need help with city of the spider queen

[Cartolis]

I recently started playing the CotSQ mod with 2 of my friends and thus far it has been a nightmare.

I had then generate 10th level characters for themselves, and made to 10 level npc's to accompany them using the gold per level chart in the dmg for an equipment allouance.
they are droping like flies.

I'm not sure what to do. My main question is did I not allow them enough cash. they seem to be getting trounced due to not enough firepower/disposable magic. so far they have had to retreat and rest after nearly every encounter, and for an even con encounter they shouldnt be having this much trouble.

would more npcs make the diffrence?

not sure what to do here and my players are on the verge of not wanting to play due to too many deaths...

Help!

 

[d20Dwarf]

This was my experience with the module too, for the most part. Our party didn't stand much of a chance and we barely escaped most of the encounters without a loss. It's a meat grinder and not much else, from what I could tell.

 

[diaglo]

THe problem is:

when generating their characters the players made too generic a character. they needed more background. they needed to be underdark hunters of a sort. with magic and experiences appropriate to their possible opponents.

you needed to drop more hints about what they would be facing before they made the characters.

 

[Tom Cashel]

There's another thread about CotSQ right here.

I am currently running the module too, with the second session taking place this Saturday. You can find our campaign journal (with cool pics of painted minis and Dwarven Forge) over here.

My players had an easy time to begin with. They made it through the first nine encounters without any casualties, except for the party Rogue/Shadowdancer (who is currently at CON 1 because he couldn't stop poking at graves infested with yellow mold).

Saturday may indeed be a meatgrinder for my group. We'll see.

To succeed, players must:

• Make use of all the arcane and divine divinations to which they have access
• Know when to retreat
• Know when to use stealth and trickery
• Have restorations and anti-poison spells/potions on hand
• Be lucky!

 

[KnowTheToe]

I have not played it, but am currently reading it. I think you should power down the module.

As a player, I hate having characters die. It is one thing to lose a life during a great battle, or once in a great while due to hazards of combat, but nothing is worse than loosing characters week after week. I no longer care about the characters and creating a fun character takes a lot of time and effort. It hurts the game RttToEE almost recked my gaming group because of this.

My suggestion is tone down the combats and add a few side stories to get away from the hack-n-slash. Don't use all of the special abilities, don't buff everybody up, have one of the combatants off on vacation visiting his mother....

Reading this adventure screams character death, I personally plan to tag a few encounters to use in other adventures and hack up the purchase as poor spending. I was hoping for so much more with the infiltrating of a Drow city.