P3 - Anyone run it?

[Obryn]

Splug can't be raised? NO!!!!!

He's accompanied my party for the entire path... saved their lives a few times, and is an 18th level goblin rogue at this point.

Cheers!

Hah! For my group, he's showed up a few times in various locales. He travelled to the Seven-Pillared Hall with them to become the Chief Beggar (replacing the kobold character from that adventure). He tried to follow them to the Pyramid, unsuccessfully. And finally he met up with them in the black dragon's lair in P1. He'd been promoted to "Dragon Feeder", and had big slabs of meat tied to him by the local trolls. He was excited about it, but a bit disappointed when the party interrupted the performance of his duties. Since then, he's taken on apprenticeship with a bard, and has learned quite a lot while the party was away in the underdark.

He's composed a few ballads, by now, with himself as the hero. They're thrilled to be his "noble minions" and they pretty much love him.

The backstory here will be that he fought somewhat bravely in the Seven-Pillared Hall, put on a very noble retreat, and became chieftain of a local goblin horde - who were instrumental in destroying the invading demons and undead. I think it'll be a lot more fun than boring human nobles.

OH - so the new encounter now has...

* A tombstone golem
* Two Zombie Throngs, levelled up to 16 and with a few more throng-like abilities. (What's more fun than controlling a few undead for a round? Controlling hundreds of undead, of course!)
* A Boneclaw Impaler
* Kalarel, now a Huecuva in service to Orcus, and levelled to 18. (Technically none of these PCs have faced him, but it's still the same group. It's like hating on the Packers if you're a Bears fan - it doesn't really matter who's on the team.)

-O

 

[OchreJelly]

I ran my first session of this adventure last night. So far we are off to a good start, although admittedly I heavily re-wrote the hooks, locations and npcs.

1) I changed the location to the Seven-Pillared Hall from whatever town the module lists. There is zero, zilth, nada info on the town in the module aside from like two NPCs. Why did they bother? Granted I haven't read the whole adventure yet, but as far as I can tell it's inconsequential. The writers may as well have said "place these events where they make sense in your world" or at least use Fallcrest. Seven Pillared Hall worked for us because the PCs were heading there to collect rewards from P2.

2) The hooks. I found this a little confusing. The main hook is to go to the Tomb of Satrine. Why? I think I read the adventure book on this section like three times trying to make sense of it. Is it because the skull would provide answers? Did Moyshana somehow track the stolen spirits there? It says "she hunts the Gloomdeeps" but doesn't give any reason as to why she thinks to go there. That's the best I could come up with. I think this section could have been written with more clarity. I rewrote this with a more obvious Orcus driven hook since it's pretty central to our campaign.

3) Moyshanna. I followed Merric's advice and turned her into a companion character -- specifically an Avenger of the Raven Queen. She works a lot better that way!

4) The first encounter. That is probably the worst 4E encounter I have run to date. I considered re-writing it before the session but ran out of time. Sword Wraiths are just aweful. I thought one was bad, but four turned the whole fight into a mind-grudgingly dull grind of halved and quartered damage. The fight was more a test of basic math skills than fun (don't forget to add the vulnerable radient damage!). THis is just a poorly designed monster that's a confuence of clunky mechanics. I could spin off a separate thread ranting on insubstantial, but I'll leave it be for now.

On the positive side, I'm looking forward to the Tomb which is the next section the group will face. That looks like a lot of fun.

 

[Obryn]

3) Moyshanna. I followed Merric's advice and turned her into a companion character -- specifically an Avenger of the Raven Queen. She works a lot better that way!

If my party didn't already have an Avenger of the Raven Queen, I would have done the same. They have 6 characters, though, and one leader isn't always enough to go around. I did cut her healing down to 2/encounter from 3/encounter, though.

4) The first encounter. That is probably the worst 4E encounter I have run to date. I considered re-writing it before the session but ran out of time. Sword Wraiths are just aweful. I thought one was bad, but four turned the whole fight into a mind-grudgingly dull grind of halved and quartered damage. The fight was more a test of basic math skills than fun (don't forget to add the vulnerable radient damage!). THis is just a poorly designed monster that's a confuence of clunky mechanics. I could spin off a separate thread ranting on insubstantial, but I'll leave it be for now.

Yeah, I knew it would be bad. I'm glad to know I wasn't just theorycrafting.

-O

 

[OchreJelly]

OH - so the new encounter now has...

* A tombstone golem
* Two Zombie Throngs, levelled up to 16 and with a few more throng-like abilities. (What's more fun than controlling a few undead for a round? Controlling hundreds of undead, of course!)
* A Boneclaw Impaler
* Kalarel, now a Huecuva in service to Orcus, and levelled to 18. (Technically none of these PCs have faced him, but it's still the same group. It's like hating on the Packers if you're a Bears fan - it doesn't really matter who's on the team.)

-O

This is great. I really, really wish I took the time to rewrite that encounter as written. I really like the Huecuva and wish I had thought of bringing Kalarel back. Conisder this yoinked!

 

[Obryn]

This is great. I really, really wish I took the time to rewrite that encounter as written. I really like the Huecuva and wish I had thought of bringing Kalarel back. Conisder this yoinked!

I'll upload the stats I used for him and for the Throngs later. The throngs are a bit bizarre, rules-wise, because I wanted to simulate an inexorable horde who pull enemies into their midst and make it hard to escape. I also switched around a few things on both Kalarel and the Huecuva template, keeping him as Elite and just adding a few bits here and there. (And upping his damage, too.)

Maybe you can squeeze it in somewhere else!

-O

 

[Verision]

One of the interesting thing about the "Teeth" is that you're actually talking about miles and miles of corridors and rooms, but only a few are inhabited. (You can travel from one to another by following the tracks in the dust).

I am currently running P3 and my PCs just got past the Dracolich. The worst part of this adventure for me, so far, has been the Teeth. My PCs are INSANE when it comes to trying to see everything and go everywhere, and playing these pre-made adventures has just made things worse. I spent more than an hour coming up with random descriptions for empty rooms and vacant hallways until my PCs finally got the clue: THERE IS NOTHING INTERESTING "OFF THE BEATEN PATH".

If anyone running this has PCs with a similar mentality, then I would suggest having the PCs run into either a friendly NPC, or capture an unfriendly NPC, and have the NPC tell them in no uncertain terms that there is nothing to find in the miles and miles of the Teeth if you go exploring off the beaten path.


Question for others running this:
How are you / your PCs finding the difficulty of this module?

Personally, I'm finding most of the fights are really easy. Even the "non easy" encounters aren't really hard, they are just really long (too much insubstantial, not to mention one fight with weakness added on top of the insubstantial).
Also, too much necrotic damage / radiant weakness. My PCs got the bright idea to buy radiant weapons and items that provide necro resistance after P2, and that makes a large portion of this module rather easy. Especially the Nightwalker, which has vulnerability radiant 20.

 

[OchreJelly]

Well I can only speak for the first encounter and the gloomdeeps so far. It has been pretty easy. I even only had three players last night! I should mention though that I edit on the fly when I'm short a player. Typically I'll pull out one soldier or brute from a fight.

The first encounter though, I actually made harder since they were full up and getting an extended rest right after. I added an extra slaughter wight that came through the open portal (my change), but two NPC wizards were also present to help. They mostly spent the fight focusing their efforts on closing the portal while the PCs duked it out.

As I noted earlier this wasn't that challenging of a fight, but I didn't mention that the cleric had a power that allowed for a sizable resist-necrocritc for the party that was sustainable. I forget what it's called, but I'll need to see just how many creatures have necrotic damage and radiant vulnerability ahead. So basically the wraiths could deal little or no damage, and took forever to kill. Boring, dull, tedious.

The crawling god encounter was fun although still a bit of a speed bump. Passive perception PC spotted the crawler right away so they barely set foot into the massive cave. So they just hunkered into the tunnel to fight the crawler while another PC put a wall spell up to block the rear from the encircling cyclopsi.

On a related note, I find the DCs in published adventures to be woefully low. Arcana checks are easy thanks to a powerful item found in P1, and one party member has min/maxed to the max his perception skill.

 

[smerwin29]

If anyone running this has PCs with a similar mentality, then I would suggest having the PCs run into either a friendly NPC, or capture an unfriendly NPC, and have the NPC tell them in no uncertain terms that there is nothing to find in the miles and miles of the Teeth if you go exploring off the beaten path.

When I run The Teeth portion of the adventure, I add some additional passages that contain besieged worshippers of the Raven Queen. I make up a background where The Teeth was once a fortification controlled by the followers of the Raven Queen, but the fortress was attacked as some point in the past. Those followers hid some powerful magic item, or some secret, that these worshippers came to find. Once they got in, they were trapped between the other forces of The Teeth, and they are trying to get through a long-sealed area which holds this secret as well as the means for their escape. I would put in a couple of skill challenges and a couple of solo or elite traps/hazards. This can give a break from the relentless combat within The Teeth, can supply some NPCs to make connections to the PCs, etc. It also provides some guidance to the PCs.

Then for a twist, make one of the trapped NPCs a traitor who has cut a deal with one of the power groups in The Teeth. Once the PCs get through and find the secret that the Raven Queen followers hid, the traitor alerts some bad guys. You can also have the evil power groups in The Teeth capture one of the NPCs (or otherwise interact with them in different ways).

 

[Obryn]

Holy crapoly, folks.

We're starting P3 this coming week, so I'm entering everything into Masterplan. This way, I can modify it for 6 players and make any further edits I deem fitting. So I've plotted out the flowchart all the way to the Shadowfell ...

... and it's a straight line. No diversions. No choices of substance. The dungeons look non-linear, but they might as well have been set in a straight corridor, one right after the other. At least in P1 and P2, there were open spaces of some sort where the players' decisions made a difference for the course of the adventure. Even the Gloomdeeps - which have a lot of non-linear aspects - are linear at their core, because there's a bottleneck between the major encounters.

I think I really need to break down the Tomb of Sartine and rebuild it. The encounters are (mostly) cool, but the structure is asinine.

I mean, I already found another room full of four sword wraiths, who I've nuked and replaced with more-thematically-appropriate Keepers (from MotP). I know that Sword Wraiths are one of the few Level 17ish Lurkers from the first MM, but still... Also, I'm questioning the wisdom of putting a 17th-level party against a Level 22 Soldier. The party's Wildfire Genasi will help with that one, at least...

All in all, I'm disappointed so far. This one promises to be a lot more work than the last few.

But that's not to say I'm without ideas. For example, I am going to put a damned city - literally - near the Fortress, in the shadows of Magrathar's Teeth. This'll give the party a chance to buy and sell some loot, find some info about the tower and the generals, and be a welcome break from what's been basically constant fighting to that point.

EDIT: I may just use Gloomwrought for this, and place it relatively near (at least in visual range of the vortex) to Nightwyrm Fortress. Instead of having the Tomb of Sartine drop the party right on a plain conveniently near the Teeth, I might rewrite this part to involve a bit of travel - and drop Encounter U1 into it somewhere.

-O

 

[MerricB]

Tomb of Sartine? It's not worth rebuilding. It's a small tomb, and works pretty well as written (except for monster choices - they're worth replacing).

No, go to the Teeth and spend your time there. That's where the bulk of the problems lie.

Cheers!