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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ragingpeanuts" data-source="post: 5508992" data-attributes="member: 98576">Hi All,I'm (finally) going to run the Garden of Graves within two weeks. I've been reading up on what to look out for in this thread, newbiedm's blog and a blog on the wotc forums. Do people have more tips for me? I'd like to make this as awesome as possible <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />This is what I got sofar:In General about monster damage/hp/levels<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">It's a mixed bag. Some of the monsters look like they're using MM3 numbers, but many do not, especially if they're direct from MM1 (in particular two monsters (the Aspects of Orcus and Demogorgon) in Chapter 4 come to mind). </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">I'd still go over each monster and make sure that the damage levels are appropriate.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">In addition, some of the Solos certainly need tweaking, especially the gargoyle in Chapter 3. Specifically, they need a way to deal with stunning/dominate/daze attacks from stun-locking them.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">I wouldn't bother going through and doing calculations on eacn and every monster, but I would make a point of eyeballing any of the (potentially) largest offenders. (The solos, at least.) And if nothing else, be prepared to adjust on the fly.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">"I would give the solo's abilities to shake off stuns/dazed/dominated and such stuff"</li> </ul>The Ivy Heart encounter:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">"Drop the level of the plant monster in the final encounter. 5 levels above the party is a bit much to deal with."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">"The defences of the Ivy Heart are just a little too much for level 10-11 players, to the point where it would become more of a grind with so many failed rolls. So I lowered them and added more hitpoints. I did consider giving it vulnerability to fire, and almost did but I forgot it in the confusion and didn’t need to put it on anyway."</li> </ul>The Lamia (damsel in distress) encounter:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">"This encounter is horrible if your party doesn't have much in the way of Area or Blast powers."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">"I didn't like the lamia encounter either, the only ones who were able to be effective in any way were the wizard and the monk. Everyone else just sort of chipped away and the melee fighters kept getting poisoned. In the end, I fast forwarded after they were well bloodied as it was just getting tedious.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">And that resulted in them going out of their way to avoid encounters."</li> </ul>The sundial puzzle:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">"Prepare for th PCs to take a long time to figure out the sundial puzzle, and even then, focus too much on certain stanzas of the poem."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">"And in retrospect, I'd probably pick a monster other than mad wraiths for the sundial puzzle. A constant influx of incorporeal creatures with a dazing aura is likely to make for a very frustrating experience. Look for other incorporeal undead with less aggravating traits."</li> </ul>The switcheroo encounter (forgot the name)<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The fighting area when you're dealing with the copies of yourselves is a bit small...choke points made it very difficult for the monsters to coordinate</li> </ul>.</blockquote>

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