Survivability for "Heart of Nightfang Spire"?

[Buddha the DM]

How are the survivability prospects for a party of the following mix to live through The Heart of Nightfang Spire:

Rogue 1/Fighter 6/Duelist 3
Barbarian 10
Cleric 3/Sorcerer 3/Hathran 4

 

[Victim]

Well, a lot depends on their feats and gear.

But how does a big fat zero sound? Assuming that the characters don't deviate too much from what one would expect, I don't think the party would fair very well.

A 2 handed sword swinging barbarian with low defenses will get chewed up by Girallons quite rapidly. They get 5 attacks at decent bonuses and do lots of damage per hit. They have rend too.

The Hathran probably won't have the spell resources to handle both the arcane and divine spells. Also, her Turn Undead will suck. Not only is there a nasty trap that pretty much requires turn undead, but the shadows and spectres are incorporeal, and thus hard to deal with.

 

[Kershek]

You NEED a full-blown cleric in this one. Also, teleport will be very handy or they will be retreading the same areas over and over again.

 

[shilsen]

I agree with Victim and Kershek. Unless the DM drastically lowers the power of the encounters in this module, the given party is toast. Even with a 10th lvl cleric along for the ride, I'd expect a couple of fatalities.

 

[Victim]

Just as a note. Our party had 6 level 9 characters going in, and we picked up another player in the middle. We had 9 character deaths, if I remember correctly, and we almost wiped a few times.

 

[Buddha the DM]

Well outlooks are grim then.

The Barbarian is dual wielding axes.

The Hathran has a Barbarian 2/Cleric 7 cohort that travels with her.

The Ftr/Rog/Duelist has a wide assortment of equipment, a decent AC, and has taken the Improved Critical feat for the Rapier.

 

[gfunk]

I agree with the other posters. Your current party just screams TPK. We are a bunch of min-maxers and this module still laid the smackdown on us.

The Mooncalf is a beast. It has so many powerful abilities that its CR should probably pushed up a bit (or at least the EL of the encounter). It singlehandedly killed two PCs. It picked up the Paladin with its tentacles, smacked him around a bit and then dropped him off the tower.

My sorcerer thought she was safe with her Improved Invisibility and Fly spells up, but the Mooncalf grappled her w/o problem with its Blindsight. I died a really humiliating death b/c the party (who could not see me) was pelting the Mooncalf with area of effect spells. I think it was the Cleric's Flame Strike that finally did me in.

Oh, lordy and then there's Gulthias himself. He is one bad ass. Our DM used to torment us with Gulthias, especially during rest periods and after tough fights. On one particular occasion, he dropped in on us after a particularly tough fight and dumped a maximized Fireball on us. The paladin died . . . again.

The final fight in the Heart was a near TPK. The environment is designed very well for Gulthias to use great tactics.

So, in summary, run away!

 

[Victim]

What's the best weapon the group has? I thought something (the Fire elemental, IIRC) had +3 DR. Without a single class caster, I don't think GMW is an option - courtesy of that spell and a Bead of Karma, some of our fighters were running around with +4 weapons.

Having a cohort should help quite a bit. I wouldn't exactly use my group's experience as the best guide. Because of the tight confines of many dungeon rooms and corridors, we often couldn't use our numbers effectively. Also, some of the characters were less than effective - like a sorceress who started with a 14 CHA. Also, we didn't use the best approach in many cases - for example, that Slay Living riddle trap ended up hitting every single character. And my character made it through the entire adventure without dying.

We actually didn't have too much trouble with the mooncalf. While it was one of the few times I had to heal someone in combat, our dwarf paladin managed to hold its attention by "letting" it grapple him.

 

[Kershek]

Has anyone gotten through this module without a death? If so, what was the party makeup?

 

[Buddha the DM]

Well I'll let you all know how it goes. Our first session is this saturday.