those "Don't think about. At all." things, like the ceiling-rats.

Someone has caught onto the Fridge Logic

 

[ThirdWizard]

I assumed it wasn't "his tomb," it's just a large tomb where he ended up.

Also, the undead are probably the remains of the people he killed, risen by the recent rise in power of the rift.

The undead aren't infinite, they just won't run out during the encounter.