Necromancer Games: Tough Adventures

[Morpheus]

I just finished running The Fane of the Witch King by Necromancer Games and it ended in, not one, but two TPKs. I have plenty of Necro modules and they seem to all have one thing in common: They are very challenging.
Each encounter seems to cause the players to expend more resources than is typical given the party level and EL. Now, mind you, I enjoy a good challenge, but it seemed almost too much, too often. The players were having fun to a degree, but 2 TPKs put a damper on their enthusiasm.
Has anyone else found this to be the case with Necromancer modules? I enjoy them, but will have to go through them a little more carefully before running them in the future.

 

[Treebore]

Thats the key: a DM modifiying an adventure to fit the tastes of their own group of players, including lethality level. Its Necromancer with a "c", not a "v".

 

[Davelozzi]

Its Necromancer with a "c", not a "v".

[Gary Coleman voice]Whatchyou talking 'bout, Treebore?[/Gary Coleman voice]

 

[Nightfall]

Well I think that's because people tend to forget how darn leathal 1st edition mods were back then. Necromancer ups the stakes by being THAT much smarter and quicker than your average game mod designer.

But if you want to tone down the mod, I'd suggest the following: Monsters having less HP, worse BAB and Saves, NPCs with half their normal HP, and spells. That might make it a tad easier. As for the traps...eh not sure but then again if the PCs fall for it, I feel it's their own damn fault.

 

[Dagger75]

Since I was there.....

I'm up for a good challenge but these encounters were crazy, also adding to the fact that we not able to resupply and lost a buch of magic items and the loss of the cleric from the previous weeks TPK.

What we had: 3rd Level Dwarven Fighter, 4th Level Halfling Ranger, 3rd Level Healer (From Minituars book)
NPC's: Diviner Sorcerer (No offensive spells) Unknown level
5th Level Barbarian
1st Level Warrior

Encounter 1: Drow Rogue(?) and like 4 gnolls and a bugbear Fighter (?) Not to bad, my ranger lost his animal companion to the bugbear but other than that we did all right.

Encounter 2: 4 Gnolls, Then 1 Flesh Golem + 4 gnolls behind a closed portcullis shooting arrows at us. The Sorcerer decided this would be a good time to use the only fireball scroll.

Immediatly after that encounter, encounter 3

Encounter 3: 4 Bugbears Fighters and 1 minotaur (Fighter ?) Had a Large Greataxe and wearing chain or something like that.

I don't know if this was how it was written but I personally would have taken out the bugbeas from the last encounter.

I don't mind challanginng encounters but one right after another week in and week out is getting rough. On top of that we had no way to get more stuff we used and actually found crap.

If Necromancer is going for 1st addition in there modules shouldn'y every freaking goblin have at least a magic item on them. I mean the Village of Hommlet module had commoners with magic swords in trees and buried in the barnes.

 

[Morpheus]

Since I was there.....


I don't know if this was how it was written but I personally would have taken out the bugbears from the last encounter.

It was even easier than what was written. I substituted the Minotaur (Crylos) for the rest of what was in the "gatehouse". The bugbears and gnolls were the guards and didn't seem to be too much. If only Kolnar had hit Crylos, we wouldn't be having this thread...

 

[Malar's Cow]

Yeah, the NG adventures do tend to be a little on the tough side. I've run two so far: Crucible of Freya and currently the Tomb of Abysthor. Each module had at least one encounted that would have resulted in a TPK if it hadn't bee modified to be a appropriate challenge for the group.

However, I think that they're very well written, have good plots, interesting villains and can really put the fear of God into a group of adventurers. The encounters in the two adventures that I've run have had the group in fear of their lives around every corner.

As people have said, if you don't think the encounters are scaled appropriately, you can always tone them down a tad until they are satisfactory to you. As a DM, I'm always going through published adventures to tailor them to my campaign; adding a template here, swapping an item there, and fitting the plot into the campaign arc. You bought the adventure; it's yours to do with as you please.

 

[Jon Potter]

I'm currently going through The Crucible of Freya as a player (please! no spoilers!) and have found it to be challenging but loads of fun. Of course, it could be that the DM has heavily modified it to fit our party. The main bad guy we've fought so far mopped the floor with our dwarven cleric and gnome paladin, took a critical hit from my raging barbarian and then vanished before we could finish him off!

Our party of 5 second level characters finished that encounter with both the paladin and ranger below zero, the cleric and barbarian in the single digits, and our sorcerer with only one spell left. That seems just about right to me considering we went in with a half-baked plan and then got caught out in the open and surrounded by bad guys pretty quickly.

Perhaps I shouldn't be posting here, actually. It occurs to me that the DM could have home brewed the house-cleaning BBEG who disappears before we can loot his body! But my hat's off to somebody; I immediately made it my character's priority to find that guy and lay some more righteous smack down on him!

 

[Nightfall]

Dagger,

The reason they don't have magic items is PCs are supposed to be able to hack them down. At least at the low end of the adventure. Just be grateful you didn't go through the meatgrinder that is Rappan Athuk. Now THERE'S something to give Undermountain a run for its money.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

A root cause of a lot of TPKs is a bunch of players trying to plow headlong through the dungeon. 1E/NG modules require a lot of "incursion" style adventuring where you attack, fall back and rest/heal, then attack again. An expectation has built up over the years that encounters will be "balanced" which, in effect, means the P should win. In 1E/NG modules, you've gotta know when to cut and run. If you find yourself against a bunch of baddies in a prepared, entrenched position, it's time to fall back and either find another way forward or prepare accordingly. If you just plow on in, thinking that the encounter will be "balanced", then a TPK is justly deserved IMO.