Post/Author/DateTime	Post
kalniel 10-30-06, 08:44 AM	Well as a player of D&D for about ten adult years I've finally encountered the first campaign in which our party had to escape back to the original quest giver and say we'd failed, effectively bringing about an out of character end to the campaign. No-one involved wants to end the campaign, but we just found it too hard, and the DM doesn't have an IC way of helping us out. The four-member party is level nine and with on average +1 to +2 equipment. Two players are experienced, two are new to D&D. Right at the start of the dungeon crawling we had our bottoms handed to us by a CR12 roper immediately followed by 2 Bebiliths. Niether of which were our first encouters of the day either. Does anyone have any advice on how we might be able to save the campaign? IC we over-came what we considered over-whelming odds only to immediately come across something that our tactics could do nothing about. Sadly we had to escape and with our tails between our legs apologise profusely to the quest givers for not being up to the task. Thanks in advance,
mearrin69 10-30-06, 09:21 AM	Hmmm, well, if you came back alive then you didn't give it your all :) Actually, that's the first time I've truly heard of a party going, "Nope, that's okay. Better find someone else. Too dangerous for us!" I find it to be a refreshing and reasonable reaction. If I was sent out on a job for a measly 2,000 gp a head and had to fight off the stuff we face regularly in-game I'd retire to a little village and craft wands or something. Seriously, though, if you want to win then don't give up. Why didn't you beat the Roper? Find out, get what you need, and go back and slay the bugger. Don't know why? Get a sage. Don't have enough money for a sword of Roper slaying? Get some cash from your patrons - they want the job done, right? HTH! M
kalniel 10-30-06, 11:07 AM	Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately we tried many of those suggestions without success - there was no cash available from the patrons, they didn't know any means to obtain further cash or information, and even if we had the cash no further items were available. Normally we would have tried to find any other work/adventures to carry out to gain more equipment/levels, but the IC situation is such that we were the only hope the town had of survival - the best we could do would be to stay and help the guards fight back the raids without ever sorting the problem out for good. Were we to go off on other adventures the town would be destroyed, yet it wouldn't exactly make for much of a fun campaign to act out being part of the town guard for the rest of the players lives :(
Pathanus 10-30-06, 11:35 AM	What lvl are the PC's, isn't the campaign designed for a party of 15th lvl chars at the start? Ropers are hard and the bebilith 'destroy armor/sheld' is about the same as Mord's Disjuction for armor and shields (why I don't like them as a PC or DM unless players have a reasonable way to get back the +8 armor that was just destroyed automatically by a CR 9 creature).
kalniel 10-30-06, 11:40 AM	What lvl are the PC's, isn't the campaign designed for a party of 15th lvl chars at the start? We were all level 9.
Pathanus 10-30-06, 11:59 AM	I just dug up my book and the adv recommends starting it with lvl 10 PC's (and wealth as such) so you may want to ask your DM if you can delay the actual 'adventure' and do something until the party is that level. What sort of party members are there in your group? Iirc when I ran it there was a: Human Wiz/Archmage (save or die/nuker) Dwarf Cleric (tank/healer/support) Elf Wiz/Rogue/Arc Trickster (archer/arcane utility/buffing) Human Fighter/Pali/Dragon Disciple (tank/melee dmg) I'm not sure of out level of wealth at the time, but we had a wiz with high enough spellcraft to make the DC's required to teleport within the Underdark and would rest as appropriate... also used ALOT of CLW wands.
kalniel 10-30-06, 04:10 PM	Party make up is: -Some kind of dex based two-weapon specialist fighter-like-class/tempest dwarf -Human rogue -Celestial(? - some kind of +2ECL) cleric -Gnome sorcerer/incantatrix with the emphasis on non-save or die spells and ones that increase rest of the party's effectiveness (me). Dwarf tactics are basically spring attack based - when he hits he does quite a lot of damage I think, but low levels and multiple attacks/2wf never go that well together IMO. The cleric is a recent-ish addition because we didn't have a front line before due to the dwarf's jumping about. ECL+2 seems to hurt though, and the cleric spends most of the time healing the dwarf. The rogue is mostly effective, though it's totally dependant on ability to get sneak attacks in. I've gone for spells that are mostly utlity (illusions, levitate etc.), buffing (protection against evil, cats grace) or helping others work better (message, evard tentacles, grease, glitterdust etc.). I have scintillating sphere and magic missile for offensive spells. I deliberately avoid save-or-die spells simply because as one of the more experienced players I want everyone else to have fun, and I know it can be frustrating to be seemingly ineffective only to have a spell caster fell something in one go. You'd normally expect a cleric to be better at buffing, but ours doesn't seem to either memorise the right spells or get a chance to. We originally didn't have the cleric, which partly explains my spell selection as well. Ideally our tactics should be having the rogue scout ahead, provide enough warning of an encounter for the cleric to buff the party and allow me to prepare anything to direct the battle to our advantage, then have the cleric hold a front line, have the dwarf jump about and do his thing, have myself casting spells and the rogue sneak attacking where possible. On both occasions so far the rogue and the encounter both completely failed to spot each other, tending to put the rogue out of action beyond the combat and allowing the monsters to get the jump on us, which then prevents the cleric from any buffing, I immediately end up on the back foot trying to shake off the attention that only being the only party member not in armour or weilding anything pointy can bring.
Koji 10-30-06, 06:20 PM	Realistically, a lone cr12 monster should be a cakewalk for a 9th level party. Ropers are hard, but they can't move quickly, and their strands only reach 50 feet. The ideal strategy would be to get about 80 feet away and pelt it with long distance attacks while it slowly drags itself closer. Have the fighter ready to sunder any strands that may hit a player. It sounds like everyone has come up with a strategy that doesn't necessarily fit their class, and are adamantly sticking to it. This does not work for anything ever. You have to innovate or you will die.
ShubNiggurath 10-31-06, 06:04 AM	You should have been able to handle both the encounters, even if the city of SQ is an incredibly hard adventure. Ask your DM to balance your low level by alow you to rest more often (in the module there are CONSEQUENCES for leaving to rest, as it should be. Just ask him to delay the consequences). Also, ask your cleric to drop the template and take another 2 cleric levels. This will change everything, believe me. Ask the rogue to multiclass from now on (take ranger levels, for example). You could RP your gnome to dislike save or die, but keep a couple in reserve when in dire danger, maybe? Also remember to make a liberal use of haste.
Cyresss 10-31-06, 09:08 AM	Ok, So you know whereish the enemies keep attacking you. Can you set up an ambush and then have your rogue act as bait to lure the Roper to you allowing you to fight it on your terms? maybe your cleric can take spells speciffically designed for the roper combat. An abundance of items may be lacking but with even a low caster level and a lot of creativity those "worthless"spells can be very handy. Maybe you could hire a couple of the guards from the town to help you temporarily? Good luck, but remember, sometimes letting the peasants burn is the only thing to do so that you can continue doing good in the world:)
kalniel 10-31-06, 10:57 AM	Thanks for the replies. We did manage the roper, but it wasn't a case of being able to know about it in advance - we were pretty much next to it when it surprised us, the only person out of range was the rogue. It went for the fighter and cleric first, dropping the cleric str to 0 and fighter to 2. I greased the fighter to help him escape then ran as far as my little gnome legs could carry me (not far enough, 0 str for me then - I didn't know IC how far I had to get). The fighter just about managed to escape and land a few weak blows until basically the rogue finished it off from a distance. The bebiliths straight after were too much though. I think going back at it with more knowledge would be more successful, however we really need some suggestions for how to make that happen IC. Our characters felt like they failed and the moral of the players is pretty low.
Pathanus 10-31-06, 12:38 PM	Visitation from famous Harpers for a pep talk. Get your group together for some refocusing (hands in, 'win' on 3). Re-equip yourselves for what you might face... ask a sage for what you might encounter if needed. Re-train levels/feats using PHB2 rules if needed; suggest UA Level adjustment buyoffs (dwarf cleric will probably be 2 levels behind the rest of the party until level 14 or 15 if you use this rule) and see if other players can take templates (mineral warrior) to benefit from the rule? edit: fixed spelling mistakes