KotS
- The 'Boss,' an evil caster named Kalarel, is an overleveled (n+4) Elite Controller.
- Though his high level already makes him frustratingly hard to hit, he's given a terrain feature (a magic circle) that boosts all his defenses by +2.
- The party reaches Kalarel after a series of unavoidable encounters, through a single, unusual entrance to his lair (a pit).
- Kalarel's lair is a temple to Orcus.
- Kalarel has another controller and a couple of soldiers as allies, and lets the allies attack the party first, before taking a hand, himself.
- Kallarel has another ally, The Thing in the Portal, that is unattackable, yet uses it's Threatening Reach 3 to drag PCs through the portal to CERTAIN DEATH, in defiance of 4e design goals to avoid arbitrary 'save or die' effects to keep things 'fun.'
- Kallarel's overleveled attack bonus means he hits at least 75% of the time - with some attacks, vs some PCs, he may litterally need to roll a '1' to miss - with a Controller's classically frustrating condition-inflicting powers..
- Kallarel's ultra-high terrain-enhanced n+4 controller defenses take the party from the standard 'hitting on 10 or ll' to hitting on a 16 or17,' which means they hit about half as often as they should. Combined with his Elite hps, that means he sticks around 4x as long as a normal monster - long enough for the party to tap out it's encounters & dailies, reducing the end of the encounter to a 'padded sumo' grindfest. To make matters worse, one of his allies is unattackable, so, there'll be two foes to recieve damage (and CERTAIN DEATH) from, the whole time.
My party literally scoffed when they realized that upon exiting Winterhaven they were fighting in the exact same ambush on the exact same map as they had on arriving there. After that it got a little better, but not much:
The Keep's Levels:
Level 1... Goblin guards. Pit trap. Drake pet. An Ooze. Skeletons that come alive.
Level 2... Hobgoblin guards. Blade trap. Spider pet. A gel cube. Corpses that come alive.
Level 2... Hobgoblin guards. Blade trap. Spider pet. A gel cube. Corpses that come alive.
FWIW, H2 did have
some material that was very different from H1. Particularly in combining traps or environmental hazards with monsters to make more dynamic encounters. However, it too suffered from repetition in that regard. There were no less than 4 rooms were pillars/statues zapped you with various magical effects. It was a cool bit, but, rather than mixing in other cool bits, they just beat that one to death.
H2 has a nice setting and can be used for other purposes than just that adventure. It has some interesting encounters, which showcase features of the new edition, like traps and hazards combined with monsters.
Buying H3 isn't a waste, though (for me)...I can scavenge the encounters and maps for other things, and use the inspirations about what to use together.
Btw, the final monster is of course a spellcaster with control powers like you suspect
Not bothering with spoiler buttons here, anyone reading this far into the thread should have fair warning about H1 and H2 spoilers:
1. The statue that dazes party members at the beginning is a doozy, but it does one thing well... it foils parties that line up at the entryway and alpha nova strike with their dailys + AP on the first round with ranged attacks. In our game the cleric and wizard both got in range of the statue, unleashed a devastating barrage of encounter/daily blasts, supported by the insane AP bonus a taclord gives, and put down sustainable powers. This has been done before and utterly destroyed tough encounters, but it didn't do that great this time. Normally getting dazed in a zone is not a big deal, simply use your one action to move out of the area of effect or spend an action point to move out and still do what you want.. but since both characters had put up their sustain dailies (spiritual hammer and stinking cloud) previously AND their action points in the first round they were screwed. They only had one action and both of them were totally unwilling to stop sustaining their dailies. The area of effect of the statue is about 10% of the battlefield, it's purpose as one of the other players figured out early on is to get the players to move around (namely out of the bad spot) and break up everyone's formation a little bit, which is 100% in the design of 4e... to force players to move around and not shell up at the doorway and screw the bad guys in the rest of the room with a nasty wall/sustainable aoe.
One thing that does suck about the statue is it is completely indestructible, and there is no warning at all about what it does. I overruled the module and gave the players a little bit of a head's up - as one party member got within 3 squares I had it's eye light up, and the eye and the statue started glowing more and more menacingly as more and more players approached. I had hoped someone would pick up on the clue that - hey, it's not a good idea for too many people to stand so close. The wizard player asked if she could roll arcana to see what the statue did, and I said sure but it would be a standard action to make the check, and she didn't want to waste her chance and high initiative roll to make a preemptive AOE strike.
2. Paldamar's strongest defense is an AC of 25... which is like 1 point higher than Kalarel's, but he's being faced by players 3 levels higher than Kalarel was faced. I agree Kalarel was ridiculous, but Paldamar is in line with a good BBEG. The ranger missed him on a 7, barely... the rogue was hitting him with a 12.
3. A BBEG with a very strong defense lets characters with auto hit abilities, such as wizards, shine. An n+4 elite (totally in line with what the DMG prescribes as a climactic enemy) has less hit points than a solo (Paldamar has less than 200hp) so stuff like cloud of daggers, zones, and even reaping strike, have an effect on him. OTOH if you make the BBEG a lower defense solo with a huge pile of hit points then characters get the fun of hitting more often but then cloud of daggers, reaping strike, etc. are not as useful.
4. Paldamar has ZERO close abilities, other than a melee attack with his staff, so he provokes opportunity attacks like crazy one melees get close to him, making him go down much faster than Kalarel.
5. Paldamar's two bread and butter attacks just do AOE damage, and don't have controller inducing status effects. They are a lot of damage, but 6th level characters are also quite resilient. Paldamar does have one attack that removes the ability to do at-will and encounter powers (save ends) but it does no damage that round. All in all I think he's a much better BBEG than Kalarel
6. The route to Paldamar is linear, so what? H2 is a little more open ended than H1, and I think the better for it, but this is the final battle of the module, and the party has to go through a couple encounters without a chance to rest to soften them up before reaching him. That one portion is linear, but it's the final 10% of the module. Most adventures have at least a portion of it be a series of linear scheduled encounters to reach an objective.
7. The curtains that give Palamar +2 to defenses is lame, but I felt more for flavor reasons? Bed curtains that radiate +2 to defense? Really? Is that what BBEG's spend their hard earned tribute on? I didn't use it when I ran the encounter. The purpose is that if the characters pin Palamar in his bedroom early somehow, they can't just completely hose him and trivialize the final encounter. Paldamar actually prefers not to fight next to his bed.
8. The thing behind the portal in KOTS isn't certain death. He has a reach of 3, and only slides a character 1 on a hit. A character doesn't die unless he goes through the portal, and the module allows a character to survive if he is on the space of the portal, it's beyond that that he's gone. Also the character gets a save to avoid being pulled in. So it's much more in line with 4e design - slowly bit by bit pull a character to his death over a couple rounds, rather than one-shotting the character. (True an insane character can start their turn on the very edge of the portal and die in 2 rounds, but 4e can't completely coddle a reckless character).
9. The room hazards in H2's final battle are NOT given xp awards and factored into the XP budget. This is a serious design flaw, and the encounter is much harder than printed on the module. I accounted for it when running the game, but a DM running as is for a 5 character party probably has a signficantly higher chance of seeing a TPK.
10. Kalarel's hit bonuses are high, but not auto hits. Paldamar's are insanely high. I guess that makes up for his lack of status effects and evasiveness, but it is a little ridiculous to still hit characters when I roll a 4.
11. I won't get into it, but Tony's group made a few serious tactical errors that almost bought them a TPK, there was a LOT of room for things to go better on that fight.
Anyways, I liked H2 a lot. I think it was a good mix of enemies and decisions. There wasn't enough solos (only one green dragon that unfortunately the party bypassed) and there wasn't many minions (I had to add some minions in at a couple points). But the storyline I thought was interesting and the setting was very cool. The players were guessing all the way until the end what was up with the Mages of Saruun and Paldamar, and they found ways outside of the module to deal with the situations.
Tony is just sore that him and his party got their asses kicked ;) They nearly had a TPK, and the rogue ended up dead.
While I was upset by the cluster**** that was the final battle in H2, that had more to do with my screwing up. As the leader - in both senses of the word - of my party, there were several things I could have done to save us that I hesitated too long to put into action, and therefore /couldn't/ pull off. I'd been concerned about being 'too bossy' and the other players had some specific things they clearly wanted to get in.
But, there were also aspects of the encounter that still seemed out of line, even upon reflection. And, there was the always wierd random factor. This time it was the cleric rolling like her player was using a d12, not a d20.
They had a rough time with the prior encounters and totally botched the skill challenge at the beginning so they were coming in short on surges and dailies.
In retrospect, we jumped to the conclusion that each character had to make some sort of knowledge check, when, I think, we could actually have concentrated on our best skills. The problem was, even when we pulled out our best skills we rolled complete crap. History is my warlord's highest skill, and it sees virtually 0 use - the 2nd time it comes up in 6 levels, and the only time in a skill challenge, I roll a 3.
1. The statue that dazes party members at the beginning is a doozy, but it does one thing well... it foils parties that line up at the entryway and alpha nova strike with their dailys + AP on the first round with ranged attacks.In our game the cleric and wizard both got in range of the statue, unleashed a devastating barrage of encounter/daily blasts, supported by the insane AP bonus a taclord gives, and put down sustainable powers. This has been done before and utterly destroyed tough encounters, but it didn't do that great this time.
This is funny, because earlier that week I'd been having a rather strident discussion about the merits of the Inspring warlord. One point that I kept trying to make was that, while the taclord's offensive boost allows a party to do even better when thier doing well anyway (as when winning initiative and laying down an alpha strike), they really can't do much to save them when things go horribly wrong. A party with an inspiring warlord wouldn't have burned action points in the first round (no warlord bonus), and would have not only had APs to escape the daze area with, they'd get a free save with a huge bonus upon spending those APs, very likely getting thier full turns back.
But, I /already knew that/! Fate had no business rubbing my powergamed 18-INT taclord's nose in it. (Well, OK, maybe some business...)
8. The thing behind the portal in KOTS isn't certain death.
I just meant passing /through/ the portal is CERTAIN DEATH. Sure, you can stay away from the Thing, or make a save at the last second to be prone right in front of it, but going through still = death. That's feels like a 3e 'save or die' to me.
9. The room hazards in H2's final battle are NOT given xp awards and factored into the XP budget. This is a serious design flaw, and the encounter is much harder than printed on the module.
Which wasn't so bad for our large party - and, as usual, you did a good job adjusting the challenge.
But, later, I was thinking about the statue, and I realized what was really nuts about it. It didn't just affect everything around it like a zone or environmental hazard. It attacked PCs only. And did it, on thier turns. It was like having 7 untouchable monsters on the board who all readied daze-inflicting attacks every round, to daze everyone in the party. In the Well of Demons, for instance, there were 'hazard' pillars in one room that did things every bit - if not more - obnoxious than dazing you. But, they did those things to anything in the area they were hazarding, they didn't do the same thing every round, and they did it /once/ per round, on an initiative. Those were 'good' magical untouchable area hazards that zap you to break the environment up and keep things interesting.
10. Kalarel's hit bonuses are high, but not auto hits. Paldamar's are insanely high. I guess that makes up for his lack of status effects and evasiveness, but it is a little ridiculous to still hit characters when I roll a 4.
If a normal monster hits on a 10, an n+4 will hit on a 6. If it's attacking weaker defenses, hitting on a 4 is no surprise. While an n+4 (or more) encounter might be workable, I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that the level of individual monster that can be sent against a party while keeping the game in it's 'sweet spot' is in a pretty narrow range. n+/-2 is probably about it. The DMG has encounter examples with individuals as high as n+5 or 6, which'd be untennable, IMHO, and certainly no fun (missing 80% of the time just isn't fun).
11. I won't get into it, but Tony's group made a few serious tactical errors that almost bought them a TPK, there was a LOT of room for things to go better on that fight.
As I said at the top, I blew the leadership thing on this one in two major instances, at least (the leader role, and the position of actual leadership my character has in the party). However, asside from that, the decisions that the other players made, at the times they made them, were generally as good as could be expected. In /retrospect/ there were certainly many better ones - and many perfectly good attempts were ruined by bad rolls - but by and large, they did about as well as they could have as far as individual decisions were concerned. Indeed, as far as the other characters' individual choices, it was what were /good/ tactics, based on the situation & information at the time, that hurt us the most.
The alpha strike is an example. It's a good tactic, in general, and it was well-employed, taking out an enemy of a type that we knew from experience could substantially degrade our effectiveness if we let it get in a few rounds of actions. That there was another enemy that was an even greater threat in that regard - and untouchable, to boot - was unknown to us at the time. It's a 'gotchya' like the old 1e cursed items - a dire mistake only in retrospect.
Anyways, I liked H2 a lot. I think it was a good mix of enemies and decisions. There wasn't enough solos (only one green dragon that unfortunately the party bypassed) and there wasn't many minions (I had to add some minions in at a couple points). But the storyline I thought was interesting and the setting was very cool. The players were guessing all the way until the end what was up with the Mages of Saruun and Paldamar, and they found ways outside of the module to deal with the situations.
Up until the Tower of Secrets, I was impressed with H2. It really mixed things up. Each area had a unique feel, and you were taken from one to another without really feeling you were being railroaded. The two elements I didn't like were the Tower of Secrets, and the Mages of Saruun. Really, it was clear that helping these guys was the whole point of the module, yet Orintar was such a jerk, and the whole system of the 7-pillared hall was so morally grey, that letting Paldomar gank the lot of 'em was never that unapealing a proposition. In fact, the bright side of the whole thing was that neither Paldomar nor Orintar survived.
But, y'know, part of the social contract of a game is that you accept, as a player, that there are just some plot points you have to roll with - of course, in return, there are some lines the game won't cross either. Like you won't have to fight a 23rd level monster at 7th. That kinda thing. It's really kinda silly when you think about it - your 'heroic' characters are going around, getting embroiled in things that might be quite out of character for some of them at any given time, and consistently facing 'terrible odds' that are, in fact, carefully stacked in thier favor. But if it weren't for that, it'd be too much like real life to be any fun at all.
That's where I feel the final encounters in both modules failed a bit. They crossed that invisible line. Presented things that were outside the parameters the players should be ready for. 4e is not supposed to have 'save or die' effects - especially not at 3rd or 4th level. (a 'certain death' zone, with a save to avoid being dragged into it qualifies as 'save or die' in my book) The 4e saving throw mechanic is supposed to limit the fun-suck of a character having actions dictated or taken away from him for too long. (a hazard that inflicts a condition at the start of your turn, every round, renders the save you make at the end of your round, and any save granted by an ally between your rounds /meaningless/) The 'economy of actions' is supposed to keep things challenging, dynamic, and flowing - and fun. The 4e 'treadmill' is supposed to keep the chance of hitting and being hit outside the 'foregone conclusion' range, so you feel like each roll matters. (overlevelled individual monsters, even if a 'reasonable' challenge in theory, render the majority of actions taken by the party futile and drag the combat out in 'padded sumo' mode).
But, objections to the apropriateness of it all aside, that's still a pattern there, i'n'it?
While I was upset by the cluster**** that was the final battle in H2, that had more to do with my screwing up. As the leader - in both senses of the word - of my party, there were several things I could have done to save us that I hesitated too long to put into action, and therefore /couldn't/ pull off. I'd been concerned about being 'too bossy' and the other players had some specific things they clearly wanted to get in.
There are 6 other players in the game besides you. If one of them screws up it’s NOT your fault. Don’t worry so much…
But, there were also aspects of the encounter that still seemed out of line, even upon reflection. And, there was the always wierd random factor. This time it was the cleric rolling like her player was using a d12, not a d20.
There was the rogue that missed 3 out of 4 death saving throws, the cleric that was dazed for 3 rounds AFTER leaving the statue zone… but then Paldamar rolled a couple 1s and a 2 near the end of the fight. If you are going to have wild swings of fortune I guess it’s better to be lucky at the end of a game than at the beginning heh…
In retrospect, we jumped to the conclusion that each character had to make some sort of knowledge check, when, I think, we could actually have concentrated on our best skills. The problem was, even when we pulled out our best skills we rolled complete crap. History is my warlord's highest skill, and it sees virtually 0 use - the 2nd time it comes up in 6 levels, and the only time in a skill challenge, I roll a 3.
That skill challenge is weird. I haven’t been running skill challenges 100% by the book, because I do think that takes a RP session and distills it into a boardgame… but a couple bad rolls aside, there were several players that were completely flummuxxed by what to say to the apparition of Vecna. If we had a transcript of the way the conversation went between a spectral representative of Vecna and a party of adventurers intent on storming into his servants secret tower… Even without rolls I could not see any reason at all why the party would be even allowed entrance in the first place…
From a design perspective, and I really should have seen this in retrospect, taking away daily and encounter powers for the rest of the adventure is a horrible penalty for failure. Players like to use their powers, and there is enough (valid) criticism of 4e that combats degenerate into at will/basic attacks too often as it is, that taking away 2 powers per character takes out some of the fun of the game. I probably should have figured out an alternate penalty and applied that instead.
This is funny, because earlier that week I'd been having a rather strident discussion about the merits of the Inspring warlord. One point that I kept trying to make was that, while the taclord's offensive boost allows a party to do even better when thier doing well anyway (as when winning initiative and laying down an alpha strike), they really can't do much to save them when things go horribly wrong. A party with an inspiring warlord wouldn't have burned action points in the first round (no warlord bonus), and would have not only had APs to escape the daze area with, they'd get a free save with a huge bonus upon spending those APs, very likely getting thier full turns back.
But, I /already knew that/! Fate had no business rubbing my powergamed 18-INT taclord's nose in it. (Well, OK, maybe some business...)
Hey, now you have some more ammunition for your arguments at least! You’re welcome...
It will be interesting to see the differences in action when I play my Inspiring Warlord in the next game. There is one player moaning already about how much he will miss the +attack bonus when spending an action point…
I just meant passing /through/ the portal is CERTAIN DEATH. Sure, you can stay away from the Thing, or make a save at the last second to be prone right in front of it, but going through still = death. That's feels like a 3e 'save or die' to me.
Ok, well come on here. There is a portal to the Shadowfell. It is marked on the map. Does any player actually want to go stand next to that feature? Even if he does and is slid 1 by the thing, he is placed on a square inside the portal and is STILL safe. Only if he is slid 1 more square next round AND fails a save does he die. There has to be some allowance for Darwinian evolution here. And heck the DM could simply just say the character is sucked into the Shadowfell and make the next adventure take place there if he is a forgiving DM…
But, later, I was thinking about the statue, and I realized what was really nuts about it. It didn't just affect everything around it like a zone or environmental hazard. It attacked PCs only. And did it, on thier turns. It was like having 7 untouchable monsters on the board who all readied daze-inflicting attacks every round, to daze everyone in the party. In the Well of Demons, for instance, there were 'hazard' pillars in one room that did things every bit - if not more - obnoxious than dazing you. But, they did those things to anything in the area they were hazarding, they didn't do the same thing every round, and they did it /once/ per round, on an initiative. Those were 'good' magical untouchable area hazards that zap you to break the environment up and keep things interesting.
Well there is a certain thematic appropriateness here. The earlier hazards were in an area devoted to Baphomet, a god of chaotic slaughter whose hazards and relics all indicate that collateral damage is not only expected, but even encouraged!
The latest hazards were from Vecna, the god of secrets and magic. Draining abilities and selective targeting sound more appropriate for him, than for Baphomet.
If a normal monster hits on a 10, an n+4 will hit on a 6. If it's attacking weaker defenses, hitting on a 4 is no surprise. While an n+4 (or more) encounter might be workable, I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that the level of individual monster that can be sent against a party while keeping the game in it's 'sweet spot' is in a pretty narrow range. n+/-2 is probably about it. The DMG has encounter examples with individuals as high as n+5 or 6, which'd be untennable, IMHO, and certainly no fun (missing 80% of the time just isn't fun).
Well, Paldamar’s AC is 25. The rogue regularly gets +13 to his attacks, the fighter swings at +13, the ranger attacks at +13 as well so they only miss 55% of the time. And that’s before people put down powers that give a bonus to hit, or combat advantage…
Up until the Tower of Secrets, I was impressed with H2. It really mixed things up. Each area had a unique feel, and you were taken from one to another without really feeling you were being railroaded. The two elements I didn't like were the Tower of Secrets, and the Mages of Saruun. Really, it was clear that helping these guys was the whole point of the module, yet Orintar was such a jerk, and the whole system of the 7-pillared hall was so morally grey, that letting Paldomar gank the lot of 'em was never that unapealing a proposition. In fact, the bright side of the whole thing was that neither Paldomar nor Orintar survived.
Funny, but I like it when things are a little more grey. Not every city has to have a kindly, worthy lord that is in trouble and needs heroes to the rescue. There is enough of that in Winterfell, Fallcrest, and Harkenwold. The seven pillared hall is another entity entirely and I welcome the change. Orontar and the Mages of Saruun are not goody-goodies, the players have to decide for themselves if helping them against Paldamar is something they would want to do. I see several motivations:
1. Paldamar tried to assassinate the party – revenge is one motivator
2. Orontar offered a reward – a basic motivator
3. While there may be no love for Orontar, there might be others in the 7 pillared hall that the players might be concerned about. Paldamar has connections with the gnolls who are clearly evil. Putting a stop to him might be something a good character would want to do, despite the other considerations.
4. Curiosity? Why is Paldamar a threat? Is he? Do I care what’s going on?
5. Going along because your companions want to do it and they need your help.
Your character was in it to rescue the Nentir Vale citizens. Accomplishing that, you weren’t suitably impressed with Orontar to continue. I get it. Just because YOUR character isn’t suitably motivated to find and confront Paldamar, doesn’t mean that the others in the group feel the same. There are 6 other players. Even if the other players have more base motivations, loyalty to them would indicate a hesitant acceptance of going forward wouldn’t it?
But, y'know, part of the social contract of a game is that you accept, as a player, that there are just some plot points you have to roll with - of course, in return, there are some lines the game won't cross either. Like you won't have to fight a 23rd level monster at 7th. That kinda thing. It's really kinda silly when you think about it - your 'heroic' characters are going around, getting embroiled in things that might be quite out of character for some of them at any given time, and consistently facing 'terrible odds' that are, in fact, carefully stacked in thier favor. But if it weren't for that, it'd be too much like real life to be any fun at all.
All true. But then again you are never “forced” to continue with an adventure if you aren’t suitably motivated. I do try to keep things from being a total railroad. In fact, the module got changed considerably when you got half the party banned from the seven pillared hall, left Thunderspire for a week to see the slaves safely returned to Fallcrest and the Harkenwold, and then returned to find things quite different…
That's where I feel the final encounters in both modules failed a bit. They crossed that invisible line. Presented things that were outside the parameters the players should be ready for. 4e is not supposed to have 'save or die' effects - especially not at 3rd or 4th level. (a 'certain death' zone, with a save to avoid being dragged into it qualifies as 'save or die' in my book) The 4e saving throw mechanic is supposed to limit the fun-suck of a character having actions dictated or taken away from him for too long. (a hazard that inflicts a condition at the start of your turn, every round, renders the save you make at the end of your round, and any save granted by an ally between your rounds /meaningless/) The 'economy of actions' is supposed to keep things challenging, dynamic, and flowing - and fun. The 4e 'treadmill' is supposed to keep the chance of hitting and being hit outside the 'foregone conclusion' range, so you feel like each roll matters. (overlevelled individual monsters, even if a 'reasonable' challenge in theory, render the majority of actions taken by the party futile and drag the combat out in 'padded sumo' mode).
Ok, well I’ve said this before, but I still don’t think the portal to the Shadowfell is a one shot save or die… And the daze effect of the statue, while supremely annoying to the players, is countered simply by having the affected player take his one action to move out of there. (That the party was unwilling to do this, and thus got zapped every round I feel is 80% their fault, and only maybe 20% bad design).
I agree that Paldamar’s hit chances are too high, but I think his defenses are suitable (minus the ridiculous +2 curtain).
Everyone went into this fight minus one encounter power and minus one daily power because of the skill challenge beforehand. I think this is much more of the true culprit than the actual fight. This led to much less “exciting powers” and much more “at wills/basic attacks” so I think this contributed a lot to your perception.
But, objections to the apropriateness of it all aside, that's still a pattern there, i'n'it?
One pattern I definitely see with H1 and H2 is the whole… BBEG is an agent of and the party better hurry up and get him before he completes a ritual and bad things happen.
Kalarel served Orcus… stop him or Orcus sends out an undead army
Scarmaker served Yeeognu… stop him or he converts the Baphomet shrine to the gnoll demon lord.
Paldamar serves Vecna… stop him or he completes a ritual to take over the mages of Saruun and later the Nentir Vale.
I can’t read H3 as I’m committed to play in it so I can’t comment on that. I haven’t read enough of P1 to see if the pattern continues. I think P2 deals with Lolth if I remember from a preview teaser.
So I wouldn’t be surprised if each module in the 4e adventure path each picks 1 or 2 classic evil gods and the party deals with stopping followers and BBEGs trying to further the god’s power.
That skill challenge is weird. I haven’t been running skill challenges 100% by the book, because I do think that takes a RP session and distills it into a boardgame… but a couple bad rolls aside, there were several players that were completely flummuxxed by what to say to the apparition of Vecna.
Yeah, "begone foul abomination" followed by a turning check is about the only reasonable thing to say to something like that.
Skill challenges seem like a good idea that isn't quite there yet. As presented in the DMG, 'easy' skill challenges are very easy /to fail/, and 'hard' skill challenges can actually present you with a better chance of success. The errata fixed that, though it may have made skill challenges too easy, as well. H1 & H2 were published pre-errata, so thier skill challenges are likely based on the earlier, broken system.
If we had a transcript of the way the conversation went between a spectral representative of Vecna and a party of adventurers intent on storming into his servants secret tower… Even without rolls I could not see any reason at all why the party would be even allowed entrance in the first place…
I couldn't see any reason to have a deity as your gaurd dog in a 4-6th level adventure. The teleport circle needed in a riddle to unlock or series of arcana checks to activate would have been more senisble. Maybe they were trying to be 'creative?'
From a design perspective, and I really should have seen this in retrospect, taking away daily and encounter powers for the rest of the adventure is a horrible penalty for failure.
Loss of dailies or surges makes sense - they're expendable resources, and loss of resources is an apropriate penalty for an encounter that goes badly. The encounter power was actually worse, since it came back and bit you in every subsequent encounter - especially the wizard, who had to give up Icy Terrain.
Hey, now you have some more ammunition for your arguments at least! You’re welcome...
There's always that silver lining... ;)
It will be interesting to see the differences in action when I play my Inspiring Warlord in the next game. There is one player moaning already about how much he will miss the +attack bonus when spending an action point…
Well, that should be me, since AE-tossing wizards can benefit more profoundly from an attack bonus than just about anyone else. I think our melee-heavy, single-defender party should benefit greatly from Inspiring Presence.
And heck the DM could simply just say the character is sucked into the Shadowfell and make the next adventure take place there if he is a forgiving DM…
The Shadowfell seems to be presented as a place where adventures can happen, so that'd've made more sense.
Funny, but I like it when things are a little more grey.
I work for a large corporation, I get enough of that IRL.
Your character was in it to rescue the Nentir Vale citizens.
Heck, that was my /excuse/, I was already pushing the envelope on my orders beyond the bounds of reason to even intimate that I'd respond to a request for aid positively without allowing the weeks to get orders frmo my superiors.
1. Paldamar tried to assassinate the party – revenge is one motivator
Plus, he called us 'adventurers,' which is an insult to the honor and dignity of the Legion.
One pattern I definitely see with H1 and H2 is the whole… BBEG is an agent of and the party better hurry up and get him before he completes a ritual and bad things happen.
It's not like it's an unusual one for high fantasy, either. But does he /have/ to be an n+4 elite controller every time?
I think P2 deals with Lolth if I remember from a preview teaser.
So I wouldn’t be surprised if each module in the 4e adventure path each picks 1 or 2 classic evil gods and the party deals with stopping followers and BBEGs trying to further the god’s power.
I'll betcha a beer it's an n+4 elite controller with some sort of defense-boosting terrain advantage every time.
