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(Spoilers) My experience with Reavers of Harkenwold - Updated
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<blockquote data-quote="Nemesis Destiny" data-source="post: 5747376" data-attributes="member: 98255"><p><strong>Encounter B5 and integrating my main plot</strong></p><p></p><p>So I never got around to doing a preview of the fight I was going to run. So it goes. It took an extra session longer than I thought anyway, though I suppose I could have used some extra tweaking and feedback from others, since it wasn't really a challenging fight.</p><p></p><p>Picking up where I left off, the players managed to avoid the skill challenge that I'd planned to run if they entered the creepy domain beyond the tower. They simply didn't go in there, and travelled along the base of the wall instead. Not a problem.</p><p></p><p>After a day or two, they ran into the NPCs which introduced my main plot. They got that this was their clue to abandon their previous quest and turn back. I introduced the NPCs as part of a fight; the PCs happened upon them being waylaid by orcs in the woods. The NPCs were all unconscious when the group arrived on the scene, and it was foggy enough that they couldn't see who the orcs were attacking, other than that they appeared human-sized.</p><p></p><p>I used all 'stock' Orcs from Monster Vault and other products that use the new math. There were 8 minion Orc Savages, 4 Battletested Orcs, 2 Orc Reavers, and one each Orc Rampager and Archer. They were spread out in a clump with the archer in the back, benefitting from concealment due to the fog. There was a Battletested Orc at the outer edges of the clump, at each "corner" (though I ran this on a hex battlemat), with the Reavers toward the PC side, and the Rampager in the middle.</p><p></p><p>I managed to bloody just about all the PCs, ran them out of healing, and dropped the Barbarian (he got better). Most of the minions died when the Sorcerer dropped a burst 2 on the baddies from his Boon of Arcane Might. They didn't do a lot of focus-firing, but most of them used an Action Point, which probably helped turn the tide.</p><p></p><p>I think the group felt pretty good about the fight, neither feeling too challenged by it nor like it was a cakewalk. I guess that's pretty much where most fights should be, though according to the numbers, it should have been a really hard fight for them. That said, I do have some houserules for this game which give the PCs a little more power compared to normal characters, and we use themes, so that helps. Most fights don't go longer than 3 rounds, and seldom to the PCs have to fall back to at-will powers. The group also contains several tactical thinkers and overall smart people.</p><p></p><p>So after that brawl and the associated plot revelation, they turned north to head home. This was where we left off last week. This week started with a bit of campfire roleplaying and idle travel. When they got home to Harkenwold, I had a very unpleasant surprise waiting for them, in the form of a modified Encounter B5. They had been gone a month or so at this point.</p><p></p><p>For flavour reasons Lividius was instead a Lesser Death Knight. I basically blended his stat block with that of a Death Knight. I also gave him a Skeletal Steed for increased mobility and an extra attack each round. I further complicated things by adding 10 Infernal Mote minions, which he could use to recharge his racial encounter power.</p><p></p><p><img src="http://worldofmyrth.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/death-knight1.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p><img src="http://worldofmyrth.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/infernal-mote1.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>Needless to say, with this group, my plans did not work out. It started out ok - they happened on the scene just in time to watch the death knight deliver the killing stroke to the NPC taking Dar Gremmath's place, Darga Grimasson. Bonus points because he was the father of one of the recently-retired PCs, who was now holding the Baron/jarl's soul. I had him/her valiantly charge in and get knocked out by a well timed pommel strike. Then I called for initiative. I got lucky and rolled a 20 for the death knight and he managed to beat everyone else, so I lobbed his infernal fireball, catching everyone in the blast. My luck was all used up at this point; I rolled crappy damage, and even missed two of the PCs.</p><p></p><p>I was expecting them to ignore the mostly-harmless motes created by the fireball, but lo and behold during the first round, most of them got wiped out. One of the motes attached to a PC, but as a result, the Death Knight was only able to use his Infernal Wrath once.</p><p></p><p>He was almost immediately unhorsed (prone) and slowed. The horse was likewise slowed. It got to move and make an attempt at attacking, but it missed, and in any case was much less threatening without its rider. It was destroyed before the death knight could remount.</p><p></p><p>The death knight started by doing his teleport trick to damage some PCs, righting himself (I cheated <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite7" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue :p" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":p" />). This got him into a good position to do his Blade of Death attack. He then proceeded to roll like poop, missing half his targets and doing piddly damage. Action Point. Same result, though I did manage to drop the Sentinel druid's companion.</p><p></p><p>During the next series of PC actions, he became prone again, immobilized, and then, finally dazed, though all these attacks bloodied him. This is when the fight got more interesting for me. He actually became much more effective when bloodied and dazed. The strikers, seeing a bloodied foe, started pouring on the damage, and with him taking only half and them taking the other half, I managed to bloody some PCs, or rather, they managed to bloody themselves.</p><p></p><p>When the knight acted again, he used his one action to do his teleport trick and get close to the two squishies in the back (sorcerer and invoker). He bloodied the invoker and dropped the sorcerer. The PCs then began really shoving him around the battlefield, again damaging themselves. The invoker then used his channel divinity to try to punish the undead monster. Amusingly, with the help of the death knight's radiant vulnerability, the invoker took return damage from Heart of Nessus that knocked him not just unconscious, but to within a few hit points of death-by-negative-bloodied. Heh.</p><p></p><p>The slayer followed this up by killing the death knight for real, and almost dropping himself. Strangely, the defender, who normally gets pretty beat up didn't even get bloodied, and the sentinel also avoided most damage.</p><p></p><p>The group consensus was again that this fight felt challenging but not overkill. Everyone seemed to have fun, which is of course, the main thing. I particularly enjoyed the second half of the combat.</p><p></p><p>Afterwards, there was some more roleplaying before we called it for the night. I planned to drop the next plot item on them, but it will instead happen at the beginning of next session. When that will be is anyone's guess, since most of us are going to be busy over the holidays.</p><p></p><p>So that's the end of Reavers. Overall, a solid module that I found easy to adapt to my game's campaign setting. I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a sandbox style module to run.</p><p></p><p>Specific complaints include a lack of incentive to engaging with non-critical NPCs, Nazin Redthorn doesn't get enough set up as a real villain - he's just kind of a stooge, but it does serve to introduce the Iron Circle as a menace if you plan to continue with it.</p><p></p><p>Other complaints were more related to personal preference than anything. I think bullywugs are silly adversaries. The motivations of Yisarn and the elves were kind of one-dimensional. Stuff like that.</p><p></p><p>If anyone is interested to hear it, I can continue a chronicle of where I am going from here (in another thread), just let me know. If not, thanks for reading this all the same! <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p>Cheers and happy gaming folks!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Nemesis Destiny, post: 5747376, member: 98255"] [b]Encounter B5 and integrating my main plot[/b] So I never got around to doing a preview of the fight I was going to run. So it goes. It took an extra session longer than I thought anyway, though I suppose I could have used some extra tweaking and feedback from others, since it wasn't really a challenging fight. Picking up where I left off, the players managed to avoid the skill challenge that I'd planned to run if they entered the creepy domain beyond the tower. They simply didn't go in there, and travelled along the base of the wall instead. Not a problem. After a day or two, they ran into the NPCs which introduced my main plot. They got that this was their clue to abandon their previous quest and turn back. I introduced the NPCs as part of a fight; the PCs happened upon them being waylaid by orcs in the woods. The NPCs were all unconscious when the group arrived on the scene, and it was foggy enough that they couldn't see who the orcs were attacking, other than that they appeared human-sized. I used all 'stock' Orcs from Monster Vault and other products that use the new math. There were 8 minion Orc Savages, 4 Battletested Orcs, 2 Orc Reavers, and one each Orc Rampager and Archer. They were spread out in a clump with the archer in the back, benefitting from concealment due to the fog. There was a Battletested Orc at the outer edges of the clump, at each "corner" (though I ran this on a hex battlemat), with the Reavers toward the PC side, and the Rampager in the middle. I managed to bloody just about all the PCs, ran them out of healing, and dropped the Barbarian (he got better). Most of the minions died when the Sorcerer dropped a burst 2 on the baddies from his Boon of Arcane Might. They didn't do a lot of focus-firing, but most of them used an Action Point, which probably helped turn the tide. I think the group felt pretty good about the fight, neither feeling too challenged by it nor like it was a cakewalk. I guess that's pretty much where most fights should be, though according to the numbers, it should have been a really hard fight for them. That said, I do have some houserules for this game which give the PCs a little more power compared to normal characters, and we use themes, so that helps. Most fights don't go longer than 3 rounds, and seldom to the PCs have to fall back to at-will powers. The group also contains several tactical thinkers and overall smart people. So after that brawl and the associated plot revelation, they turned north to head home. This was where we left off last week. This week started with a bit of campfire roleplaying and idle travel. When they got home to Harkenwold, I had a very unpleasant surprise waiting for them, in the form of a modified Encounter B5. They had been gone a month or so at this point. For flavour reasons Lividius was instead a Lesser Death Knight. I basically blended his stat block with that of a Death Knight. I also gave him a Skeletal Steed for increased mobility and an extra attack each round. I further complicated things by adding 10 Infernal Mote minions, which he could use to recharge his racial encounter power. [IMG]http://worldofmyrth.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/death-knight1.png[/IMG] [IMG]http://worldofmyrth.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/infernal-mote1.png[/IMG] Needless to say, with this group, my plans did not work out. It started out ok - they happened on the scene just in time to watch the death knight deliver the killing stroke to the NPC taking Dar Gremmath's place, Darga Grimasson. Bonus points because he was the father of one of the recently-retired PCs, who was now holding the Baron/jarl's soul. I had him/her valiantly charge in and get knocked out by a well timed pommel strike. Then I called for initiative. I got lucky and rolled a 20 for the death knight and he managed to beat everyone else, so I lobbed his infernal fireball, catching everyone in the blast. My luck was all used up at this point; I rolled crappy damage, and even missed two of the PCs. I was expecting them to ignore the mostly-harmless motes created by the fireball, but lo and behold during the first round, most of them got wiped out. One of the motes attached to a PC, but as a result, the Death Knight was only able to use his Infernal Wrath once. He was almost immediately unhorsed (prone) and slowed. The horse was likewise slowed. It got to move and make an attempt at attacking, but it missed, and in any case was much less threatening without its rider. It was destroyed before the death knight could remount. The death knight started by doing his teleport trick to damage some PCs, righting himself (I cheated :P). This got him into a good position to do his Blade of Death attack. He then proceeded to roll like poop, missing half his targets and doing piddly damage. Action Point. Same result, though I did manage to drop the Sentinel druid's companion. During the next series of PC actions, he became prone again, immobilized, and then, finally dazed, though all these attacks bloodied him. This is when the fight got more interesting for me. He actually became much more effective when bloodied and dazed. The strikers, seeing a bloodied foe, started pouring on the damage, and with him taking only half and them taking the other half, I managed to bloody some PCs, or rather, they managed to bloody themselves. When the knight acted again, he used his one action to do his teleport trick and get close to the two squishies in the back (sorcerer and invoker). He bloodied the invoker and dropped the sorcerer. The PCs then began really shoving him around the battlefield, again damaging themselves. The invoker then used his channel divinity to try to punish the undead monster. Amusingly, with the help of the death knight's radiant vulnerability, the invoker took return damage from Heart of Nessus that knocked him not just unconscious, but to within a few hit points of death-by-negative-bloodied. Heh. The slayer followed this up by killing the death knight for real, and almost dropping himself. Strangely, the defender, who normally gets pretty beat up didn't even get bloodied, and the sentinel also avoided most damage. The group consensus was again that this fight felt challenging but not overkill. Everyone seemed to have fun, which is of course, the main thing. I particularly enjoyed the second half of the combat. Afterwards, there was some more roleplaying before we called it for the night. I planned to drop the next plot item on them, but it will instead happen at the beginning of next session. When that will be is anyone's guess, since most of us are going to be busy over the holidays. So that's the end of Reavers. Overall, a solid module that I found easy to adapt to my game's campaign setting. I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a sandbox style module to run. Specific complaints include a lack of incentive to engaging with non-critical NPCs, Nazin Redthorn doesn't get enough set up as a real villain - he's just kind of a stooge, but it does serve to introduce the Iron Circle as a menace if you plan to continue with it. Other complaints were more related to personal preference than anything. I think bullywugs are silly adversaries. The motivations of Yisarn and the elves were kind of one-dimensional. Stuff like that. If anyone is interested to hear it, I can continue a chronicle of where I am going from here (in another thread), just let me know. If not, thanks for reading this all the same! :) Cheers and happy gaming folks! [/QUOTE]
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