Heart of Nightfang Spire - SPOILERS

[Wulf Ratbane]

Add one more voice of caution to this growing cacophony.

We had 2 clerics and an aasimar paladin with a 27 Wisdom-- and we still got pummelled... and... and...

Screw it. Piratecat says it's too tough, YOU LISTEN!

 

[Piratecat]

So here's what you do. You're DM, right? Then screw the old "what the module says is set in stone and I may not alter it" mindset, and customize the heck out of it. Make it your own. Change monster attacks, abilities and hit dice. Remove arbitrariness and reduce the sheer number of monsters and add role playing. Make it challenging AND fun for your group ~ then run it, and don't feel guilty for a second that you made changes.

 

[Thanee]

We played through the module with a party of three ~10th level characters, a human paladin, a gnome wizard and an elven rogue/fighter/wizard.

Having no cleric was tough, but we got discount at the church in our hometown after a few visits. "Ok, we need one resurrection, half a dozen restoration spells and some rest. How much?"

Our strategy was: buffing up as much as possible, teleporting in, slaying as much as possible, teleporting out, heal up, rest, repeat.

There have been four PC death's (with resurrection and later true resurrection) total. My own character died twice, once from being swarmed by girallons and reduced (with extremely lucky rolls on the girallons behalf, they needed a 17 or 18 on d20 to hit) from almost 100 hitpoints to below -10 in a single round! The other one was in the final fight from a finger of death.

Well, what can I say. The adventure was horrible! It was very repetitive and no real challenge involved, except fighting armies of undead. Not really exciting, but just very boring in fact. *shrug*

Of course it might also have been the inability of the one who DM'ed us through the spire to run the adventure properly, but I think it was mostly the adventure being just a very dull dungeon crawl.

We made new characters and started a new campaign afterwards (with two new players, so it was not only the adventure's fault - and our characters being 11th~12th level were already fairly powerful and we wanted to change a few rules also)!

My advice: Put it back into the shelf and grab a new one!

Bye
Thanee

 

[Zelda Themelin]

I don't think it is a bad adventure at all. I loved playing through it, but it IS tough as hell. Especially when our DM advanced monsters, and added some Scarred Lands-stuff (world we use).

He also added interesting plot-elements, and whole idea of stopping Gulthanas become personally involving. I've played in too many combat-lame role-play oriantated games and when I play D&D I want experience challenge and danger, not just some social soap-opera.

Of course, if DM turns module into complite blood-fest it becomes fun for only most fanatic 'Tomb of Horrors'-type-dungeon crawlers. Spire is dangerous, but not total party-kill for well-balanced party. And yes, module's claim for amount of party levels rings false in my ears. At least, if DM playes baddies correctly. When one multiclasses one sacrifises better abilites, and in this type of adventure that loss is felt with vengence.

But if you as DM and players like the characters, this adventure might come too early on.

I suggest you pick something else now and come back to this later, at time characters are experieced enough for players to actually enjoy this scenario.

And like Piratecat says, you can always tone it down.

Enjoy more, worry less.

 

[Piratecat]

StealthyMark, I edited your subject line to add "spoilers."

 

[Thanee]

He also added interesting plot-elements, and whole idea of stopping Gulthanas become personally involving.

Yeah, that's basically what I was missing... a plot!

Bye
Thanee

 

[Zelda Themelin]

Yeah, that's basically what I was missing... a plot!

Bye
Thanee

Well, that's what I find, is initially missing in all WotC storypath adventures (or whatever those module-series are called). Ok, there is a kind of plot, but it is kind of skeleton of a plot. Anything more involving is up to dm. I think it is better for short module like that to say too little, not too much.

I've also played "Temple of Elemental Evil" in form of 'wake me up when there is a fight, but not if's party at each's throats again'. That was so boring.

I enjoy good dungeon crawls without plot too, but only if players have some creativity, know rules, have some sense of tactics and actually move onward instead of staying around arguing which option is too dangerous to take or who should open the door etc.

 

[Rackhir]

I'm not as negative about HoNS as Zad was, I found it a creatively designed module with a lot of interesting chalenges. However, it has absolutely no mercy. This is a harsh and brutal module that will kill off your PCs if they do not maximize their advantages and do not prepare properly for it. There is very, very little margin for error at the levels the module is listed for and frankly they should probably be at least 2 levels higher. Most of your party doesn't even meet the 10th level minimum.

Most worrying is that from your description, "on the ball" and "takes full advantage of" doesn't sound like your group. Compounding the problem, they are lacking any substantial power in several previously mentioned areas. You could modify the module so they can survive it, but it would pretty much take gutting the module. I would just hold off for several levels and make sure they have a pure high level cleric before letting them anywhere near it.

 

[WizarDru]

If played withe baddies acting intelligently, it can be a slaughterhouse.

I've already ranted considerably about HoNS in our story hour, among other places, so I won't reiterate all that here. But to echo what you've heard above: they are not ready. Will they suffer serious casualties as written? Almost certainly. Can the module be modified to be more playable for your group? Without question.

In the case of my group, we didn't have the benefit of that kind of fore-knowledge going in. I did modify the module somewhat, but seeing as how we had six players, including a Shadowed of Pelor (a Hunter of the Dead variant), I didn't think the module would need that much modification. It probably could have used some.


Never mind the fact that if I wanted to spend THAT much time modifiying a module, I might as well stick with a homebrew...because the chief advantage of a purchased module is the time it saves me. I mistakenly assumed that since this was a core WOTC module, it wouldn't require that kind of modification. I was wrong. Ask this question: how many members of that party can withstand a DC25 FORT save Assasain's killing attack? HOW OFTEN? If the answer is, not often enough, then get out of Dodge.