Help me alter Speaker In Dreams (spoilers)

[stevelabny]

On the off chance any of my players are here, get out. :-D

Fresh out of the Forge of Fury, the awkward party of Elven Monk4/Sorc1, Human Cleric 5 (luck and good), Human Barbarian 5, and Half-Orc Rog3/Ftr2
travel to Brindinford.

My gf plays the cleric and has played through parts of Speaker in Dreams before. She knows the main bad guy is a mind flayer. And some other details from earlier in the adventure. (were-rats, sorcerors in the bookstore, and one of the shrines being overtaken by evil guys)

The were-rats are pretty straight forward so I kept them in.(And the party has already cleared out the were-rats and the grimlocks) I'm powering up the sorcerors in the bookstore by rolling their stats and changing their spell lists. I also would like to swap out one of the two gibbering mouthers for something else, but haven't decided what yet. (I want to use my Abyssal Eviscerator mini, but I don't know how to make him fit)

I plan to alter the ambush in the alleys, taking out the rogues and letting the ogre mage make a stand there.

I want to add a second ambush where the PCs fight a party of similar make-up. Which should be a decent spot for them to pick up some items before fighting the evil clerics and devils.

After realizing I'll actually get to use the Bone Devil mini I have, I changed some of the devils to other minis I have (like the Bearded Devil)
and want to switch some of the hellhounds to a displacer beast.
Also, I switched the elasmosaurus in the river to a tojanida. although I bet the party never goes outside the town anyway.

As for the finale, I had to remove the mind flayer, and didnt want the ogre mage around at the end.

I've already introduced the Unruly Barbarian from the web-enhancement and have kept him around as a character. (Lothar...of the hill people)
And his theme song is of course sung by a bard who all along I had pegged as the mind flayer's replacement.
I figure the barbarian can be one level lower than the bard and be his cohort and meat-shield for the finale.

I'm expecting the party to be slightly ahead of WoTC's plan and be 8th level before the ending. I'm trying to deicde if the over-equipped bard (he has taken over almost a whole town by now, of course he'd be over equipped) is 10th level and the barbarian is his 9th level cohort, if that is a balanced end fight.

Also, the party is PARANOID. My gf seems to suspect the bard is up to no good. (possibly because she is guessing a bard is a decent mind-controlling replacement) The bard has mostly won them over, and uses Nystul's Magic Aura on his magic items to prevent them from using a simple Detect Magic to realize he's tricked out.

So, here are my questions.

1> Any other ideas for replacements monsters of character types that I can use?

2> Are any of the changes I've already made setting up a problem that I'm not seeing?

3> Is the end-fight a challenging final encounter? I'm figuring that the bard will have a few rounds to start his preparations and that both sides will be full strength. Should I lower or raise the levels on these two NPCs? I think I've done a good job at choosing their feats and such, but are there any must-haves you can think of?

4> I love the Nystul's Magic Aura touch. I almost want to force the bard in front of one of the party's detect magics to make them NOT suspect him. Are there any other precautions I should take to make sure the "jig isnt up" before the end?

 

[Seravin]

1> Any other ideas for replacements monsters of character types that I can use?

Have you thought of an Erynies as a replacement? Same CR as of the mind flayer and has the added benefit of being able to appear angelic (sort of) without too much effort. It would also fit in with the Devilish connection. Give her rogue levels (or house rule the bard alignment issue) with perform if you think you need to buff her up a bit.

When I was thinking of doing a modification, I had been thinking of using the succubus from Forge of Fury - but her CE alignment conflicted with all the other bad guys alignment . You'd have to change most of the creatures to fit in.

2> Are any of the changes I've already made setting up a problem that I'm not seeing?

a. If you're swapping in displacer beasts, think about fiendish displacer beasts just to keep the theme.

b. If you have access to Tome and Blood, give the abyssal eviserators the psudonatural template and tell the players to imagine the mini's as a sickening purple and green with pulsing skin.

3> Is the end-fight a challenging final encounter? I'm figuring that the bard will have a few rounds to start his preparations and that both sides will be full strength. Should I lower or raise the levels on these two NPCs? I think I've done a good job at choosing their feats and such, but are there any must-haves you can think of?

Your end fight will be challenging (with bard and barbarian) for an eighth level party. Expect someone to die if they aren't adequately prepared or if the barbarian and bard are particularly optimized.

When I ran the module, it was a pretty challenging fight. The characters were around 7th and they went in armed for dire bear. The Ogre Mage didn't last too long and ultimately was unable to flee. The Mind Flayer fled, but came back (I altered it's innate plane shift ability with a feat to give it a Teleport chance to arrive on target) and was shortly killed. By the end of the fight a couple party members were stunned and everyone was hurt, but no one was dead. If the MF hadn't come back for it's after-dinner snack it would have survived for another day. Ah well.

 

[Plane Sailing]

A 10th level bard gives all his allies +2 hit and damage with his inspiring song - that makes mooks even better.

Plus, what if the bard has entranced a lot of innocent townsfolk and then sends them (inspired) into battle with the PCs - perhaps all using aid-another grapples to pin people down and beat them up (especially if there are some rogues who can take advantage of sneak attack on pinned people).

This last idea, if the PCs are of good alignment, gives them a nice moral quandary. The monk can still do subdual unarmed damage, so he is OK, but the others surely don't want to go chopping down basically decent citizens who have been mind-controlled.

Even better if some of those attacking them are the innkeeper, the butcher, the baker, the armourer that they know and have had dealings with

Even better if the evil bard has lots of charmed children he can throw between himself and the party :evil:

BTW, it sounds like your gf is using a lot of OOC knowledge about the situation. Naughty naughty! Throw in an obvious red-herring mind-control creature.

Make sure that the Bard Dominates the Barbarian and uses him to hack down the cleric and the monk. With the huge duration of domination try to get him long before the final encounter if possible (especially if the party have stinted on purchasing "sense motive". If the rogue is a "sense motive" genius try to grab him instead). It would be great for the party to meet up with the bard and the party barbarian suddenly opens up hostilities by smiting his friends. Mwa-ha-ha-ha!

Cheers