Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yair" data-source="post: 4492036" data-attributes="member: 10913">I see I'm late to the party, but figured I'll pile on my experience.I've had the opposite problem, as my group has 4 characters (a Paladin, Fighter, Warlock, and Wizard), all at level 3. Although smaller, these are competent players so I think they're pulling a bit above their weight - but the missing character was certainly missed. The party run both final encounters in a row, taking about 4:30 hours to finish them both.I didn't modify the first encounter (the Cathedral one), and added the escaped clay golem from the previous encounter - which made things more difficult for them, but I think worked rather well to represent a fierce opposition.This encounter was all about the PCs bunkering in the entryway. They never even really entered the room. The two defenders blocked the entrance as the artillery shot from behind. The lessons I learned there were that the Underpriest's ranged attacks were very powerful (dropping the paladin twice, and a third time once the bunker has been breached), but that he was exposed to the artillery. The second thing was that it was important to engage the party from both sides - quickly running to engage from the sideways. The vampire spawn were nearly useless, but the other underlings served well and the Underpriest was very, very effective - especially at range. The dark creeper's death was really important too, changing the battle considerably. All in all it was a difficult fight, but the party endured without losing many limited resources (I think one Daily, and 1 action point - but lots of healing surges); they knew they weren't facing Karael.I did weaken the final battle to accomodate the lesser number of PCs, by dropping the two skeletons. This does, I think, make the battle far less interesting, unfortunately - I missed all those unndead-bolstering abilities. I too found the circle played a key role in the combat. The bulk of it revolved around the fighter trying to push Karael out of the circle, so that the party might actually hit him. I found K's ranged attacks, again, far more useful; especially so as the armor the fighter was wearing (found in the adventure) made him immune to the ongoing necrotic damage. Unlike the others, however, the Thing also proved very useful - especially as it was able to drop one character (the Paladin) and slowly drag it's unconscious body through the portal, hence providing both more healing for K and a dramatic ending for that character's life. The Wight was unable to compete with the ranged attacks of the party (mostly the wizard's), and was quickly dispatched; I think the idea to make him come and scare people and the idea to make him come into the circle to heal are both good  - I didn't do either as I felt the party was depleted and needed some help. Otherwise, it mostly missed. K's teleportation was definitely a plus, adding surprise and interest to the battle.Despite the lowered numbers, the fight proved very difficult, nearly to the point of desperation for the PCs, as Karael's high defenses and regeneration (in the circle) proved almost impossible to break. I ended up making him make a tactical mistake that, with the help of a few lucky dice rolls, managed to help the PCs enough for them to drop him. While it was not near a TPK, with only one character dying, it felt very close to it - with the fighter and warlock nearly dead too, and the wizard injured, and above all with the infuriating high defense of Karael.As a general note on KotS - we found it too long, and a bit boring. So I essentially cut down all the middle part of it, from the moment they chanced into Sir Keegan (?) (who I made a ghost of the last defender, who toppled the Keep to protect its secrets from the Orcish Horde) - who directed them to the second level, healed them (well, Bahamut healed them...) as if they had a long rest, and provided guidance on how to reach the ritual chamber directly. In this way, they could finish the dungeon without resting (not bothering to engage in needless encounters while floundering around), and without doing all the interlude stuff. The interlude stuff looked like fun, but the dungeon crawl wasn't and we were pretty fed up with the adventure and wanted to finish it off.</blockquote>

Verification