Seekers of the Ashen Crown

[71gamer]

Like I said in my previous post--the party figured out the floor tile puzzle, and despite my NUMEROUS almost painfully embarrassing obvious hints "the four goblin statues are saluting the giant statue in the middle" (and after a history check) "this is a goblin honor statue," not one of those blockheads saluted it. Seriously, I almost felt like I was handing it to them (I was worried about Ashurta's 22AC and I wanted them to get that nice +2 to hit, and don't forget, if they don't honor the statue, they are fighting in the dark!!! vs undead w darkvision. Ack!!!)

How many people have found that anyone came up with the idea to salute or honor the statue in some way? I'm considering putting some sort of inscription somewhere that'll at least offer a clue that that's what they're supposed to do, even if it's fairly cryptic.

I want to give my players at least a chance to think of it, as I actually think idea of them showing respect and then getting to do the RP of Ashtura talking to them in that context during the fight is pretty cool, and would be something they would really enjoy.

 

[Delgar]

As far as skill checks go, I bumped all the skill checks in the module up by 5. As written they were all to low. Plus my party is a level higher than the where they should be in the module (I usually adjust the encounters by adding an extra critter to keep the challenge level the same).

I basically inserted this into an ongoing campaign (you can read all the background fluff in my story hour if your interested. I'll also be adding there adventures here shortly). So after finishing the tomb my players are now level 4 and are right now about to talk to Gydd. They'll get through all of the role-playing, information gathering through e-mail. We've already finished their discussion with Olakki and Molric.

Seeing as you've been running this mod using maptools, what framework are you using? Perhaps I can hit you up for maps and tokens.

I'm probably not going to skip the three encounters, but I might skip the skill challenge. It makes zero sense. It's a 6/3 challenge that takes place over 6 days, you have to run a group endurance check every day and every day the players can make 1 or 2 other successes. Over six days that's a possibilty of 6+12 successes/failures. EVEN if they fail their endurance check they loose a healing surge, whoopdeedoo, they just rest and get it back. Worst case scenario they start an encounter with 1 less surge, but there is only one encoutner possible in a day.

I have a couple of ideas of how to fix it:

Turn it into a 12/6 challenge

-Everyday they roll the group endurance check because the travel is difficult, long and hard. The group is pushing hard to catch up with the goblins. A group success or failure counts towards total success or failure (maxium possible 6).

-Every day, one PC is the guide they will use Nature to guide the group through the terrain safely. However, for each continuous day that one PC is a guide they take a cummulitive -2 to their roll. Always being on point and guard is stressful. (maxium possible 6).

-Every day one other PC may use another skill to help aid in the success of their journey. Possible other skill uses, History (you recogonize landmarks and can help lead the group to their destination); Athletics (you help clear the way or aid others with your althetic prowess); Perception (your keen senses find a clear path, or spot danager). Each day the same PC aids they suffer the same -2 cummultive penalty to their roll even if they use a different skill. (If the players come up with a creative alternative skill feel free to let it slide). (maxium possible 6).

-Every PC that fails the Endurance check looses ALL their healing surges for that day of travel. Basically the day of travel was extremely difficult and it took all of their effort to struggle through it. Which means that for the combats they will have NO healing surges.

-Success: If the PC's succeed in the challenge then they have successfully navigated there way and get the drop on the Emerald Claw in encounter 12 (let the PC's have a surprise round)

-Failure: If the PC's fail then they are tired and worn out and the Emeral claw get the drop on them. (The Emerald claw will have a surprise round).

Let me know what you think.

 

[Jhaelen]

As far as skill checks go, I bumped all the skill checks in the module up by 5. As written they were all to low. Plus my party is a level higher than the where they should be in the module (I usually adjust the encounters by adding an extra critter to keep the challenge level the same).

I also bumped all skill checks up by 3-6, even though my party was only level 1! There were seven of them, though, so I could play it (almost) as written.

Actually, I'd prefer it if modules didn't give explicit DC values. They should simply state 'easy/moderate/hard'. Then you can use just use the DC values that fall in those ranges for your particular party.

 

[DrOct]

That sounds like a pretty good way to improve that skill challenge. When my group gets there I may just use that, or something like it! Thanks!

 

[DrOct]

Here's an odd question... My players just got to the Honor Guard encounter last session, and set off the blood mist. None of them drank the blood, even though I tried to hint as much as I could without just telling them that it'd be fine, maybe even good.

Anyway so far they've all stayed out of the blood mist, which is good because about halfway through I realized I have no idea what happens to them if they're in it (I know poor prep work on my part but things have been pretty busy lately so I didn't have the time to do it the way I normally would). The adventure description tells you what happens to the undead creatures in the blood mist and says that PC's who drink the blood can "ignore the effects" (or something like that) of the Blood Mist, but... I have no idea what effects they would be ignoring. I've read over the whole thing several times and I'm going crazy trying to figure out what effects those are. I feel certain that I'm just missing something and my brain is just scanning right over something obvious but I can't find it!

Help!

 

[Delgar]

I just assumed that the mist grants concealment which the undead can ignore and i allowed any pc's that drank the blood the ability to ignore the concealment penalties for attacking undead in the mist.

Really it's not that big of a deal. Again, another puzzle that was basically useless for the pc's to solve. They also spent a lot of time trying to solve it to.

 

[DrOct]

Well so far I haven't used that and I think suddenly telling my players they can't see (or can't see well) monsters that just a moment ago (ok a session ago) they could would be a bit weird and jarring. I might just give them a minus 1 to hit if they're in the mist or something like that... Not sure I'll have to think about it. Really wish I'd had a chance to read that in detail and notice how unclear it is before I'd gotten started. Oh well lesson learned, I'll try to get prep work done for the next couple rooms this weekend so that hopefully I'll catch these things ahead of time!

 

[DrOct]

Well, the players managed to make some great rolls the second night of this encounter, so they managed to mostly stay out of the Blood Mist for the encounter anyway, and were down to just the Wight by the time it overtook their part of the room. I gave them a -1 to hit while in it, but it didn't really end up mattering anyway as those dice were on fire.

Ended up with an interesting situation when arriving at Ashurta's Tomb (of course I initially misread it so I've been, and will continue to call him Ashtura, hehe). As they first entered they did figure out to salute the statue (I gave them a bit of a hint going in with an inscription saying "Let all who enter here show honor and respect to Ashtura or face certain doom."). However one of the players, role playing his character, refused to salute the statue (this was actually pretty good role playing given the character he has, and in discussions afterward I think he and I have a better understanding of his character as a result). But! because he was unwilling to salute the other characters asked him to leave the room before they started doing anything. So, he went and stood outside of the doors, while they began inspecting the room. I wasn't quite sure what to do with this but I think it'll make it a somewhat more interesting encounter. What I did was let the players look around, and when they opened up one of the boxes, I had the doors slam shut and the encounter proceed as if everyone had saluted.

Now the character who was outside of the room has to find a way in, and the players inside the room have a +2 to use against the enthusiastic Ashtura and his wights and zombies. I won't make it too hard for him to get in, but I figure him having to work to get into the room for a few rounds and not having that +2 to use will be a sufficient challenge to add to the encounter, plus I may have the undead in the room target him a bit more when he does arrive calling him a grave robber and such. Should be interesting to see how the battle turns out. (Heck it may actually be good for the group to have an uninjured druid show up a few rounds into the battle, especially since he'll probably be on the other end of the room, and may have time to hit/hinder the enemies before they can get to him).

 

[DrOct]

Well things took a few surprising but pretty amazing turns in the fight against Ashurta and his minions.

Things didn't look good for the players for quite some time, but come clever thinking and good rolls put them back in the game. We'll still probably need one more session to wrap the battle up (unfortunately our schedules tend to lead to fairly short sessions for us, usually no more than 2.5 hours of actual play time...), and they've definitely got some challenges to overcome, but they've pretty much got it beat.

Anyway, first of all, my plan to have the Wights focus on and attack the player who was out of the room at the start worked brilliantly. It turned out he had a slightly faster movement rate than them so he basically kept them out of the battle by just running around the map (and of course as a druid he managed to fulfill his roll as a controller just by running away, we joked that we found the new Martial Controller: The Sprinter!).

So while he was doing that, the other players focused on reviving those who'd gone down and taking down the zombies and Ashutra. Shortly before the group took down Ashurta, the wights caught up to the Druid and had him cornered.

That's when the warlord in the party enacted a brilliant! plan. He grabbed his rope and tied a lasso in it. Caught one of the wights and hooked the other end (using another players grappling hook) to the spinning statue. This of course dragged the wight across the map and slammed him into the statue (doing 1d10 damage), and getting him tangled up there.

That's unfortunately where we had to end the session (it should stop spinning at the start of the next session, but it'll take that wight at least a turn or two to get loose, so the rest of the party can focus on the wights one at a time, or at least for a little while.

Should be pretty fun! (I have a feeling though the party may have to camp in the tomb, they're pretty beat up at this point, and of course have no way of knowing that the Kruthiks'll probably be relatively easy. I may just up their difficulty a little bit, since they'll be freshly rested and to make up a little bit for the encounter they skipped earlier). I'm pretty happy with my players and the creativity they're starting to show!

 

[Rabbitbait]

Good fun. My players have just left the market so we are reaching the end rapidly. This game becomes much more fun when the players realise just how many groups are trying to get this crown and that there are wheels within wheels.

The overland stuff was fun, but the skill challange was changed around a bit (I tend to do skill challanges as far more free-form than intended as doing them as written never seems to work), but I liked and used the endurance test. I made it that if you failed you could not restore the lost healing surge until you had a full nights sleep in comfort. Once one player had lost 3 healing surges this way they decided to take a day out to set up a nice camp and spend the day relaxing so that he could recover.

I think the outside encounters are necessary to break up the two dungeon crawls, as the first on (the tomb of Ashurta) is a bit too long, and the second way is almost too long.

The second dungeon I moved the rooms around a bit as it was all a bit too linear. The foulspawn stuff felt unnessesary, but I kept it in as one of the players follows the silver flame.
I also had the kech volar being chased by a dracolich when they met up with the party, that got them out of the dungeon very quickly (stopping only to collapse tunnels), set up a future adventure seed and stopped them from wanting to explore the further tunnels (which I didn't want to invent myself).

The market stuff was great, but I ignored the battlemat provided and drew it on my own bigger mat. I did not hint that the players should set up their own tent. I just let them know where the treasure was and let them work it out themselves. They wanted to go down the sewers originally until I let them know that the sewers are all on the street surface (ew). They eventually decided to set up their own tent so I just left the map blank where the digging needed to happen and let them design their own plan.

They avoided the first two battles, and the battle against the fake demise was going too easily, so I had the undead Kech Volar emerge in the middle of that battle. That made for a good battle royal.

They players are now fleeing for house Orien to try and get a lift on the skyship as the guards have just realised that the players have found something valuable. I'm thinking the blue dragon will have been sent from the more dangerous parts of the city to head them off.

Overall, despite some of the difficulties and pacing issues, I think that this is an excellent module and with all the double dealing and politics it is a great fit for Eberron.

YAY.