Sunless Citadel dm:s: I need help - my players stay out!

[Asmo]

No, my players (most of them anyway) has been around since level 1 and they started out in Oakhurst.

The dwarf barbarian just joined (Erky had been the main fighter, but he left after the fight with Belak-he was level 3 when he left ).He joined at level 3 with 2700 gp to spend at stuff.
The other dwarf-the fighter- joined at lvl 2 with 900 gp to spend.

I´ve had one character death (the first cleric-died in the Water Mephit area) and 2 situations where a TPK was imminent: the fight with the thoqqua and the fight with Belak,but both times they managed to pull through. The dwarf/fighter was present in the fight with Belak(lvl 2 then), the dwarf/barbarian had his first real fight tonight with the troll.
The party had a 1st lvl fighter,but he couldn´t make it due to RL issues, he dropped out when they found Erky.

So you could say that it´s been Meepo, Erky,Simon Hilltopple(halfling/rogue), Kilaximus Xtia( human/wizard) and Loxanna Nightfall (human,cleric/Pelor) from the very beginning, and the two fighters has joined towards the end of the module.
It has taken a long time to finish this: due the lack of decent fighters they have been forced to play very slow and cautious.
We finished it tonight, and it took us 21 sessions and 84 hours of focused gameplay. And they are at level 3

But everbody has had a great time, and everybody is eager to start Forge of Fury!

Asmo

 

[Asmo]

I made a misstake during the fight with the troll: Kilaximus cast a Melfs Acid Arrow during the surprise round,but I manged to mix up his AC while flatfooted with his AC against touch attacks, so he would have taken even more damage

Asmo

 

[Plane Sailing]

A lot comes down to how lucky people are with the dice - if there is only one hit a round (or a round goes past with no hits) then the Trolls regeneration can give them an almost full foe once more.

I played this as almost the first 3e adventure that we played, and this was the first time they came across a creature with reach (which caused surprised hurt to them) and the characters (3rd Fighter, 3rd Rogue, 2nd Cleric, 2nd Monk) incurred a couple of AoO from reach (which they were not used to). They also didn't all line up around the sarcophagus to attack whatever might be inside, and they had no idea that fire or acid might help hurt it.

The pseudo troll (as per the book) killed the cleric, crippled the monk and the rogue and the fighter only managed to kill it by bull-rushing it into the pit with spikes, then jumping down on top of it - and he was in single digit hit points at the time. For us it worked out a very close fight. The rogue couldn't get round to a good flanking position because of the trolls reach (weren't used to the idea of tumble, and not certain of success), the fighter (despite an 18 Str) only hit every other round, so the damage did a lot of regenerating...

At 2nd-3rd level the randomness of the dice can make that particular encounter a walkover (as you discovered) or a party killer.

Anyway, everyone had a good time and thats the main thing.

I guess you're going to be asking about the Roper in Forge of Fury next, eh?

Cheers

 

[Asmo]

posted by Plane Sailing:
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they had no idea that fire or acid might help hurt it
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One of the cool things with this fight was that the guy who plays Simon Hilltopple,the halfling/rogue, always have a nice background story for his character. In this rather amusing story there is a passage where his uncle Frank tells him that "if a troll is hungry and wants to eat you, don´t discuss it with him. Run away and bring someone back that can kill it and burn it."
So I let Simon recognize that it was a troll ,and thus it was probably vulnerable to fire.
But of course, you´re right: this time they was very lucky, the dice fell their way:just an example of that:
in the battle before the troll, against Jot, the quasit, Eberk, the dwarwen fighter was hit and poisoned by it and took 4 temp Dex damage. Ouch. Well, before the fight against the troll, Kilaximus asked Eberk:"how is it? You look..less agile." "Well, you´re right.Tthat vile creature must have done something unnatural to me!!" So Kilaximus cast a Cats Grace on Eberk for exactly 4.. Without that Cat´s Grace the troll would have hit with both claws and that would have been very bad for Eberk.

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going to be asking about the Roper in Forge of Fury next ,eh?
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ahhh..the famous Roper
I´ve read alot about this encounter from various threads. I belive that is a pretty good chance that they never will notice the Roper,but if they stumble upon him, the "get me some other food, some fat orcs will do" scenario sounds pretty cool

Asmo