Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Pharun 10-08-04, 12:10 PM	My PC's had real trouble with the 2 horrid Rats in Forgotten forge, They were 2nd level, and the rats almost killed them. I was wondering if anyone else had problems with them?
tylerthehobo 10-08-04, 12:38 PM	My PC's had real trouble with the 2 horrid Rats in Forgotten forge, They were 2nd level, and the rats almost killed them. I was wondering if anyone else had problems with them? Yeah, they knocked out one of my players' Shifter Rangers in the first attack round. No fatalities, but lots of Fort Saves all around. TOugh little buggers - I almost wonder if (primarily due to their AC) their CR level shouldn't be higher...
Wraith428 10-08-04, 12:42 PM	I had the same experience. My party was having trouble with the swarm (hadn't gotten the info to bring fire from Lady E.) and one of them ran away from the swarm straight into the rats. First round the rat crits and knocks that PC unconscious. Eventually the PC's got the swarm and the rat to go at it. One rat died but eventually the rat's acid got the swarm leaving two PC's vs. the wounded rat. With an AC of 20 the rat took about 5 rounds to finally hit and it did some serious damage in the mean time. Afterward they wanted to know the EL of the rat's and found it way low. With their AC and high damage 1d6+1d6 acid, the rats are evil for level 1 PC's. Wraith428
AvonRekaes 10-08-04, 01:50 PM	Yeah, I generally found the Forgotten Forge to be an especially deadly level 1 adventure. There were only three PCs when I ran it, but they were all Gestalt. They had to go up to civilized levels of Sharn to heal twice. Eventually I had to give them experience for the fights they did win (The two warforged battles) And some roleplay experience just to get them to level 2 so they could survive down in the tower. It was my first experience running an adventure out of a book, so I was wondering: Do you normally hold off on giving out experience till the end of the adventure? There were no points in the adventure that said "your PCs should be level 2 now." or anything, but it seemed like they really needed it. (None of my PCs were familiar with the swarm rules either, though, so they kept trying to hack at it no matter how many times I told them "You kill maybe four or five individual bugs, but about five hundred swarm over your weapon and up your arm, while a few thousand crawl up your legs")
elecgraystone 10-08-04, 02:30 PM	My PC's had real trouble with the 2 horrid Rats in Forgotten forge, They were 2nd level, and the rats almost killed them. I was wondering if anyone else had problems with them? While we avoided the swarm do to a guide(we got oil and everything!), the rats were VERY bad. 1st round all I saw was our party thief go down and a rat tail sticking out her chest! a luck crit took care of that one the next round, but the other one took all of our spells, one more party member and most of the rest of the parties HP to take out! Only the warforged artificer (adamantine body for a good AC) and me (shifter ranger that shifted(got +2 ac from that) good starting AC and fought defensively) lived with a few HP between us! Don't forget the last warforged! He was worse!
ieattrollsforbreakfast 10-08-04, 02:38 PM	It wasn't the rats that my PCs had trouble with, it was the swarm and Saber (is that his name?). They couldnt hurt the swarm at all, and they left with 2/3 of the party unconscious after a beating from Saber.
BMStroh 10-08-04, 02:42 PM	We weren't much of a threat to Saber, despite some interesting tactics with nets, among other things. As he was leaving with the schema, one of the other characters used his Orien dragonmark ability to 'hop' to the roof in time for a surprise attack, which really turned the tide. Very cool moment.
fizzbang 10-08-04, 03:46 PM	My party simply recognized the rats and knew to stay away, and keep them otherwise distracted with meat thrown a good distance off.
tylerthehobo 10-08-04, 03:49 PM	It was my first experience running an adventure out of a book, so I was wondering: Do you normally hold off on giving out experience till the end of the adventure? There were no points in the adventure that said "your PCs should be level 2 now." or anything, but it seemed like they really needed it. Yeah, I generally give out XP at the end of a section or adventure. Basically, whenever it makes sense to do. If the characters have down time of a day or two in civilization or secluded wilderness during which it would make sense for them to reflect on what they did (and maybe even level up, depending on whether or not you send the characters for training), then that's when I usually award the points.
smrtgmp 10-08-04, 04:02 PM	Yeah, those rats were nasty. My PCs had trouble hitting them, but they all made their fort saves, so none of them contracted filth fever. They actually attracted more of the little buggers while trying to get into the forge (they tried to break down the adimantine doors, which, needless to say, made a bit of a racket). I agree that the adventure was a tough one. Most of the encounters had CRs far above the party level. Made things interesting, though. Oh yeah, I give XP out after each fight (mostly becuase I'm forgetful), but PCs cant level up until they have had a chance to rest.
tylerthehobo 10-08-04, 04:22 PM	They actually attracted more of the little buggers while trying to get into the forge (they tried to break down the adimantine doors, which, needless to say, made a bit of a racket). ..... This response isn't directed to you, smrtgmp, but more to the individual above who opened the door about how to handle running out-of-the-box adventures. Your comments, smrtgmp, however raised another point regarding out-of-the-box adventures - if your PCs are getting tromped by the encounters that are area-based, it's generally a good idea to scale back any wandering-monster or event-based encounters (e.g. banging on the doors attracting more difficult hideous rats, instead of say maybe attracting a few non-hideous-but-still-nasty rats). Different strokes for different folks - I just tend to like to give the players a fair shake. Dying PCs is one thing. Dying three encounters into a first level adventure is quite another...
Pharun 10-08-04, 05:51 PM	I think theat the CR on those buggers should be Higer, AC 20 and 2d6 damage for CR 1 I find that hard to belive.
SirLoin 10-08-04, 06:04 PM	Did any of the players use their Hero Points or were they hoarding them? That may have simplified the encounter.
smrtgmp 10-08-04, 06:52 PM	This response isn't directed to you, smrtgmp, but more to the individual above who opened the door about how to handle running out-of-the-box adventures. Your comments, smrtgmp, however raised another point regarding out-of-the-box adventures - if your PCs are getting tromped by the encounters that are area-based, it's generally a good idea to scale back any wandering-monster or event-based encounters (e.g. banging on the doors attracting more difficult hideous rats, instead of say maybe attracting a few non-hideous-but-still-nasty rats). Different strokes for different folks - I just tend to like to give the players a fair shake. Dying PCs is one thing. Dying three encounters into a first level adventure is quite another...I actually only made two extra rats come attack them, and I wasnt too worried about them dying because the group concisted of 4 2nd level characters (I adjusted the adventure accordingly). Also, while the PCs had a hard time hitting the rats, the rats had a hard time hitting them as well. I agree that you shouldnt kill off PCs right after character generation. It takes a while to create you PC, and it sucks for all that time to be wasted when you have no chance of bringing the character back to life.
Zedium 10-08-04, 06:54 PM	The best way to handle most of the encounters in the forgotten forge, in my oppinion is the simple substance called Alchemist's fire, and grapple. Really, alchemist's fire deals quite a lot of damage to the damn beetles, and you are very likely to make a good grapple check vs the rats if you got some decent stats.
greatfrito 10-08-04, 11:06 PM	We didn't have too much trouble with the rats... the swarm, yes, but the rats - beyond the terrible amounts of damage - weren't hard at all. I think someone did burn an action point though, and we are a group of 5 (the bard helps quite a bit). The swarm was evil... damn it... damn it to swarmy-hell. As for Saber, at the end... well... action point + Personal Weapon Aug + Near-Crit with a heavy Construct-Bane crossbow + Mind Thrust a few times = metallic pile of powder. Ooooooh yeah!
Walks with the Snails 10-08-04, 11:37 PM	The horrid rats did seem a little excessive. When I missed on a 19, I got worried, but other people got lucky so they didn't hurt us too bad. And Saber wasn't too bad for us. Our all-warforged party decided he had a point and gave him the schema. :cool: It made things rather interesting later on, especially having to bluff House Cannith into buying the story it was "stolen".
themind 10-09-04, 01:57 AM	My players had their problems with the rats, but got lucky with a couple crits. The battle they had trouble with was the one with the warforged and two shifters in the sewers. The Rogue got critted on and went unconcious in the first round, coupled with getting pushed prone by the water drains, they were all nearly dead by the end of the encounter.
GMSteve 10-09-04, 03:01 AM	I had two horrid rats against a 3x2nd level pcs. They droped the rats in the first round.... Off course it helped with their tatics. The Rats charged the PCs (which I thought was logical of them so could not say, ah you have a spear so they won't charge). The first rat was impaled, the second backed off, but the PC's flanked him, and wailed on him.... (of course I have a house rule, that two creatures fighting against one creature - the two creatures auto flank the one. They can easily maunevuer to get on either side of one creature). So between the flanking and the set to recieve charge, they both fell really quickly - but the living burning hands spell I had in the adventure - that whipped them so hard, that they almost fled....and released a massive monstorisity on the countryside....
Teranthus 10-09-04, 06:32 AM	Well, our party managed the swarm and rats relatively well. We had alchemist's fire, which handled most of the swarm, and our DM was liberal about Acid Splash. The rats were a pain to hit, but we did get to them, largely due to our excessively tough half-orc barbarian. We found the "holy water" in the temple area after that, which helped a lot prepping for Saber... BUT... Saber came on us right after the Iron Defenders, and we did not heal up quite enough. His first shot took down our shifter ranger, and the "elf" (changeling) thief took off running - but he/she ran across the front of the forge, in the open, and the second shot critted and killed him/her flat out. The half-orc charged Saber, who was fortunately out of long-range attacks, and did a bit of damage, but was then killed dead by another crit. This left the cleric, druid, and my wizard up to face him... But we propped up the ranger with some healing to join us, my wizard (hobgoblin of the Kech Volaar with -2 Dex/+2 Con instead of normal +2/+2 to remove the level adjustment) circled around behind him, having determined that warforged lack darkvision after our last, and similarly unfortunate, encounter in the sewers (when it was just the wizard and cleric left standing). Then we learned how good animal companions are. The druid's wolf tripped Saber twice, I Dazed him while he was down to keep him down, and we all had a party on his head. He was so tough that he was able to still get up both times, and finally the ranger took him out. Still, if we were to run this adventure with only 4 players, we would have been toast. As it was, the druid was a temporary addition to the party, since the player cannot play regularly. Without him, it would have been a stalemate, pretty much the wizard silently escaping out of the light radius of the torches and flaming arrows with the schema and having to come back to save the shifter, druid, and cleric (and then having a fit of apoplexy after realizing that his unfortunate conscience had made him help the half-orc and "elf" too, against whom he is highly prejudiced). This is provided that the fat and weak wizard could haul his weight back up the rope to the upper levels, of course (there would be a new use for Action Points - there is a lot of drama just watching him climb a few feet). Teranthus
Gamemagi 10-10-04, 12:52 AM	Our group when we played didn't have any problem with the rats. I think someone critical and the other used a action point and they went down pretty easy, but I ended up dying against the swarm since one of my party members thought it would be a good idea to shoot at them with a hvy. crossbow (he panicked) and then had a mage use burning hands. Joy! Thought it did kill the swarm.
The Rooster 10-10-04, 11:36 AM	Did any of the players use their Hero Points or were they hoarding them? That may have simplified the encounter. My group couldn't hit thoses rats to save their lives. They all started using their action points and then the rats when down. We all wondered if that encounter was placed there to teach players to use action points. Rooster
Eltarren 10-10-04, 12:37 PM	That was my assumption. What better way to get players practiced in the use Action Points than to send monsters with very high ACs that use attacks that require Fort saves? I'm going to be running a group of three through FF and the rest in a month or two. I think I'm just going to send one horrid rat at them though since only one of the three is a decently experienced D&D player. Good tactics or awareness of options haven't sunk into the other two yet.
Jabari 10-12-04, 05:07 AM	I think they have extremely high damage for being mere 1 HD monsters. I had a small pack of horrid rats living in a ruin in my campaign. 4 rats were enough to put 2nd level party into bed rest for few days. That acid and incubating disease.. sheesh.
Euangelion 10-12-04, 09:53 AM	This is provided that the fat and weak wizard could haul his weight back up the rope to the upper levels, of course (there would be a new use for Action Points - there is a lot of drama just watching him climb a few feet). Teranthus A fat wizard using action points to climb a rope! That's the funniest mental picture I've had in a long time. Man, I could have used some action points in high school gym class... :D My $.02, yeah horrid rats are more than CR 1.
Bocklin 10-12-04, 10:22 AM	The best way to handle most of the encounters in the forgotten forge, in my oppinion is the simple substance called Alchemist's fire, and grapple. Really, alchemist's fire deals quite a lot of damage to the damn beetles, and you are very likely to make a good grapple check vs the rats if you got some decent stats. Yes, Alchimist's Fire (AF) is also nice for all these creatures with high ACs, not only for the swarm. If your players got enough of the AF, they could use it on the rats and even on Saber (remember that AF uses TOUCH attacks, therefore all this chitine on the rats' body or all this adamantine that Saber has in his body do not help them much). By the way, the "touch AC" of Saber is wrong. The +8 of the Adamantine body should not be counted, therefore he only has 12 (or something like that, I do not have the book handy). Hellcow confirmed this as a mistake. And since it seems that they just copy-pasted Saber's stats-block into "Shadows of the Last War" and used it for the first warforged encounter, the guy also has the same mistake in its stat-block... As long as they do not have too many HP, AF is a nice solution for low level characters to get a good shot at these nasty Warforged with big ACs. Unfortunately, our whole party was wiped out once before we realised that. It is only in our second run of the "Forgotten Forge" that we realised (mainly because we had bought so many AF and did not use it up against the swarm). Quite a lucky day that was... ;) Bocklin
Shadowalk Nimblefeet 10-12-04, 04:45 PM	My players had an extraordinary amount of trouble with the rats, two of the characters very nearly died. One, a Brelish wizardress was bit right away and took seven damage, which put her into negatives right at the start. Not only that but she contracted filth fever with only a one day incubation period and the Aereni bard contracted it also, but had two days before the onset. The group decided to rest near the ruins where they encountered the rats, and didn't venture far enough to find the temple until the next day. By that time Felicity, the wizard, had taken enough ability damage to put her constitution down to six and her dexterity down to nine. That said, the encounter with Saber was interesting to say the least. The entire party, save Eidas, a warforged fighter, and Felicity (who didn't make her climb check), climbed to the roof of the Cannith foundry to shoot at Saber with crossbows. Unfortunately, Saber managed a critical against Eidas and he was disabled; Saber then began to pursue Felicity. Although weaponless and with all her spells previously spent, Felicity managed to save the party by throwing pieces of the scale mail at Saber and leading him away from the rest of the group. After the encounter was over, we all sat back and laughed at how pulp the encounter was. The high-heeled, pearl-wearing all-in-all well-dressed Felicity Montane screaming her lungs out at a threatening hulk of a metallic beast as it lumbered toward her and she threw pieces of antique armor at it. A wonderful scene!
Saydivosh 10-12-04, 06:22 PM	Yes. When I first ran it, I allowed my players 2nd level characters. When they got down the shaft they ran into the beetle swarm. I haven't really used swarms in any of my games before, that's all changed now, and I was surprised at the surprising imperviousness of a swarm. Nonetheless, it took out two of them. Then, after that, the other two carrying their fallen comrades ran past and arose the ire of the horrid rats. They attacked and my friends looked at me with that, "You are going to kill they party look." Of course, it is neither my job to kill or aid a party, but to simply challenge them so the rats attacked and "Wow!" One goes down, and the last guy, a Human Ranger I believe, who expends many action points in the process, saves them by fleeing into the temple that the monster do not enter. I'm glad someone else saw as much difficulty with the encounter as I did.
elecgraystone 10-13-04, 12:36 PM	That was my assumption. What better way to get players practiced in the use Action Points than to send monsters with very high ACs that use attacks that require Fort saves? I'm going to be running a group of three through FF and the rest in a month or two. I think I'm just going to send one horrid rat at them though since only one of the three is a decently experienced D&D player. Good tactics or awareness of options haven't sunk into the other two yet. Action points only help if you are not KO'd or have rolled well enouph that it's going to help! With an AC as high as theirs was, a fighter had to roll above average so that an action point (it's only a d6!) could help! In our game NO action points were used against them because they didn't help. :weep: We hit because rolled very high and missed because we rolled low. And the disease wasn't a problem. Between saves(one hit knocked people down so only one check was needed) and heal check, everyone was OK. Now Sabre we used action points for! (@$#@%$@%$! sabre!) :weep: I'd be very careful about using them in a game. Compare a 1st level orc fighter (cr1) vs horrid rat(cr1) and see who wins every time! The only way the orc COULD win is if he crits! 2d6 dam+very high AC+disease+CR1=someone smoking something illegal! That's my 1/50 of a dollar!
Eltarren 10-13-04, 04:40 PM	Now that I think about it, I may just remove those horrid rats altogether. My friends and I get challenged in the campaign we're currently in, but they would be ****** beyond belief if one of them died. So, for my Eberron campaign, I have to balance challenge in such a way that they will be sufficiently challenged but without having to worry about dying every time they get into a battle. One horrid rat would be a pain. The experienced guy may think of a good tactic, but the other two would just keep swinging at hit, never thinking of using something like grapple.
elecgraystone 10-15-04, 01:37 PM	Now that I think about it, I may just remove those horrid rats altogether. My friends and I get challenged in the campaign we're currently in, but they would be ****** beyond belief if one of them died. So, for my Eberron campaign, I have to balance challenge in such a way that they will be sufficiently challenged but without having to worry about dying every time they get into a battle. One horrid rat would be a pain. The experienced guy may think of a good tactic, but the other two would just keep swinging at hit, never thinking of using something like grapple. Grappling A monster with a 2d6 bite? All that would do is get the grappling character killed! :rolleyes: AOO first, then a grapple check that could fail, then loss of bex bonus! :weep: Rat still attacks at -4. :weep: Others get to roll to see which grappler they hit! :weep: Shudder! I'll take my lumps in a stand up fight!
Kyrianna 10-15-04, 10:17 PM	Yes, the Horrid Rats are very tough. But, a simple level 1 sleep spell drops them pretty well. :)
Golem1972 10-16-04, 02:59 AM	There's another encounter after the rats? :) Our party of 4 players (no arcane caster though) met up with the rats as well. Unfortunately, our DM thought they'd be to weak of a challenge so he threw 5 of them at us. :( Apparently he thought they were just dire rats with a new name. We only survived the fight by using all of our spells, action points, and rolling a lot of 20s. With 2 dying, 2 injured, and no spells, I'd hate to have met Saber.
aizhel15 10-16-04, 08:45 AM	Your players are WEENIES :thumbsdow :uh-huh: :rofl: We just started our campaign, were only two in our party but we KO our rats in just two rounds. Maybe they need to cooperate and to plan their moves...... :D :D :D
Eltarren 10-16-04, 03:27 PM	Rolling high works wonders. :P
Kyrianna 10-16-04, 07:58 PM	Well, at the World Wide D&D game I played in today, we took them down pretty easy. But, we had 7 pep[le, all experience D&D players, and, even with that, we nearly lost a PC. So, I can see how a typical group of 4 could be in trouble. Don't underestimate horrid animals.
Greenlock 10-16-04, 08:01 PM	Our party of 3 lvl 2s just played through forgotten forge yesterday and had little trouble with the rats thanks to being able to flank them and better than average rolls. Of course weapon finesse and a rapier in the hands of the dexterous ranger certainly helped. Said ranger was downed in 2 hits in the fight against saber though... that fight was barely survivable and only that thanks to the juggernaut wannabe, his high AC and the ashbound druids wolf summons tripping just enough. We made it and had good time scraping through with only a hit point or five to spare.
Hanuman47 10-16-04, 11:35 PM	I read this thread when it first started and didn't really think much about it - I hadn't run or played Eberron yet, so I hadn't formed an opinion about the horrid rats yet. Just ran "Forgotten Forge" for World Wide D&D day today at my FLGS and whoa, you're right. Those little buggers are tough. Had a group of 6, 2 of whom had wandered away a bit. The monk was concerned that there might be something nasty in a hole so he went to check it out with the rogue in tow. Yep, he was right, the rats got surprise and took them both out in one round. Fortunately, the ranger and cleric (Balinor) were close by and kept the rats from munching their buds with calm animals, wild empathy, and some very good rolls. Situation was under control, the rats were backing away when the warforged, hearing his friends' yells, came a runnin'. That stirred things up but the rats weren't so lucky this time and the 'forged made short work of them. Horrid animals are quite fun - I look forward to including some more in my Eldeen Reaches campaign which begins tomorrow.
MacLeod82 10-17-04, 03:56 AM	Heh, that admantine warforged fighter Keith rolled up is a brute! I lopped off Cutter's arm and got halfway thru her torso in the opening round, and the shifter cleric caught the final messenger. Later we encountered the beetles while the gnome was standing on my shoulders for a good view of the room, they didn't hurt me none but the alchy fire she dropped on them did a bit. Didn't have much trouble taking down the rats and I kept em focused on me so they didn't disease anyone. I kept rolling 1s 2s and 3s to climb onto the roof til the DM gave up and said "You made it". Sabre was more interesting, the gnome color sprayed his eyes out while he was still onthe ledge, so he stayed behind some cover while we pelted him (that's a mean sling-swinging arm!). In hindsight I shoulda got in good position to bullrush him off the roof for when he jumped down... oh well.
Ograbme 10-17-04, 01:37 PM	Wow, we really got lucky; our warforged fighter took them in 2 hits. Saber was a diferent story. We didn't get to rest after the previous battle and everyone was out of spells. Of our 6 person party, one was dropped the first round by the flaming crossbow, two more dropped when they falied their climb checks to get off the roof, and Saber killed two more.
rkanodia 10-17-04, 08:02 PM	The horrid rats were quite a challenge for my players, but there were only two of them, a fighter and a barbarian without any kind of touch attacks. I liked the Forgotten Forge, but I thought it was too heavy on main melee types. I mean, Cutter, the unnamed warforged in the valve cluster, the horrid rats, the swarm, the iron defenders, and Sabre (crossbow excepeted) are all front-liners. If I were running the adventure again, I'd definitely work in some ranged attackers or casters. And man, a few vials of Alchemist's Fire would have made that whole game so easy. Whew. Good thing my players didn't think to ask Elaydren about the dangers of the lowest levels :D