[Heart of Nightfang Spire] Running the meat grinder...

[andrew]

Unfortunately I cannot find the other story hour. It is very old, so I suppose it has dissapeared from the boards. It was another parties travels through the adventure path module, and unlike the previous party, Wulf Ratbanes party was successful. Albeit with death after death.

Wulf Ratbane's Story Hour: http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=102&perpage=20&highlight=wulfs%20story%20hour&pagenumber=1

I'm not going to tell you which page Nightfang Spire is on because you have to read the whole thing. Peck.

-Andrew

 

[ergeheilalt]

3. Please give me some backup to prove them how useless a good rogue really is. It's sometimes very hard to have to discuss against two powergamers who seem to think that fighters rule supreme and all other classes are just there as supporting cast.

IMHO I find rogues to be the best RP class. Sure, if you're into hack and slash, the rogue wont be very high on the list unless you're going up against creatures with "discernable anatomy". If you are going to go hack-and-slash as a rogue, don't expect a full-advancement in the rogue class. A rogue is pretty good when multi classed with a fighter, gaining some feats and having some skills.

To prove the greatness of the rogue ... throw one with a couple levels of fighter and maybe a few levels in duelist. He alone should be able to deal some serious damage with precise strike and sneak attacks on the party. Stress the need for tactics, a well placed rogue will be able to play off the rest of his "group" - in this case the bad guys - and should play on his Hide skill and Move Silently skills. Swing around the back, work on the spellcasters - widdle them down, distract them, force concentration checks. Once they're out of the way, work on the fighters, flanking for the use of the sneak attack

After watching their party dissolve, I'm sure those two players will see Rogues in a whole new light.

Erge

 

[Someone]

Re: Re: Re: [Heart of Nightfang Spire] Running the meat grinder...

I meant the rogue question in a more general way. How useful are rogues not specifically in this adventure but in most standard settings and adventures? It was clear to me that save a few nasty traps, a rogue is a weak class in this one thanks to the myriad of undeads.

My players are relatively new to D&D and are still learning as the campaing advances (What does that spell do? really?) and while I surf this forum frequently, I consider myself relatively unexperienced, too. So far, at level 9-10 we consider the rogue as a very strong class, and the player doesn´t absolutely regret having taken the class. (The wizard and fighter/cleric are of course becoming exponentially more useful with time, and the paladin/templar is working as a very reasonable tank; everybody is happy)

Of course, the rogue has found enemies immune to sneak attacks, but he took Expertise, and when he faces one of them, he usually uses the "jumping peck trick"; full expertise and fighting defensively (+8 AC thanks to Tumble!) And they discovered that casting Improved Invisibility on the rogue makes him a meatgrinder.

 

[Stalker0]

As far as the girillions go, all I'll say is.

God bless magic jar

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

My group did fine during this adventure, until the very end. Then, near-TPK. The only character who survived had been slowing turning evil anyway, and was told to "submit or die"--she chose to submit.

So, I give our DM a score of 5.5. One player just fell off the face of the earth (family issues) and was never really there. And then, after the final battle, we were all without characters. So, 1 missing PC (presumed dead), 4 dead PCs, and 1 PC fallen to the dark side.


Spoiler space
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Our wizard, played by someone who never rolls bad, rolled a '1' on a saving throw and died in the first round. My cleric tried to dispel the boss monster's spells, and got about half of them (4 out of 8) dispelled. Unfortunately, the fly spell did not dispell. And our main barbarian "doesn't use ranged weapons" (I still give the player hell about that ). That left the bard and the cleric to bring down the vampire/sorcerer. Our 2nd barbarian didn't have very good ranged weapons, so didn't do much damage. A dominate on the 13th level barbarian kills the other barbarian, the bard dispells the dominate but the boss casts another. I was hitting the boss, but not doing enough damage to kill him. The DM made a slight mistake, and the boss dominated an NPC Giant who was summoned in to help us. Overall, it was not pretty. Since my charater was good, he would not just Word of recall away and leave his companions to their doom.

And we were so sick of grillons by the end, we didn't mind the TPK. Honestly.

On the upside, we started our new group at 5th level. I think 5th-10th is the most fun to play.

 

[WizarDru]

Well, you saw Lu reference my story hour, above. I've DM'ed a party of six through the Spire. You and your players enjoyment will depend on your play style. My players began to find the module tedious and deptressing as it progressed.

Understand that my players are quite cautious, and by the second death and 10th NEAR-death, they had had quite enough of the spire. Wulf's group toughed it out, but the survivors only finished the last battle due to a broken spell from R&R. As it was, I really held back and played the creatures fairly tamely, to prevent a slaughter. The girallons nearly shredded the characters, by themselves, let alone the mooncalf and the worst of all, the dragon statue. (they never saw the Tombstone Golem, but were horrified when they saw it).

As for a rogue not being useful in the spire...it's true, a good chunk of the spire makes the rogue feel crappy. Poor sneaking chances, mostly undead and constructs...but the traps are so nasty, that when they ARE needed, they're needed badly.

If this fits your play style (and it fit Wulf's more than my group), then you should be fine. But you WILL have more casualties. Without a cleric, you'll be fighting a LOT more undead. The fighting is cramped, so your spellcasters will be threatened a lot.

What caused the deaths in my game? A failed save against the mummy led to a CDG and a failed save resulting in instant death. One player out of several failed his save against the dragon statue. Many near deaths occured with the razor pit traps, girallons, and I'm sure the golem would have been sure to kill at least on player. I had Redbone target the paladin, who I expected to make his save (luckily, he did). With the mirror, Redbone could just sit with Gulthias, bide her time and then pick the players off, one by one. The second time they might be ready, but the first time is pretty much a gimme.

If they buff appropriately, and have scrolls and potions to bolster them, most of them might get through alive. Good Luck.

 

[Phoenix8008]

And now some questions to you:
1. What are the main killers in HoNS? What caused the character deaths in your campaign? This would be a great helper to better prepare myself for minimizing player frustration.

BEWARE LEVEL 3!!! (And also beware specific spoilers below!)

If you play this module as written, the Monk/Mummy from room 16 on Level 2 will teleport away when injured enough and reappear on Level 3 in room 24. This sets up a very deadly encounter on Level 3.

When the characters enter this level from the stairs, they will have two possible doors to go through. On one side is a large room with two Girallons. On the other side is a smaller room with SIX Girallons...AND the Mummy/Monk from Level 2!

The real killer here is that the module specifies that sounds of a fight in either of these rooms draws the occupents from the other nearby room after a round or two.

So the party I was DMing was unlucky enough to choose the door leading into Room #24. This left the party tank (who's high armor class of 30 or so was the only thing that saved him) and the party Monk in the doorway fighting the Girrallons and the Mummy. The party cleric was behind them healing them. Oh yeah, I forgot. A combat in Room 24 also draws two Morghs into the fight from room 26! Meanwhile, the rest of the party was in the 10'x20' hallway between Rooms 24 and 25 when the door from room 25 opened and the other 2 Girrallons came through to start pounding on the Rogue and the Sorceress. NOT GOOD.

Needless to say, the party suffered. Our Monk (my character) was killed by the Mummy/Monk in melee combat. The Sorceress (whose new nickname is Yo-Yo) got dropped to unconsciousness and healed back up to single digit HP's so many times I lost count, while the Cleric herself got dropped until someone dropped a healing potion into her throat. The halfling Rouge got the worst of it though. She got cornered by one of the Girallons and it hit her with all four claws, the bite, and the rend...84 points of damage total if I remember right. I ruled that it had grabbed her around the waist with two claws while grabbing her head with the top two claws and ripped it off before taking a bite out of it!

Anyway, after the dust settled, I found that they had beaten every monster on that level of the tower in that one fight! So like I said...BEWARE LEVEL 3!!!

I would share more, but that's as far as my party has gotten so far.

 

[WizarDru]

Re: Re: [Heart of Nightfang Spire] Running the meat grinder...

The real killer here is that the module specifies that sounds of a fight in either of these rooms draws the occupents from the other nearby room after a round or two.

Phoenix is right, I should have mentioned this as one of the most deadly features of the dungeon. Almost every encounter my group had ended up summoning multiple monsters on each level. For example, they ended up facing the spectres and Aoket at the same time, leading to a terriblly nasty encounter, and the game's first lethality.

 

[aurellius]

Well...Party of 6 and TPK Twice.......

Do not even think of attempting this module without a cleric preferably one good at undead smashing.

and

High spot/listens somewhere in the party


Of course it helped that the groups fighter and cleric both failed their saves versus the golem......back to back 1's.....Ugh

Defintely a module that requires a defensive stance by the party to get through it, and if your cleric gets level drained....



Marcus

 

[EntropyDecay]

OK, we finished our second HoNS session yesterday.



[Spoiler!]



Short summary:
The three survivors of the mooncalf battle took the bodies of their fallen friends and left the tower valley in order to give them a proper burial. In the hills outside they met the new characters who were sent by the baron of Brindinford to aid the heroes in their important mission to stop the war plans of Gulthias. After they had buried their dead and rested for the night, they decided to enter the Nightfang Spire again filled with hate for Gulthias and fear of his undead minions waiting for them.

The encounter with the wights in the hollow top of the spire was rather easy and they made short work of them. Due to some mistakes by the player of the PsyWar her character gained two negative levels. They entered the spire and started exploring it. The first enemies in there were some shadows they encountered in two different rooms but the paladin destroyed the undead quickly with very succesful turning checks.

Some time later they entered the destroyed shrine and were surprised by three vampire spawns who formed out of the mist in that room. The paladin failed his will save against the charm person ability in the first round and willingly let a vampire spawn lady suck some blood out of him (-4 permanent constitution). The rest of the party did their best to dispatch their opponents with minor success. One spawn was slain, another fled to the room into the south. Meanwhile the additional vampire spawns in the adjacent room had heard the battle and decided to help their fellows. The party was a bit annoyed/afraid of the undead tactics which was to make good use of gaseous form, fast healing and reentering the battle. The tide turned quickly in their favor when the illusionist suddenly remembered to cast a dispel magic on the paladin in order to free him of his domination (Who had been standing there with blank stare for about six rounds. I decided that the spawn who had dominated him had other problems at the moment so she forgot about him totally in the battle). Another very succesful turning check, and some dust is all that remains.
End of session.

Character status:
PsyWar: 2 negative levels
Illusionist: ok
Illu / Bard: 1 negative level
Paladin: 4 points of permanent constitution damage
Fighter: 2 negative levels

Party plans for the next session:
Explore the last few rooms of the first tower level and get some rest.

Random thoughts from me:
I was thinking of adding a cleric held prisoner in one of the lower spire levels. He/she would be too weak to help them in direct battle but could provide the occasional restoration or healing spell if rescued.

Chris
Score so far: 2
Greatest fear at the moment: Too much unsuccesful saves against negative levels