Is this an appropriate challenge for 6-7 level 2s? (My players stay out!)

[Nifft]

Big melee monsters can be brutal for their CR (like a Dire Lion), until the party can reliably avoid the monster's strength (e.g. everyone, or most everyone, can climb / turn invisible / teleport / fly).

A CR 4 bruiser at a level 2 party? I bet more than one will die.

Sorry, -- N

 

[Nail]

Generally speaking: too many encounters per day. YMMV.

One death by encounter 3 of day 1. Given resource use, probably another death in encounter 4 that same day (as with so many dogs, each party member will be attacked by at least one).

Day 2 is okay. Easy, even.

Day 3 kills 2 PCs with the mummy, from Paralysis + Mummy Rot. The effect of the lava pit will be to confine the PCs, which will make the mummy's job easier. Given the Mummy's Str, bullrushing is difficult.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Survivability will depend greatly on what the party consists of. If your party of 7 has at least 3 melee types and 2 clerics, surviability of all these encounters should not be a big problem (at least not for the party as a whole).

If your party has something along the lines of 3 Sor/Wiz, 1 Cleric, 1 Fighter, and 2 Rogue types, then you will be in for some bad times against both the Jackals and the Mummy, especially if they lose initiative and get mobbed.

Also consider how familiar your players are at power gaming. At early levels, the difference between an ok and a great character build is staggering. A 20 Str Half Orc Barbarian with Weapon focus on a 2 handed weapon is scoring +9 to hit and +10 to damage. A 15 Str Human Barbarian with Power Attack and Bull Rush is only getting +5 to hit and +6 to damage on a typical attack.

I would swap out the mummy for an Ogre Zombie. It has big damage and a base movement of 40 (if you replace the Hide Armour with Leather as I did recently), and reach. It also has lots of HP (55 by default). Taking it down will be hard if the players cannot Turn it, but since its a Move Or Attack kind of opponent, escape is very easy.

As for the Jackals, have them show up in waves, half to start, than add 2 or 3 each round. You can always stop adding them once the PC's start to struggle.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Amitiel]

They all seem resonable at best. The mummy though.... depends on the situation. As long as they know before hand and can prep themselves for it they'll manage. If it surprises them it'll come down to luck of the die on those saves or they'll be slaughtered.

Also depends on party make-up. What do they have?

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Nail's generally got it right.

Generally speaking: too many encounters per day. YMMV.

One death by encounter 3 of day 1. Given resource use, probably another death in encounter 4 that same day (as with so many dogs, each party member will be attacked by at least one).

Especially given that one of the encounters is with a decent flying enemy, who should be able to pick targets with relative impunity if you aren't fielding a ranged-heavy party.

The puma is going to 1-shot someone, unless you play it unrealistically.

My one concern on Day 2 is that you're looking at a potential metric ton of poison saves - and you won't have any clerics around capable of healing ability damage. If the dice go badly against the PCs, you could see your adventure grind to a halt as everyone spends several days recuperating.

Day 3 kills 2 PCs with the mummy, from Paralysis + Mummy Rot. The effect of the lava pit will be to confine the PCs, which will make the mummy's job easier. Given the Mummy's Str, bullrushing is difficult.

Also totally agree. Mummies are no laughing matter even against level-appropriate PCs. Given that this seems like the climactic encounter of the adventure, you can expect that not everyone is going to be in top form - and given that the mummy is going to be well outside of the turning ability of your clerics (if you even have any!), you're looking at a lot of potential trouble.

 

[Asmor]

Thanks for all the advice, all.

The more I think about it, the more I'm sure I want a mummy. I considered a brain-in-a-jar briefly (fits the theme, actually), but I really like the idea of the mummy. I've decided to tone it down severely (call it a "lesser mummy"). Shave off a few hit dice and tone the save DCs down a lot, change the paralysis to shaken, etc.

I've also got a couple other things to mitigate the lethality of the encounters... Early on in day 1, they'll meet and save an otherwise-useless bard (dying in the desert, being circled by vultures...) who will have a wand of CLW (I actually rolled up 2 wands of CLW with 10 charges each in the total treasure for this adventure, so I'll give him a rod with 20 charges). So even if noone's playing a healer, they'll at least have a good amount of healing to get them through these encounters.

At the end of the second day (after the scorpions), they're going to stumble upon some leper-like gnoll pilgrims, led by a blind seer, who will totally heal them including poison and ability damage. Will also give them a clue about the mummy, and a cure for mummy rot (the gnolls essentially suffer from an arcane version of radiation poisoning, and will be wrapped in bandages, so it's a nice thematic foreshadowing, I think).

Question to those who say that there's too man encounters on day 1... I thought that it was intended that there be 4 encounters a day?

 

[pawsplay]

I've gotten a pretty good feel for undead. Level 3s could probably handle the mummy; for level 2s, it's going to be a rough victory with a significant chance of a TPK. Use a ghast instead.

 

[Asmor]

Been looking over the dire puma and it does seem pretty lethal. Any suggestion on a more appropriate CR critter for them to fight, preferably a sneaky one. I'd change it to two dire jackals (CR 2 each so an EL of 4), but they don't even have move silently as skills and I don't know if it really makes sense to give it to them...

 

[Darklone]

Take a couple of leopards or normal pumas. No dire ones.

 

[Amitiel]

Take a couple of leopards or normal pumas. No dire ones.

That would seem kind of strange from a storytelling point of view, normal animals don't attack people as a general rule. Maneaters are actually incredibly rare. That and even a pair of leopards won't attack a large group unless they can seperate one out away from the rest.

You could replace it with a Worg or three.