Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Uratoh 05-15-05, 06:36 PM	We finally started going through this module, and we get to the underwater bit with the net and the Dire Shark...I have to wonder what they were thinking! If the dire shark bites a person (and with his bonuses thats essentially guranteed), then they are, essentially, dead. he just gulps them down next round and they get crushed and digested. the only reason we didnt lose a PC this fight was because we had TWO marked House Orien, with their teleportation powers to escape (and the shark randomly attacked them), some very strategic use of the Major Image spell's scent feature, and two natural ones on the shark's behalf. Is this encounter INTENDED to kill PCs?
Salla 05-15-05, 06:45 PM	We finally started going through this module, and we get to the underwater bit with the net and the Dire Shark...I have to wonder what they were thinking! If the dire shark bites a person (and with his bonuses thats essentially guranteed), then they are, essentially, dead. he just gulps them down next round and they get crushed and digested. the only reason we didnt lose a PC this fight was because we had TWO marked House Orien, with their teleportation powers to escape (and the shark randomly attacked them), some very strategic use of the Major Image spell's scent feature, and two natural ones on the shark's behalf. Is this encounter INTENDED to kill PCs? Well, they don't get automatically 'crushed and digested', they take damage ... if they're reasonaly tough, they can survive. This is a good reason why everybody should carry some kind of light slashing weapon (like a dagger), so they can try to extricate themselves from a beast that swallows them whole. This is a nasty encounter, though, to be sure. I think the wiser tactic may well be to pay as little attention to the shark as possible and assist the sub's crew in cutting the net ... then everybody retreats to the ship and you just run from the darn thing. What's the party composition, if I may ask? Class-Level, predominantly.
Korhal_IV 05-15-05, 07:17 PM	This is a nasty encounter, though, to be sure. I think the wiser tactic may well be to pay as little attention to the shark as possible and assist the sub's crew in cutting the net ... then everybody retreats to the ship and you just run from the darn thing. I think this was the designers' intent. You're not supposed to beat it, just cut 'n' run. I only read Grasp once, but I think it was quite clear on how the critter was just so ginormously huge and nasty-looking that running looked like a good idea. Your group had the cojones to take it on and lived, though. Nice! :)
Uratoh 05-15-05, 07:24 PM	party: lv 6 Warforged Wizard (me) lv 5 Warforged Fighter lv 5 Human Ranger lv 4 Bard/lv 2 House Orien Human lv 4 Sorcerer lv 1 Dragonmmarked Heir Orien Human the two magic using DM heir guys werew the first ones attacked randomly...the thing is, given the time it takes to get people into the sub...the sharks guranteed to get a bite...and say you cut yourself free, what then? It can just grab you again...we DID run, and whatnot, but this just seems a heavily HARD encountert with almost guranteed death (woulda been death if the shark hadnt gotten natural 1s)
Kid SixXx 05-15-05, 07:46 PM	The shark itself is a CR 9 and it is accompained by a party of sahuagin, so it doesn't appear to be designed to be a survivable encounter for a party of 6th level characters. As mentioned before, the plan appears to be to place priority on cutting the nets holding the submercible so it can escape. Normally the shark should mindlessly attack whatever is closest, but it is also accompanied by a group of shark wranglers that can direct it's attacks. I'd imagine that the best course of action would be the aforementioned ignoring of the shark and making net removal a priority. If it appeared that the encounter was going badly for the party, I suppose in a fit of deus ex machina I'd have the shark make some kind of check if a sahuagin got wounded in the vicinity of the shark & if the shark failed the check, I'd have the shark chomp on the bleeding sahuagin, or I'd at least have the shark chomp on one of the NPC gnomes before having it go after the party. That encounter happens far too early in the module for me to start causing PC's to drop like flies.
Uratoh 05-15-05, 09:09 PM	there were Sahuagin there too? @_@ the GM kept rolling for something, that must have beenm it, something involving em. we never saw em.
Kid SixXx 05-15-05, 10:11 PM	there were Sahuagin there too? @_@ the GM kept rolling for something, that must have beenm it, something involving em. we never saw em. Doesn't surprise me. The Sahuagin stay at the edge of the illumination of the submercible and it takes a pretty good Spot check to see one in the murky water. They don't attack in the scenario, but if worse came to worse I'd try something in order to keep the party from suffering any horrific losses unless the party did something completely stupid.
BMStroh 05-16-05, 07:44 AM	there were Sahuagin there too? @_@ the GM kept rolling for something, that must have beenm it, something involving em. we never saw em. Surprise. :) Or not. Anyway... Yeah, it's a pretty tough encounter, because the shark is a lot more agile in the water than the characters, and a lot faster, too. On the other hand, my die roller was cooperating more with you guys than with me - having the shark keeper pick out the two guys with dimensional leap first was about as convenient as it gets. Two consecutive natural 1's missing George's ranger doesn't really surprise me all that much, considering how well my combat rolls usually go... With that said, had Lee and George really stayed to take on the shark in a fight to the death, there would be a couple of new characters waiting to join you in Stormreach - they didn't have any way to teleport out of the shark's mouth, and a couple more of those bite attacks would have finished at least one of 'em off...
fizzbang 05-16-05, 09:09 AM	It was definitely a very tough encounter for our party, and not just because the dice weren't going well for us at all. Even with an emphasis on cutting the ropes, the party ranger got bitten and swollowed by the shark. Of course, that's when everyone learns why it's good to have light cutting weapons, and why a 2-weapon ranger with a pair of knives is a hard meal to keep down...
(Psi)SeveredHead 05-16-05, 10:45 AM	I think this was the designers' intent. You're not supposed to beat it, just cut 'n' run. Isn't that called rail-roading?
Kid SixXx 05-16-05, 11:02 AM	Isn't that called rail-roading? I suppose it is if you're under the impression that your party is supposed to win every encounter, or that if your party is made up of lvl 6 people, then the only creatures you're supposed to encounter are CR6 monsters. The encounter is a measure of the party's threat analysis skills, IMO. If the party accepts the logical conclusion that the shark will most likely chew them to bits, then they'll probably survive because they'll focus on freeing the submercible because it can outrun the shark. If they waste time fighting the shark, the shark most likely will eat everyone. Sometimes the best conclusion to draw is that you're not as high on the food chain as you thought you were.
Junkyard Dog 05-16-05, 11:41 AM	I ran this encounter as DM and we almost lost the party's tank. He got swallowed whole and only the fact that he had high hp, fueled by barbarian rage, allowed him to survive in the gullet long enough for the rest of the party to kill him. The party featured a barbarian, an artificer, a wizard and a druid. The druid immediately began summoning crocodiles, a very effective strategy since they could harm the dire shark and also presented themselves as the nearest targets for any future swallow whole attempts by the shark. The artificer imbued his water crossbow with bane against animals and the wizard threw whatever offensive spells he had at the thing until it was dead. Still, only a fluke saved the barbarian. The encounter called for the shark to flee when reduced to 30 hp or less--which, if you think about it, leaves anyone swallowed whole in a precarious situation. If the dire shark, who has a swim speed of 60 ft., takes a run action, well, that's 240 ft. No party at this level has any kind of option to try to keep up with that underwater. Luckily for him, the round in which the dire shark was reduced below 30 hp he was also reduced to exactly 0 hp, so, disabled, he could only take a single move action to flee, leaving him well within range of offensive spells. I'd have to say that it's a very tough encounter. I've got power-gaming players who can dish out lots of damage for their respective levels and they were lucky not to have someone die. Someone else made the point that the party has to show good judgment in assessing a threat. Well, yes, but they do have to go out there and try to cut the ship loose from the nets. And if they go out, they're going to get attacked. If you get attacked by a dire shark, who if he charges has an attack modifier of +20, at these levels you're going to get hit unless you're very lucky. And if you get hit, you're now making opposed grapple checks against an animal with a +27 modifier, meaning that unless you're almost incredibly lucky, you're going to get swallowed whole. Let's not forget that even if you overcome all the odds and avoid getting hit or somehow break free, you're fighting a creature with reach and who is at home in the underwater environment. A character with no swim speed can't take a 5-ft. "step" underwater, so you can't get away without provoking attacks of opportunity. So no matter what you do, even you get lucky the first time, he's just going to attack you again. So even if you want to run away, you really can't here, which is what makes this encounter almost unfair.
Neofish 05-16-05, 12:24 PM	You've got like 5 rounds before the shark is even supposed to catch up with you, if your party is dumb enough to waiy around until a 40ft. wall of teeth comes at them then they deserve to die...
fizzbang 05-16-05, 01:51 PM	For the matter of the shark escaping with a swallowed character, you do have to remember that the players will probably have accepted the offer of having a rope tied around them. A character who's tied onto the rope is going to be in an very odd situation when the shark who swallowed them tries to swim away. At very least, they'll make a heck of a fishing line... But that said, it's definitely apparent that a lot of the Eberron modules put out so far have some very, very tough encounters. I suspect that most of this is a case of GMs over-estimating the power of action points or the abilities of the new races and artificers (or possibly a case of the players not knowing how to use them to their fullest, yet). You can certainly see some of it in the very set-up for Mark of Heroes (the RPGA Eberron setting), where characters get fewer creation points specifically as a counter-balance to the fact that they also get action points.
Uratoh 05-16-05, 02:29 PM	I did like the point we brought up at the session...WHO sets a trap for a submarine, including a dire shark and a gigantic net completely and totally impractical for catching any kind of fish, when only three exist? >_<
Krevon 05-16-05, 02:42 PM	I've found as I run games it is sometimes important to remind the party that they are not alone in the world. For every Billy Jack there is a Kwai Chang Kang. So I view it more as a barometer for intelligence!
Kid SixXx 05-16-05, 04:01 PM	I did like the point we brought up at the session...WHO sets a trap for a submarine, including a dire shark and a gigantic net completely and totally impractical for catching any kind of fish, when only three exist? >_< The Sahuagin do, especially when you trespass in their territorial waters in a craft that is completely alien to them in design. Most likely they were following your sub most of the trip. It's no secret that the Sahuagin pretty much rule the waters off the coast of Xen'Drik & Stormreach: it's in the ECS. It's a wrong place / wrong time encounter which is an adventuring module staple. I mean, come on, ever notice that nearly every caravan a party tries to protect is invariably attacked? It's the hazard of your job description as professional adventurers. ;) All things considered, the encounter does seem to be too much for the party to handle if things go completely fubar. I'll probably make a few adjustments to make sure the encounter is challenging but not immediately lethal. As I said before, that encounter happens too early in the module for me to start murdering PC's. I'd like to add an air of threat to keep my players paranoid and frosty, but I'd like to avoid a total party wipe an hour into the session.
MaimedLeech 05-16-05, 04:49 PM	I choose to run the alternate version of the encounter posted by the module's author at his web site (http://homepage.mac.com/macbrucecordell/B1283663648/C608165187/E1610916623/index.html). In that version, it is a race between the PCs to keep the Sahuagin from slowing the sub down so the shark can catch them. If the shark catches them, it attacks the sub in an attempt to stop it, not the NPCs. The encounter went extremely well. There was a nice mix of having to make skill checks and underwater combat. I had a scale top down view of the sub printed out and I kept moving a huge shark toward it each round. The players all were on the edge of their seats trying to make their checks as the shark moved closer and closer. The shark did manage to get close enough to take one nibble out the rudder before the sub sped up and pulled away. Oh, I did make one minor adjustment. I figured that walking on the haul of the moving sub would be impossible, so I made the surface have an attractive effect. I said the sub was held down in the water by a kind of reverse levitate effect instead of using ballast. It was still hard to walk on (required skill checks). I play with a bunch of engineers, so things have to be… feasible. :D
Kid SixXx 05-16-05, 05:23 PM	I choose to run the alternate version of the encounter posted by the module's author at his web site (http://homepage.mac.com/macbrucecordell/B1283663648/C608165187/E1610916623/index.html). In that version, it is a race between the PCs to keep the Sahuagin from slowing the sub down so the shark can catch them. If the shark catches them, it attacks the sub in an attempt to stop it, not the NPCs. The encounter went extremely well. There was a nice mix of having to make skill checks and underwater combat. I had a scale top down view of the sub printed out and I kept moving a huge shark toward it each round. The players all were on the edge of their seats trying to make their checks as the shark moved closer and closer. The shark did manage to get close enough to take one nibble out the rudder before the sub sped up and pulled away. Oh, I did make one minor adjustment. I figured that walking on the haul of the moving sub would be impossible, so I made the surface have an attractive effect. I said the sub was held down in the water by a kind of reverse levitate effect instead of using ballast. It was still hard to walk on (required skill checks). I play with a bunch of engineers, so things have to be… feasible. :D Oooo. Thanks for the heads up! I will have to check this out as I will be running GotEC in a few weeks as soon as my players return home from college.
Straylight 05-16-05, 06:33 PM	Another point to remember is that the shark, aquatic cruise missile that it may be, is still, in the end, just a dumb animal. Once the party makes it clear that they're more trouble than any lunch has a right to be, the shark is probably going to take off in search of easier food. I would define "more trouble than any lunch has a right to be" as, for example, critting it with a spear set against the shark's charge. When you knock the beastie down by a third of his hit points with one blow, chances are it's going to rethink the wisdom of its attack. The party had to end up using the spear as part of the bribe, though, so I got the last laugh of that encounter. *grins* And if you think the shark was a nasty encounter, wait'll you meet Surthain. I've got a very, very talented group of players in this game, and I still had to pull punches in that fight. At the rate they're going, I'll be lucky to have half my group survive this adventure...
drasticale 05-16-05, 06:38 PM	Man, when the sauhuagin told me to give him a tribute or we all died... I should have shot him in the back with that friggin' crossbow... Yeah, being a ranger with max ranks in spot lemme see all those nice little sahuagin coming... right next to the huge shark... Best line ever though, was by me... I was looking out the spyhole of the sub, and saw the shark coming... I asked... "Does this thing have weapons?" The captain said, 'No laddie.' "Well, then... how fast can this thing go?" *Crash!!*
Junkyard Dog 05-16-05, 09:17 PM	You've got like 5 rounds before the shark is even supposed to catch up with you, if your party is dumb enough to waiy around until a 40ft. wall of teeth comes at them then they deserve to die...Where are you getting 5 rounds from? The encounter reads, "The dire shark glides silently out of the darkness beyond the light spells 2 rounds after the first passengers or crew members enter the water." Light has a radius of 20 feet, so the shark can easily attack 2 rounds after the first people leave the sea dart. Remember, for those two rounds, there are a maximum of two characters in the water, due to how long it takes to cycle the airlocks.
Junkyard Dog 05-16-05, 09:20 PM	For the matter of the shark escaping with a swallowed character, you do have to remember that the players will probably have accepted the offer of having a rope tied around them. A character who's tied onto the rope is going to be in an very odd situation when the shark who swallowed them tries to swim away. At very least, they'll make a heck of a fishing line...If it comes down to the dire shark versus the rope's hardness 0 and 2 hp, I'm betting on the shark.
Foxboy2000 05-17-05, 10:58 PM	I played the shark as a "smash and grab." IOW, I aimed it at the only PC alone and *CHOMP!* Fortunately, the party was able to cut him out and the Pally dropped enough healing to get him to the cleric...
lukelightning 05-18-05, 09:42 AM	That's why you need to bring your Bat-Anti-Shark-Spray with you. Just be careful; the shark might have swallowed an undersea mine and will explode.
johndorsey 05-19-05, 11:20 AM	If you think the shark was bad wait until you see the giant scorpion later in the adventure.
Uratoh 05-19-05, 11:28 AM	eh, bring on the scorpion...at least with a scorpion it's not underwater where as a wizard most of my spells dont work >_<
fizzbang 05-20-05, 09:06 AM	If you think the shark was bad wait until you see the giant scorpion later in the adventure. That's another case of "If the PCs think they're all that, then they'll get what they deserve". Except in the case of the scorpion, they can chose to avoid the entire encounter. We saw that and collectively said, "Nope, we've got plenty of other things to take care rather than fight the thing the Drow worship as a god, thanks!"
Foxboy2000 05-20-05, 10:41 AM	My party just finished this adventure last night. They tore through everything like a wet paper bag . . . Until they hit the Big Bad. Within three rounds, the party was cut in half to the artificer, the warforged fighter, a dying paladin and Muroni staying well out of reach. Sadly, the fighter forgot he lifted a cloak of displacement from a previous enemy, and thus took unnecessary damage...
The Debonair Swordsman 05-20-05, 06:02 PM	This whole Module seems kinda tough. Lots of save or die and whatnot. We lost two party members (the cleric and Paladin) and had to get the hell outta dodge. As side note how much do you think that artifact he Giant's Tooth is worth?
Junkyard Dog 05-21-05, 12:25 PM	As side note how much do you think that artifact he Giant's Tooth is worth?Now that's a good question. I wasn't sure what my party would do with it, so I began to try to calculate its value in case they sold it. If you strictly follow the guidelines in the DMG (p. 285) you'll come up with an astronomical figure. For instance, the continuous tongues ability alone, according to that table, would be worth (spell level x caster level x 2,000 gp x 1.5), which equals (3 x 20 x 2,000 gp x 1.5), which equals 180,000 gp. A more reasonable approach, since there is no appreciable difference between tongues cast at CL 20th and CL 5th, other than duration, which is already accounted for in the 1.5 multiplier, is to use the lower CL, which would be 3 x 5 x 2,000 gp x 1.5, which equals 45,000 gp for the tongues ability. Following the same guidelines for the suggestion ability, we add 6,000 gp (it's much lower since it's usable once per day). The shout ability will be worth more, because it's a 4th level spell and because in this case any CL up to 15th actually has an effect on how the spell works. Here the formula would be (4 x 15 x 2,000 gp / 5), which would be 24,000 gp. Word of chaos, though, is the kicker. A spell usable once per day divides the cost by five and this is usable only once per week, so absent any other guidelines, I'll divide the cost by 10, which means that it's worth half as much as an item usable once per day. Still, it would be (7 x 20 x 2,000 / 10), which equals 28,000. If we add the values of the four spell-like abilities which the item grants, we get 45,000 + 6,000 + 24,000 + 28,000, which equals 103,000. Of course, the item also causes any Medium or smaller creature to incur a permanent loss of 2 points of Cha. I'm not sure how much that's worth, but it would have to bring the value down. For a bard, paladin or sorcerer, that would be an awful price. The more important consideration is, how does the party find out what the item does? Finding someone to cast legend lore in Eberron isn't necessarily easy. Assuming the party finds out the item's powers, I would think that a sell value in the ballpark of 40,000 gp would be reasonable for this item. If you're the DM and you think that's too much money, remember that the party has no legal right to sell Xen'drik artifacts in Sharn, since they have no papers for this trip. The cost of obtaining falsified papers or of fencing the item could eat significantly into the above figure. That's my best guess.