Necromancer Games: Tough Adventures

[Nightfall]

Gotta side with Orggy here. It's like trying to do seiges. You don't go in thinking you can take the castle without thinking you might need to heal/rest and come back refreshed.

PCs aren't immortal...unless they are outsiders.

 

[Psion]

Howabout running a party a level or two over the target level of the adventure (since my players tend to combat optimize less than the norm, I often do that anyways, regardless of publisher)

 

[Morpheus]

Howabout running a party a level or two over the target level of the adventure (since my players tend to combat optimize less than the norm, I often do that anyways, regardless of publisher)

Not a bad idea except that there were a bunch of NPCs along for the ride. The total party consisted of:

1 Bar/Ftr 3/2
1 Wiz(Div) 7
1 War 1 (redshirt)
1 Healer 3
1 Ftr 3
1 Ran 4
1 Clr 2

A couple of missed rolls turned the tide of the battle that resulted in a TPK. If the raging barbarian had hit the minotaur in one of the 4 rounds that lead to his death, the whole battle would have been over. To be fair, however, the minotaur missed a couple of times also. Once, the minotaur had targeted the Healer and could only miss on a 1. Guess what I rolled (I do all my rolls in the open)? Alas, it was not to be... :\

 

[Vocenoctum]

I've bought a few NG modules, and read a few more.
First off, the whole "first edition feel" isn't how I remember first edition. Not every module was Tome of Horrors, but it seems like every NG module is. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Secondly, D&D 3e has CR's to balance an encounter at a certain level, and determine pacing. How many CR5 encounters should be in a 1st level dungeon? The adventures read to me like their idea of "challenge" is making encounters as deadly as possible. It's just no fun for me, nor my group, so I stopped buying them, and eventually stopped looking at them.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

NG adventures definitely aren't for everyone. Players can definitely get sick of the tough-as-nails opponents. But some of the NG modules are among the best 3E products I've seen (in particular, Tomb of Abysthor, Crucible of Freya, and the Rappan Athuk series).

 

[MEG Hal]

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.

Well what you say makes sense, but as a PC in that adventure, we were told our other party members from TPK #1 were being held prisoner and being tortured and we should get in there, plus we were a month away from civilization and used all our magic, just had spells by the time the last search party went in...we did not have a cut and run option by the time it got real ugly...

was a TPK deserved, that would be the DM's opinion, since he knew what got us there and what we had to fall back on. I think we played as smart as we could, we have made bad decisons before, but in this turn of events we did all we could IMHO.

Morpheus?

 

[Treebore]

Part of your problem is that the modules is designed for a starting level of 4th, I also believe they are written with 6 players/NPC's in mind. ALL of at least 4th level. So adapting/downscaling of this module was needed.

 

[Treebore]

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

Before he edited his post he had Necromancer spelled Nevromancer. In the title line.

 

[Maliki]

I've ran several Necromancer adventures, and they are definitly quite difficult. If the characters are careless or fail to work as a team, get overconfident or just have a run of bad rolls a TPK is highly likely.

 

[Morpheus]

Well what you say makes sense, but as a PC in that adventure, we were told our other party members from TPK #1 were being held prisoner and being tortured and we should get in there, plus we were a month away from civilization and used all our magic, just had spells by the time the last search party went in...we did not have a cut and run option by the time it got real ugly...

was a TPK deserved, that would be the DM's opinion, since he knew what got us there and what we had to fall back on. I think we played as smart as we could, we have made bad decisons before, but in this turn of events we did all we could IMHO.

Morpheus?

The party did as well as they could. It came down to a critical few rolls that did not go their way. My point is that it seemed all the encounters were like that. As for the party makeup, each player had 2 PCS with a total of 8 levels between them and the decision was made by the players. It was tense and exciting-but, ultimately, a little unsatisfying.