Yesterday, my Ghosts of Saltmarsh+ game completed U3 - The Final Enemy and I have put together the stats for encounter difficulty for the adventure. Below see some notes.
Encounter # | Monsters | # of (N)PCs/Level | CRs | Difficulty |
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63 | Clockwork Sphinx | 4/7 | 12 | Deadly |
64 | Sahuagin (6), Sahuagin Coral Smasher (2), Sahuagin Champion | 4/7, 1/3, 4/2 | 1/2, 1, 3 | Easy |
65 | Sahuagin (5), Sahuagin Coral Smasher, Sahuagin Priestess | 4/7, 1/3, 4/2 | 1/2, 1, 2 | Easy |
66 | Sahuagin Champion (2), Sahuagin Priestess (2) | 4/7, 1/3, 2/2 | 3, 2 | Medium |
67 | Sahaugin (8) | 4/7, 1/3, 2/2 | 1/2 | Easy |
68 | Sahuagin Priestess, Sharktopus | 4/7, 1/3, 2/2 | 2, 9 | Hard |
69 | Shell Sharks (7) | 4/7, 2/2 | 2 | Hard |
70 | Sahaugin (8), Sahuagin Champion | 4/7 | 1/2, 3 | Medium |
71 | Sahaugin (10), Sahuagin Champion (2), Sahuagin Coral Smasher (2) | 3/7 | 1/2, 3, 1 | Deadly |
72 | Sahagian Champion, Sahuagin (3) | 3/7 | 3, 1/2 | Easy |
73 | Sahuagin (30), Sahuagin Coral Smasher (5), Sahuagin Champion (3), Sahaugin Blademaster | 4/7 | 1/2, 1, 3, 6 | Deadly |
Encounter #63 was only a potential combat encounter. The PCs were given a choice of fighting the sphinx, giving it a living offering, or answering its riddle. They chose the third and got it right on the first try, so it delivered a message from an immortal clownish evil archmage instead of trying to kill them (this is a hook for a future adventure). This was a one-off 5 days before the rest of the encounters listed here.
The party took a short rest between encounters 65 and 66. Also at this point, two of the party's lizardfolk allies left to escort rescued prisoners out of the sahuagin fortress.
The party's sea elf ally was swallowed whole and killed by the sharktopus in encounter #68.
The remaining 2 lizardfolk allies were killed in the fight against the shell sharks.
And between Encounters 70 and 71 three days of planning a new assault took place.
You might also notice that starting with Encounter 71, there were only three 7th level PCs - that was b/c a player missed the session so we decided that the druid had been celebrating the earlier victory a little too hard and was hungover. He was wildshaped as a rat, sleeping it off in the gnome's hood. Once the player returned the next session, he had "recovered" enough to re-join the fight.
I have updated the total spread below:
Total # Encounters | Trivial | Easy | Medium | Hard | Deadly |
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73 | 11 | 12 | 11 | 10 | 29 |