How tough is City of the Spider Queen?
- Thread starter Iron_Chef
- Start date
Dr. Strangemonkey
First Post
From threads I've seen before I can tell you that there seems to be a pretty strong divided opinion on this module.
The majority agree that the campaign is a hack and slash module and recommend that parties try to turn themselves into a marine expeditionary force in order to take it on.
This does work, however...
My group has found that we are very succesful and have to spend a lot less time at things adopting a smaller military political model.
There are some hefty politics involved in what is going on in this adventure and a party such as yours should have no trouble exploiting them. You still need to prepare for some nasty encounters, but the key is preparation. Demons, Drow, and Undead are all nasty opponents, but the environment makes them even more vulnerable to the environmental type spells that already bypass their spell resistance. Entangle them, wall them in, use control winds to cut down their ability to summon aid and ratchet up their concentration check modifiers, invest in thunder stones, and emphasize the stealth. The adventure is set up to reward people who intelligently bypass threats through increased mobility and cunning. There are tons of safe areas that are easy to clear out and easy to rest in. Confuse your opponents at every turn: rough up your battlefields to make it appear that the attackers came from and went to other places than where you guys are going. Capture prisoners, interrogate them, and execute them in particularly vivid and public fashion.
In a lot of ways I envy the party involved in this thread. My group uses all of these tactics, but we will never be able to embody them as a group of banites could. Not too mention a group of bitter unhappy Banites. Show the DM what price he will pay for running an adventure he doesn't have to think about. Make him feel pain and frustration as you outsmart the adventure at every turn and turn it into the political campaign of your dreams. Make Bane proud. Make yourselves happy as this campaign shoots you up in levels faster than a rocket powered elevator.
Another thing: make friends with an outside underdark faction so you can sell all of your loot to them. That damn Drow radiation stuff cost us a load of resources.
BTW: Despite this, if you do want to revolt, you might want to point out to your DM that you are severely underpowered for this campaign. We've had it in our future for a while, but specifcally did not tackle it till we were level 13.
The majority agree that the campaign is a hack and slash module and recommend that parties try to turn themselves into a marine expeditionary force in order to take it on.
This does work, however...
My group has found that we are very succesful and have to spend a lot less time at things adopting a smaller military political model.
There are some hefty politics involved in what is going on in this adventure and a party such as yours should have no trouble exploiting them. You still need to prepare for some nasty encounters, but the key is preparation. Demons, Drow, and Undead are all nasty opponents, but the environment makes them even more vulnerable to the environmental type spells that already bypass their spell resistance. Entangle them, wall them in, use control winds to cut down their ability to summon aid and ratchet up their concentration check modifiers, invest in thunder stones, and emphasize the stealth. The adventure is set up to reward people who intelligently bypass threats through increased mobility and cunning. There are tons of safe areas that are easy to clear out and easy to rest in. Confuse your opponents at every turn: rough up your battlefields to make it appear that the attackers came from and went to other places than where you guys are going. Capture prisoners, interrogate them, and execute them in particularly vivid and public fashion.
In a lot of ways I envy the party involved in this thread. My group uses all of these tactics, but we will never be able to embody them as a group of banites could. Not too mention a group of bitter unhappy Banites. Show the DM what price he will pay for running an adventure he doesn't have to think about. Make him feel pain and frustration as you outsmart the adventure at every turn and turn it into the political campaign of your dreams. Make Bane proud. Make yourselves happy as this campaign shoots you up in levels faster than a rocket powered elevator.
Another thing: make friends with an outside underdark faction so you can sell all of your loot to them. That damn Drow radiation stuff cost us a load of resources.
BTW: Despite this, if you do want to revolt, you might want to point out to your DM that you are severely underpowered for this campaign. We've had it in our future for a while, but specifcally did not tackle it till we were level 13.
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Gothmog
First Post
Originally posted by Iron_Chef:
Because that is what WotC believes sells best to their customers. Personally, I find meatgrinder dungeon hacks to be boring, unimaginitive, and lazy, but some people love them. Most of the WotC modules have been really sad compared to third party publisher modules (only the Standing Stone had any shreds of real plot, roleplaying, and plot twists to it, and even it wasn't great). Its a pity, because the production values on CotSQ are great, but its a module I would NEVER use. Generally I avoid WotCs modules, instead opting for Monkey God, Atlas Games, Green Ronin's Freeport, Mystic Eye Games, or some Necromancer stuff (the less dungeon hack things) when I really have to use a module. If you are willing to do a little conversion work, lots of the Ars Magica modules are great as well. Most of the time, I write my own adventures and avoid the wank and hack-factor of published modules entirely.
Because that is what WotC believes sells best to their customers. Personally, I find meatgrinder dungeon hacks to be boring, unimaginitive, and lazy, but some people love them. Most of the WotC modules have been really sad compared to third party publisher modules (only the Standing Stone had any shreds of real plot, roleplaying, and plot twists to it, and even it wasn't great). Its a pity, because the production values on CotSQ are great, but its a module I would NEVER use. Generally I avoid WotCs modules, instead opting for Monkey God, Atlas Games, Green Ronin's Freeport, Mystic Eye Games, or some Necromancer stuff (the less dungeon hack things) when I really have to use a module. If you are willing to do a little conversion work, lots of the Ars Magica modules are great as well. Most of the time, I write my own adventures and avoid the wank and hack-factor of published modules entirely.
First of all, I think it is unfair for your DM to run this module if you do not want to play in it. A Dm should always talk to their players about what they want and do not want to play. In fact, he should know what you enjoy if he has DMed you for a while. I know that most of my players enjoy dungeon crawls, and are not really role-players. That is why this module may be perfect for them.
I will start DMing it on Sunday, and most of my players are looking forward to it. We were running a Kalamar campaign, no apparent goal, just wandering around doing odd jobs here and there. I asked them whether they would like to play City of the spider queen, and with a 3-2 vote Cotsq won. There is really only one of the players who has a problem with Underdark hack'n'slash, the other who voted against did so because he had killer stats on his last character...
Anyway, since my players always seem to have problems with published modules, I started them at a higher level. I also told them that they would be members of an organization called The White Ribbon, a 500 year old organization of heroes battling the drow menace, but also welcoming the few good-aligned ones to the surface world. I also told them to make characters with classes, prestige classes, feats and equipments that would enable them to combat drow effectively.
Char 1: Half-drow Wiz5/Spellfire Wielder 7 - with a con of 22, this D4 character has 109 hp, and can dish out a stunning 22d6 spellifre damage a round!
Char 1cohort: Half-drow monk10 - hasn't been created yet
Char 2: Human Fighter 5/Master Samurai 7
Char 2 cohort: Air Genasi Ftr 5/Deepwood Sniper 5
Char 3: Halfling Rogue7/Dungeon Delver 5 - maxed out skills in search and disable device
Char 4: Drow Ftr6/Rgr1/Foe hunter3 - wields a keen falchion vakar +3, favored and hated enemy drows, will have a spell resistance against drow next level of 30
Char 5: not created yet, but it will be a Cleric/Divine Oracle/Contemplate/???? With a lot of wisdom boosting, greater spell penetration and possibly the madness prestige domain, giving him +10 or +11 on save DCs.
I suspect it may be a little easy for them, at least in the beginning, but many deaths in the beginning would have ruined the whole experience for them.
I will start DMing it on Sunday, and most of my players are looking forward to it. We were running a Kalamar campaign, no apparent goal, just wandering around doing odd jobs here and there. I asked them whether they would like to play City of the spider queen, and with a 3-2 vote Cotsq won. There is really only one of the players who has a problem with Underdark hack'n'slash, the other who voted against did so because he had killer stats on his last character...
Anyway, since my players always seem to have problems with published modules, I started them at a higher level. I also told them that they would be members of an organization called The White Ribbon, a 500 year old organization of heroes battling the drow menace, but also welcoming the few good-aligned ones to the surface world. I also told them to make characters with classes, prestige classes, feats and equipments that would enable them to combat drow effectively.
Char 1: Half-drow Wiz5/Spellfire Wielder 7 - with a con of 22, this D4 character has 109 hp, and can dish out a stunning 22d6 spellifre damage a round!
Char 1cohort: Half-drow monk10 - hasn't been created yet
Char 2: Human Fighter 5/Master Samurai 7
Char 2 cohort: Air Genasi Ftr 5/Deepwood Sniper 5
Char 3: Halfling Rogue7/Dungeon Delver 5 - maxed out skills in search and disable device
Char 4: Drow Ftr6/Rgr1/Foe hunter3 - wields a keen falchion vakar +3, favored and hated enemy drows, will have a spell resistance against drow next level of 30
Char 5: not created yet, but it will be a Cleric/Divine Oracle/Contemplate/???? With a lot of wisdom boosting, greater spell penetration and possibly the madness prestige domain, giving him +10 or +11 on save DCs.
I suspect it may be a little easy for them, at least in the beginning, but many deaths in the beginning would have ruined the whole experience for them.
Endur
First Post
Politics, Politics, Politics
You should be able to solve this adventure with a minimal amount of hack and slash if you think creatively.
You are a bunch of Evil Spell casters. You are facing evil spellcasters.
Why fight when you can NEGOTIATE.
Tell some flunky drow, "Take me to your leader."
Let the Drow take you to the leader, trade some of your stuff for what the leader has that you want, and go home.
Very diplomatic. Minimal combat.
If you are worried about treachery and being backstabbed by the Drow, then capture a couple of Drow first, "interrogate" them, and then do the "Take me to your leader" bit.
Since you are evil, you could even summon up a demon or two, and ask them to fill you in on what is going on in the Underdark.
Tom
You should be able to solve this adventure with a minimal amount of hack and slash if you think creatively.
You are a bunch of Evil Spell casters. You are facing evil spellcasters.
Why fight when you can NEGOTIATE.
Tell some flunky drow, "Take me to your leader."
Let the Drow take you to the leader, trade some of your stuff for what the leader has that you want, and go home.
Very diplomatic. Minimal combat.
If you are worried about treachery and being backstabbed by the Drow, then capture a couple of Drow first, "interrogate" them, and then do the "Take me to your leader" bit.
Since you are evil, you could even summon up a demon or two, and ask them to fill you in on what is going on in the Underdark.
Tom
KnowTheToe
First Post
bwgwl said:
if it's that much of a meatgrinder, i'll try not to get too attached to my character.
RttToEE Spoilers
This is the worst part of a meat grinder. Why play if you can't care about your character.
I lost characters in RttToEE in two consecutive sessions. One to a bad balance check and another when I was chased down by U after we attacked him in the CRM. A whole party of fully buffed characters ready for the fight got slaughtered because the DM used the hover feat indoors saying that U brought enough debris into the caverns to use debris to blind us.
I believe I was killed because instead of working with U to take down a tougher dragon, I convinced the group into attacking U. My argument was if a fully buffed party could not take out U then we could not have taken the other dragon. Anyway it was a bad move by a usually good DM, we all make mistakes. After that death I did not feel like spending another couple of hours creating a character I did not even care about becaseu the prospects of playing him long term were so slim. That was our last session of RttToEE.
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johnnype
First Post
It sounds like your DM is doing himslef and your group a disservice by playing this adventure. It's obviously not what you want and it sounds like he's too busy to put something else together.
That said, CotSQ is a great f***g adventure. If you continue with the characters that you have though, you will have your ass handed to you more often than not. First and foremost, what you need is a Rogue with search and disable device maxed out. Then you need to consider beefing up your offensive capabilities. A well developed Cleric would also come in handy. None of this jumping around PrC's one of your characters has done. That's just asking for it. Even with these changes you need to think about optimizing your characters. As it is they are woefully under-equipped.
The opportunities for role-playing and and PC interaction are most deffinitely included in the adventure. It's entirely up to your group to find them and make something of them. Read again Dr. Strangemonkey's post as he has some very good advice. Ultimately, if you decide (or are force) to continue playing the adventure at least try to make the most of it. I think you will be surprised. I'd love to be in your shoes.
That said, CotSQ is a great f***g adventure. If you continue with the characters that you have though, you will have your ass handed to you more often than not. First and foremost, what you need is a Rogue with search and disable device maxed out. Then you need to consider beefing up your offensive capabilities. A well developed Cleric would also come in handy. None of this jumping around PrC's one of your characters has done. That's just asking for it. Even with these changes you need to think about optimizing your characters. As it is they are woefully under-equipped.
The opportunities for role-playing and and PC interaction are most deffinitely included in the adventure. It's entirely up to your group to find them and make something of them. Read again Dr. Strangemonkey's post as he has some very good advice. Ultimately, if you decide (or are force) to continue playing the adventure at least try to make the most of it. I think you will be surprised. I'd love to be in your shoes.
Valiantheart
First Post
Looks like they could use a bit more muscle too. A great sword wielder doesnt have to worry about Dark Elf magic resistance.
Iron_Chef
First Post
Couple of things:
My conjurer cannot summon anything that is not one step removed from Bane's LE alignment: LE, LN, NE only. No demons, just devils, daemons (yugoloths), nightmares, nighthags, formians, some LN celestials (protectors in Tome of Horroprs, for instance), etc. This is due to an irreversible choice I made in character development at 1st level (Theurgist "character concept" from Quintessential Wizard that gave me free arcane versions of all the planar ally spells and most of the summon monsters).
The only political stuff we've gotten to do so far:
Our group has made peaceful contact and formed a trade alliance with the drow of House Jaelre, so we should be able to unload drow only items to them for a profit. My conjurer has also forged an alliance with a Thayan merchant/slaver in Zhentil Keep who can provide all manner of exotic goods even the Zhentarim might have some difficulty coming up with on short notice. Unfortunately, they aren't willing to loan us more than three drow to help investigate Maerimydra. We used two fighter/rogues but they got their butts beat and so we let them go, especially when we realized we didn't necessarily need them and thery were draining our XP (we were close to levelling and wanted to make sure we did. I guess we could get two more and a mid-level leader type we've been dealing with to tag along.
Our group has forged an alliance with the 40+ wyverns of the Thunder Peaks (including their reasonably bright 20 HD leader). We provide them with livestock and a slave/farmer to tend the herds so they never run out of food and don't have to hunt. I also make liberal use of the mount spell to conjure up snacks for them (kind of like fast food as it it vanishes in their stomach some hours later). They call me "Maker of Horses", lol. So they loan us 10% of their flock (4 wyverns) as mounts/air support/beasts of burden in exchange for all this free food. However, we can't use the damn things underground. We've got several of the beasts charmed with charm monster just to make sure they stay friendly. With this alliance, we have complete air superiority in the Sessrendale region where our Zhentarim secret base is located (sssh! don't tell Elminster!).
We could easily convince some of the goody-two shoes Mistledale/Battledale folks we've made friendly with under guise of our cover identity as Sembian mercenaries looking for work, but the problem there is they would learn too much about our true natures and that could jeopardize our long range plans for the region if they got away. However, if we sent them in to do it for us...
Bane doesn't want the rod back, he wants it destroyed, so there's no reason we must go all the way. We could simply seal the do-gooders in with their instructions and then leave, monitoring their progress by scrying/sending spells.
We could also bring this matter of the necromancer and his rod to our superiors in the Keep, but they'd probably just assign us to deal with it, give us a few more people (probably to assassinate us at a key moment as we have many enemies jealous of our rapid rise to power), and then hog all the glory for pulling the mission off. I could perhaps swing it so they sent another group instead of us (how sweet that would be!), as Bane hasn't said "you and only you must do this for me;" we kind of stupidly volunteered out of religious obligation (sincerely wanting to do Bane's will), not realizing what we were getting ourselves into or how unbelievably eadly it was going to be. We can't be raised or resurrected or even wished back to life without Bane's consent and he doesn't tolerate failure very well, so we don't wanna die. Since all Bane needs is the mission completed by anybody, why should we do it if we can get someone else to do the job for us?
My conjurer cannot summon anything that is not one step removed from Bane's LE alignment: LE, LN, NE only. No demons, just devils, daemons (yugoloths), nightmares, nighthags, formians, some LN celestials (protectors in Tome of Horroprs, for instance), etc. This is due to an irreversible choice I made in character development at 1st level (Theurgist "character concept" from Quintessential Wizard that gave me free arcane versions of all the planar ally spells and most of the summon monsters).
The only political stuff we've gotten to do so far:
Our group has made peaceful contact and formed a trade alliance with the drow of House Jaelre, so we should be able to unload drow only items to them for a profit. My conjurer has also forged an alliance with a Thayan merchant/slaver in Zhentil Keep who can provide all manner of exotic goods even the Zhentarim might have some difficulty coming up with on short notice. Unfortunately, they aren't willing to loan us more than three drow to help investigate Maerimydra. We used two fighter/rogues but they got their butts beat and so we let them go, especially when we realized we didn't necessarily need them and thery were draining our XP (we were close to levelling and wanted to make sure we did. I guess we could get two more and a mid-level leader type we've been dealing with to tag along.
Our group has forged an alliance with the 40+ wyverns of the Thunder Peaks (including their reasonably bright 20 HD leader). We provide them with livestock and a slave/farmer to tend the herds so they never run out of food and don't have to hunt. I also make liberal use of the mount spell to conjure up snacks for them (kind of like fast food as it it vanishes in their stomach some hours later). They call me "Maker of Horses", lol. So they loan us 10% of their flock (4 wyverns) as mounts/air support/beasts of burden in exchange for all this free food. However, we can't use the damn things underground. We've got several of the beasts charmed with charm monster just to make sure they stay friendly. With this alliance, we have complete air superiority in the Sessrendale region where our Zhentarim secret base is located (sssh! don't tell Elminster!).
We could easily convince some of the goody-two shoes Mistledale/Battledale folks we've made friendly with under guise of our cover identity as Sembian mercenaries looking for work, but the problem there is they would learn too much about our true natures and that could jeopardize our long range plans for the region if they got away. However, if we sent them in to do it for us...
Bane doesn't want the rod back, he wants it destroyed, so there's no reason we must go all the way. We could simply seal the do-gooders in with their instructions and then leave, monitoring their progress by scrying/sending spells. We could also bring this matter of the necromancer and his rod to our superiors in the Keep, but they'd probably just assign us to deal with it, give us a few more people (probably to assassinate us at a key moment as we have many enemies jealous of our rapid rise to power), and then hog all the glory for pulling the mission off. I could perhaps swing it so they sent another group instead of us (how sweet that would be!), as Bane hasn't said "you and only you must do this for me;" we kind of stupidly volunteered out of religious obligation (sincerely wanting to do Bane's will), not realizing what we were getting ourselves into or how unbelievably eadly it was going to be. We can't be raised or resurrected or even wished back to life without Bane's consent and he doesn't tolerate failure very well, so we don't wanna die. Since all Bane needs is the mission completed by anybody, why should we do it if we can get someone else to do the job for us?
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Iron_Chef
First Post
One more thing, the DM is super stingy with treasure and magic items. He thinks its hilarious that we are fairly high level and can't fight anything with DR 10/+2. The players, on the other hand, are not amused. Why are you throwing us up against these monsters regularly when you know we can't even dent them?
None of us have the gold or craft item feats to help resolve this. The DM also said I can't just go to the Wizard's Guild in the Keep and buy what I need anymore, as I've too many jealous rivals. Everything costs 50% more than normal until I recover some magic items stolen from the Guild's necromancers (obviously by agents of the anti-Bane necromancer plaguing us that are hidden well beyond my reach to obtain).
So we can't beef up jack. We have maybe 5,000 gold between the four of us (cohort included) and that's not until Zhentarim payday. Not enough to buy much useful in the way of magic weapons/items.
None of us have the gold or craft item feats to help resolve this. The DM also said I can't just go to the Wizard's Guild in the Keep and buy what I need anymore, as I've too many jealous rivals. Everything costs 50% more than normal until I recover some magic items stolen from the Guild's necromancers (obviously by agents of the anti-Bane necromancer plaguing us that are hidden well beyond my reach to obtain).
So we can't beef up jack. We have maybe 5,000 gold between the four of us (cohort included) and that's not until Zhentarim payday. Not enough to buy much useful in the way of magic weapons/items.
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