Hi folks,
The PCs in my Legacy of the Crystal Shard campaign have embarked upon a rescue mission. The leader of the dwarven refugees in Icewind Dale, Dain Stokely Silverstream, has asked them to attempt to free his niece, Helda Silverstream, from the clutches of the corrupted dwarves in the Halls of Black Ice. While the module hints at such an eventuality, it does not provide any details, so I have decided to use a modified version of iserith's "I Am the Lizard King!" scenario.
Firstly, iserith's scenario is intended to challenge four 8th level PCs. I have six 4th level PCs, so I need some other DMs to look over what I've got proposed to make sure it's not too unwinnable a scenario.
- Fire genasi battle master fighter
- Fire genasi moon druid
- Lightfoot halfling wild mage sorcerer
- Half-elf arcane trickster rogue
- Human tribal warrior (NPC ally)
NB. The monk and the fighter both have received a divine blessing with the effect of a potion of heroism with a 24 hour duration to help them resist the effects of the black ice. [The others didn't accept the terms and conditions for various reasons and thus didn't receive the blessing.] The monk also has a ring of warmth, granting him resistance to cold damage. Meanwhile, the sorcerer was recently raised from the dead, but the rest of the party did not give her any time to recover, so she is still suffering the full -4 penalty to all her d20 rolls.
EDIT: I should add that I've allowed all the PCs to add their Con scores to their base hit points as well, so they're a bit tougher than the average 4th level PC.
I sent Iserith a quick message over at Twitter just now...I imagine he will have some good suggestions to help out if needed. 
Akeisha wrote:
Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
I was thinking that, with the tougher option, maybe rather than make it either a clay golem or a flesh golem, I could just stick with the flesh golem but make it so, if the PCs succeed in rescuing Helda, it starts off as berserk (because the ritual didn't work properly) and may attack the dwarves and the cultist as well as the PCs.
It's mathematically too hard. How good are your players?
bawylie wrote:
Look, the math is best understood as an expression of possibility. In other words, a "deadly" encounter isn't concretely a slaughter fest, however, given average outputs on Attacks, damage, & healing, you can reasonably expect a deadly encounter to kill some folks.
Doesnt mean it will - it only means it's more likely to than not.
So the schools of thought are to do nothing and let the players' cleverness and the will of the dice gods have their way, or tailor & tinker until the expected or desired output is more likely than not.
If I were your DM, the first one or two encounters would be very tightly scripted to be moderate & hard. After which time, there would be hard signs that throw the idea of encounter balance out.
"This is the objective, these are the obstacles, if you tackle them head-on you will likely die, what do you do?"
But if i were DM-ing for people I don't know? Much, more tinkering. Until they're ready for the training wheels to come off. (Which is the point at which their approach means/weighs more than the mathematical output).
Here's what I mean. Go to the Summer at the Lake and review the encounter where we defend the shoreline from dretches and the frog demon.
Kanati has 16 Str, 16 con, & 17 AC. All very modest for a Barbarian. BC winning the encounter meant defending the shore, Kanati's decision to hold off the demon gave the party the freedom to defend the shore. Even though, given time, the Demon would've killed him, he only needed to last as long as it took to hold a position. After which time, with 4 on 1 - there was a better than likely shot we could've prevailed vs the demon. Or 3 on 1 of Kanati went down.
So our approach to the fight meant more than the raw numbers and expected outputs. Also the inherent dramatic question - Can we save the town from Attack? - set win/lose conditions apart from HP attrition.
You follow me?
For the record, by the numbers, the encounter to which bawylie is referring is 10,750 XP, "Hard" for 4x 10th-level PCs. The only character who actually lost hit points in that encounter was Kanati.
bawylie wrote:
I think the key is that if you're going to go "over budget," then the stakes need to be something other than life and death (of the PCs).
iserith wrote:
pukunui wrote:
iserith wrote:
pukunui wrote:
The AC and CR value on the custom creatures do not feel right to me. I don't have my DMG with me to verify. Did you cross reference the defensive CR and offensive CR with the table in the back of the DMG? For offensive CR I'm not sure of Reckless is listed in the table to increase the effective bonus to hit. Please consider the damage resistance of the golem in the defensive CR for the creature. I'll check the math at about 6:00 CST.
iserith wrote:
If the PCs are getting hammered early on, have a dwarf run off to "get help". This makes the fight a bit easier but also places a strategic lime limit - in addition to the tactical time limit - on the scenario.
(I once accidentally created a Gamma World combat where the PCs beat the enemy but they were too slowed-down by injuries to escape the avalanche set off during the fight.)
Is there a way to disrupt the ritual, besides rescuing the sacrifice? Doing so could also disrupt the wind wall, making THAT person easier to engage.
I definitely like having the Ice Golem attacking its creators. Doesn't black ice make you aggressive and paranoid? Read the chapter from the original Frankenstein where the Creature describes his Awakening, and filter that material through the black ice's effects.
BRJN wrote:
I've done a little more tweaking to Baerick and the golem.
For the golem, I've just given it the white dragon's Ice Walk ability.
For Baerick, I gave him back Multiattack, and made his maul a +1 wicked magic weapon, so that bumped him back up to CR 3. I think that'll be OK, especially since it looks like I'm back up to 6 players again. I also made it so his black ice plate armor gives him resistance to cold. If any of the PCs attune to it, they'll be cursed with a randomly determined form of indefinite madness.
EDIT: I've also made it so the altar gives Helda levels of exhaustion instead of draining her hit points because I don't really want the PCs to be able to heal her up good as new with a cure wounds spell or some such thing. She should be in bad shape after having her life drained away by a magic ritual.
pukunui wrote:
BRJN wrote:
Pukunui, thanks very much for posting this! My players will be coming to the Halls of Black Ice soon and I will definitely use this encounter. Great stuff. How did it go for your group?
And thanks to Iserith too, for his excellent Lizard King scenario.
Waghalter wrote:
pukunui wrote:
I don't know that the encounter itself was too difficult per se. I think it was more that we were down a few players, and the missing PCs were the main spellcasters in the group. Some of the players also felt I didn't do a good enough job conveying the urgency of getting Helda off the altar ASAP, so they went and fought Baerick and the dwarves at the forges (which I had reduced to two rather than four). I think the party may have actually succeeded, too, if I hadn't had the golem activate in berserk mode. That was probably a mistake on my part. Although the corrupting effect of the black ice may have been enough to spell the end of the party on its own. So who knows really? To be honest, I think we were all getting kind of sick of the campaign anyway.
pukunui wrote:
No worries. I'd be keen to know how your group gets on.