WotBS Running Innenotdar WotBS #2 (spoilers)

[sfedi]

One more thing.

As usual, I've changed the encounter a little.

First, I lowered Kazyk's huge Fortitude from 23 to 19. This puts it in line on how NADs should be in respect to AC.

Second, I've added to the Lemure's the following ability, inspired on the Dretch (MM2):


Poison Cloud (when the lemure drops 0 hit points) Poison, Zone

Close burst 1; the burst creates a zone of poison centered on the lemure that lasts until the end of the attacker's next turn. Any creature that enters the zone or starts its turn there takes 5 poison damage.

 

[Morrus]

First, I lowered Kazyk's huge Fortitude from 23 to 19. This puts it in line on how NADs should be in respect to AC.

It's exception-based rules design; there's no "should" about it, merely guidelines and personal preference. There's nothing stopping Kazyk from having a Fort of 900 (other than that being a really poor idea!)

It's important to distinguish between your own preference/opinion and actual errors.

 

[sfedi]

It's exception-based rules design; there's no "should" about it, merely guidelines and personal preference. There's nothing stopping Kazyk from having a Fort of 900 (other than that being a really poor idea!)

It's important to distinguish between your own preference/opinion and actual errors.

You're 100% right.

I apologize for how I phrased that (and previous comments I've made too).

It's something that has been bothering me for a while in the guidelines in the DMG:

Ac is 14 + level
NAD is 12 + level

This, naturally, is to offset the proficiency that AC attacks normally have.

But then the DMG (and DMG2 for that matter) states that on top of that you add the differences the monster has against the average value, which only leads to increasing monster NADs. Thus, breaking the contract/assumption that someone with an attack vs NAD is balanced against an attack vs AC.

Oh well, perhaps I should open a thread in the rules forum.

 

[sfedi]

Finding Mushrooms and dealing with the grove trap

Today I ran the Finding Mushrooms Skill Challenge

It was awesome. It's important to let the players know that the creatures beyond the mist are afraid of them and at the same time that they will eventually come, so they know they can stall them.

Since the party was succesfull in the SC, they avoided the combat against the Fungals, so I couldn't test that encounter.

But we managed to run the Khadral ritual at the Dryad's grove.

I don't know if I understood correctly all that part, but I first put all the party inside the grove so all of them have to deal with the trap.

That encounter worked like a charm.

I've added a little twist/detail into the encounter: I give two of the coutnermeasures clues only after some Arcana and Nature checks (see below).

Once the vines attack, I give them almost all the details for the countermeasures:
- how to get +5 to reflex
- effect of melee attacks and reach of the vines
- how grab works
- how blasts and bursts are more effective
And another detail I added, so they know how the trap works:
- all four vines make two attacks, wether you are threatened by one or two of them. And you provoque an OA from all of them, not one. So if you provoqued an OA from one, you can keep moving to another, safely

The two countermeasures I give them when they make some checks:

The fact that the field goes down between two trees when they are destroyed is known by spending a Standard action and a successful DC 20 check of Arcana or Nature.

How to destroy a vine, is known with a DC 20 Nature check.

That's it.

Some details that are very important to run the encounter:
(or at least, that worked for me )

- when Khadral falls in the hole, right after him, the force field forms. This prevents PCs from falling in, rescuing him inmediately, or from been too much out of combat if they are pushed by the vines into the hole. Climbing out of the hole is a DC 10 Athletics. And you take 1d10 damage for falling in.
- the +5 reflex bonus is gained at the end of the round, and lasts until the start of the next round. So it is only "active" while the vines attack in their turn, and only if the PC remained in the threatened area.
- if the vines come up in the initiative and no one is within reach, I have them ready both attacks agains the first PCs that come within threatened area
- the vines reach cannot be reduced below 1 (so, they can always attack an adjacent PC trying to pull it up)
- don't be afraid to make an effective use of the vines, readying actions, attacking PCs without the +5 reflex bonus to AC, pushing them into the hole, etc. I did my best, I was as mean as I could and the healing surges spent was well within the "budget" of an encounter of this threat

Well, that's all we did.

I hope this helps other DMs running this adventure

 

[Calavingian]

*sigh* If only my PC's would change their mind about "going through the mountains and then sneaking South".

Ive compromised by giving them an equally unpalatable challange should they carry on with the plan to avoid the forest. So maybe they will decide to go the Forest Route after all. I certainly hope so. I simply dont have the time to come up with 3 levels worth of road trip adventure.

 

[RangerWickett]

I dunno. Do you think they'd figure out if you just did a lot of reskinning? They're stalked by Kazyk, hear a song on the wind, stumble upon a wintry fey woman, and when a blizzard blows in, Tiljann offers to bring them back to her village for shelter, both from the elements and from the devil tracking them. Once they're there, give them the freedom to just move on, but with the understanding that they'll be alone against a powerful devil.

There could be a spirit trapped in a glacier, and the PCs can decide to either help the fey, or help Indomitability, who controls the weather over the mountains in order to keep the Seela trapped. Either course gives them an ally against Kazyk when it comes time to leave the mountains.

Once they leave the mountains, the forest stays on fire, and it's got a little less of the phoenix imagery we were going for, but you still get to reuse a lot of the adventure.

In fact, you could retool a ton of the adventure as just vignettes along the way through the mountains. Come across a dragonborn researcher who warns of strange magic deeper in the range, cross an unsteady bridge (natural or man-made), investigate a village slaughtered by the Shahalesti where the dead walk, and so on. Nothing says the adventure has to be in the forest.

Just, y'know, don't let on that their choices have no consequence. Maybe even make up some new rumors about more dangerous things in the fire forest, so who knows, the PCs might return to it in the future.

Or, if all else fails, run a few bog standard encounters in the mountains, and have them skip forward to adventure 3. I mean, 3 levels of difference won't kill them, and you can just fudge XP for a while to get them where they need to be by the end of the adventure. There are lots of quest XP rewards in adventure 3, after all. Just ramp those up a lot.

 

[Morrus]

Yeah, that's an idea. Run the same adventure, but re-theme it - instead of a burning forest, it's a wintry Shahalesti mountain range, or valley, or something. At the other end of it is the coast and a ship to take them to Seaquen.

 

[Daern]

i like this thinking. the trickiest part of this kind of module reskin to me is when when I end up translating on the fly and I'm using stat blocks and world info. I usually change some names and what have you, but then I'll occassionally slip and say what's written on the page. I remember early on running a KOTS encounter against Kenku instead of Kobolds, but there weren't Kenku stats yet so i used the kobold stat blocks -then slipped and called a spade a spade and the players caught on and the jig was up.......

 

[Calavingian]

Ranger Wickett! If you wern't short, furry and an ewok, I'd probably kiss you. What a great idea.
In fact, you wrote the campaign so I'll probably kiss you anyway.
Blizzard in the mountains it is. Genius.

"The Freezing Mountains of Shahalest" it is.

 

[sfedi]

Last Monday I ran another part, the rescue of the children and the rescue of Khadral.

For the rescuing of the chidlren, I ran a modified version of the skill challenge.

Then I ran the Rescue Khadral combat encounter.
It was a good one.

I made these modifictations to the encounter to suit my tastes:

Fungal Spore Crown defenses adjusted to not emphasize Fort, and be more in line with a typical controller-type monster:
AC 19 Fort 15 Ref 17 Will 19

Adjusted the Spore Blast, it was too powerful it's Dazed option, and too weak the other options and I made it more reliable to use, making it an at-will:

Spore Blast (standard; at-will)
Close Blast 3; targets nonplants; +9 vs Will;
1d6+4 damage and one of the following:
Stench: The target takes a -2 penalty to attack rolls (save ends)
Debilitating: The target is dazed until the end of it next turn
Purple Haze: Teh target takes a -2 penalty to all defenses (save ends)

Modified Telepathic Command to make it more strong:

Telepathic Command (move; at-will)
Close Burst 5; targets one plant ally; the target shifts 1 square

Adjusted Fungal Protector Defenses:
AC 18 Fort 19 Ref 17 Will 18

Increased Gatherer's range to 10.

Even with these modifications, the Crown's best option would be to Daze creatures for one round. This kept the defenders ineffective most of the time, (although they caught up the full attention of the Crowns) and left the Protectors to run amock the other party members.

Some tips for the combat:

Try to make the Fungals delay and reorder in the initiative so that they act in the following order:

- Crowns
- Protectors
- Gatherers

1st - Crowns will setup which PCs will be attacked and which will be nullified with their Blasts (Daze a Defender, lower defenses to PCs going to be hit by the protectors or lower the attack of dangerous Strikers)
2nd - Protectors should strike to whomever seems more dangerous, trying to focus fire
3rd - Gatherers should make their ranged attacks and end up close to as many allies as possible (to catch them in the Mushroom Burst)

It was a fun and tough fight. I even added another Protector since PCs couldn't die in this encounter (a Narrative houserule I'm using inspired on Burning Wheel)