How tough is too tough?

[Fynn]

Hi All,

Question for all the DM's out there.

How tough is TOO tough?

Just started a new module with our regular DM. We solved the last one with admirable sneakiness deciding not to fight the dragon that was guarding the treasure we had to have but instead being very sneaky and achieving the objective. Personally I think the DM was upset that we didn't fight the dragon and he didn't get to broil us alive... So

In the previous campiagn we had found a deck of wonders and all drawn cards. My character lucked out and drew the card that bestowed a Keep, three months later in Real Time a wizard comes along to tell me I've inherited a Keep and here is the key - Oh and a letter from a long lost relative saying that we are his last hope as he is being attacked by Orcs he can't stop... Fair enough.

We get there and we find the following: -

3 Frost Giants
3 Chimeric Dire Bears
3 Dozen Orcs (Barbarian orcs leveled to 12th)
A Gargantuan Green Dragon
2 Harpies

Evidence of high level magic use and that there are invisible assassins present as well. These are all we can see outside the keep but behind a palisade that has been recently built.

O..Kay. The party decides to give it a go thinking that we can be sneaky and watches for a while (The DM fudges and DOES NOT tell us that the above group is ~attacking~ the keep - which would indicate that we have potential allies inside) We do find a body however and take it back to town and speak with dead to find out more, and discover all about the above attackers - Oh and that the purpose is that the Orcs want to raise some BBEG and this is the reason for the keep being built in the first place. We get back and discover that all these creatures are now INSIDE.

Great. So after discovering that there is no way into the Keep except the front door (OK I have a key) we enter - remember we have no thief - and set off not one but two glyphs of fireball doing combined damage of over 100 points - The wizard and my character is now dead and all other characters have less than 10 HP left, Which is when we discover that the walls are magically sealed and we cannot TP out...

Thanks for reading this far. I personally feel that the DM was harsh, especially since as part of the world environment if you die you lose a level, and I'm inclined to do one of the following:-

1) My character is dead, I'll stay dead thanks. - Which would kinda remove the entire reason the party has for attacking a heavily fortified and magically enhanced keep with bad guys inside.

2) Sell the keep - Um By the way there are some squatters....

3) Hire a number of sappers with Shape stone to riddle the large stone Butte the keep sits upon and buy lots of fire clay to rig the keep to fall and give them one chance to exit before I blow the keep to small pieces.

None of these are ideal solutions, obviously the DM wants us to heroically battle the interlopers and use combat tactics to try and kill opponents significantly more powerful than we are, but since he has already said (Fight your own battles) when I tried to recruit help in the town, and my character has died already, (taking me back to 9th level) and each opponent we face if they get a critical hit can kill us outright, I don't think I want to play by his rules.

So tell me, am I just a defeatist player or did he make this too tough?

 

[ZSutherland]

I almost started to say I couldn't be sure whether this was too tough or not w/o knowing more about the PCs and the encounters. Mostly, that's still true. Depending on party size and average level (I'm assuming 9-10 from the post), equipment, etc. Then lots of this stuff is fine. A frost giant is CR 9, right around your level. 3 would be CR 13 or so. Very tough fight, but not impossible depending on party size, tactics, etc. A 12th level orc is CR 12, so just one of them would also be difficult, but not impossible. Any more than 2 will probably TPK you, though at those levels magic can get wonky with the CR system quickly. A dozen is the end of the campaign if you have to deal with them all at once. The harpies, unless they're likewise leveled in some PC class, should be a breeze. I'm not familiar with the Chimeric template (I assume it's a template), so I can't comment there. The dragon, on the other hand, if your info is correct and he's both green and gargantuan, is the end of your campaign. He's no less than CR 21 and quite honestly, when they're played correctly, a dragon just above the parties CR shouldn't have any problems enjoying a nice, healthy lunch of adventurers. Seriously, if that's correct and the DM expects you to fight that thing, talk it out with him and explain that this is a disaster waiting to happen. If that doesn't work, talk to the other PCs and see if it's worth your trouble. If you wind up fighting it, you'll have my full applause if even one of you survives to act a second time.

Z

 

[Stone Angel]

Lick your wounds a little, you won't succeed by rushing right back in, what level are you anyway. A few scrolls of detect magic and or arcane sight, a rod of detect traps and you guys can avoid the glyphs. As for the monsters, the bears, and the dragon both have to eat so maybe you can minimize the number of opponents you fight when they are out hunting.

Maybe you can turn the green dragon on your side or at least persuade him too leave. I kind of doubt he enjoys being the servant to anyone.

Get some scrolls of Orb of Destruction and make your own entrance!

Just hire tons of dwarves, lie to them if you have too and distract them the sneak in the back there is always a back.

Hope this helps


The Seraph of Earth and Stone

 

[Fynn]

Impregnible means impregnible

I can see I'm going to need more detail.

Party

9th Level Fighter
10th Level Fighter
11th Level Half Orc Barbarian
11th Level Multiclass - Rogue
11th Level Wizard

We discovered that the walls are sealed so that we cannot TP, Dimension door ETC ETC out of or into the Keep.

The GM has already stated we cannot "Bring in ringers" when I tried to get the Temple of Tempest to send some assistance ( after their six clerics had been assassinated)

The walls are self repairing - Nice from a maintenance point of view - bad from trying to break in.

Can't climb over the wall - Keep has bonded to the walls 12 Elder Air elementals - which would be fine if we were on the inside.

Each Barbarian has over 120 HP's before raging (Our highest party member has 116) and at the entrance there were four of them at once.

Any more details needed?

 

[arwink]

From what you've written, I'd just put it down as the inevitable pain of playing in the game where the DM and players are looking for different things.

 

[ZSutherland]

Okay, this is called railroading.

DM: You can't get into the structure any way but by the front door.
Players: Why not? We're clever, intrepid, and have access to 5th level spells. Surely there's a window we can fly in, a room we can scry and teleport to or whathave you.
DM: No, I fixed the place specially with blahblahblah features to negate all your characters abilities so you can't do any of that. You'll have to use the front door.
Players: But there are 4 CR12 creatures out front who will fly into some form of slathering, hp buffing, PC incinerating rage if we try to go in that way.
DM: Them's the breaks. Perhaps you'll think twice next time before you use your vaunted cleverness to circumvent the encounters I spent hours slaving over. You've spent so much time dickering about this that the orc barbarians have spotted you. Roll initiative, suckas.

Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with railroading. Lots of players enjoy it. They show up at games to beat the crap out of stuff, and if the DM feels the need to provide scant reasoning for this weeks victims, that's fine by them. It doesn't sound like that's your group, though. Talk to your DM about your concerns. You may be missing something or unaware of his plans (as it should be) and he's got this all worked out. The front door only bit is still pretty much railroading, but that's another issue. Explain to him that you feel like your fun is minimized when he intentionally crafts encounters to negate the abilities you all worked so hard to get. Depending on his response, it may be time to part ways or select a new DM. He may just be burning out a bit or having a rough time IRL that's affecting his DMing. Do the other players seem daunted by this like you do?

P.S. Having seen your party make-up I need to revise my above comments about your chances of survival. They are much lower than I thought. You have no cleric or druid. You don't even have a paladin. You're relying on potions and the rogue's UMD for healing magic. At least, I hope the rogue has UMD. Having such limited healing magic in such an obviously combat heavy place that you can't teleport out of is a long way to say, "You're screwed."

Z

 

[green slime]

Still too little info.

I've had 3rd-4th level party face off against an army of thousands of Goblins, including wolf riders, and come out victorious. Hint: They didn't charge the army up front...

What else has happened in the campaign? What is the DM like otherwise?

It sounds very much like you want to pack it in. Talk to the DM, outside of the game.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

This is the type of game where u let the DM get all prepared for the "inevitable" final confrontation and then you tell him: "Eh. We've decided against taking the keep. We're going elsewhere."

The keep wasn't yours to begin with so you haven't lost anything. Sounds like you got gipped on the deck of many things though.

All the effort you'd spend taking the keep would be more than enough for you to build an entirely new one.

This smacks of newbie-DMness.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

1) Lay siege to the keep. Whenever anything ventures outside to get food, kill it. As others have noted, you probably are a match for most of these creatures 5-on-1 or 5-on-2. You should be able to take down a few things this way before they get smart and start going out en masse.
Of course, a DM who will deliberately eliminate all other means of entry (which is not bad once you get to be the owner of the keep) will probably have some sort of Create Food/Create Water mechanism inside.
So 2) Biological warfare. Smash holes in the walls with catapults, and while the holes are repairing toss plague-infected bodies into the keep.
If that also fails, then keep using hit-and-run (flying rather than teleporting) to whittle down the defenders. Avoid melee.

Against the dragon, there is little hope. CR 21 dragon is really about CR 24, and there is no way to defeat such a thing without allies (which you are denied), quick escapes (which you are denied), or the creature being extremely stupid. A swarm of incorporeal undead could kill it, but you don't even have a cleric that could command them. If the dragon cannot be bargained with and you don't have a large supply of arrows of dragon slaying (enough to hope for it to roll a 1), walk away.

Also, if it is your castle won in a game where you gambled your very soul on the line, the castle itself should not be trying to kill you. Fireball glyphs that do not let you as the lawful owners bypass them are entirely inappropriate unless they have been placed there by something hostile. "Hey, you just won a new car on Wheel of Fortune... too bad we didn't tell you about the lethal shock car-protection system!" From a thematic point of view, the glyphs are probably the worst part about this castle - it's effectively a cursed item. You risk a hell of a lot playing with a deck, and the good results are supposed to make up for the really nasty things that can happen. The Keep is supposed to be a good result. You're getting shafted.

 

[Fynn]

Gm

Green Slime,

Generally the GM is a great DM. He does believe that stupidity should get you killed (Which is something I agree with) - Until the party had sorted out the inevitable teething problems and come up with some tactics there were several deaths in the party, but I think he wants us to find our way out of problems. Last campaign, we had to get the soul gem holding Blah Blah's soul. fair enough. Held on a volcanic island with 500 odd fire giants. Of course we don't go in the front doors, we stone shape down through the rock and steal it avoiding the large red dragon guard. And then TP out.

With this though every opponent we face (With the exception of the harpies) has more HP than us and has the ability to kill us in one round. Which just seems a little OTT when we can ONLY go in the front door. Mainly I'm pissed that he fudged the part where they were attacking the keep. It would be a completely different scenario were we inside with the Keeps defenses helping us along (instead of being against us). It is not that I want to pack it in, but with his rule that if you die you lose a level it seems engineered that we do sneaky things, and then he railroads us into combat. Which is why the "Blow the keep to smithereens and get the experience points for killing all of them" seems very attractive at this point.

F