P3 - Anyone run it?

[Ryujin]

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.

The Dracolich cleans this up nicely. My character was geared to handle incoming necrotic damage, as were a couple of the others in the party, and we had our butts handed to us quite handily. I didn't have radiant damage, but I did have multiple keywords, and we had a pretty good laser Cleric in the party.

Personally I think that Dracolich is under-leveled, by 3 or 4, in his description. It was a slaughter.

 

[Obryn]

Dang. I guess that's what happens when you take a year off playing D&D: you forget some of the rules...

No, it's OK. As-written, it's technically a Close Burst 3, so going by the book, it would have made little difference.

Needless to say, I've changed this up a bit

-O

 

[Obryn]

The Dracolich cleans this up nicely. My character was geared to handle incoming necrotic damage, as were a couple of the others in the party, and we had our butts handed to us quite handily. I didn't have radiant damage, but I did have multiple keywords, and we had a pretty good laser Cleric in the party.

Personally I think that Dracolich is under-leveled, by 3 or 4, in his description. It was a slaughter.

I've leveled him down to 20, and still changed him up a bit. As-written, his AC is stupid off-the-charts for an 18th level party; my group ranges from +22 to +25 to-hit, and his AC of 38 just screams "WARNING!" at me.

Dracoliches should be scary. And he should be a bit harder than usual, since the party should really be trying to avoid fighting him altogether. But he's a bit on the too-much side of things, anyway.

-O

 

[KarinsDad]

Our group of 6 17th level PCs negotiated with the Dracolich to get its phylactery for it in return for it flying them to the top of the tower.

Little do they know that there is a dragon waiting up there for them as well.

That fight should be a bit less challenging then the Dracolich (which I do agree is a TPK just waiting to happen), but I will have to change the increasing size of the vortex if the statues are destroyed to something else. My players might possibly destroy the statues mid-combat. The PCs have a soul ring (from defeating the Nightwalker), but they are not attuned to it, and so cannot enter the tower (including falling into the pit).

This should be the most challenging encounter that they have ever faced, just due to the sheer difficulty of hitting the dragon (plus stun, darkness, etc.). It could easily lead to a TPK. I will probably remove the extra wraith souleaters. Even if they win, they are then faced with the challenge of getting off of the tower. It's a long drop if someone falls.

 

[OchreJelly]

Had another session recently. I swapped out all of the wraiths in the ice-room tomb encounter. In their place I put in a catoblepas (the 18th level one) on the far side of the chamber. It made sense with their new "Raven Queen"-based fluff. It played out really well with the angel keeping players tied up at one end of the room, and the catoblepas pulling individual PCs away from the fight.

This was my first effort at incorporating some MM3 creatures, and I immediately notice a difference. In the encounter before this, I used a ghost beholder which was equally epic. The high paragon PCs were regularly challenged (and bloodied!), and some of the newer mechanics of the MM3 monsters breathed some new life into the encounters.

 

[Obryn]

Had another session recently. I swapped out all of the wraiths in the ice-room tomb encounter. In their place I put in a catoblepas (the 18th level one) on the far side of the chamber. It made sense with their new "Raven Queen"-based fluff. It played out really well with the angel keeping players tied up at one end of the room, and the catoblepas pulling individual PCs away from the fight.

This was my first effort at incorporating some MM3 creatures, and I immediately notice a difference. In the encounter before this, I used a ghost beholder which was equally epic. The high paragon PCs were regularly challenged (and bloodied!), and some of the newer mechanics of the MM3 monsters breathed some new life into the encounters.

Hah! We just had this fight last night, too. I think I should have used a catoblepas, but I ended up using four bound (and upgraded) Keepers from MotP. They worked out ... okay. Kinda dull, frankly.

How did the Ghost Beholder work out? I ended up switching my plan to use one once again because I'm having 7-8 players most nights right now. I subbed in an upgraded Beholder (basically the one that Sly Flourish pimped out recently) and gave him a pair of air elementals to run interference. (Those worked pretty great - snatch a PC, then fly back into the middle of the pit.) The Beholder's Telekinesis Ray was hugely valuable - because, again, pit.

-O

 

[OchreJelly]

The beholder worked great. I put him in the room that previously had the bodak and ghouls. While I had no problem with ghouls, I feel like they were being a little overused up to this point. In their stead, I put a bunch of leveled-up wretches of kyuss (another MM3 monters 'natch). The far end of the room had a teleportation field (I can't remember if this was in the module or if I added it). The beholder used his telekensis ray to move PCs thru the teleportation field into the room full of exploding wretches. It could have gone worse, but the fighter used one of his sweeping attacks, to kill all of them and only two of their explosions landed on him.

Meanwhile the beholder used his eyebeams to decent effect. He never possessed anyone, but the players had fun with the "killing thoughts" ray that causes a PC to basic attack himself. All said, it was a fun fight.