OOC: Endur's Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil

[Xael]

The RTOEE is really meant to have sort of a Cthulu flavor to it. Heroes facing overwhelming evil.

I've been thinking that you'd be an awesome Cthulhu DM. Not that I've ever played Cthulhu, but at least the CotSQ-game had pretty much "Anti-Heroes facing overwhelming evil" -feel to it.

...which is quite different of the feel from when I tried to run it. I mean the "Two permanently Enlarged Half-Orc Monks, pretty much without any kind of magical equipment, rip every enemy they face to shreds in seconds and wonder if they're edible." -feel was a little bit different. And the players of those two characters were first-timers playing 3.5 D&D (if you don't count CRPG's).



I'm thinking that Lylamwyn will aim for Loremaster btw.

 

[Endur]

...which is quite different of the feel from when I tried to run it. I mean the "Two permanently Enlarged Half-Orc Monks, pretty much without any kind of magical equipment, rip every enemy they face to shreds in seconds and wonder if they're edible." -feel was a little bit different.

The trick for an overwhelming combat party is to recognize ahead of time which encounters are speed bumps and which deserve time, then just say, "The party destroys the enemy, or the enemies flee, or the enemies surrender" for the speed bumps and spend time on the encounters that deserve it.

The other thing you can do is move monsters around and combine them in encounters (i.e. the organic dungeon). If you've read the COSQ module, you'll notice that I kept the bad guy roster essentially the same (other than 3.5 conversion and adding BOVD flavor), but I felt free to move bad guys around within their dungeon. I also added additional "character interactions" and background history to the story.

Loremaster will work well.

Not sure if the party will finish the module, but I would expect to reach level 15 either right before or right after the final encounter.

 

[Xael]

Good advice yes, but I'm pretty much a total beginner when it comes to DM'ing, and wasn't quite sure about just what the hell these two were cabable of. And we usually like to play combats anyway, since they're usually pretty fun even when they're one sided. Lots of one-liners and stuff.

I'm also a damn lazy when it comes to preparing adventurers, so I was kinda unprepared in that way too. We didn't play after the first session (they got to the gates of Shzith Morcane or whatever it was), but now I'm planning to run CotSQ again, and see what happens now.

Three characters, one completely melee fighter that has no chance against any kind of magical enemy, one Dalamar's overbuffed and min-maxed Warlock, and one Cleric of Lathander / Morninglord.

I have sworn that they all will die horrible deaths (perhas multiple times).

 

[Xael]

Not sure if the party will finish the module, but I would expect to reach level 15 either right before or right after the final encounter.

We have certainly had one hell of a pace at least until now. At least if I compare it to normal messageboard-games. Which is a good thing.

 

[Seonaid]

And now I'm off--to Little Rock, Arkansas, of all places. Toriah will do his thing, helping as he is most effective and trying his hardest not to get killed. If he does die, I'll roll up a new character when I get back (in a week). Have fun, but not too much.

 

[Thanee]

How about a little more optimism here!

Oh, and have fun, too!

Bye
Thanee

 

[Endur]

I expect delays anytime we have real strange encounters.

We have certainly had one hell of a pace at least until now. At least if I compare it to normal messageboard-games. Which is a good thing.

 

[Thanee]

Oh... it really seems to get pretty wide down there...

Bye
Thanee

 

[Pyrex]

Yep. Definately widens out down there.

I'm betting that's the 'Dark Obelisk' that Kerwyn is standing on the top of. Any takers?

 

[Thanee]

Well, it certainly is below the shaft. And barely within detection range for the overwhelming presence.

Bye
Thanee