A bit much? [Archive] - Wizards Community

A bit much? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Jancarius
09-04-05, 09:55 AM Medusa’s Kiss
1. Barroom: “The inside of the Medusa’s Kiss is dark, and the only light is that which leaks through the cracks in the walls and from the doorway behind you. It is difficult to make out anything more than a few feet from the door, but you can see the glint of many eyes in the darkness. The room goes silent as you walk in, and all those eyes turn to stare at you. The only thing you can see beside the glint of the eyes in this room is a door on one of the farther walls, which has light streaming through the cracks in it” Check if the players have Low Light vision. Those with low light vision see this: “With your superior vision, you can see a little farther into the darkness than the others. Hobgoblins, orcs, gnolls, kobolds, ogres, minotaurs all at the tables. It is hard to make out more than their general shapes in the dark, but you would guess they are well armed. A few shapes around the edges of the room are not moving at all” Characters with darkvision (60 ft) or blindsight (60 ft) or Scent can get an accurate count. In the barroom (which, BTW, is 100 ft by 100 ft), there are about 20 kobolds, 4 minotaurs, 6 ogres, 15 hobgoblins, 5 orcs, and 30 goblins. There are also 12 statues placed roughly evenly around the walls. To accurately count this requires 10+3d6 minutes-Intelligence score. A player with darkvision can see all the way to the bar, at which stands a medusa. She is the owner of the inn, and her word here is law. The medusa goes by the name Millie, and actually is fairly fond of the ‘upper races’, finding them quite amusing. She is whimsical, as likely to decide to help someone as she is to decide they’d make a lovely lawn ornament. After a minute or so, the various patrons in the bar will return to their conversation, but everyone is watching and listening to the PCs. There is a door to another room off to one side, which is visible to everyone because light seems in through the cracks, and a staircase in the back corner, which creaks loudly anytime someone goes up or down it (DC 25 Move Silent to avoid). If the party disguises themselves as a monstrous race, they will of course attract far less attention. Modify encounters and reactions accordingly. All of the bar patrons will ignore the PCs completely. If one of the PCs tries to intimdate or force or otherwise give a decent excuse, the entire bar will jump in and pummel the crap out of them. However, Millie does not like fighting in her bar, and she will begin petrifying everyone involved and have Bok toss out all the statues she doesn’t decide to keep later. The only person who will speak to the party is Millie. If the party can make either a Diplomancy 15 or Gather Information 17 (or otherwise modify her from Indifferent to Friendly), they can discover that Demisi is indeed upstairs in the third room on the right of the second floor, but Millie will insist on knowing what they are looking for her for before revealing this. If they Bluff (opposed check, possible circumstantial based on their RP) her, they can lie, but if she finds out they did later, she will try and petrify them given a decent opportunity. Vengeful can be added to her list of personality traits along with whimsical. Award the party 100 experience each if they get the information from Millie, regardless of how they do it. They are welcome to ask Millie any other questions they might have, but wether or not Millie answers is dependant on how they RP it out. She is not particularly interested in the normal level of bartender bribes, but if more than 50 GP is offered, she accepts it, and becomes much more curious about the party and Demisi.

‘Millie’ Female Chaotic Neutral Medusa Expert 2; Medium Monstrous Humanoid Str 10, Dex 16, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 14, Cha 16 HD 6d8+2d6+16 (hp 50) Initiative +3 Speed 30 ft AC 17 (+2 Dex, +2 Deflection +3 natural), touch 14, flat-footed 15 BAB +7 Grapple +7 Attacks Shortbow +9 ranged (1d6/x3) or dagger +9 melee (1d4/19–20) or snakes +9 melee (1d4 plus poison) Full Attack Shortbow +9/+4 ranged (1d6/x3); or dagger +9/+4 melee (1d4/19–20) and snakes +4 melee (1d4 plus poison) SA Petrifying Gaze (DC 18), Poison (DC 15 1d6/2d6 Str) SQ Darkvision 60 ft Fort +4, Ref +7, Will +9 Skills and feats: Bluff +10, Diplomacy +5 Disguise +13 (+15 acting), Gather Information +14, Intimidate +6, Move Silently +13, Profession (Innkeeping) +13 Spot +13; Ability Focus (Petrifying Gaze), Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Weapon Finesse Possessions: ring of protection +2, 1000 GP (hidden in box under counter)

2. Upstairs 2nd floor hallway: This hallways has about 40 rooms in it in total, curving in a ] around the building. Demisi’s room is the third on the right from the staircase to this floor. At the far end of the hallway is the staircase to the third floor. All the rooms here have DC 18 locks. Demisi’s has also been custom trapped by her. Give the party a Spot check DC 18 to notice the doorknob looks much newer than the other ones in the hall, if not, a DC 20 Search check reveals a poison needle trap which is triggered when someone tries to open the door without turning the key that is in Demisi’s possession (CR 1; mechanical; touch trigger; manual reset; Atk +8 ranged (1 plus greenblood oil poison); Search DC 22; Disable Device DC 20). Unless the players make a particular effort to be silent, Demisi hears them fiddling with the door, and begins casting spells, starting with mage armor, False Life, then producing one human commoner zombie and one wolf skeleton from her robe of bones and casting control undead on them, then drinks her potion of protection from good. If the party still has not gotten through the door, she readies an action to use her wand of cause fear.

3. Demisi’s room: Demisi’s room is a 20 by 20 square. It is almost completely bare of furnishings, except a hard, and rather splintery looking bed. A lone candle sits on the edge of the bed, generating a 5 foot radius of light. The window seems to have been painted over black, and is only visible where a few beams of light shine through it. Demisi stands in the darkest corner, and directs her skeletons. If the skeletons are defeated or turned, she will cast expeditious retreat dive out the window. Other than that, generally, only one character will be able to fight at a time, and she will attempt to scare the most powerful looking non-melee character first, then use ray of enfeeblement against the melee fighters. If the party manages to cut Demisi off from the window, they can knock her unconscious or kill her. The docent is in a hidden pouch in her robes (DC 12 Search to notice). If a party member suffers from scare and flees downstairs, the bar occupants and Millie figure out something is going on upstairs and the party better find another way out and fast (the crashes and and sounds of battle won’t be heard over the din below and the general background noise of the Gate, but someone running away in panicked fear implies that something is going down). Unless the characters have low-light or darkvision or their own light source, remember to give Demisi and the skeletons their 50% miss chance.
EL: 6? Maybe 7? This is a REALLY tough fight.
Demisi
Female Neutral Evil Elf Necromancer 4 Medium humanoid Str 6 Dex 14 Con 8 Int 18 Wis 15 Cha 14 HD 4d4-4 (hp 14), Initiative +2, Speed 30 ft AC 16 (+4 mage armor) Touch 12 Flat-footed 14; Base Attack +2 Grapple 0 Attacks 0 melee dagger (1d4-2/19-20/x2) or +5 ranged darkwood Longbow (1d8/x3) SQ Elf traits, low-light vision; Action Points 5; Fort 0 Ref +3 Will +6
Skills and Feats: Appraise +4(+6 Alchemy), Concentration +6, Craft (Alchemy) +10, Intimidate +4, Knowledge (Arcana) +6, Knowledge (history)+6, Spellcraft +10, Use Magic Device +4(+6 involving scrolls); Scribe Scroll, Spell Focus: Necromancy, Greater Spell Focus: Necromancy
Languages: Common, Draconic, Elven, Giant, Gnome
Possessions: Dagger, darkwood longbow with 15 arrows, robe of bones, potion of cure light wounds, potion of protection from good, wand of cause fear (50 charges), darkweave cloak, deathmask (silver, platinum, and gold), 20 gp, door key, feather fall token, Ancient Docent
Wizard Spells: 5+1/4+1/3+1; DC 14+spell level (18+spell level Necromancy) Typically prepared: 0-detect magicx2,light, message, touch of fatigue 1st-expeditious retreat, mage armor, ray of enfeeblement x2 2nd – command undead, invisibility, scare Spellbook: 0-all except acid splash, daze 1st – Cause fear, chill touch, detect undead, disguise self, expeditious retreat, identify, mage armor, ray of enfeeblement, shield 2nd – command undead, false life, fox’s cunning, invisibility, scare. Forbidden schools: Conjuration and Enchantment
Demisi wears a black robe and a darkweave cloak that covers her like a strip of pure shadow. Her face is hidden beneath a beautiful deathmask. Where her flesh is revelead, at her hands, forearms, and neck, it is grey and almost rotting. Beneath her clothes, there is barely any flesh covering her bones, she looks slightly wasted. Beneath the mask, her face is even more rotted, with gaping holes along her right cheek, allowing a clear view of the interior of her mouth, and the top of her skull along her forehead. Despite this appearance, she is relatively healthy, and the appearance is magically induced (though not illusionary), and is part of her devotion to the Blood of Vol.
If Demisi escapes: The party can pursue her. She will move at a full run for as long as she can. Unless the party has some method of seeing the invisible, or prevent her from casting invisibility, it is impossible to track her. Finding her after this involves a side-quest: Go to the Marsellus. Run rules: 1 round/Constitution, then a DC 10+1 cumultive/round.

If Demisi is knocked unconscious before leaving the room: The party can search her and her quarters mostly at their leasure. If they forget to close the door, however, a inn patron walks by after two minutes, and sees the party standing over Demisi’s body, and runs shouting into the common room about murder. How they transport her out of the inn is their business, but if they carry the body out openly, Millie and Bok will stop them.

If the party kills Demisi: In addition to forfeiting 2000 gold pieces, the party pisses off the DM who wanted to reuse Demisi as a reoccurring villain.

This is an encounter in my upcoming adventure. If any players from my campaign read this, I'll kill ya :) So don't. Anyway, I was looking at it, and the party is L2, consisting of Halfling Rogue 2, Changeling Warlock 2, Shifter Ranger 2, Human Bard 2, Human Swashbuckler 2. And I was thinking this might be a bit much for them. I mean, a L4 Necromancer is CR 4 on her own. Then she's gonna use the wolf skeleton and the human commoner zombie from ther robe of bones, and use her spells, well, intelligently. To add to this, everyone but the Shifter Ranger is going to have a 50% miss chance against the skeletons and the Necromancer both. The way the room is set up, everyone except the one party member and one skeleton actually occupying the doorway to the room is going to have cover to contend with in addtion to concealment (though at least that helps the party just as much). I was thinking that the EL for this is like 6 or maybe 7? Is that a bit much? They probably will have to fight a band of 7 hobgoblins on the way there as well.
Fargren
09-04-05, 10:00 AM It's too much. loose some creatures, or you are going for a TPK.
Jancarius
09-04-05, 10:14 AM Perhaps take out the commoner zombie?

Also, how do I make it do the spoiler thing like in your sig? That's what I was going for, but I got all that black text instead.
Ulrich Valdemont
09-04-05, 10:15 AM Yes it is too much. But I don't think you should loose some monsters, you should (IMHO) loose this scenario all together. Well, actually, keep it stored somewhere safe. It's a great setting and use it when they are higher level. You don't want to downsize this, it'll destroy the feel. Just be patient.
LichEye
09-04-05, 10:27 AM Never underestimate your party's ability to overcome tremendous odds.
Jancarius
09-04-05, 10:31 AM I think they could do it at L3. At L3, the bard can have Cure Light Wounds, which allows for healing/damaging the undead, the ranger will have Endurance (so she can run down the necromancer if she flees), the rogue won't really have anything, except better sneak damage and a better chance of handling that trap, the Warlock will have DR 1/cold iron and have doubled his damage. Plus, at that point, they may have more options for bringing in Demisi alive, which I'm encouraging cause I want to use her as a reoccuring villain. I'll slip em a bag of holding somewhere.
Fargren
09-04-05, 10:33 AM Also, how do I make it do the spoiler thing like in your sig? That's what I was going for, but I got all that black text instead.
{sblock}right what you want in your spoiler here{/sblock} use [] instead of {} when writing sblock. I used {} because if I didn't, I would have just made a spoiler myself.
Jancarius
09-04-05, 10:42 AM Ah, much prettier.
Jancarius
10-02-05, 08:29 AM Wow, okay, so I did run this adventure while they were at L2, and they managed to split themselves up ontop of it! Worse, the party composition changed. The Shifter Ranger and the Bard were replaced by a Dwarven Cleric and a Human Paladin of the Silver Flame. The Paladin was smart enough not to go INTO the Medusa's kiss (he's wearing a mw breastplate decorated with Silver Flame symbols), but he did attract a whole seperate encounter which was designed to introduce them to Bok the bouncer as an ally. So the halfling thief and the changeling warlock made two attempts to take on Demisi, and the Warlock got feared both times, and the halfling ran around for a while dodging the skeletons. Then they got the rest of the (non-paladin) party into the bar, and managed to run Demisi out of non-wand spells, so after fearing most of them away from her, she jumps out the window, drinks her invisibility potion, and runs off. Turns out the skeletons from the Robe of Bones are too weak to do much, even when they took on the Warlock or rogue by themselves. For some reason though, the warlock's player really wanted to kill Demisi (despite a 2000 gold extra reward for her alive).

During hte process though, MIlly got ****** that they were causing such a ruckus. She made them sign contracts agreeing to perform one service for her (the magical ones that are essentially a geas) before letting them go (The Paladin was still outside, and did not sign). So then I had to decide how that would come back to haunt them. Originally, I didn't even intend for it to be a big deal. A one shot, unconnected to much else mission, deliever the package kind of errand. But my players groaned and moaned about what horrible things I might do to them via that contract I just couldn't leave it alone. I had to do something. So then I decided to have Millie sell the service to Demisi. This was about two weeks ago. I laughed with glee at making one of the party nemesis characters their boss, and one they fully expected to through them into a deadly situation. I had intended to surprise them when Demisi walked up holding their contracts, but now they keep coming back to this bar (they are becoming friends with Bok... he and the Paladin play Sharn Monopoly) and so they mentioned something about the contracts to Bok, and he starts chuckling, and they can't get him to tell why he's laughing. They go inside, and start talking to Millie about the contracts, and Millie mentions she sold them. They inquire about it:
Tau(Warlock): So you sold them to someone?
Millie: Yes, to some elf.
Tau: An elf, what did it look like?
Millie: You should know her, you were just here looking for her last week.
The utter expression of horror, shock, and realization on the Warlock and Rogue's players faces was so utterly priceless that I wish I had a picture of it. I mean, the Warlock just sat there GAPING at me for like 5 minutes. It was like when you see someone in shock after a loved one is killed in front of their eyes. That's how he looked. The Paladin looked smug as hell (I'd told him what I planned, since he didn't sign the contract), and rogue kept muttering "we are so dead"

Anyway, just thought I'd let you know how it went.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Jancarius 09-04-05, 09:55 AM	Medusa’s Kiss 1. Barroom: “The inside of the Medusa’s Kiss is dark, and the only light is that which leaks through the cracks in the walls and from the doorway behind you. It is difficult to make out anything more than a few feet from the door, but you can see the glint of many eyes in the darkness. The room goes silent as you walk in, and all those eyes turn to stare at you. The only thing you can see beside the glint of the eyes in this room is a door on one of the farther walls, which has light streaming through the cracks in it” Check if the players have Low Light vision. Those with low light vision see this: “With your superior vision, you can see a little farther into the darkness than the others. Hobgoblins, orcs, gnolls, kobolds, ogres, minotaurs all at the tables. It is hard to make out more than their general shapes in the dark, but you would guess they are well armed. A few shapes around the edges of the room are not moving at all” Characters with darkvision (60 ft) or blindsight (60 ft) or Scent can get an accurate count. In the barroom (which, BTW, is 100 ft by 100 ft), there are about 20 kobolds, 4 minotaurs, 6 ogres, 15 hobgoblins, 5 orcs, and 30 goblins. There are also 12 statues placed roughly evenly around the walls. To accurately count this requires 10+3d6 minutes-Intelligence score. A player with darkvision can see all the way to the bar, at which stands a medusa. She is the owner of the inn, and her word here is law. The medusa goes by the name Millie, and actually is fairly fond of the ‘upper races’, finding them quite amusing. She is whimsical, as likely to decide to help someone as she is to decide they’d make a lovely lawn ornament. After a minute or so, the various patrons in the bar will return to their conversation, but everyone is watching and listening to the PCs. There is a door to another room off to one side, which is visible to everyone because light seems in through the cracks, and a staircase in the back corner, which creaks loudly anytime someone goes up or down it (DC 25 Move Silent to avoid). If the party disguises themselves as a monstrous race, they will of course attract far less attention. Modify encounters and reactions accordingly. All of the bar patrons will ignore the PCs completely. If one of the PCs tries to intimdate or force or otherwise give a decent excuse, the entire bar will jump in and pummel the crap out of them. However, Millie does not like fighting in her bar, and she will begin petrifying everyone involved and have Bok toss out all the statues she doesn’t decide to keep later. The only person who will speak to the party is Millie. If the party can make either a Diplomancy 15 or Gather Information 17 (or otherwise modify her from Indifferent to Friendly), they can discover that Demisi is indeed upstairs in the third room on the right of the second floor, but Millie will insist on knowing what they are looking for her for before revealing this. If they Bluff (opposed check, possible circumstantial based on their RP) her, they can lie, but if she finds out they did later, she will try and petrify them given a decent opportunity. Vengeful can be added to her list of personality traits along with whimsical. Award the party 100 experience each if they get the information from Millie, regardless of how they do it. They are welcome to ask Millie any other questions they might have, but wether or not Millie answers is dependant on how they RP it out. She is not particularly interested in the normal level of bartender bribes, but if more than 50 GP is offered, she accepts it, and becomes much more curious about the party and Demisi. ‘Millie’ Female Chaotic Neutral Medusa Expert 2; Medium Monstrous Humanoid Str 10, Dex 16, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 14, Cha 16 HD 6d8+2d6+16 (hp 50) Initiative +3 Speed 30 ft AC 17 (+2 Dex, +2 Deflection +3 natural), touch 14, flat-footed 15 BAB +7 Grapple +7 Attacks Shortbow +9 ranged (1d6/x3) or dagger +9 melee (1d4/19–20) or snakes +9 melee (1d4 plus poison) Full Attack Shortbow +9/+4 ranged (1d6/x3); or dagger +9/+4 melee (1d4/19–20) and snakes +4 melee (1d4 plus poison) SA Petrifying Gaze (DC 18), Poison (DC 15 1d6/2d6 Str) SQ Darkvision 60 ft Fort +4, Ref +7, Will +9 Skills and feats: Bluff +10, Diplomacy +5 Disguise +13 (+15 acting), Gather Information +14, Intimidate +6, Move Silently +13, Profession (Innkeeping) +13 Spot +13; Ability Focus (Petrifying Gaze), Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Weapon Finesse Possessions: ring of protection +2, 1000 GP (hidden in box under counter) 2. Upstairs 2nd floor hallway: This hallways has about 40 rooms in it in total, curving in a ] around the building. Demisi’s room is the third on the right from the staircase to this floor. At the far end of the hallway is the staircase to the third floor. All the rooms here have DC 18 locks. Demisi’s has also been custom trapped by her. Give the party a Spot check DC 18 to notice the doorknob looks much newer than the other ones in the hall, if not, a DC 20 Search check reveals a poison needle trap which is triggered when someone tries to open the door without turning the key that is in Demisi’s possession (CR 1; mechanical; touch trigger; manual reset; Atk +8 ranged (1 plus greenblood oil poison); Search DC 22; Disable Device DC 20). Unless the players make a particular effort to be silent, Demisi hears them fiddling with the door, and begins casting spells, starting with mage armor, False Life, then producing one human commoner zombie and one wolf skeleton from her robe of bones and casting control undead on them, then drinks her potion of protection from good. If the party still has not gotten through the door, she readies an action to use her wand of cause fear. 3. Demisi’s room: Demisi’s room is a 20 by 20 square. It is almost completely bare of furnishings, except a hard, and rather splintery looking bed. A lone candle sits on the edge of the bed, generating a 5 foot radius of light. The window seems to have been painted over black, and is only visible where a few beams of light shine through it. Demisi stands in the darkest corner, and directs her skeletons. If the skeletons are defeated or turned, she will cast expeditious retreat dive out the window. Other than that, generally, only one character will be able to fight at a time, and she will attempt to scare the most powerful looking non-melee character first, then use ray of enfeeblement against the melee fighters. If the party manages to cut Demisi off from the window, they can knock her unconscious or kill her. The docent is in a hidden pouch in her robes (DC 12 Search to notice). If a party member suffers from scare and flees downstairs, the bar occupants and Millie figure out something is going on upstairs and the party better find another way out and fast (the crashes and and sounds of battle won’t be heard over the din below and the general background noise of the Gate, but someone running away in panicked fear implies that something is going down). Unless the characters have low-light or darkvision or their own light source, remember to give Demisi and the skeletons their 50% miss chance. EL: 6? Maybe 7? This is a REALLY tough fight. Demisi Female Neutral Evil Elf Necromancer 4 Medium humanoid Str 6 Dex 14 Con 8 Int 18 Wis 15 Cha 14 HD 4d4-4 (hp 14), Initiative +2, Speed 30 ft AC 16 (+4 mage armor) Touch 12 Flat-footed 14; Base Attack +2 Grapple 0 Attacks 0 melee dagger (1d4-2/19-20/x2) or +5 ranged darkwood Longbow (1d8/x3) SQ Elf traits, low-light vision; Action Points 5; Fort 0 Ref +3 Will +6 Skills and Feats: Appraise +4(+6 Alchemy), Concentration +6, Craft (Alchemy) +10, Intimidate +4, Knowledge (Arcana) +6, Knowledge (history)+6, Spellcraft +10, Use Magic Device +4(+6 involving scrolls); Scribe Scroll, Spell Focus: Necromancy, Greater Spell Focus: Necromancy Languages: Common, Draconic, Elven, Giant, Gnome Possessions: Dagger, darkwood longbow with 15 arrows, robe of bones, potion of cure light wounds, potion of protection from good, wand of cause fear (50 charges), darkweave cloak, deathmask (silver, platinum, and gold), 20 gp, door key, feather fall token, Ancient Docent Wizard Spells: 5+1/4+1/3+1; DC 14+spell level (18+spell level Necromancy) Typically prepared: 0-detect magicx2,light, message, touch of fatigue 1st-expeditious retreat, mage armor, ray of enfeeblement x2 2nd – command undead, invisibility, scare Spellbook: 0-all except acid splash, daze 1st – Cause fear, chill touch, detect undead, disguise self, expeditious retreat, identify, mage armor, ray of enfeeblement, shield 2nd – command undead, false life, fox’s cunning, invisibility, scare. Forbidden schools: Conjuration and Enchantment Demisi wears a black robe and a darkweave cloak that covers her like a strip of pure shadow. Her face is hidden beneath a beautiful deathmask. Where her flesh is revelead, at her hands, forearms, and neck, it is grey and almost rotting. Beneath her clothes, there is barely any flesh covering her bones, she looks slightly wasted. Beneath the mask, her face is even more rotted, with gaping holes along her right cheek, allowing a clear view of the interior of her mouth, and the top of her skull along her forehead. Despite this appearance, she is relatively healthy, and the appearance is magically induced (though not illusionary), and is part of her devotion to the Blood of Vol. If Demisi escapes: The party can pursue her. She will move at a full run for as long as she can. Unless the party has some method of seeing the invisible, or prevent her from casting invisibility, it is impossible to track her. Finding her after this involves a side-quest: Go to the Marsellus. Run rules: 1 round/Constitution, then a DC 10+1 cumultive/round. If Demisi is knocked unconscious before leaving the room: The party can search her and her quarters mostly at their leasure. If they forget to close the door, however, a inn patron walks by after two minutes, and sees the party standing over Demisi’s body, and runs shouting into the common room about murder. How they transport her out of the inn is their business, but if they carry the body out openly, Millie and Bok will stop them. If the party kills Demisi: In addition to forfeiting 2000 gold pieces, the party pisses off the DM who wanted to reuse Demisi as a reoccurring villain. This is an encounter in my upcoming adventure. If any players from my campaign read this, I'll kill ya :) So don't. Anyway, I was looking at it, and the party is L2, consisting of Halfling Rogue 2, Changeling Warlock 2, Shifter Ranger 2, Human Bard 2, Human Swashbuckler 2. And I was thinking this might be a bit much for them. I mean, a L4 Necromancer is CR 4 on her own. Then she's gonna use the wolf skeleton and the human commoner zombie from ther robe of bones, and use her spells, well, intelligently. To add to this, everyone but the Shifter Ranger is going to have a 50% miss chance against the skeletons and the Necromancer both. The way the room is set up, everyone except the one party member and one skeleton actually occupying the doorway to the room is going to have cover to contend with in addtion to concealment (though at least that helps the party just as much). I was thinking that the EL for this is like 6 or maybe 7? Is that a bit much? They probably will have to fight a band of 7 hobgoblins on the way there as well.
Fargren 09-04-05, 10:00 AM	It's too much. loose some creatures, or you are going for a TPK.
Jancarius 09-04-05, 10:14 AM	Perhaps take out the commoner zombie? Also, how do I make it do the spoiler thing like in your sig? That's what I was going for, but I got all that black text instead.
Ulrich Valdemont 09-04-05, 10:15 AM	Yes it is too much. But I don't think you should loose some monsters, you should (IMHO) loose this scenario all together. Well, actually, keep it stored somewhere safe. It's a great setting and use it when they are higher level. You don't want to downsize this, it'll destroy the feel. Just be patient.
LichEye 09-04-05, 10:27 AM	Never underestimate your party's ability to overcome tremendous odds.
Jancarius 09-04-05, 10:31 AM	I think they could do it at L3. At L3, the bard can have Cure Light Wounds, which allows for healing/damaging the undead, the ranger will have Endurance (so she can run down the necromancer if she flees), the rogue won't really have anything, except better sneak damage and a better chance of handling that trap, the Warlock will have DR 1/cold iron and have doubled his damage. Plus, at that point, they may have more options for bringing in Demisi alive, which I'm encouraging cause I want to use her as a reoccuring villain. I'll slip em a bag of holding somewhere.
Fargren 09-04-05, 10:33 AM	Also, how do I make it do the spoiler thing like in your sig? That's what I was going for, but I got all that black text instead. {sblock}right what you want in your spoiler here{/sblock} use [] instead of {} when writing sblock. I used {} because if I didn't, I would have just made a spoiler myself.
Jancarius 09-04-05, 10:42 AM	Ah, much prettier.
Jancarius 10-02-05, 08:29 AM	Wow, okay, so I did run this adventure while they were at L2, and they managed to split themselves up ontop of it! Worse, the party composition changed. The Shifter Ranger and the Bard were replaced by a Dwarven Cleric and a Human Paladin of the Silver Flame. The Paladin was smart enough not to go INTO the Medusa's kiss (he's wearing a mw breastplate decorated with Silver Flame symbols), but he did attract a whole seperate encounter which was designed to introduce them to Bok the bouncer as an ally. So the halfling thief and the changeling warlock made two attempts to take on Demisi, and the Warlock got feared both times, and the halfling ran around for a while dodging the skeletons. Then they got the rest of the (non-paladin) party into the bar, and managed to run Demisi out of non-wand spells, so after fearing most of them away from her, she jumps out the window, drinks her invisibility potion, and runs off. Turns out the skeletons from the Robe of Bones are too weak to do much, even when they took on the Warlock or rogue by themselves. For some reason though, the warlock's player really wanted to kill Demisi (despite a 2000 gold extra reward for her alive). During hte process though, MIlly got ****** that they were causing such a ruckus. She made them sign contracts agreeing to perform one service for her (the magical ones that are essentially a geas) before letting them go (The Paladin was still outside, and did not sign). So then I had to decide how that would come back to haunt them. Originally, I didn't even intend for it to be a big deal. A one shot, unconnected to much else mission, deliever the package kind of errand. But my players groaned and moaned about what horrible things I might do to them via that contract I just couldn't leave it alone. I had to do something. So then I decided to have Millie sell the service to Demisi. This was about two weeks ago. I laughed with glee at making one of the party nemesis characters their boss, and one they fully expected to through them into a deadly situation. I had intended to surprise them when Demisi walked up holding their contracts, but now they keep coming back to this bar (they are becoming friends with Bok... he and the Paladin play Sharn Monopoly) and so they mentioned something about the contracts to Bok, and he starts chuckling, and they can't get him to tell why he's laughing. They go inside, and start talking to Millie about the contracts, and Millie mentions she sold them. They inquire about it: Tau(Warlock): So you sold them to someone? Millie: Yes, to some elf. Tau: An elf, what did it look like? Millie: You should know her, you were just here looking for her last week. The utter expression of horror, shock, and realization on the Warlock and Rogue's players faces was so utterly priceless that I wish I had a picture of it. I mean, the Warlock just sat there GAPING at me for like 5 minutes. It was like when you see someone in shock after a loved one is killed in front of their eyes. That's how he looked. The Paladin looked smug as hell (I'd told him what I planned, since he didn't sign the contract), and rogue kept muttering "we are so dead" Anyway, just thought I'd let you know how it went.