Suggestions for running the Forge of Fury?

[Klaus]

Some alterations I made:

- Changed the troglodyte Sorceror into a Cleric, since cleric's the trog's favored class (I wanted it to be iconic) and the trog already has a breastplate.

- Changed the trog's object of devotion from Nightscale to the Roper (aka the Tentacled God). I also added a shrine to the Tentacled God to the trog caves and filled it with carvings of trogs using torches to keep the TG's wrath at bay while they offered sacrifice. That ought to foreshadow the roper's presence and weakness.

- The cleric in my group used Speak with Dead with the dwarf corpse in the Sinkhole and asked what they should look for to go down the stairs safely. The corpse replied "watch out for the 13th" (the 13th step triggers an alarm). Of course, the PCs were paying attantion to every 13th thing they could find...

- The PCs defeated the roper after the cleric summoned a thoqqa right next to the roper (that was 3.0).

- The cleric also helped a lot in the fight with Nightscale when she summoned a Large celestial shark into the Black Lake.

 

[Dingleberry]

When I ran my players through the Forge, they beat the roper by dumb luck. Just before it started really kicking their tails, one of the characters nailed it with an alchemist's fire. I rolled a Will save for the roper to see if it would panic - it rolled a "1", so I had it jump into the water to douse the flames. I then had it roll a Swim check - another "1". I figured the GDI (Gods of Dice and Irony) clearly wanted the roper gone, so I ruled that it was swept away.

At least they didn't get the treasure in its belly.

 

[Klaus]

When I ran my players through the Forge, they beat the roper by dumb luck. Just before it started really kicking their tails, one of the characters nailed it with an alchemist's fire. I rolled a Will save for the roper to see if it would panic - it rolled a "1", so I had it jump into the water to douse the flames. I then had it roll a Swim check - another "1". I figured the GDI (Gods of Dice and Irony) clearly wanted the roper gone, so I ruled that it was swept away.

At least they didn't get the treasure in its belly.

Why would the roper panic? It was just a single flask, and it could have rolled on the ground to help put out the flames...

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Why would the roper panic?

Because the DM wanted to give the PCs a chance. I've got no problem with a fire-vulnerable creature being a little pyrophobic, especially in an otherwise TPK situation.

I like the changes you made, Klaus, especially the trog shrine with the indications to use fire.

I think your PCs were much higher level than the module called for, though ... in order to summon a large shark in 3.5, a cleric would have to be 7th. I dunno what it was in 3.0, but it would have had to be at least 5th.

The biggest problem for me was that Forge of Fury was only the second adventure I'd DMed, after being away from D&D for many years. I trusted the writers, so it never occurred to me that I would need to make such major changes to encounters to give my PCs a chance.

 

[Bagpuss]

Lastly, don't forget about the Duergar ability to use Enlarge Person and Invisibility.

I certainly didn't when I was DM'ing. One of the Duergar manage to escape an initial encounter and warned the others about the Barbarian in the party that recklessly charged them.

The next time the party encountered encountered a loan Duergar the barbarian raced across the room to charge him, and impaled himself on the line of invisible Duergar with thier longspears set against charge... Each of them getting their readied attack and an AoO. Nasty. The invisible ones he ran past were then free to attack the weaker party members he had abandoned.

 

[Asmo]

I certainly didn't when I was DM'ing. One of the Duergar manage to escape an initial encounter and warned the others about the Barbarian in the party that recklessly charged them.

The next time the party encountered encountered a loan Duergar the barbarian raced across the room to charge him, and impaled himself on the line of invisible Duergar with thier longspears set against charge... Each of them getting their readied attack and an AoO. Nasty. The invisible ones he ran past were then free to attack the weaker party members he had abandoned.

Wow, evil dm

Like the longspear idea, might have to use that!

Asmo

 

[Klaus]

Because the DM wanted to give the PCs a chance. I've got no problem with a fire-vulnerable creature being a little pyrophobic, especially in an otherwise TPK situation.

I like the changes you made, Klaus, especially the trog shrine with the indications to use fire.

I think your PCs were much higher level than the module called for, though ... in order to summon a large shark in 3.5, a cleric would have to be 7th. I dunno what it was in 3.0, but it would have had to be at least 5th.

The biggest problem for me was that Forge of Fury was only the second adventure I'd DMed, after being away from D&D for many years. I trusted the writers, so it never occurred to me that I would need to make such major changes to encounters to give my PCs a chance.

It was a 3-PC party, so I made it sure they were always a bit above the indicated levels (although in 3.0 the shark was a legal choice). Even so, I had to give them a power boost midway through the adventure, because they had too little equipment for their level and to make up for the missing 4th character (party was wiz/rog, rgr and clr).

The roper managed to drain the ranger (the combat man) to 0-Str, so when the cleric summoned a thoqqua (no longer possible in 3.5, since the thoqqua is now on the druid's list), we let the ranger player roll for the thoqqua. He rolled amazingly well (call it vindication), so they managed to kill the roper.

One other thing that I ruled was that the roper's tentacles, being a ranged attack, generated AoO from the thoqqua, who was adjacent to it. That gave the thoqqua an extra attack every round the roper used its tentacles.

Oh, and the party had just faced a very tough thoqqua in Sunless Citadel, so they had it imprinted on their memories.