i've read all the other threads and have adjusted the treasure so this is not that issue.
SPOILER WARNING
ok there is a fight with 2 green dragon solo's in this adventure and this is next on the menu for my group.
my issue is they have a lot of hps and do not do a lot of damage really, this module presumably predates the solo rules updates which makes them less boring slogfests.
to make this more annoying the party bard has 2 dailies that allow any player connecting with the enemy to regain 5 hps each hit, so the dragons damage is reduced even further effectively.
how to work around this?
i've thought of simply reducing their hps by 100 each and adding +5 damage on all attacks? is this reasonable?
....the solo rules updates which makes them less boring slogfests.
Really sorry for the derail but where are these rules?
it's more that the new solo's have had hps reduced (i think by 20%) and damage increased by a similar amount.
because by the MM1 standard once all encounter powers are gone they still have a boatload of hps left and do not really have enough damage output to be a real threat, becoming a grind instead which takes a long time and is not that exciting
Rach, there is a great podcast that addresses this problem in particular - dragons as solos. It also touches on some ways you can adjust to make the combat more challenging and dramatic. You've got a feel for the problem, but it's deeper than just extra HP and low damage. Here's a direct link to the podcast episode:
content.hommlet.com/mf/web/hn2tz/RFH-Adv...
(The good stuff starts around 9 minutes in).
One thing they suggest that you might consider is changing the two dragons to elites and adding a bunch of minions at the party along with the dragons. Picture the party atop the tree trunk fighting off minions while dodging the flyby attacks of the dragons. Good stuff!
i do actually love the idea of a mated pair of dragons which are solo's though to be honest and doubt i'll change them to elites.
want to see the players faces when they spend their second action points!
Then let me just say, may your players forget to put on their poison-resistant socks and may you roll 5's and 6's for your recharges.
Our group has 7 players and we have a lot of serious healing (miracle worker cleric) and some serious damage dealers. Warforged Barbarian, Minotaur Warden/Warlock, 2 Rogues, a Drow Bard and a Eladrin Swordmage.
In order to make this encounter challenging a third dragon was added to the encounter.
It has been a challenge but so far I think we are in good shape.
We ended at the top of round 8 with one dragon dead, one bloodied and one at full health.
Wish us luck!
half orc fighter leaped from the tree onto one of the dragons, the brute, and proceeded to attempt to grapple with it in mid air while whacking at it with her sword, this lasted not long at all.
bard jinx shot on the controller one made it fall over next round and then the fighter and warden did a tag team job on it, fighters gloves of frost making the dragon slow every round and kept it there for sometime
meanwhile the brute landed on the platform to attack the leaders and lone striker, where it was knocked prone and 3 teamed for quite some time (until it's eventual death as it happened)
encounter was too long and only one surge trigger was used, although a few daily item uses were implemented.
was worried that +5 damage would be too much so in the end left it as written, sadly the encounter lacked punch for a fight with the first real dragons of the campaign and for 2 of our players.
made up for it in the next fight as i changed the enemies. left in the wights and skull lord(despise this monster although it was the last one to die in the end)
for the rest i de-levelled strahd dread zombie minions to level 10 so 6 of them (need radiant/fire to kill but would then be resurrected by skull lord for fun) and added an oblivion wraith.
this was on basis that the ranger had gone paragon with a barbarian fire path and that we had a paladin.....
ranger changed into assassin and paladin into a warden, net result is the bard had only fire power jinx shot+arcane admixture.
this encounter nearly resulted in tpk as the wraith shuts down healing in an aura 2 and is large, i forgot about it's regen though good thing in the end, the zombies were killed by the fighter dropping them then wrestling the body into the blood chaos so it would revive and die again for all eternity (not knowing fire did this anyway)
the duergar hellcaller was a pain, his blast hit all of us and pushed two people into the lava, including the assassin...they have v low hps. thankfully i'd changed lava to 5d10 and 10 ongoing from other threads or that would have been instant death for that character, once that was done this encounter was boring, whole party just focused fire on duergar, shard, belcher then guards in that order.
I like the modifications you made to the Skull Lord fight. It seems an odd choice to include one of these guys and then not have any minions to ressurrect. I suppose their inclusion was to make the wights more resilent, but in the end, they've got a head that doesn't do anything. I might run this encounter and have that head be the first one to go.
And I'm also glad to see that my suspicions on the insta-kill lava were borne out in your actual play. 5d10, the Hellcaller's attack and ongoing 10 fire is definitely powerful, but at that tier of play it shouldn't be instantly fatal. It'd almost certainly bloody people, but there should be sufficient healing to come back from that.
By the way, you should watch the lava in the tower itself as well. It's the exact same stuff that the party dealt with outside, so it should have its damage reduced as well. Add to this a bunch of things that have pushes and slides, and it's almost certain that something (PC, NPC or both!) is going over the edge.
This whole adventure is filled with wonky stuff like that. Outrageous damage expressions, nonsensical monster arrangements (a centaur? In a tower with no real floor?!?), and the Fridge Logic revelation that Sarshan is the world's poorest multi-planar arms dealer (which is the only real explanation for the lack of treasure in the mod) easily makes this one the weakest of the paragon tier.
My party is currently in the middle of this encounter.
Our group has 7 players and we have a lot of serious healing (miracle worker cleric) and some serious damage dealers. Warforged Barbarian, Minotaur Warden/Warlock, 2 Rogues, a Drow Bard and a Eladrin Swordmage.
In order to make this encounter challenging a third dragon was added to the encounter.
It has been a challenge but so far I think we are in good shape.
We ended at the top of round 8 with one dragon dead, one bloodied and one at full health.
Wish us luck!
@ Rekopacz
The 3 Dragon encounter while challenging, still took over 4 hours to get through it.
Also BTW it is a Minotaur Warden/Warlord. We had a ton of healing on our side as well.
This whole adventure is filled with wonky stuff like that. Outrageous damage expressions, nonsensical monster arrangements (a centaur? In a tower with no real floor?!?), and the Fridge Logic revelation that Sarshan is the world's poorest multi-planar arms dealer (which is the only real explanation for the lack of treasure in the mod) easily makes this one the weakest of the paragon tier.
I replaced this adventure for the most part. Not only for many of the reasons Misroi stated, but I just didn't like it from the get go. I had played Sarshan to be even a bit more devious than written up to that point, and the idea that he would try to cover his tracks by flooding the world with intergalactic sewer sludge, just didn't sit well with me.
The new adventure took the PC's out into Orc country to rescue the Freestriders (thats what they ended up biend called after I fumbled the name enough times), into the elemental chaos to destroy Sarshans new chaos infused warforged factory, and finally into the Shadowfell to track down Sarshan in his private domain.
-Blackivarr
i did not take time to read forward enough i feel or i would have avoided this module i think.
also misroi i had an assassin in my group, at level 12 he has 72 hit points...after duergar attack and lava he was below bloodied value, if i had not reduced damage there was serious potential for inst-death.
(worked out average damage in first round to be 95 hps using 10d10....)
also i did not do 5d10 when their next turn started just the ongoing and decided to make the 5d10 happen at the end of their turn in case anyone did something silly like think 10 ongoing was not too bad to just swim through the lava
I'm not big on the social skill challenges, I've pretty much avoided them altogether thw whole way through by roleplaying them out.
I had Kalad meet the PC's at the end of Rivenroar, following the call to arms, he traveled with the PC's to Overlook from Brindol.
Changed a whole bunch of encounters in Umbraforge. Instead of the goofy secret tunnel under the inn, a rooftop chase to catch Modra, and a portal in the wall of a wharehouse seemed more appropriate. I changed the encounter with the pipes and boar in the foundry. I reskinned a green dragon and used this gnarly demon mini I have. I called it a Vat spawned slayer.
Played the Lost mines pretty much as written, but linked it in later, as a simillar mine is discoverd in orc country by the Freestriders and Ironfell. Which I used as the first leg of BoMT.
I had thorn attack, as kinda a second wave, right after the bounty hunters in DotD.
I axed the investigation of the Erathis priest in the Temple Between, it didnt suit my PC's well. Overlook was assaulted by these chaos infused (the same tainted metal as in the Lost mines of Karak) warforged soldiers from Sarshan and Bladeling troops of General Z's. Kinda forshadowed the whole extra planar bit, and set up the changed BtMT adventure with the warforged.
Didnt use the fist of Mourning Adventure.
Changed BoMT.
I played Haven pretty much as written. Although I made Telicanthus a half-elf. A githyanki was just was over the top.
I nixed the extended rest cubby-hole magic item Bejam gives the PC's in Nefelus. Instead I gave them each a potion that would give them an extended rest, seemed more fun that way. Watch out for the escape from the crumbling iceburg challenge, it's pretty deadly.
Changes a bunch of the encounters in stone skinned king, so the PC's wouldnt have to wait around too long to see the king. The Eladrin swordmage with the born under a bad sign backround, draws his epic destiny, Radiant one, from his dealings with the Skyshaper here.
We are currently halfway through Betrayal at Modahan.
-Blackivarr
In retrospect, I think the problem is that the module took too long to get to the Siege. Ideally, I believe the Siege should have been the entirety of the adventure, and the last adventure or two should have been dealing with the problems that plague Overlook before it's too late. It should feel like a siege, with the orcs, trolls and dragonspawn making up the lion's share of the army, along with a smattering of the forces the heroes saw in Umbraforge.
There's a part in the Red Hand of Doom where the PCs have to defend a part of Brindol from the marauders, and it's literally just three to five waves of bad guys, one after the other. That was a very cinematic moment, and while the first wave or two aren't bad, it's the fact that you're running out of resources as the fight goes on that makes it dangerous. That was what the Siege should have been, not the "tacked-on" battles we got.
I'm also glad to see that my suspicions on the insta-kill lava were borne out in your actual play. 5d10, the Hellcaller's attack and ongoing 10 fire is definitely powerful, but at that tier of play it shouldn't be instantly fatal. It'd almost certainly bloody people, but there should be sufficient healing to come back from that.
By the way, you should watch the lava in the tower itself as well. It's the exact same stuff that the party dealt with outside, so it should have its damage reduced as well. Add to this a bunch of things that have pushes and slides, and it's almost certain that something (PC, NPC or both!) is going over the edge.
I kept the lava damage as what it was, but made sure to let the players know that it was serious business. They'd already complained the the Blood Chaos was "weak," so it played right into what they expected. I encouraged them to make knowledge checks, and they found out the hellcaller could shove them into the lava with his burst. I was even meaner to my players by moving the skull lord from the previous encounter into this one. He had no undead to work with, but that fear effect sent the paladin running for the lava several times! Finally got him to fail his save and swim, and he just climbed back out unbloodied after the bard told him not to worry about it. It probably helped that I seeded the dragon hoard with some Black Iron Plate to give him resist 10 fire...
They used Stall Tactics to slow down the enemies and on round one the Ranger and Assassin conspired to yank the Duergar into the lava. I handed the Assassin the 10d10 I had already set aside and asked him to roll the damage. As everyone's eyes grew wide as they realized how many dice were in his hands, the party got down to business and whipped through one of the quickest, most efficient fights we've run. The Hellcaller never got an action because I made sure they knew what they were up against.
Then again, I'm a big fan of giving the party a lot of difficulties and then seeing what they do to get through them.
and even with an action point there was no way he was dying or going for a swim
With where he starts, a Bull Rush will put him in the lava. Come and Get It is an excellent puller that doesn't even need to hit.
i'm leaving the lava-blood chaos mix at full strength i've since decided, although i'm going to change the encounter by removing the centaur and githyanki (were these willing to be sacrificed in this way?) and replace them with summoned beings like demons and devils or elementals which are trapped here by magic.
i may add a vrock too, although i'm not sure whether the stunning power is a but excessive with this room being a time limit one anyway. basically i've got 1400xp to spend and am currently thinking vrock and fire lasher which has a push power too which should make the edges fun
I'm doing the Galleries encounter next as well (unless the Bard casts Eagle's Flight and takes the group straight to the roof, which feels likely enough that I'm also prepping the rooftop encounter). I really like your idea of putting in some summoned things in there. If I leave it with githyanki, they'll be doing a fighting retreat, but summoned things can just go all out. We're in the Elemental Chaos, we know Sarshan's connected to the Shadowfell, and the Gith to the Astral Sea. I'm inclined to make it a hodgepodge of beings from each of the five planes, to increase the "Sarshan knows everyone" vibe. Also, I think everyone's sick of fighting Githyanki... I'll give 'em a brief respite.
Also... who has a centaur figure? Furthermore, I like the idea of distancing Sarshan from the Fey, who were last seen fighting against Zithiruun. Makes Stone-Skinned King an easier sell, methinks...
i'm also planning to alter the last fight slightly as i will likely allow the githyanki a bash at pcs first with sarshan only joining in if attacked or the githyanki are all dead.
my intention is to lose one githyanki soldier and the two shadar kai, who at level 8 will do nothing really, and replace them with some form of bodyguard to sarshan probably some existing level 12 soldier or brute elited by adding paladin or fighter to it.
am thinking of a dragonborn paladin of tiamat to give him some form of meatshield. will probably play this as sarshan trying desperately to finish his ritual of teleportation, gives up only once pc's penetrate the shield.
i am going to reduce it's hps to 100 too but make it so you have to specifically target it so no bursts and blasts will affect it this way no one blow will disrupt it and the whole party will have to focus fire to get it down in one round more than likely
AC28 fort 26 ref&will 25 238hps
standard monster stuff but i took away the knocking prone with OA and +2 to hit if only adjacent to one enemy as i intend her to dive into as many pcs as possible.
reskinned all powers to be necrotic instead of radiant.
got challenging strike at will , more accurate once bloodied.
valorous smite to sanction lots of pcs
divine reverence to daze lots of pcs
ardent vow build of course, no laying on hands!
necrotic pulse daily, nice minor action sustain encourages tactical dazing
utilities call of challenge and flare of divine vengeance.
this is more of a slayer of tiamats enemies who happens to be meeting sarshan for other stuff and finds him fleeing.
this also gives me someone to wear the magical plate and gauntlets for the treasure parcels:-)
but i'm going to play fight by ear with when to bring her and sarshan in, depending on how easily they're kicking ass on sarshan and also whether they pre-empt them entering the fray early by attacking them