Shackled City abruptly ended (minor spoiler)

[Sunderstone]

I cant seem to get my party past level 5 with 3rd edition. We already lost 2 parties at 5th level. One party was turned to stone in RttToEE, the other slain during VoLK by Necromancer Games.

This time it was a semi-tpk with the party at level 3 in the Shackled City adventure path (Lifes Bazaar).

Spoiler

2 PCs have been caught and are to be auctioned off to Underdark slavers by Kazmojen, the other 3 were killed by his pet Howler.

Basically my group consists of 3 veterans, 22 years D&D experience for myself and another, the third has about 15 years experience. The last 2 are a little greener, one with 6 yrs and the other has about 3 yrs.

The party expended ALL of their spells earlier, including heals, no one was at full hp, and one guy was 8 hp.

Spoiler

They didnt want to rest for 2 reasons, one was a fear of guard replacements, the second was that they heard the children were on the auction block and feared losing them.

Bad dicing took care of the rest. I fudged alot of rolls on the DM side of the screen to reduce damage against the party and change a few hits against the party to misses.
sigh. The game was still fun for all of us.

I was going to have the three players roll up new ones and stage a rescue of the other two, or even have them as three more prisoners and all attempt to escape together.
Unfortunately I dont like telling my players what to play and I encouraged them to make any characters they wanted to play. This left us with no Wizard or Cleric type.
So we all rolled new ones. As a DM, Ill run another steady NPC like I always do to fill in the holes (a wizard this time).

Im currently trying to decide on what to start a new party with next, my 2 choices are Mad God's Key, or Raiders of the Black Ice using the Frostburn stuff.
Any opinions as to which I should use?. I wouldnt mind hearing pros and cons of both choices

 

[Nightfall]

Okay I can understand them not getting past RttTEE, and even VoLK. Both of them are kind of killer.

But the Shackled City?! Wow.

Okay my advice, start them off REALLY slow in a nice safe enviroment. Just have them do some investigative work in Westgate. They can always hope Elminster can save them!

 

[Sunderstone]

Most likely we will end up far away from Westgate. For Raiders of the Black Ice either the Silver Marches again or the Bloodstone Lands.
Im undecided as to where in the Realms I'll place Mad God's Key.

 

[Mark]

As a DM, Ill run another steady NPC like I always do to fill in the holes (a wizard this time).

Don't. Tell the four players they will have to find a way to cover all of the bases on their own, and to come up with characters as a group with that in mind.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Shackled City spoilers!

Okay I can understand them not getting past RttTEE, and even VoLK. Both of them are kind of killer.

But the Shackled City?! Wow.

Are you kidding me? Shackled City is vicious.

Spoiler

Zenith Trajectory alone has at least three encounters than can easily end in TPKs: the dragon, the cryohydra, the erinyes ...

We've just started Demonscar, and I'm beginning to think we've bitten off more than we can chew. We just bluffed our way past a hill giant sentry into the Demonscar complex, and we're realizing that we could easily end up facing a half-dozen or more giants at once. My fervent hope -- despite the fact that we took out a fire giant, by surprise, without taking a point of damage -- is that we can get back out to explore other options, without getting slaughtered.

Anyone who thinks Shackled City is a cakewalk pretty clearly has a puffball DM.

 

[rounser]

I cant seem to get my party past level 5 with 3rd edition.

Maybe time to experiment with gestalt characters?

 

[ToddSchumacher]

Are you kidding me? Shackled City is vicious.

*snip*

Anyone who thinks Shackled City is a cakewalk pretty clearly has a puffball DM.

I Am just finishing up the serise this week with the last adventure. and there have been a few encounters where they had to think a bit to get past. Just this past week on the "Strike on Shatterhorn" there was an almost a TPK. But most of the time my players kick everythings arses. Mainly because I miss something in the massive stat blocks..."oh wait, he has Fortification armor...whats that do?" This was the first campaign I ran that went above 8th. Despite my slip ups we're all having a blast, and many of them don't want it to be over.

I can't wait for the next adventure path. Until then, one of the others will be running 'Worlds Largest Dungeon' for the rest of us

 

[Sunderstone]

Don't. Tell the four players they will have to find a way to cover all of the bases on their own, and to come up with characters as a group with that in mind.

Heya Mark;
My players tend to go 65% role play and 35% Roll play which is excellent IMO. We can turn even the worst Hack and Slash Dungeon Crawls into very memorable experiences.
Alot of this is due to the fact that my players get into their characters really well. They write histories, they like stats that are not super heroic, and they tend to play off eachother very well. I think Im pretty lucky to have a crew like that.
As a DM, Ill play an NPC to help as long as it IS NOT a Rogue. I leave the trapfinding and lockpicking to the players being that I have inside information.

The players have rolled up some pretty good stuff this time around. We have a trampy Human Cleric of Sune, a Tiefling Paladin of Torm trying to redeem himself from his lower-planar roots, a Half-Orc Barbarian, and a Halfling Monk of the Hin Fist (Monastic order in the Forgotten Realms) who will be multi-classing with Rogue. Im gonna bring an NPC LN Wizardess who might even be LE in alignment (players will not know this of course). She'll be powerhungry and depending on the PC interaction, they may sway her to the side of good. If not she'll secretly grow into a recurring nemesis to the party later.


As far as the Tiefling's Detect Evil goes, I may give her something to conceal her alignment. Better yet, I'll play on his Tiefling heritage and bring up a moral issue of his redemption and mine.

this should be alot of fun.