Beyond the Mottle Tower - HELP! - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Beyond the Mottle Tower - HELP!

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
jarjaxle
Dec 21, 2009 19:26:42 Beyond the Mottled Tower Help...

My players are about to start this adventure and I, the DM, am confused about something.
Reading the adventure - it seems that the players start in Talar, then the earthquake hits, players help rescue the villagers, then they see the Blood Chaos and have an encounter fighting a couple creatures while saving a pregnant woman. Next they see Megan and Serten, Falrinth's apprentice. They cross a moat (Not detailed) to rescue Megan and Serten. --- Now Megan is the reason they are there --- all they need to do is capture her and take her back to Overlook. Presumably, they will be heroic and save the trapped Sage, Falrinth.
So far so good...
They head down into the tower, and on the bottom floor they save the Sage.

Here is where things get strange - the adventure says to refer to "The Chase is On" skill challenge - but before that is an encounter called "Blood Chaos Caverns" but I have no idea how it fits in...

The adventure says that there is a series of caverns unknown to Falrinth beneath the tower...
How are the adventurers supposed to get there? Why is there no map? (this Adventure path seems to suffer from a lack of maps all over the place...) Should the large doors in the tower's lower floor (now underground) open into the caverns???

I would love to hear from Creighton Broadhurst, Bruce R. Cordell or David Noonan (R.I.P.) about what is suppose to happen now... as far as I can see...at this point, the entire adventure breaks down...

Also.. can someone explain why there is almost zero treasure during this entire adventure?? Being the first paragon path adventure I would expect that to be a highlight.....

#2
Misroi
Dec 22, 2009 19:54:12
Reading the adventure - it seems that the players start in Talar, then the earthquake hits, players help rescue the villagers, then they see the Blood Chaos and have an encounter fighting a couple creatures while saving a pregnant woman. Next they see Megan and Serten, Falrinth's apprentice. They cross a moat (Not detailed) to rescue Megan and Serten. --- Now Megan is the reason they are there --- all they need to do is capture her and take her back to Overlook. Presumably, they will be heroic and save the trapped Sage, Falrinth.
So far so good...
They head down into the tower, and on the bottom floor they save the Sage.

So far, so good. The moat isn't detailed because it's supposed to be an easy feat to tread across the rocks and debris that surround the tower.

Here is where things get strange - the adventure says to refer to "The Chase is On" skill challenge - but before that is an encounter called "Blood Chaos Caverns" but I have no idea how it fits in...

The adventure says that there is a series of caverns unknown to Falrinth beneath the tower...
How are the adventurers supposed to get there? Why is there no map? (this Adventure path seems to suffer from a lack of maps all over the place...) Should the large doors in the tower's lower floor (now underground) open into the caverns???

Actually, the module does show where these two places connect. There's a 4-square hole in the first floor of the tower with no mention about it in the Features. On the "Blood Chaos Caverns" map, there's a similar 4-square dotted line. The Features list that the ceiling is "20 feet high. A wide, jagged hole in the ceiling provides access to the tower. The rubble-filled squares directly below the hole are difficult terrain."

So, while there is a connection, it's poorly documented.

Also.. can someone explain why there is almost zero treasure during this entire adventure?? Being the first paragon path adventure I would expect that to be a highlight.....

There was actually a relatively recent thread about this very subject. Here's our conversation:
community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/758...

I actually also have a question for anyone that's played/run through this adventure. The magma in both the Sea of Fire and Galleries encounters are listed as doing 10d10 damage with ongoing 15 fire damage (save ends). This seems...excessive, especially since the smart tactic for the Duergar Hellcaller would be to use Asmodeus' Ruby Curse on the conveniently clustered party, and push them all into the magma - in fact, the printed Tactics confirm that's the intent. That's 10d10 + 3d8 + 5 damage, and ongoing 15. On average, that's 82 damage that they're potentially facing down, all for being slower than the Duergar and forced to clump up on the teleport circle. How did this encounter play out, and should the magma's damage be reduced to something more managable? I'm a little less concerned about the Galleries fight, since the possibility to push the entire party into the soup is reduced, but it still has the potential to be rediculously deadly.
#3
binarysolo
Feb 09, 2010 10:07:16
This seems...excessive, especially since the smart tactic for the Duergar Hellcaller would be to use Asmodeus' Ruby Curse on the conveniently clustered party, and push them all into the magma - in fact, the printed Tactics confirm that's the intent.

Yup. A bad initiative roll and some unlucky saving throws to avoid falling is an easy party wipe. In my group, players lost initiative, everyone was pushed, and all but two fell off. If they didn't happen to be the first two to go, didn't happen to have boots of eagerness, and didn't happen to have healing powers, it would have been three characters dead before their turn came up. Disgusting and unfair. As it was our bad luck was coupled with good luck on timing of the rescue, so no one died. However, if any of the barbarian or sorcerer or warlock won initiative, they would have died at the start of their turn.

We actually did lose someone to the centaur though: immediate reaction push into the lava/elemental chaos. Full to dead in one reaction.

And we all thought save or die was over!
#4
Misroi
Feb 10, 2010 0:58:20
Good to see I wasn't far off on my analysis. What makes this even more troubling is that damage expression is way off compared to every expression they list in the DMG. The worst fall an 11th-12th level character should expect to see is 70', and the most damaging effect a 30th level PC should expect to see if 5d12+9. Admittedly, this latter value is listed on the wildly inaccurate table for DCs by Level, but even if the damage section is accurate, that's approximately 42 points of damage - roughly half what a PC a third of their level is faced with. Worse, they incur this damage through no fault of their own other than having a poor initiative.

I think there's two solutions to this problem. The first is to, naturally, decrease the amount of damage the lava does, while keeping it very dangerous. The 4d10+5 the book suggests seems appropriate, and reducing the ongoing damage to 10 fire (save ends) makes it non-trivial. On average, they'll take 27 points of damage, plus the damage from the hellcaller. It's still high, but I think I can live with that in paragon.

The second option is to keep the damage the same, but make the ability of the hellcaller take longer. Maybe have him do something bad round one, and then call upon the fell power of Asmodeus, and the party can sense the infernal power building up around the hellcaller. That gives the party a round to focus fire on him before the offending power hits them. Not sure which way to go with this one - thoughts?
#5
Snooze
Feb 10, 2010 15:46:06 I've never been a fan of "save or die" scenarios, and these are pretty close. In fact, in the last fight against Sarshan, he has an at-will blast 5 that will petrify a character if he fails consecutive saves. It's +16 vs Fortitude, which is close to auto-hit for many characters, and at best a 50/50 shot if you have a very high Fort defense.

I changed the Petrify to Stunned (save ends) and it made the fight much more manageable. I'm pretty sure the party would have wiped if I hadn't changed this, as the party Leader was the first to fail two saves. Of course, he's notorious for failing saves, so that was pretty much expected.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 jarjaxle Dec 21, 2009 19:26:42	Beyond the Mottled Tower Help... My players are about to start this adventure and I, the DM, am confused about something. Reading the adventure - it seems that the players start in Talar, then the earthquake hits, players help rescue the villagers, then they see the Blood Chaos and have an encounter fighting a couple creatures while saving a pregnant woman. Next they see Megan and Serten, Falrinth's apprentice. They cross a moat (Not detailed) to rescue Megan and Serten. --- Now Megan is the reason they are there --- all they need to do is capture her and take her back to Overlook. Presumably, they will be heroic and save the trapped Sage, Falrinth. So far so good... They head down into the tower, and on the bottom floor they save the Sage. Here is where things get strange - the adventure says to refer to "The Chase is On" skill challenge - but before that is an encounter called "Blood Chaos Caverns" but I have no idea how it fits in... The adventure says that there is a series of caverns unknown to Falrinth beneath the tower... How are the adventurers supposed to get there? Why is there no map? (this Adventure path seems to suffer from a lack of maps all over the place...) Should the large doors in the tower's lower floor (now underground) open into the caverns??? I would love to hear from Creighton Broadhurst, Bruce R. Cordell or David Noonan (R.I.P.) about what is suppose to happen now... as far as I can see...at this point, the entire adventure breaks down... Also.. can someone explain why there is almost zero treasure during this entire adventure?? Being the first paragon path adventure I would expect that to be a highlight.....
#2 Misroi Dec 22, 2009 19:54:12	Reading the adventure - it seems that the players start in Talar, then the earthquake hits, players help rescue the villagers, then they see the Blood Chaos and have an encounter fighting a couple creatures while saving a pregnant woman. Next they see Megan and Serten, Falrinth's apprentice. They cross a moat (Not detailed) to rescue Megan and Serten. --- Now Megan is the reason they are there --- all they need to do is capture her and take her back to Overlook. Presumably, they will be heroic and save the trapped Sage, Falrinth. So far so good... They head down into the tower, and on the bottom floor they save the Sage. So far, so good. The moat isn't detailed because it's supposed to be an easy feat to tread across the rocks and debris that surround the tower. Here is where things get strange - the adventure says to refer to "The Chase is On" skill challenge - but before that is an encounter called "Blood Chaos Caverns" but I have no idea how it fits in... The adventure says that there is a series of caverns unknown to Falrinth beneath the tower... How are the adventurers supposed to get there? Why is there no map? (this Adventure path seems to suffer from a lack of maps all over the place...) Should the large doors in the tower's lower floor (now underground) open into the caverns??? Actually, the module does show where these two places connect. There's a 4-square hole in the first floor of the tower with no mention about it in the Features. On the "Blood Chaos Caverns" map, there's a similar 4-square dotted line. The Features list that the ceiling is "20 feet high. A wide, jagged hole in the ceiling provides access to the tower. The rubble-filled squares directly below the hole are difficult terrain." So, while there is a connection, it's poorly documented. Also.. can someone explain why there is almost zero treasure during this entire adventure?? Being the first paragon path adventure I would expect that to be a highlight..... There was actually a relatively recent thread about this very subject. Here's our conversation: community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/758... I actually also have a question for anyone that's played/run through this adventure. The magma in both the Sea of Fire and Galleries encounters are listed as doing 10d10 damage with ongoing 15 fire damage (save ends). This seems...excessive, especially since the smart tactic for the Duergar Hellcaller would be to use Asmodeus' Ruby Curse on the conveniently clustered party, and push them all into the magma - in fact, the printed Tactics confirm that's the intent. That's 10d10 + 3d8 + 5 damage, and ongoing 15. On average, that's 82 damage that they're potentially facing down, all for being slower than the Duergar and forced to clump up on the teleport circle. How did this encounter play out, and should the magma's damage be reduced to something more managable? I'm a little less concerned about the Galleries fight, since the possibility to push the entire party into the soup is reduced, but it still has the potential to be rediculously deadly.
#3 binarysolo Feb 09, 2010 10:07:16	This seems...excessive, especially since the smart tactic for the Duergar Hellcaller would be to use Asmodeus' Ruby Curse on the conveniently clustered party, and push them all into the magma - in fact, the printed Tactics confirm that's the intent. Yup. A bad initiative roll and some unlucky saving throws to avoid falling is an easy party wipe. In my group, players lost initiative, everyone was pushed, and all but two fell off. If they didn't happen to be the first two to go, didn't happen to have boots of eagerness, and didn't happen to have healing powers, it would have been three characters dead before their turn came up. Disgusting and unfair. As it was our bad luck was coupled with good luck on timing of the rescue, so no one died. However, if any of the barbarian or sorcerer or warlock won initiative, they would have died at the start of their turn. We actually did lose someone to the centaur though: immediate reaction push into the lava/elemental chaos. Full to dead in one reaction. And we all thought save or die was over!
#4 Misroi Feb 10, 2010 0:58:20	Good to see I wasn't far off on my analysis. What makes this even more troubling is that damage expression is way off compared to every expression they list in the DMG. The worst fall an 11th-12th level character should expect to see is 70', and the most damaging effect a 30th level PC should expect to see if 5d12+9. Admittedly, this latter value is listed on the wildly inaccurate table for DCs by Level, but even if the damage section is accurate, that's approximately 42 points of damage - roughly half what a PC a third of their level is faced with. Worse, they incur this damage through no fault of their own other than having a poor initiative. I think there's two solutions to this problem. The first is to, naturally, decrease the amount of damage the lava does, while keeping it very dangerous. The 4d10+5 the book suggests seems appropriate, and reducing the ongoing damage to 10 fire (save ends) makes it non-trivial. On average, they'll take 27 points of damage, plus the damage from the hellcaller. It's still high, but I think I can live with that in paragon. The second option is to keep the damage the same, but make the ability of the hellcaller take longer. Maybe have him do something bad round one, and then call upon the fell power of Asmodeus, and the party can sense the infernal power building up around the hellcaller. That gives the party a round to focus fire on him before the offending power hits them. Not sure which way to go with this one - thoughts?
#5 Snooze Feb 10, 2010 15:46:06	I've never been a fan of "save or die" scenarios, and these are pretty close. In fact, in the last fight against Sarshan, he has an at-will blast 5 that will petrify a character if he fails consecutive saves. It's +16 vs Fortitude, which is close to auto-hit for many characters, and at best a 50/50 shot if you have a very high Fort defense. I changed the Petrify to Stunned (save ends) and it made the fight much more manageable. I'm pretty sure the party would have wiped if I hadn't changed this, as the party Leader was the first to fail two saves. Of course, he's notorious for failing saves, so that was pretty much expected.