Had a session last night which started halfway through the monastery and ended after The Gauntlet.
"Into the Depths" encounter, going down the staircases in the big cave, was a blast. The orc bolt throwers were pretty potent, since the push one square effect of their attacks often meant they could try to push the PCs off the edge of a staircase or platform. Several PCs had to make saves to avoid that, and the paladin failed! But she was able to survive the 4d10 damage from the fall. At the same time the party was able to slide one bolt-thrower off the edge to his death, and also pushed the Orog off. So there was a dramatic single combat between the Orog and the paladin on the cavern floor while the rest of the party finished the battle above. Pretty cool!
On the other hand, "The Gauntlet" was a disappointment. Part of this was due to some poor choices I made running it, but I feel like I didn't get great support from the written adventure. The root of the problem was the advice, "If the party finishes off the orcs in the first room easily, assume the trap is already triggered."
Particularly since the avenger's passive Perception was enough to auto-spot the pressure plates, I took this advice... but hang on. If the crossbow turrets were already active, the arguing orcs in the first room would have been in range of one or two of them... so why weren't they being shot at? Ok, so I decided that the turrets would only pop down and activate when someone was in the hallway there at the bottom of the steps. But when the avenger went down alone, he was targeted by three of the turrets right off the bat, and felt cheated that he hadn't touched the pressure plates. Then when he retreated, the turrets hid again - this prevented the party from standing in a safe zone and blasting them, but still felt cheap and artificial.
Eventually they reached a strategy of all running down to the other end of the room as quickly as possible, getting out of the range of all but one turret, and fighting the defenders and arbalester there. This led to the strange spectacle of almost all of the party using action points to get another move action, for "triple moves".
They didn't have too much trouble after that, but it all felt weird and was a bit frustrating for the players. In retrospect, it would have been better if I just let them avoid the pressure plates and left the turrets out of it. But the whole thing seems kind of poorly designed. Like the 6-success required thievery skill challenge to disable the turrets - is anyone going to succeed at that? Even if you have two thievery-trained characters (unlikely) it seems nearly impossible to do that while being blasted by the turrets and the homonculi...
It's perfectly reasonable for the party to be able to avoid an encounter through superior skills and strategy. If the avenger spots the pressure plates and the party avoids them, that's fine. I agree that having the trap pre-triggered doesn't make a lot of sense.
If the party is able to avoid setting off the traps, then award them some xp. If however, they engage the arbalaster and iron defenders, that will set off the trap to (perhaps put a pressure plate in the guard zone for the arbalaster to step on to set it off and give a reason for it to be active). From what I read in the MM under homonculi, the arbalaster might not attack unless someone enters it's guard area, which is a 5x5 square area. Which actually means, if the party hugs the wall opposite the control panel (placed in the guard area), they could conceivably bypass the arbalaster and the traps.
The group I was running spotted the initial plates, but I had placed extras. They didn't see those, but it didn't matter as the rogue started trying to disable the plates and messed up on one of them, setting off the trap. The warden engaged the arbalaster and defenders, marking them so they concentrated on him. The rogue went to work on the control panel and used an action point to get two successful skill checks in to disable the control panel. He was still targeted by one of the turrents, but I spread out the attacks so each turrent targeted a different character. And the dwarf got off scott free :P Since the trap and homonculi won't target dwarves.
However, the DCs for spotting and disabling are 2 points higher than the trap as written in the DMG (page 88). That was something the party was a little annoyed at, but it wasn't a large change at least.
It's perfectly reasonable for the party to be able to avoid an encounter through superior skills and strategy. If the avenger spots the pressure plates and the party avoids them, that's fine. I agree that having the trap pre-triggered doesn't make a lot of sense.
Yeah, too bad the module actually advises you to have it pre-triggered. 
And even if it isn't pre-triggered, the orcs did previously set it off when they passed through. So what shut it off? Because again, it makes no sense for the orcs to stand around arguing in range of the turrets if it's not shut off.
Despite it's advice, if you as DM feel it should be done differently, certainly do so! It's your game after all and the module provides the framework in some regards. Having the orcs stand around arguing in range of active turrents is like having a tea party in an active firing range 
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Also, be aware of the other errors in this and other adventures. One of the biggest ones is in the next encounter for your group. Make sure to include the Brass Key on the dark creeper and having the Sending Stone in Jen's hand helps lead in to the next adventure some. Though my party has pretty much ignored the Sending Stone totally...
1. If someone's Perception is high enough to spot the plates, reward them by letting them notice.
2. If you don't want your group to be able to slide down the hallway, move the Arbalester over 1 sq.
3. Move the turrents, if you want them active.
4. Why are the PCs looking in the DMG to see what DCs are supposed to be? And who says you can't raise them by +2 by using pg. 42?
2. If you don't want your group to be able to slide down the hallway, move the Arbalester over 1 sq.
4. Why are the PCs looking in the DMG to see what DCs are supposed to be? And who says you can't raise them by +2 by using pg. 42?
2. That would still leave a space as the guard area should be 5x5 and the hallway is 6 squares wide. Course, what adventurer is likely to pass up a potential target and perceived threat? :P
4. They weren't but its a factor of if you DM long enough, then as a player you know what the approximate range to expect is. Also, at that level DC 27 and 25 is on the very high side for heroic tier in general. Once the question was raised about the DC being so high (good roll was still a failure), I looked it up in the DMG and found the difference. The rogue still blew his check regardless which set off the trap.
Despite it's advice, if you as DM feel it should be done differently, certainly do so! It's your game after all and the module provides the framework in some regards. Having the orcs stand around arguing in range of active turrents is like having a tea party in an active firing range
Of course!
My frustration stems from the fact I didn't see these issues coming up ahead of time, and when they became clear during play, I was already "boxed in" by things that had already been established in the description. That's part of what motivated me to post this, as a head's up for other DMs.
2. By reading the encounter again, the Arbalester guards "an area" which isn't described except "in front of the doors", so the adventurers can't actually get to the doors without setting off the Arbalester. So there.
Anyone think that 4 attacks per round from the trap is too many?
If I were to run the skill challenge again, I would have all of the turrets pop up , but only two attack a round. That would give the encounter 5 attackers.
And for fun, if a skill check was failed, I would add in another one to shoot, so 2 failures and then all 4 would shoot.
I also ran this encounter recently, but it ended up being a great moment. Here is what I did.
First, one of the PCs has a high enough Passive Perception to notice the pressure plates. Unfortunately, that PC has the second lowest initiative score. (Hint to players, make sure the guy with the highest initiative has the highest perception.) In any case, the first player moved across the pressure plates. Oops!! If the other PC had gone first, then I would have made the single retreating enemy turn on the trap.
Second, my group doesn't have a character that is trained in Thievery. Needless to say, that makes this encounter incredibly difficult. Basically, the PCs have to get to the end of the room and out the door without fighting the bad guys. But PCs never do this, because they want to kill the bad guys!! My Solution: Well, the PCs saved Kalad the Paladin in the catacombs, and he is running along with them. Fortunately, he knows how to disable the trap from the control panel!! Unfortunately, he rolled a 5 on initiative, and he is really slow.
The encounter played out very well. The PCs moved into the corridor, and got shot at by the crossbows, but they had Kalad run down the corridor as fast as he could, using his action point to run, and he turned off the trap. This did do a lot of damage to the PCs, but it was very exciting.
hmm how would folks handle a Changeling that is disguised as a Dwarf with these traps?
I had that exact issue. I considered whether the magic of the trap would detect the difference or not. In the end, I let the character make a bluff check in a similar manner to Changling Trick. Assigned a moderate to high DC of 25 (though didn't tell them that). When they made it, I let the trap consider them as a Dwarf and would not target them.
Which left one turrent not targeting anyone as there were only three other targets and I was having the trap target one turrent at each and not doubling up.
i would have let the trap target him personlly.
in the 3rd module there are creatures that attack only shadow origin creatures. the changeling in my group did not change to a shadar kai, but if he had it would not have helped him in this situation. imo
I would reward the player creativity. Changlings should gain something from being able to change.
My group went through with 2 dwarfs and didn't figure out why they weren't being targeted.
It can just move right?
Description also says a crossbow with legs :P
If the party manages to not trip the crossbow trap, there is no reason for them to enter the guarded area and engage the arbalaster. Nor is there a reason for the arbalaster to attack unless attacked first by ranged weapons if the party stays out of it's guarded area. It doesn't make a lot of sense for the arbalaster to open fire on anyone entering the entire hallway, nor moving outside of it's guarded area.
I saw it as primarily guarding the switch to turn the crossbow turrents off. If the turrents are triggered and attacked, then I could definitely see it launching it's own attacks. And yes, there is no reason for it not to attack non-dwarves that enter it's range so if you want it to do that, sure. It might also draw the players in to trigger the crossbow turrents as they rush towards the immediately visible threat. Though because it is primarily a construct designed to guard, I would wait til they were actually in the corridor (i.e. down the stairs).
The idea of slipping past it would be based on an individual DM's choice as to whether it would open fire on non-dwarves on sight or only when they enter it's guarded area.
INstead, my wizard player nuked the entire encounter with a single flaming sphere.
By placing the sphere on the stairs, hiding behind the fighter and letting the ranger and warlord snipe the oncoming orcs, they turned the encounter into three rounds of my orcs retreating, running for momma. It was possibly the most depressing thing I've dealt with in 4E so far.
Yes, I'm aware that the wizard executed his job flawlessly, and absolutely, I know the players are supposed to win. It's also worth mentioning that my group took pity on me, and during their extended rest, decided to push forward into the dungeon, KNOWING that I would have ambushes and fortifications in place. They could have just wandered off and derailed everything.
My suggestion to anyone else running this one: consider how you'll deal with that sort of impenetrable barrier. Orcs make lousy acrobats.