Post/Author/DateTime	Post
AQuebman 05-21-07, 10:40 AM	Okay, I am currently in the process of running the old 1st edition Gary Gygax classic Temple of Elemental Evil. Now there is a situation after the Moathouse where if the players have killed the master of the Moathouse Lareth the evil inhabitants of Hommlet will begin quietly inquiring about what happened and who is responsible. Now the problem is if any of Lareth's belongings pop up from the party, or any other tie the Temple sends an 10th level assassin to kill the them. Now the module does mention the assistance of Jaroo Ashstaff a 7th level Druid and Canon Terjon a 6th level cleric. As I haven't reached Hommlet yet with the group im just trying to plan how to deal with this situation appropriately yet fairly. 1.) An assassin will probably wait to kill while a group member is vulnerable, meaning 1 shot they are dead... so the help of Jaroo or Terjon would be worthless. 2.) What is the group is not friendly with Jaroo or Terjon for whatever reason, or they don't know about the attack so they don't know to hang with them (I realize the latter question could be dealt with through some minor free knowledge for these npc's) 3.) Lastly, even in fair combat there is a good chance an assassin told to kill a particular group would try to kill them even with a few unknown friends there with them. As I want fair battles with NPC's who are realistic how can I keep the level of this character as it should be yet make it a fair encounter that won't slaughter my entire party of now 3rd level characters. They at the most will be 4th during this encounter period.
buzzsawl 06-03-07, 06:15 AM	Why not just drop the level of the assassin a bit? 10th is pretty heavy handed for a group of 4th lvl characters. Of course, if you wanna follow the module as is, you could always give the players some clues that an assassin might be following them. Nothing big...just enough to encourage them to seek out that help you mentioned.
hovnarr 06-03-07, 06:57 AM	Think about the XP they would get for defeating a level 10 assassin. I just made one using monk 5 as entry (it's in the stickied NPC thread). Cleric and Druid assistance would not go amiss (neutralize poison, death ward, freedom of movement). The party or their little helpers could (should) conveniently have a few potions of see invisibility to negate the assassins invisbility + assassin's 3 round study. If they know when it's coming, they can cast the necessary spells or use items before hand, which greatly improves their odds even against a CR10 threat.
nameneeded 06-03-07, 11:33 AM	Keep in mind that back in the day Assassins were not as versitile as today. They had a 50%? chance to 'assassinate" a person and aside from that they were a rogue. Also back then moduals were set for 6-8 characters. Is that the size of your group? Lastly it was a much simpler time. Bad guy enters room. Party roles inish. Combat ensues. If you were to plan a TPK using an assassin then you wouldn't need a 10th lvl one. 4th would do it with some poisons and stratagy. As DM's we all have situations where a TPK is easy to set up but we MUST resist those urges. Unless the PC's are stupid and don't flee from the overwhelmingly supeior foe. (I am reminded of a group attacking a Ghost ship crewed by 20 ghosts with no clerics.) I would let the fight happen as a group. maybe he gets that one sneak attack off but misses and the PC's give chase and corner him. Use the npc's to keep the party members alive rather than fight the assassin and let them run away if nessessary. Sure someone or two may die but ToE was a brutal modual as I recall. After all its not about the TPK its about the fun! :D