Firstly, if you're playing in RttToEE then there may be a few minor spoilers in this so read it only if you have no conscience! That said, this is not a topic about RttToEE.
I've been running RttToEE as the backbone of a campaign for a while now but it's only been in the last few weeks that they've really gotten into the meat and bones of it, ie. the Crater Ridge Mines.
Now for all those who have played in it or read the module, you'll know that the gates are fairly well guarded, even if the guards aren't very good at their jobs. It's fairly easy for whole sections of the temple to simply fall on the PC's like a wave of destructive force and it can happen quite quickly.
In our scenario, the PC's have spent time doing a lot of other things and so have ended up being 6th/7th level before even attempting to take on the mines. They did a foray into the southern gate and ended up killing Fachish, Poolidib, the Cloakers and two of the gargoyles before being "escorted" out in a mutually beneficial deal between them and Choranth.
A week and a bit later, they strike at the main gate to the north. Now, this is where things get interesting. You see, they annihilated everything. By the time they were there, the party make up was an 8th-level sorcerer, an 8th-level bard, a 7th-level fighter-rogue (2/5) and a half-celestial/dwarven cleric (4 levels).
I had decided that although a week had passed and therefore the temple security had gone back to A (obviously, they had heard of the attack on the other gate), that Mereclar (the guy responsible for the security of this gate) would be extra suspicious of anyone entering.
So, anyway, it ended up being that the entire gate area came down on them (after several warnings had been raised to different areas and not all at the same time, armours being put on, distance etc. but still, within the same combat encounter). That included a CR 6 troglodyte cleric, a 5th-level ranger, a CR 4 Ogre, a CR 5 Howler, 34 humanoids (mixed bag of humans and gnolls) and 10 zombies.
Although a massive combat that took several hours to play through where the PC's were pressed to the wall several times (figuratively speaking), ultimately, they annihilated everything with little more than a few scratches (although one PC got down to 1 hp before curing himself).
I pride myself on playing the enemies as befits their power and intelligence so I certainly wasn't holding back. But ultimately, they wiped out all those critters in the one, massive, combat encounter. Does that sound right to you? Are PC's really that powerful? Do you think it might've just been luck? Bad strategy on my part? Good strategy on their part? Or is this just how the system is designed?
Btw, since the group is mixed, I tend to give roughly half-way between the XP brackets (ie. half-way between 7th and 8th level XP for the encounter) and it ended up being that they each got 3,180XP. I can't even begin to calculate the EL of that scenario...
I've been running RttToEE as the backbone of a campaign for a while now but it's only been in the last few weeks that they've really gotten into the meat and bones of it, ie. the Crater Ridge Mines.
Now for all those who have played in it or read the module, you'll know that the gates are fairly well guarded, even if the guards aren't very good at their jobs. It's fairly easy for whole sections of the temple to simply fall on the PC's like a wave of destructive force and it can happen quite quickly.
In our scenario, the PC's have spent time doing a lot of other things and so have ended up being 6th/7th level before even attempting to take on the mines. They did a foray into the southern gate and ended up killing Fachish, Poolidib, the Cloakers and two of the gargoyles before being "escorted" out in a mutually beneficial deal between them and Choranth.
A week and a bit later, they strike at the main gate to the north. Now, this is where things get interesting. You see, they annihilated everything. By the time they were there, the party make up was an 8th-level sorcerer, an 8th-level bard, a 7th-level fighter-rogue (2/5) and a half-celestial/dwarven cleric (4 levels).
I had decided that although a week had passed and therefore the temple security had gone back to A (obviously, they had heard of the attack on the other gate), that Mereclar (the guy responsible for the security of this gate) would be extra suspicious of anyone entering.
So, anyway, it ended up being that the entire gate area came down on them (after several warnings had been raised to different areas and not all at the same time, armours being put on, distance etc. but still, within the same combat encounter). That included a CR 6 troglodyte cleric, a 5th-level ranger, a CR 4 Ogre, a CR 5 Howler, 34 humanoids (mixed bag of humans and gnolls) and 10 zombies.
Although a massive combat that took several hours to play through where the PC's were pressed to the wall several times (figuratively speaking), ultimately, they annihilated everything with little more than a few scratches (although one PC got down to 1 hp before curing himself).
I pride myself on playing the enemies as befits their power and intelligence so I certainly wasn't holding back. But ultimately, they wiped out all those critters in the one, massive, combat encounter. Does that sound right to you? Are PC's really that powerful? Do you think it might've just been luck? Bad strategy on my part? Good strategy on their part? Or is this just how the system is designed?
Btw, since the group is mixed, I tend to give roughly half-way between the XP brackets (ie. half-way between 7th and 8th level XP for the encounter) and it ended up being that they each got 3,180XP. I can't even begin to calculate the EL of that scenario...
. It's all so mean! I loved it 
