Help with Forgotten Forge [Archive] - Wizards Community

Help with Forgotten Forge [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Pallis
03-27-05, 03:52 PM I'm due to run the Forgotten Forge for a group that has little to no experience of Eberron and Sharn, but who have many years of roleplaying experience between them. I'm hoping that the game session will run smoothly - but players being players (and my bunch are a suitably chaotic lot who often wander from the beaten path...) - I'm wondering if anyone has any pointers (or things to look out for) when running the adventure.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Cheers

:plotting:
Zagumus
03-27-05, 04:03 PM Well, the first thing that you want to do is change the big adamanitine doors to the forgotten forge to stone, or your players will be incredibly rich, and fast.

There is a map in the final treasure, this is not really explained, in detail, at any point so if your group is likly to be interested in something like this I suggest that you prepares before you start.

After you have taken care of that the rest of the adventure is pretty well written and should not give you much trouble unless your group doesn't take the hook. I nwhich case I can't really help, except to say that the Lord of Blades assumes the party is involved and start trying to have them killed, over and over and over again.
Tealgorthian
03-27-05, 04:04 PM Probably spoilers, so I'll sblock it

Ohmigawd. The Horrid Rats. I think they are the only things in the whole adventure capable of a TPK. 20 AC, 1d6 bite + 1d6 Acid damage, plus Flith Fever 0_o, with 17 hit points?! Ow. They were far far worse than the Iron Defenders, it took our two Soulknives getting lucky blows and Psionic Weaponing them to death. The rogue couldnt hit. The warmage got in a couple Magic Missiles (after missing two ranged touch attacks), the cleric got dropped to -1 and had to burn an Action Point to stay alive! All-in-all it was fairly painful, and I had to fudge a few dice rolls to keep the players from getting pounded! The swarm wasnt too bad. I'm not sure how Saber is going to turn out, since he has those flaming bolts, and they can put down the hurting, but we'll see.
Pallis
03-27-05, 04:08 PM Tealgorthian...one word: ouch.

:eek:

as far as I'm aware, we've got no psionics in the party make-up...

...I'll have 'em make back-up characters ahead of time... ;)
DarkWarriorKarg
03-27-05, 04:19 PM Well, the first thing that you want to do is change the big adamanitine doors to the forgotten forge to stone, or your players will be incredibly rich, and fast.

Unless you declare adamantine to be
1) Once-forged
OR
2) They are reminded that all contents are the property of House Cannith.

Personally, I'll go with option 2 when I run it (Having a palladin in the party helps to enforce this)
Alextroy
03-27-05, 05:21 PM Probably spoilers, so I'll sblock it

Ohmigawd. The Horrid Rats. I think they are the only things in the whole adventure capable of a TPK. 20 AC, 1d6 bite + 1d6 Acid damage, plus Flith Fever 0_o, with 17 hit points?! Ow. They were far far worse than the Iron Defenders, it took our two Soulknives getting lucky blows and Psionic Weaponing them to death. The rogue couldnt hit. The warmage got in a couple Magic Missiles (after missing two ranged touch attacks), the cleric got dropped to -1 and had to burn an Action Point to stay alive! All-in-all it was fairly painful, and I had to fudge a few dice rolls to keep the players from getting pounded! The swarm wasnt too bad. I'm not sure how Saber is going to turn out, since he has those flaming bolts, and they can put down the hurting, but we'll see.

Your DM must have gotten something wrong.

Horrid Rats have 7 HPs, not 17. If you went up against HRs with 17 HPs, I can understand why you had such problems.

Alextroy
polt
03-27-05, 05:32 PM Well, the first thing that you want to do is change the big adamanitine doors to the forgotten forge to stone, or your players will be incredibly rich, and fast.

Not really, adamantine items are worth a lot because adamantite is very very hard to work with, not because adamantine is very rare.
Tealgorthian
03-27-05, 05:45 PM Your DM must have gotten something wrong.

Horrid Rats have 7 HPs, not 17. If you went up against HRs with 17 HPs, I can understand why you had such problems.

Alextroy

Your right, I got my 7s confused. That's why they died when the two Soulknives hit them with Psionic Weapon in one hit.

I was thinking of someones AC. But even with 7 hps, they are a rough rough ride.
Saurenda
03-27-05, 10:10 PM My group sucked against the swarm. They couldn't understand that the swarm always hits and does damage, and that it is immune to meele attacks. It took serval tries with a torch, and a beaten up warlock; who could barely hit it to take it down in 6 rounds.

They all were sheepish towards the end of the session and asked me individually, "Was that encounter suppose to be easy?" I just nodded my head and smiled. there wasn't much more I could say.

I honestly thought that the horrid rats with 20 AC were the most difficult thing in the forge. The swarm shouldn't have posed a threat to 6 PCs.

All they could do was jump back into the sweage to keep them off thier bodies. constantly jumping in and holding thier breathe in the river of sewage making for saves to reist becoming sickened from swallowing all that filth. Risking filth fever, having all that in thier armor. ICK.

Needless to say, the adamantine doors need to be broken up before they can seqqueze through the hatch and come back to the surface at all. The group shouldn't attempt such an act until around 3rd level. By then the Lord of Blades may send a few of his own soldiers down there to retrieve the doors or restart the forge deep underneath sharn if the Pcs foolishly leave the hatch open.

Another thing, when they open the hatch there is nothing stating that they can relock it in any manner. They cannot make the door close again from where it enters the vertical shaft. Once the hatch is opened, it is opened.

Do not give them the luxury of relocking it as I did. That is a big mistake.
Kid SixXx
03-28-05, 08:30 AM Not really, adamantine items are worth a lot because adamantite is very very hard to work with, not because adamantine is very rare.

Just use the "once forged" DarkWarriorKarg stated and save yourself some grief.

The doors would be pretty much worthless to anyone else, as the adamantite doors cannot be reforged into anything useful or refitted into any other structure, and the hassle of getting the doors to the surface would not be worthwhile.

Most likely, the doors were created in the secret foundry itself and not made elsewhere and brought down. Othewise, House Cannith would have brought a lot of attention to itself transporting a pair of 700 pound doors of finished adamantite down through the Sharn sewers.

The "property of House Cannith" scenario is pretty cool, but I highly doubt that the Merrix would mind a reasonable amount of looting from the party returning with the schema.

Merrix is a "bigger picture" kinda guy, and I really don't think that the loot in the forge matters to him, as long as Merrix gets the schema and can forward his plans.
Roger Nicholls
03-28-05, 09:42 AM Hi Pallis,

I was actually running this scenario last night - the HR's as mentioned earlier are a real challenge. Even though they only have low hp's a bad set of dice rolls and some poor decisions got one of the party killed.

Having said that the players seem to be enjoying it so i guess thats what counts.

Regards

Roger.
cmanos
03-28-05, 01:52 PM The thing about the swarm is that it can be avoided, and if so, it disperses.

River of sewage? What river of sewage? In the sewer where they fight the warforged and the shifters there is sewage, but there is no river od sewage when they fight the swarm....not that I remember.
Saurenda
03-28-05, 03:09 PM The thing about the swarm is that it can be avoided, and if so, it disperses.

River of sewage? What river of sewage? In the sewer where they fight the warforged and the shifters there is sewage, but there is no river od sewage when they fight the swarm....not that I remember.

Your misunderstanding. The river of sewage is before the hatch. My PCs ran scared like little girls back the way the came because they thought diving into the sewage river they had just derudged through was a good idea to get the bugs away from them.
Pallis
03-28-05, 03:55 PM well...things aren't going well for the group, who are all low on hit points after meeting the warforged and two shifters in the sewer tunnel.
I dread to think what'll happen when they meet the swarm and Horrid Rats...suffice it to say that those back-up characters may well get a look-in...

:eek:
Makabriel
03-30-05, 08:34 AM Hmm.. let's see..

My guys threw down thier oil filled lanterns at the swarm, handily scattering them

The horrid rats were made trivial by a lucky 20/20 roll from our wannabe archer Rogue :D

They camped the night in the Olandra ruins and were awakened by tremmors.

They dangled the Warforged by a rope in the Forge ruins to take hits from the constructs while the rest of the party pelted them with arrows.

The tremmors started increasing as they left the forge. Saber nearly took down the shifter with a bolt, and in a bizarre twist of fate.. Saber, the warforged and the Kalashthar all botched their Ranged attacks. Strings broke, arrows flew in all directions and everyone was baffled.

In the middle of Melee with Saber, the ruins began crashing down on top of them and a HUGE swarm of beetles forces the players to flee as well as devouring the grievously injured Saber.
Pallis
03-30-05, 01:37 PM I guess the main problem (or challenge...better to think of it like that) is trying to fit the adventure in Sharn, as portrayed in the city's sourcebook. My players being what they are (ie. inquisitive to the max) wanted to wander off and explore (and in the interval before the meeting with Elaydren there's ample opportunity) and I don't know about anyone else but I found placing the initial encounter needed a fair bit of forethought, and when the PCs decided to hide Bonal's journal from Elaydren, being typically distrustful...well...let's just say the pace of the game slowed and the session became an adventure where the PCs are simply exploring Sharn.
Of course, this is not all bad - and called for some fun improvisation - but I wonder how DMs ran the game before getting their hands on the Sharn sourcebook?

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Pallis 03-27-05, 03:52 PM	I'm due to run the Forgotten Forge for a group that has little to no experience of Eberron and Sharn, but who have many years of roleplaying experience between them. I'm hoping that the game session will run smoothly - but players being players (and my bunch are a suitably chaotic lot who often wander from the beaten path...) - I'm wondering if anyone has any pointers (or things to look out for) when running the adventure. Any help is greatly appreciated. Cheers :plotting:
Zagumus 03-27-05, 04:03 PM	Well, the first thing that you want to do is change the big adamanitine doors to the forgotten forge to stone, or your players will be incredibly rich, and fast. There is a map in the final treasure, this is not really explained, in detail, at any point so if your group is likly to be interested in something like this I suggest that you prepares before you start. After you have taken care of that the rest of the adventure is pretty well written and should not give you much trouble unless your group doesn't take the hook. I nwhich case I can't really help, except to say that the Lord of Blades assumes the party is involved and start trying to have them killed, over and over and over again.
Tealgorthian 03-27-05, 04:04 PM	Probably spoilers, so I'll sblock it Ohmigawd. The Horrid Rats. I think they are the only things in the whole adventure capable of a TPK. 20 AC, 1d6 bite + 1d6 Acid damage, plus Flith Fever 0_o, with 17 hit points?! Ow. They were far far worse than the Iron Defenders, it took our two Soulknives getting lucky blows and Psionic Weaponing them to death. The rogue couldnt hit. The warmage got in a couple Magic Missiles (after missing two ranged touch attacks), the cleric got dropped to -1 and had to burn an Action Point to stay alive! All-in-all it was fairly painful, and I had to fudge a few dice rolls to keep the players from getting pounded! The swarm wasnt too bad. I'm not sure how Saber is going to turn out, since he has those flaming bolts, and they can put down the hurting, but we'll see.
Pallis 03-27-05, 04:08 PM	Tealgorthian...one word: ouch. :eek: as far as I'm aware, we've got no psionics in the party make-up... ...I'll have 'em make back-up characters ahead of time... ;)
DarkWarriorKarg 03-27-05, 04:19 PM	Well, the first thing that you want to do is change the big adamanitine doors to the forgotten forge to stone, or your players will be incredibly rich, and fast. Unless you declare adamantine to be 1) Once-forged OR 2) They are reminded that all contents are the property of House Cannith. Personally, I'll go with option 2 when I run it (Having a palladin in the party helps to enforce this)
Alextroy 03-27-05, 05:21 PM	Probably spoilers, so I'll sblock it Ohmigawd. The Horrid Rats. I think they are the only things in the whole adventure capable of a TPK. 20 AC, 1d6 bite + 1d6 Acid damage, plus Flith Fever 0_o, with 17 hit points?! Ow. They were far far worse than the Iron Defenders, it took our two Soulknives getting lucky blows and Psionic Weaponing them to death. The rogue couldnt hit. The warmage got in a couple Magic Missiles (after missing two ranged touch attacks), the cleric got dropped to -1 and had to burn an Action Point to stay alive! All-in-all it was fairly painful, and I had to fudge a few dice rolls to keep the players from getting pounded! The swarm wasnt too bad. I'm not sure how Saber is going to turn out, since he has those flaming bolts, and they can put down the hurting, but we'll see. Your DM must have gotten something wrong. Horrid Rats have 7 HPs, not 17. If you went up against HRs with 17 HPs, I can understand why you had such problems. Alextroy
polt 03-27-05, 05:32 PM	Well, the first thing that you want to do is change the big adamanitine doors to the forgotten forge to stone, or your players will be incredibly rich, and fast. Not really, adamantine items are worth a lot because adamantite is very very hard to work with, not because adamantine is very rare.
Tealgorthian 03-27-05, 05:45 PM	Your DM must have gotten something wrong. Horrid Rats have 7 HPs, not 17. If you went up against HRs with 17 HPs, I can understand why you had such problems. Alextroy Your right, I got my 7s confused. That's why they died when the two Soulknives hit them with Psionic Weapon in one hit. I was thinking of someones AC. But even with 7 hps, they are a rough rough ride.
Saurenda 03-27-05, 10:10 PM	My group sucked against the swarm. They couldn't understand that the swarm always hits and does damage, and that it is immune to meele attacks. It took serval tries with a torch, and a beaten up warlock; who could barely hit it to take it down in 6 rounds. They all were sheepish towards the end of the session and asked me individually, "Was that encounter suppose to be easy?" I just nodded my head and smiled. there wasn't much more I could say. I honestly thought that the horrid rats with 20 AC were the most difficult thing in the forge. The swarm shouldn't have posed a threat to 6 PCs. All they could do was jump back into the sweage to keep them off thier bodies. constantly jumping in and holding thier breathe in the river of sewage making for saves to reist becoming sickened from swallowing all that filth. Risking filth fever, having all that in thier armor. ICK. Needless to say, the adamantine doors need to be broken up before they can seqqueze through the hatch and come back to the surface at all. The group shouldn't attempt such an act until around 3rd level. By then the Lord of Blades may send a few of his own soldiers down there to retrieve the doors or restart the forge deep underneath sharn if the Pcs foolishly leave the hatch open. Another thing, when they open the hatch there is nothing stating that they can relock it in any manner. They cannot make the door close again from where it enters the vertical shaft. Once the hatch is opened, it is opened. Do not give them the luxury of relocking it as I did. That is a big mistake.
Kid SixXx 03-28-05, 08:30 AM	Not really, adamantine items are worth a lot because adamantite is very very hard to work with, not because adamantine is very rare. Just use the "once forged" DarkWarriorKarg stated and save yourself some grief. The doors would be pretty much worthless to anyone else, as the adamantite doors cannot be reforged into anything useful or refitted into any other structure, and the hassle of getting the doors to the surface would not be worthwhile. Most likely, the doors were created in the secret foundry itself and not made elsewhere and brought down. Othewise, House Cannith would have brought a lot of attention to itself transporting a pair of 700 pound doors of finished adamantite down through the Sharn sewers. The "property of House Cannith" scenario is pretty cool, but I highly doubt that the Merrix would mind a reasonable amount of looting from the party returning with the schema. Merrix is a "bigger picture" kinda guy, and I really don't think that the loot in the forge matters to him, as long as Merrix gets the schema and can forward his plans.
Roger Nicholls 03-28-05, 09:42 AM	Hi Pallis, I was actually running this scenario last night - the HR's as mentioned earlier are a real challenge. Even though they only have low hp's a bad set of dice rolls and some poor decisions got one of the party killed. Having said that the players seem to be enjoying it so i guess thats what counts. Regards Roger.
cmanos 03-28-05, 01:52 PM	The thing about the swarm is that it can be avoided, and if so, it disperses. River of sewage? What river of sewage? In the sewer where they fight the warforged and the shifters there is sewage, but there is no river od sewage when they fight the swarm....not that I remember.
Saurenda 03-28-05, 03:09 PM	The thing about the swarm is that it can be avoided, and if so, it disperses. River of sewage? What river of sewage? In the sewer where they fight the warforged and the shifters there is sewage, but there is no river od sewage when they fight the swarm....not that I remember. Your misunderstanding. The river of sewage is before the hatch. My PCs ran scared like little girls back the way the came because they thought diving into the sewage river they had just derudged through was a good idea to get the bugs away from them.
Pallis 03-28-05, 03:55 PM	well...things aren't going well for the group, who are all low on hit points after meeting the warforged and two shifters in the sewer tunnel. I dread to think what'll happen when they meet the swarm and Horrid Rats...suffice it to say that those back-up characters may well get a look-in... :eek:
Makabriel 03-30-05, 08:34 AM	Hmm.. let's see.. My guys threw down thier oil filled lanterns at the swarm, handily scattering them The horrid rats were made trivial by a lucky 20/20 roll from our wannabe archer Rogue :D They camped the night in the Olandra ruins and were awakened by tremmors. They dangled the Warforged by a rope in the Forge ruins to take hits from the constructs while the rest of the party pelted them with arrows. The tremmors started increasing as they left the forge. Saber nearly took down the shifter with a bolt, and in a bizarre twist of fate.. Saber, the warforged and the Kalashthar all botched their Ranged attacks. Strings broke, arrows flew in all directions and everyone was baffled. In the middle of Melee with Saber, the ruins began crashing down on top of them and a HUGE swarm of beetles forces the players to flee as well as devouring the grievously injured Saber.
Pallis 03-30-05, 01:37 PM	I guess the main problem (or challenge...better to think of it like that) is trying to fit the adventure in Sharn, as portrayed in the city's sourcebook. My players being what they are (ie. inquisitive to the max) wanted to wander off and explore (and in the interval before the meeting with Elaydren there's ample opportunity) and I don't know about anyone else but I found placing the initial encounter needed a fair bit of forethought, and when the PCs decided to hide Bonal's journal from Elaydren, being typically distrustful...well...let's just say the pace of the game slowed and the session became an adventure where the PCs are simply exploring Sharn. Of course, this is not all bad - and called for some fun improvisation - but I wonder how DMs ran the game before getting their hands on the Sharn sourcebook?