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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EntropyDecay" data-source="post: 968557" data-attributes="member: 10652">Contains spoilers. If you are one of my players, please keep out of this thread!Warning: May contain nuts!*The inevitable has come...My campaign which follows the (slightly modified) Adventure Path series from WotC has reached HoNF. An adventure known for its high lethality. My group had their first session last friday, tonight we'll continue.The party at the time the characters reached the tower:- Human PsyWar 8 / Fighter 2- Human Cleric 9- Gnome Illusionist 9- Human Rogue 8- Human Bard 4 / Illusionist 4Very short summary of the first session:Characters discovered the valley in which the tower stood after a lengthy travel from Brindinford;the gnome casted the magic eye spell to scout the top of the tower and its surroundings (failing spectacularly to discover the hiding mooncalf in the shadows [spot result: 4]);they notice that the weather seems get worse and worse by the minute (control weather from the mooncalf to prepare a control lightning);party decides to explore the top of Nightfang Spire since they couldn't find any entrance on the ground level;while the party still discusses how to get the weak climbers to the top, the rogue (totally unprotected by spells, ring of protection +1 is only protective item) decides to start his ascend;the rest of the characters follow (normal climbing / boots of spider climb) after the rogue has reached about half of the tower height (45 ft. of 90 ft.), they too did't cast any protection spells;rogue reaches the top, is surprised by the mooncalf (modified to be a fairer challenge for their slightly too low group levels), ends the surprise rounds nearly dead and grappled (tentacle hit -> improved grap);the rest of the party is at this moment 45 ft. away (read: lower) from the unlucky rogue;rest of combat made short:1st rnd: whole party acts before mooncalf, but rogue doesn't make his escape artist check and rest of party uses their turn to cast spells on themselves and/or ascending the tower; mooncalf uses grapple / constricting and makes short work of the thief... uhm rogue, drops the corpse and takes off into the air;2nd rnd: cleric & illusionist reach the top and cast spells on the flying monster (clr: flame strike, ill: displacement on himself), bard/illu uses wand of magic missiles (5th) and marches onwards (spiderclimb boots), psywar spends whole round climbing, mooncalf blasts cleric with control lightning ability;3rd rnd: cleric casts searing light, illusionist casts melfs acid arrow, bard uses her wand, psywar reaches top and draws a bow, mooncalf uses reach of tentacles to hit cleric -> improved grap succeeds -> cleric is drawn into the air;4th rnd: cleric unsuccessfully tries to grapple himself free (lose/lose situation: monster with constricting / 100 ft. drop to the ground), illusionist casts something (cannot remember what it was), bard uses wand, psywar fires her bow without any effect, mooncalf kills cleric;5th rnd: illusionist casts displacement on psywar, bard fires wand, psywar uses mindblast succesfully -> mooncalf & cleric corpse hit the ground;6th rnd ++: bard & illusionist fire wand and melfs acid arrow round after round thus killing the mooncalf.Since the cleric was gone, they had no possibility to raise the dead and those two became the first victims of this adventure.End of first session.The party asked me afterwards what I thought were their biggest mistakes and how to avoid them. I found the following things.Some reasons for party failure in the combat:- No use of protective magic BEFORE the battle (important when entering unknown and possibly dangerous areas): Players said that they had trusted the gnome when he hadn't seen anyone at the top and they thought it was safe -> Not seeing anyone, doesn't mean there isn't anyone (...invisible, hiding, incorporeal & hidden in object)!- Major tactical disadvantage (Flying monster against characters without any possibilities to get into the air): Players had encountered flying monsters before and always had great problems defeating them. Despite this they made no effort to get flying abilites (through spells, items,...) or think of a general party tactic against flyers.- Taking unnecessary risks (rogue leaving the protection of the group): Never leave the group in dangerous terrain unless you absolutely have to (scouting ahead,...).- No abilities to raise the fallen comrades or reach someone who can: Prepare for the worst and expect character deaths. Don't put too much trust into your groups cleric, he could be the first one to die. Try to get "return to life" items that more than one party member can use. Use transportation magic (flying, teleportation, magic carpet...) to be able to get to someone who can raise the dead when in the wilderness.New characters will be:ex-rogue -> elven fighter (archer)ex-cleric   -> human(?) paladinBoth players don't want to play a rogue (anymore), as they seem to think of a rogue as the weakest of all classes and described it as "total crap, worse than the ranger and weaker as a wizard in ANY combat". Sneak attack ("doesn't work against many targets") and lots of skill points ("who needs skills, we want feats") were disregarded as nearly meaningless by these two. I'm waiting for the look on their faces when they stumble into the next traps.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.2. What general D&D survival tips do you have besides the ones I listed above? My group would appreciate EVERY help they can get since most of us are experienced roleplayers, but relatively new to D&D (most know D&D for about a year, while I changed shortly after 3rd Edition was released**).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.Thanks in advance,Chris*see: The science of Discworld II: The globe**I REALLY disliked AD&D, but most of the things I criticised were altered with 3rd Edition</blockquote>

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