Is This Party Underequipped Part 2 (FoF Spoilers)

[Klaus]

Hi, y'all!

First of all, let me thank everyone who chimed in last time.

For those of all new to this thread or needing a reminder, here's the original thread .





SPOILERS BE HERE!




First of all, my PCs use the default array. Well, no longer! I'll have a chat with them before game, and boost their stats from the default 25 points to 28 (tough campaign). This is enough for them to get rid of penalties (cleric's Dex 8 and wiz/rog Str 8) and boost some attributes (I'm guessing Cleric's Str and Wiz/Rog Con and Rngr Str).

Since adding a NPC isn't an option, I am looking at leveling them at least twice before the dragon.


In order to do that, I expanded the troglodyte caves a bit, so they don't have to fight all the trogs at once. For a map I used the old 3e free mini-adventure Caves of Shadow.

In there they get to fight 4 Trog warriors, 2 giant lizards and Khargaaz, plus they can earn some XP by negotiating with the females.

The biggest change was to Khargaaz. It seemed awfully silly for him to be a sorceror in breastplate, if the trog's favored class is cleric. So I made him Cleric 4 (making him CR 5).

Also, I want my trogs to be a bit cthulhu-esque in their worship of Evil Things, so I put Khargaaz (along with a giant lizard) in a shrine dedicated to aberrations. There he fights the PCs, and the PCs can learn quite a lot about the main deity for these trogs, namely the Roper (from the Sinkhole). This harkens back to old Conan stories, where Conan would fight the Great Elder Thing, which was just a big snake or ape or something.

The trog's shrine is full of carvings and paintings, and they show the Tentacled Deity (the roper) killing and eating dwarven warriors and a mage (hence its treasure), while letting troglodytes bearing torches pass (a hint to the roper's only weakness).

I gave Khargaaz Brew Potion and Scribe Scroll, so he has quite some healing backup (can't spontaineously cast cure spells), so the party will be pretty stocked up if they kill him. Alsom just to show how evil he is, if the fight is going poorly, he'll use Death Knell to slay his own lizard and boost up in power!

As for the underequipped ranger, I will be using the NPC party that died in the Forge of Fury years earlier (one in the Glitterhame, two in the Dwarven Halls) to drop some extra equipment. Mainly, I'll be dropping a +1 studded leather and a +1 longsword for the ranger (the sword is with Khargaaz). I'll probably add something to the Sinkhole, and I probably won't use the Grey Ooze (which is a totally unfair encounter, even moreso than the roper!)

Thoughts/ideas?

 

[Rel]

Just one comment, Klaus. If you are looking to beef up the party treasure before they face Nightscale, it would make plenty of sense to add a few more masterwork or magic items to the Duergar who live in the Foundry. After all, several of them are smiths and they do have a Wizard among them. I found it odd that they had dwelled in there, apparently for years, without outfitting themselves almost entirely in masterwork gear.

In my campaign, the "Forge" itself had some magical properties the aided metalworking and the Glitterhame was a mithral mine.

 

[Surfal]

Beefing up the duergar

I agree with Rel. It struck me as extremely odd that Nmira, the double-sword fighter, had no masterwork weapon. Sure, a masterwork double-sword is expensive, but she's 5th level! Its makes a nice bit of cash on sale too

 

[zyzzyr]

Hi Klaus,

I ran this with my group, who were reasonably well-equipped but of the same level when they started, and they had an easy time of it.

Mind you, they did have to take many breaks - the stirges did a turn on the Bbn - and they took a week or two off (they had tons of food, so they could manage).

During the rest of the adventure they took several breaks of various lengths.

Once they hit level 5 (which I allowed them to do mid-adventure), they cleaned the place out. It wasn't very hard at all after that.

Some pitfalls that I had:

I played the Roper wrong - which was good because it would have killed them all if I had played it right. Looking back, I would have rather just gotten rid of it

The Forge level turned out to be a joke - though the illusionist put a turn on them. The room with the rug was overly obvious.

The wis-draining allip hit one character (dwarf fgh, ac 21) in 2 rounds for max wis drain. No probs though.

The wight, same thing - wasn't hitting much. And a lev 5 cleric has lesser restoration i believe.

The woman trapped by the wizard - a silly encounter (IMO). Unfortunately for me, the PCs kept saying things like "I wouldn't recommend that you leave - it's dangerous", and "it's up to you" when she asked for permission to leave. Once again, though, if this goes wrong, it's a total party kill. Tempt a good-aligned character into attacking her (which is easy enough), and a few charms, and they're all dead. If I were to run it again, I'd get rid of this encounter as well.

The hardest part was the dragon - which turned out to be not hard at all. They scouted with a wild shaped druid as a hawk, which was nailed and almost killed by the dragon's acid (she was swimming). They took a break, healed up, and then attacked her the next day.

They flew in, and with fly speed, they were in and on top of the dragon so fast that she didn't have time to react. Then the half-orc Bbn buried her with a crit that did 59 points of damage. It was over in 2 rounds.

Some advice: Definitely make sure they have a tad more magic if you can't get another PC to accompany them.

I agree with a previous commenter, it sounds like they need another member. Some grunt would make it much easier for them. If they can pick someone up in the nearby village, (maybe the half-orc sherriff? Don't remem his level), things will go much smoother for them.

 

[Rel]

Perhaps I should note that the group in my campaign didn't actually fight the Duergar, so be careful that you don't beef them up too much.

The party in my campaign was sent to the Stone Tooth to get some Orc Slaying weapons from the Dwarves who lived there (who had in fact been killed by the invading Duergar). Once the party battled their way through the Glitterhame, the knocked on the door to the Foundry. This resulted in every Duergar in the Foundry being prepared and when they opened the door, the Duergar had all turned invisible except for Nimira. They quickly surrounded the party and when hostilities broke out, they nearly killed the party in one round. It was only the fast talking of the party Rogue/Sorcerer that calmed things down and saved the group from a TPK.

 

[Klaus]

Re: Duergar -> I'll probably re-work most of their stats, and yes, they'll have some extra masterwork items (but not much). I've found out that FoF is shock-full of bad stats. For instance, Snurrevin, the duergar illusionist, is wearing leather armor (!!!). And the text says he uses illusions freely because duergar are immune, but they're immune to phantasms, not patterns or glamers (like his color spray), so the duergar would be affected! And Khargaaz (canon sorceror 4) would need Light and Medium armor proficiency to wear that breastplate. So why the heck is he wearing it???

But the main venue to introduce extra equipment is through the deceased adveturers (sure, a rogue corpse, and you only fins a mw scimitar? Please! How about mw thieves tools, or a potion of hiding?). Also, I'll add something to Durgeddin's tomb. It seems so little for A) an encounter with wight and B) the tomb of THE smith!

 

[Rel]

For instance, Snurrevin, the duergar illusionist, is wearing leather armor (!!!). And the text says he uses illusions freely because duergar are immune, but they're immune to phantasms, not patterns or glamers (like his color spray), so the duergar would be affected!

I caught many of those inconsistencies too, Klaus. I changed them but they had no impact because the party dealt with the duergar diplomatically and I deleted the troglodytes and replaced them with some more typical dungeon creepy crawlys (3 sentient races living in such close proximity was stretching my sensibilities a bit).

Regarding Snurrevin, you will probably want to work up a spellbook for him since you've got a wizard in your party.

 

[Klaus]

Re: Spellbook: Oh yes, most definitely! And the wizard has a cat familiar, so Chesire (the cat) vs. Browngnaw (the rat) should be interesting!

As for the races together, here's how I reasoned it:

The Orcs came through the Mountain Door, and established a fancy bandit camp there, nothing more. The Trogs were already there (using the Orc Tunnel), since they've been searching for their ancient Chapel to Elder Tentacled Things (tm) and the Roper-God (turns out that chapel was already there when Durgedinn arrived... the dwarves delved too deep and too greedily... ). The duergar came from below and, with a key like the one is the sinkhole, sent a scout party to the Glitterhame. But the duergar were subdued by the trogs, who fed most to the Roper-God and diligently ate the rest. Hence Khargaaz's breastplate, large steel shield and flail. After that disaster, the duergar shut themsleves again, and decided the surface wasn't worth it.

 

[Gizzard]

Talk about specific encounters in FoF follows; be wary of SPOILERS --- SPOILERS --- SPOILERS --- SPOILERS

There he fights the PCs, and the PCs can learn quite a lot about the main deity for these trogs, namely the Roper (from the Sinkhole). This harkens back to old Conan stories, where Conan would fight the Great Elder Thing, which was just a big snake or ape or something.

This is a pretty cool concept; but like a lot of people in this thread I have problems with Mr. Roper as a part of the module. His stated goal is to teach parties that sometimes you must run away, but then he attacks from stealth with an entangling attack! Lol. How is a party going to run away once the fun starts? They just cant without conceding a large number of casualties.

I talked with a couple other DMs about this and suggested that some sort of Construct with orders to protect that same area would be better from a game-play point of view. The Construct could provide a goodly amount of butt-kicking, but then wouldnt be required to hunt down and destroy the PCs once they flee. A good learning encounter. Unfortunately, it puts a kink in your story; somehow worshipping a big, wavy, tentacle monster makes more sense for Trogs than worshipping a passive, yet relentless pile of rock.

The wis-draining allip hit one character (dwarf fgh, ac 21) in 2 rounds for max wis drain. No probs though.

Thats permenant WIS drain, not fixable by lesser restoration, right? Our groups Barbarian got hit once for 2 points; another group I know got hit twice including their Cleric (ouch.) It does sting a bit since it is permanent.

The woman trapped by the wizard - a silly encounter (IMO).

This is a tricky one. Our group lost one level; the other group lost one also. (We each got drained twice, but made 50% of our saves the next day.) The way I see this encounter; it must pretty much play out the same way for most good parties. Because of the +2/20 DR, you just cant hang in combat with her unless you have a great set of equipment. And, a good WILL save. ;-) So basically, everyone ends up "negotiating" here; there just isnt much room for it to play out differently.

Anyway, in our world, her goal was just to get the heck out of there, so she Charmed enough people to keep her safe and then started whimpering piteously (but insincerely) that, "I never wanted all this to happen, oh, this is so horrible. All I wanted was to go home. Would that be OK? Wont someone help me get home?" Soon enough, someone grunted "OK" out of all middle of all the infighting and she just winked out.

Its a cute encounter, and I think its very memorable; but it does have a bit of that 1E "Apartment Complex of Evil" feel to it -- the encounter is set there to play out pretty much like it does. Can an intelligent party do better than a dumb party? Well, not really. Everyone is going into the room, and once they are in, they are at her mercy because she's just a lot more powerful than the party. (If you dont have a "good" character in the party, she'll just eat you for lunch.) Anyway, I wouldnt cut it, but I'd definitely be on my toes as a DM for this one.

 

[coyote6]

Talk about specific encounters in FoF follows; be wary of SPOILERS --- SPOILERS --- SPOILERS --- SPOILERS



This is a pretty cool concept; but like a lot of people in this thread I have problems with Mr. Roper as a part of the module. His stated goal is to teach parties that sometimes you must run away, but then he attacks from stealth with an entangling attack! Lol. How is a party going to run away once the fun starts?

My players did it by swinging at the tentacles holding the grappled. Chop, chop, chop, RUN! Ate an NPC, though, and a couple of PCs were staggering.

Then rest a few days, liberally applying lesser restoration. Then the bard mentioned that little vulnerability to fire, so they broke out the alchemist's fire -- including the rather large supply conveniently located in the Forge itself. Then the Sor4 handed out plenty of invisibility spells (4 from herself, and 2-3 more from scrolls; they even built a little footbridge, to cross the stream, and made it invisible, too), and they snuck up on it, and unleashed a barrage of sneak attacks & alchemist's fire. Oh, and some of 'em Readied actions to hack at the tentacles as the roper attacked.

<shrug> They got a bit lucky, but they had a decent plan, and they killed it dead. Found the ring, too.