CotSQ - Question from a player [Archive] - Wizards Community

CotSQ - Question from a player [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
g23armani
04-09-08, 05:53 PM SPOIILER WARNING!
Also, Please don't give away any spoilers (I'm a player!) if possible.

.........

Greetings!

My group recently started up this module. I heard it was pretty difficult, but I don't think I was quite ready for just how hard it was.

A little recap to our first TPK:

Our group entered through the crypts. We first fought the vampire. Luckily it was daytime. The fight ended up in a stand still (the vampire had his coffin built into the few foot thick stone top of the mausoleum and would just retreat in gaseous form up through cracks into his hideaway.)

We decided it best to simply keep going to we wandered through the crypts. I don't think we did all the encounters in there as many of us were opposed to simple grave robbing.

We found the illusory walls and fought the demons/drow. These fights were fairly tough but went okay.

We then continued and found a few drow sentries. One got away and alerted some others. We fought a group that included a somewhat powerful wizard or sorcerer. We killed all but one who leaped off the cliff, yelling a warning to the drow below. He landed in a huge spider web.

Thinking the spider web looked too dangerous we backtracked a bit. We had seen a wall of stone a ways back and decided it might be an alternate entrance. We broke through the stone only to find a few spiders and a spider/humanoid.

Finding only dead ends we tentatively went back to the spider web. We first sent an illusion of our rogue down the web. He was attacked by a couple crossbow bolts on the way down but it didn't seem horrible. So we started down the web.

About halfway down we were attacked by the biggest spider we'd seen. His poison was very powerful and his save DC was something insane (like in the 30s). A few drow started coming up the web at us, so we decided to retreat to an opening we saw partway down the web. We used a solid fog to impede those coming up from below and rushed inside a small tunnel. Just then about 15 drow including some undead showed up. We were pinned in this tunnel and every single attack at us had some sort of "save or be incapacitated" component. The arrows put us to sleep, the spider's poison was almost unresistable, the undead had fear mechanics. It only was a few rounds until it was completely apparent that we didn't even have a slimmer of hope. TPK.

We made a new group, this time starting in a different location in the underdark(it's a homebrew world). We finally made our way to what appears to be a similar spot, only to get ambushed by some sort of drow rogue, 2 barbarian white bear humanoids and 2 spellcasters. They got the jump on us and the combination of lightning bolts + the barbarians took down our cleric in the second round. Not wanting another TPK we teleported home, totally demoralized.

We now found a way to teleport within the city (although we had to make some sort of ridiculously high Spellcraft DC in order to do it) and are extremely paranoid/cautious. We basically spent all our spells to assault 2 sentries and a low level wizard just to do it stealthily. As a player I really don't see how we are expected to take on a whole drow city if they are going to respond by sending all they have at us.

Is this module being played correctly? Is it really supposed to be this difficult? We are all relatively optimized, 4 10th level players, all the bases covered for our group, we use a high point buy, have the standard 49,000gp starting treasure and above average HPs but we're definitely feeling outgunned at this point.

Any ideas/comments without giving away more of the adventure?
Caligula
04-10-08, 06:09 AM Welcome to the City of the Spiderqueen! :D

Yes, it is one of the most deadly and difficult modules ever published. Not many groups have suceeded here, or even survived...

I am a DM and I have recently started this campaign module with my group. So you can follow my players as they progress through the Udnerark in my thread here at the boards: "City of the Spiderqueen - Total Recap!" I will play the module "by the book".

According to your recap, you seem to be fairly experienced players. But yet you needed to "spend almost all your spells" against 2 sentries and a low-level Wizard. It seems to me you need to change tactics here... :confused:

Of course you need not defeat an an entire Drow city! Why don't you use stealth and sneak past most of the guards? Or use hit-and-run tactics! Your mission from Randal Morn is to find out what is going on - not kill each and every Drow!

Good luck in your future endeavours, and if your DM lets you teleport into Maerimydra which should be almost impossible due to Faerzress and anti-teleport magic, he must be a nice guy! :D
DarthRicker
04-10-08, 01:58 PM My players are almost done with part 3 of this module and are 15th level now. They were 12th level when we started this because I tied this module in with Expedition to the Demonweb Pits. So it's been a little easier for them than other groups. Plus there are 5 players and one of them has a cohort tagging along.

The player of the cleric has optimized his character against undead and he casts Hero's Feast everyday to make everyone immune to poison and fear effects. Even with all this there have been some challenging spots for them in the module.
g23armani
04-12-08, 10:47 PM Welcome to the City of the Spiderqueen! :D

Yes, it is one of the most deadly and difficult modules ever published. Not many groups have suceeded here, or even survived...

I am a DM and I have recently started this campaign module with my group. So you can follow my players as they progress through the Udnerark in my thread here at the boards: "City of the Spiderqueen - Total Recap!" I will play the module "by the book".

According to your recap, you seem to be fairly experienced players. But yet you needed to "spend almost all your spells" against 2 sentries and a low-level Wizard. It seems to me you need to change tactics here... :confused:

Of course you need not defeat an an entire Drow city! Why don't you use stealth and sneak past most of the guards? Or use hit-and-run tactics! Your mission from Randal Morn is to find out what is going on - not kill each and every Drow!

Good luck in your future endeavours, and if your DM lets you teleport into Maerimydra which should be almost impossible due to Faerzress and anti-teleport magic, he must be a nice guy! :D

Thanks for the input! I'm very interested in reading how your players are doing in your total recap but want to hold off a bit until I'm sure we've gotten far enough that I won't accidentally read about something we haven't seen yet.

I don't think we teleported into Maerimydra. If I recall correctly that is quite a big drow city, I believe we teleported into the outpost our initial characters died in. (Szith Morcane I believe it is called). I believe he made us make a spellcraft check DC 35 or something in order to teleport in.

As far as "using all our spells for one easy encounter" this obviously wasn't our initial tactic, it's just we've become so paranoid of a TPK each and every battle that I think we are doing a bit of overkill.

I really do enjoy a challenge, I just hope we get a few fights under our belt to develop the plot line. Besides knowing that there is some sort of civil war we really haven't learned much, and it's hard to rationalize (in character) sticking through the hardship at this point.

Our next session is Monday, wish us luck!
g23armani
04-12-08, 10:48 PM My players are almost done with part 3 of this module and are 15th level now. They were 12th level when we started this because I tied this module in with Expedition to the Demonweb Pits. So it's been a little easier for them than other groups. Plus there are 5 players and one of them has a cohort tagging along.

The player of the cleric has optimized his character against undead and he casts Hero's Feast everyday to make everyone immune to poison and fear effects. Even with all this there have been some challenging spots for them in the module.

Hmm...hero's feast is a good idea, I'll mention that to our cleric.
Caligula
04-13-08, 11:06 AM We have only begun recently, so you wont read anything revealing. We play once every two weeks, so I dont think there will be a problem for you following the re-cap.

Using "Hero's Feast" sounds like a great idea! You will need good save-values in this module as the Drow use both poison and magic in great doses.

One important thing to point out regarding the CotSQ module is that it isnt your average adventure. Both in scope and content. The outcome of the PCs efforts will have realms-changing effects!

An interesting problem is the balance between acting in haste, and being able to take the time to rest and refit. You will need the spellcasters to have their spells available for difficult challenges, but at the same time you need to press on as fast as possible. So a key decision will be exactly when to take those resting moments.

Of course I wish you good luck. You will certainly need it!

:D

PS I forgot to say that I really liked some of the clever things you did. Sending down an illusion of your rogue down the chasm was a great move! I would have rewarded you with extra XP for that trick! :clap:

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
g23armani 04-09-08, 05:53 PM	SPOIILER WARNING! Also, Please don't give away any spoilers (I'm a player!) if possible. ......... Greetings! My group recently started up this module. I heard it was pretty difficult, but I don't think I was quite ready for just how hard it was. A little recap to our first TPK: Our group entered through the crypts. We first fought the vampire. Luckily it was daytime. The fight ended up in a stand still (the vampire had his coffin built into the few foot thick stone top of the mausoleum and would just retreat in gaseous form up through cracks into his hideaway.) We decided it best to simply keep going to we wandered through the crypts. I don't think we did all the encounters in there as many of us were opposed to simple grave robbing. We found the illusory walls and fought the demons/drow. These fights were fairly tough but went okay. We then continued and found a few drow sentries. One got away and alerted some others. We fought a group that included a somewhat powerful wizard or sorcerer. We killed all but one who leaped off the cliff, yelling a warning to the drow below. He landed in a huge spider web. Thinking the spider web looked too dangerous we backtracked a bit. We had seen a wall of stone a ways back and decided it might be an alternate entrance. We broke through the stone only to find a few spiders and a spider/humanoid. Finding only dead ends we tentatively went back to the spider web. We first sent an illusion of our rogue down the web. He was attacked by a couple crossbow bolts on the way down but it didn't seem horrible. So we started down the web. About halfway down we were attacked by the biggest spider we'd seen. His poison was very powerful and his save DC was something insane (like in the 30s). A few drow started coming up the web at us, so we decided to retreat to an opening we saw partway down the web. We used a solid fog to impede those coming up from below and rushed inside a small tunnel. Just then about 15 drow including some undead showed up. We were pinned in this tunnel and every single attack at us had some sort of "save or be incapacitated" component. The arrows put us to sleep, the spider's poison was almost unresistable, the undead had fear mechanics. It only was a few rounds until it was completely apparent that we didn't even have a slimmer of hope. TPK. We made a new group, this time starting in a different location in the underdark(it's a homebrew world). We finally made our way to what appears to be a similar spot, only to get ambushed by some sort of drow rogue, 2 barbarian white bear humanoids and 2 spellcasters. They got the jump on us and the combination of lightning bolts + the barbarians took down our cleric in the second round. Not wanting another TPK we teleported home, totally demoralized. We now found a way to teleport within the city (although we had to make some sort of ridiculously high Spellcraft DC in order to do it) and are extremely paranoid/cautious. We basically spent all our spells to assault 2 sentries and a low level wizard just to do it stealthily. As a player I really don't see how we are expected to take on a whole drow city if they are going to respond by sending all they have at us. Is this module being played correctly? Is it really supposed to be this difficult? We are all relatively optimized, 4 10th level players, all the bases covered for our group, we use a high point buy, have the standard 49,000gp starting treasure and above average HPs but we're definitely feeling outgunned at this point. Any ideas/comments without giving away more of the adventure?
Caligula 04-10-08, 06:09 AM	Welcome to the City of the Spiderqueen! :D Yes, it is one of the most deadly and difficult modules ever published. Not many groups have suceeded here, or even survived... I am a DM and I have recently started this campaign module with my group. So you can follow my players as they progress through the Udnerark in my thread here at the boards: "City of the Spiderqueen - Total Recap!" I will play the module "by the book". According to your recap, you seem to be fairly experienced players. But yet you needed to "spend almost all your spells" against 2 sentries and a low-level Wizard. It seems to me you need to change tactics here... :confused: Of course you need not defeat an an entire Drow city! Why don't you use stealth and sneak past most of the guards? Or use hit-and-run tactics! Your mission from Randal Morn is to find out what is going on - not kill each and every Drow! Good luck in your future endeavours, and if your DM lets you teleport into Maerimydra which should be almost impossible due to Faerzress and anti-teleport magic, he must be a nice guy! :D
DarthRicker 04-10-08, 01:58 PM	My players are almost done with part 3 of this module and are 15th level now. They were 12th level when we started this because I tied this module in with Expedition to the Demonweb Pits. So it's been a little easier for them than other groups. Plus there are 5 players and one of them has a cohort tagging along. The player of the cleric has optimized his character against undead and he casts Hero's Feast everyday to make everyone immune to poison and fear effects. Even with all this there have been some challenging spots for them in the module.
g23armani 04-12-08, 10:47 PM	Welcome to the City of the Spiderqueen! :D Yes, it is one of the most deadly and difficult modules ever published. Not many groups have suceeded here, or even survived... I am a DM and I have recently started this campaign module with my group. So you can follow my players as they progress through the Udnerark in my thread here at the boards: "City of the Spiderqueen - Total Recap!" I will play the module "by the book". According to your recap, you seem to be fairly experienced players. But yet you needed to "spend almost all your spells" against 2 sentries and a low-level Wizard. It seems to me you need to change tactics here... :confused: Of course you need not defeat an an entire Drow city! Why don't you use stealth and sneak past most of the guards? Or use hit-and-run tactics! Your mission from Randal Morn is to find out what is going on - not kill each and every Drow! Good luck in your future endeavours, and if your DM lets you teleport into Maerimydra which should be almost impossible due to Faerzress and anti-teleport magic, he must be a nice guy! :D Thanks for the input! I'm very interested in reading how your players are doing in your total recap but want to hold off a bit until I'm sure we've gotten far enough that I won't accidentally read about something we haven't seen yet. I don't think we teleported into Maerimydra. If I recall correctly that is quite a big drow city, I believe we teleported into the outpost our initial characters died in. (Szith Morcane I believe it is called). I believe he made us make a spellcraft check DC 35 or something in order to teleport in. As far as "using all our spells for one easy encounter" this obviously wasn't our initial tactic, it's just we've become so paranoid of a TPK each and every battle that I think we are doing a bit of overkill. I really do enjoy a challenge, I just hope we get a few fights under our belt to develop the plot line. Besides knowing that there is some sort of civil war we really haven't learned much, and it's hard to rationalize (in character) sticking through the hardship at this point. Our next session is Monday, wish us luck!
g23armani 04-12-08, 10:48 PM	My players are almost done with part 3 of this module and are 15th level now. They were 12th level when we started this because I tied this module in with Expedition to the Demonweb Pits. So it's been a little easier for them than other groups. Plus there are 5 players and one of them has a cohort tagging along. The player of the cleric has optimized his character against undead and he casts Hero's Feast everyday to make everyone immune to poison and fear effects. Even with all this there have been some challenging spots for them in the module. Hmm...hero's feast is a good idea, I'll mention that to our cleric.
Caligula 04-13-08, 11:06 AM	We have only begun recently, so you wont read anything revealing. We play once every two weeks, so I dont think there will be a problem for you following the re-cap. Using "Hero's Feast" sounds like a great idea! You will need good save-values in this module as the Drow use both poison and magic in great doses. One important thing to point out regarding the CotSQ module is that it isnt your average adventure. Both in scope and content. The outcome of the PCs efforts will have realms-changing effects! An interesting problem is the balance between acting in haste, and being able to take the time to rest and refit. You will need the spellcasters to have their spells available for difficult challenges, but at the same time you need to press on as fast as possible. So a key decision will be exactly when to take those resting moments. Of course I wish you good luck. You will certainly need it! :D PS I forgot to say that I really liked some of the clever things you did. Sending down an illusion of your rogue down the chasm was a great move! I would have rewarded you with extra XP for that trick! :clap: