Wik said:
Noteworthy Encounters in Episode 1 - There is No Honour
Just thought I'd add my own comments to reinforce some of these.
1. The Rhagodessa in the first encounter. Our goliath and dragon shaman rushed ahead and encountered this while the fight on deck was winding up. It almost killed the Goliath in the first round (technically, it did, but I let it slide, since i don't want PCs dying in the first encounter). Beware... that thing is LETHAL.
Very true. I've run that encounter twice, for different groups, and in one case a character really should have died, whilst in the other, all three of the PCs who were on the ship at the time were knocked down to negative hit points, and it was just random chance that it chose to start eating a downed pirate before finishing them off, allowing the last PC to board the ship and kill it from range.
This is with 2nd level characters.
2. "The Crucible" can be a tough encounter... we went through it easily, due to the dwarf having a huge AC and nothing being able to hit him. But the crocodile still nearly knocked him out.
My party actually missed out the Crucible entirely - they accessed the lair from the taxidermist's shop, and never saw any of the secret doors leading to the crucible area.
What nearly got them killed was the Ixitchoatls (that's close to the right spelling, I think). I'd allowed races and options from Stormwrack, and my seafaring party decided to take on the ixits in the water. Bad idea - with some decent Tumble checks, the ixits managed to inflict extra Skirmish damage with practically every bite, and brought multiple PCs down to single digits despite the cleric standing in the shallows healing them nearly every round. Only some generous interpretation of the drowning rules let the Darfellan barbarian survive after he was reduced to negatives while below water.
3. The fight with Rowyn needs work. I knew it'd be a cakewalk, so I added a few roguescoming up the hallway from behind to stall the PCs. Note that the encounter area is really small, so there's very little room for Rowyn to maneuver. I'd up the size of the room a bit, to maybe open up some tactical options.
Good advice. I increased the size of the room, but there's still no real opportunity for Rowyn to strut her stuff and present a serious threat to the party before weight of numbers overwhelm her. She barely managed to tumble out through a gap in the players' ranks and flee down the corridor far enough to drink her potion of Gaseous Form.
****
Episode two - The Bullywug Gambit
1. The fight with the Savage Raptor has led to party kills (I know of a group that ran through it that all got killed in that fight; our group would have, except for the cleric casting Cause Fear on it - and my forgetting that the creature was technically immune).
The Pounce ability is particularly nasty. Attacking a melee-oriented character with decent AC and hitpoints, it dropped him from full health to dying in the surprise round.
2. Another tough fight is the fight in the tunnels near the end of first part, where the savage pirates attack the group en masse. We almost had a TPK - half the group was in negatives, and we suffered our first PC death. You might want to encourage a heal of some sort before they get into those tunnels... maybe drop a healing potion or two a room earlier.
My party never reached this area. They encountered Harliss first, and then immediately departed to save Lavinia.
3. The Fight with the Rust Monster and Chief Lorpth is another tough one - our group loved it because the rust monster knocked the dwarf's AC down something like ten points. The Chief knocked our Goliath down to -9 in two hits. If you have a melee group (we did), the Chief can easily wipe out at least one character.
A truly vicious fight, which saw the first two PC deaths of our campaign, both at the end of the Chief's greatclub. The difficult terrain is a major factor - allies can't 5-foot-step to flank opponents, and if someone scouts ahead - in this case, the party's monk - it can take all too long for the rest of the party to slog through the mud to his aid once battle commences.
4. Drevoraz is a really simple fight. Our group killed him in two rounds (he fled, they chased him, and we had a running battle between crowded streets, before the final duel on Ancestor Island... lots of fun).
Not quite so easy in my case, but still a relative pushover. One thing I ensured was that Lavinia had a chance to show off here, slipping free of Drevoraz, then disarming the bullywug shaman to join the battle. They showed a markedly greater appreciation for her once they realised she could fight.
That encounter actually preceeded the basement encounter with Chief Lorpth in our game, the PCs making a beeline for the master bedroom on the assumption that Lavinia would be held there.
***
Episode Three - the Sea Wyvern's Wake
1. Don't assume that the PCs will figure out what's wrong with Conrad. Our group didn't (evne though they had a paladin!), and wound up having to fight a Blue Slaad on the ship. It was awesome (and they said it was the toughest fight they'd had to date).
Much the same in my game, except that a PC was watching over Conrad alone when the transformation occurred. Running from the room and slamming the door behind him, he was shocked when the slaad simply employed
passwall to step through the wall.
His surprise was short-lived, as was the rest of him. One full attack from the slaad was all it took.
The flotsam ooze is also a serious danger. Once it grapples, there's basically no way to get free while it's alive, and it gets to make free attacks each round on its engulfed victims. That resulted in one more PC death, and one very close shave.
2. Rowyn is annoying. If you can get rid of her earlier, it makes the adventure easier to run, in my mind.
I had a different problem. Due to the above-mentioned deaths and one change of character, suddenly there was nobody left on board the
Sea Wyvern who had actually been involved in destroying the Lotus Dragons, and all Rowyn's motivation went out the window.
I compromised by having her expend all her efforts in an attempt to destroy the person who had directed those PCs against her - Lavinia. When the
Blue Nixie next drew alongside, Rowyn surreptitiously used her
summon nature's ally scroll to call down a brace of hippogriffs upon Lavinia, then - in the guise of one of the crew - pretended to train the ship's ballista upon the attacking beasts, instead firing it at Lavinia.
The ensuing combat saw Rowyn slain and Lavinia healed back from the brink of death, making an exciting conclusion to that story arc.
[quote[3. I changed a few adventures so I could expand upon Tamoachan, including the intelligent crayfish and hermit crab "gods" from the original adventure. I also got to use some Spark Lashers (minis handbook) in a fight against the group that was kind of fun.[/QUOTE]
I ran Tamoachan as written. One thing worth noting is that the Will o' Wisp makes a formidable adversary to a party not geared to handle it. Even if they can pinpoint it, its high AC (including Touch AC) means it'll be tough for them to land attacks against it, whilst its +16 electrical touch attack will almost never miss.
That's as far as my group has got. It's been very good fun so far, though the deaths during the middle part of the adventure were rather frustrating for my players.
