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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jayoungr" data-source="post: 7612079" data-attributes="member: 6702445">Further Notes on "The Marionette" (DDAL04-04):  The Manor  This part of the adventure was quite solid and hardly needed any modification.  The main thing that struck me is that there is heavy snow in the first part of the adventure, but they want a DC 15 Perception check for the PCs to figure out that Glovia probably went in the kitchen door?  There should be clear footprints in the snow.  I also made sure to mention that clouds of smoke were clearly visible hanging over the town, since there should be a panoramic view from up on the cliff where the manor is located. Apart from that, the manor itself ran very smoothly.  My group went in through the basement and got pretty torn up by the rat swarms, but they also missed the gibbering mouther on the first floor, so that probably evened out the amount of damage they started the second floor with.  They also chose to brew the cider, which gave them the benefit of a short rest.  I meant to have them encounter Fillar Esven, in raven form, taking things from the workshop--he had clearly been there if he had the key to the soldiers' control panel--but forgot. The Glovia boss fight is a very complicated encounter, with a lot for the DM to keep track of: <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Glovia's spellcasting abilities </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Glovia's legendary actions </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Lair actions </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Glovia's undead bodyguards </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Isabella's actions </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The guardian portrait </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Potentially, the gibbering mouther below </li> </ul>I ran this over Roll20, and I found it helped to set up the lair as an NPC and give it its own initiative.  Isabella also wasn't really a factor when I ran this fight because the cleric opened up with turn undead, so she spent the whole time cowering against a back wall and couldn't try to possess anyone.  (I ruled that the ritual in progress kept her from leaving the room.)By the way, this could have been a classic example of a <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?659008-Want-to-shake-things-up-Doorways-Scouting-Caution" target="_blank">doorway fight,</a> of the type that I complained about in a recent thread.  I had Glovia use her smoke bomb on the doorway and step outside the radius of it; this forced a couple of the PCs to enter the room to target her, since they were basically ignoring the bodyguards and going straight for the boss.  Otherwise, this would have been a classic "stand in the doorway and make ranged attacks" combat due to the layout of the room, and I could tell the players were a little peeved at not being able to use that tactic.  (This adventure was one of the things that led me start that thread, in fact.) Speaking of Isabella, she really backfired on my group, unfortunately.  They were only interested in her if she would lead them straight to her mother and help them bypass the rest of the house, which, of course, is not the point.  I had her say, "I'm not sure where my mother is right now.  She's in the house somewhere.  Don't you want to play with me?"  Once she introduced them to her "friends" the ghouls, they decided they hated her, so I cut out her playful scares in an attempt to keep from irritating them further.  When she tried to get them to come see the puppet theater, they shouted, "NO!  We're not following her anywhere!  We go to the opposite end of the house!"--which, of course, meant they went straight to the boss encounter.  I'm sad because this means they missed out on the playroom encounter with the swarms of animated dolls, which is IMO one of the most atmospheric scenes in the adventure.    They never even opened the door to Isabella's room, even after they had defeated Glovia, when all they would have had to do was walk in and pick up Boris (since logically, with Glovia dead and Isabella having moved on, the dolls should have gone inert).  They were convinced that Boris was (un)dead and they'd just have to fight him, and they were pretty low on hitpoints after the Glovia fight, so they just left with Sorina.  I had Boris stumble into town next morning telling some crazy stories about what had happened to him up at the manor house, and the PCs didn't get the experience for rescuing him. Anyway, I mention this just to give future DMs a heads-up to consider how your party will respond to Isabella.  (Come to think of it, I had a similar problem with Jamna Gleamsilver when I ran Tyranny of Dragons for this group.  Maybe it's something about the way I play them, I dunno ... sigh.) The PCs reached level 4 at the end of this adventure.</blockquote>

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