I was just reading through to prep running it, and it sures seemed to be some nasty encounters for the 1-4 range. I'm worried it is going to be a meat grinder for 4 level 2 and 3 characters. I just hate to put PCs into something that, IMO, on paper looks like a good candidate for a TPK.
Has anyone ran or played this one? How did it go?
I was just reading through to prep running it, and it sures seemed to be some nasty encounters for the 1-4 range. I'm worried it is going to be a meat grinder for 4 level 2 and 3 characters. I just hate to put PCs into something that, IMO, on paper looks like a good candidate for a TPK.
It was written for five 2nd level characters. But in LFR it can be played by anyone in the 1-4 band range.
Yes it is a meat grinder, most adaptables are. We played it with a 4th, 3rd, 3rd, 1st and 1st. Its a nasty lil burger
I think I may try to talk them into leveling up and maybe getting one more PC before they try to take this one on.
I guess LG is the only thing I have to compare it too, but in LG I didn't remember the adaptables being so difficult. The Specials were generally very nasty in LG, and that has continued in LFR.
I think I may try to talk them into leveling up and maybe getting one more PC before they try to take this one on.
I dont know some of the ADAPS were pretty much a meat grinder in LG as well ... Red Hand of Doom comes to mind. But you are talking different systems as well. 3.X was broken in the players favor, 4th is pretty even but gives the monsters a slight advantage.
I dont know some of the ADAPS were pretty much a meat grinder in LG as well ... Red Hand of Doom comes to mind. But you are talking different systems as well. 3.X was broken in the players favor, 4th is pretty even but gives the monsters a slight advantage.
Hellspike prison was tough... Granted we were playing slightly up.
Specials on the other hand did you ever play pits of azak zil or here be dragons (think this was the other one) Pits at apl 6 and 8 could kill a group of high level PCs because of the broken mob rules. Thinum blade weilding liches and 100 wraiths along with some rot angels....
We are soposed to win?
In any event the hard part is balancing good players and bad ones. The good players will walk anything that doesnt TPK the bad ones and anything challanging to the good players will TPK the bad ones. Specials cater to good ones with balanced parties and intelligent party members, not less than the good players or a TPK is garrenteed.
Some challenging fights, particularly
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the fight against the ice creatures on the first floor of the tower
I think I may try to talk them into leveling up and maybe getting one more PC before they try to take this one on.
If the mod is actually good, meat grinders can be fun. I've heard IMPI1-3 is also a pretty hard mod, and after having players sail through many of the 1-4 and 4-7 mods, I'm looking forward to a challenge (either as a player or a DM
).If they've been struggling with the current crop of mods, perhaps hold off on ADAP1-5 if you think it will TPK them and wait until they get better (and run it for different characters they make).
I've played ADAP1-5 and don't remember it being particularly hard, although we did skip Encounter T1 and Encounter T2 due to time issues.
If the mod is actually good, meat grinders can be fun. I've heard IMPI1-3 is also a pretty hard mod, and after having players sail through many of the 1-4 and 4-7 mods, I'm looking forward to a challenge (either as a player or a DM
If they've been struggling with the current crop of mods, perhaps hold off on ADAP1-5 if you think it will TPK them and wait until they get better (and run it for different characters they make).
As players they've sailed through everything except the Spec 1-1, and that never really came close to a TPK, but they got bloodied several times, and a couple instances of 0 HP. In fact they have expressed that most the mods have been too easy-even when playing up. Maybe I'm just over estimating the stats, or under estimating the PCs.
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It does appear the PCs will have a good chance at retreat at pretty much any point if things get too hairy. Maybe I'll just remind them of the retreat as an option before we start and just see how things go.
Of course there is also the fact that as a group of players we have a terrible history of dice rolls, Kenobi65 can attest to that :raincloud
Indeed. I only DMed you guys in that one module, but, man, if there was ever a group whose dice were trying to kill them, it would have been you guys.
Has anyone ran or played this one? How did it go?
I make two significant changes when I run this, to mitigate unfun aspects.
Encounter J3
The tower guardian fight is pointless if characters spot the creatures ahead of time. (And they are always entitled to passive Perception regardless of the encounter text.)
Rather than risk having to run two half-strength fights, and to mitigate the grind, I replace this encounter with a skill challenge. Arcana, Athletics, Endurance, Nature to clear away the ice, lose a healing surge for each failure, complexity and level to match the required XP total. Less time, more variety.
Rather than risk having to run two half-strength fights, and to mitigate the grind, I replace this encounter with a skill challenge. Arcana, Athletics, Endurance, Nature to clear away the ice, lose a healing surge for each failure, complexity and level to match the required XP total. Less time, more variety.
Encounter J3
Rather than risk having to run two half-strength fights, and to mitigate the grind, I replace this encounter with a skill challenge. Arcana, Athletics, Endurance, Nature to clear away the ice, lose a healing surge for each failure, complexity and level to match the required XP total. Less time, more variety.
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We actually finished playing this one last night, and I think that without the threat of going off the edge in the last fight, that fight's a lot less dramatic. To be fair, we didn't have anyone go off the edge and it would've sucked pretty bad if we did, but we actually managed to knock the big monster off of the tower. (Didn't do a whole lot of damage and he got back up to us pretty quick, but it felt like a win. ;) ) It is a tough fight, and it's supposed to be a tough fight. Taking away even the threat of knocking someone over the edge completely changes it and makes it a lot less threatening. I know for sure that the first time it did it's burst blowback thing and someone had to save or go over, I started watching my distance from the monster and from the edges...
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One of our two clerics was thrown off the top of the tower in the last battle. The falling damage was enough to drop him below his negative bloodied value. This was after the DM used the gem’s minor action attack to significantly soften him and the other cleric up with 4 hits each in the first 2 rounds. The DM did not explain to us that it was open until using this tactic against us.
Another thing about that final encounter:
Notice that Blast of Cold is Minor: At Will. If you really think the PCs are having too easy a time, do 3 blasts (6 attacks) in one turn.
Another thing about that final encounter:Notice that Blast of Cold is Minor: At Will. If you really think the PCs are having too easy a time, do 3 blasts (6 attacks) in one turn.
It doesn't have aShow1/round limitation like the Skull Lords do?
in LG I didn't remember the adaptables being so difficult.
Tell that to the table I almost TPK'd with a Beholder in Hellspike Prison.
Tell that to the table I almost TPK'd with a Beholder in Hellspike Prison.
Heck, if I hadn't been able to come up with a reasonable justification for dropping my bow and switching to my spiked chain when I got charmed during the first part of Frostfell Rift by the invisible wizard which I was the only one able to hit...
Believe me, my masterwork spiked chain was a much less deadly attack than my +1 strength bow with Rapid Shot....
Even with that, we lost someone during a later combat in the library....
The group decided to play low, with two 3rd levels, two 2nd levels and one 1st first level PC.
I was interested in some feedback about the DME I made to the final encounter.
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I decided to enclose the roof in ice, but have it weaken the first time anyone was slammed into it. This made them not fall the first time they hit the edge, but the second time anyone hit the same spot they would go over (failing a save of course). I allowed a 15 DC nature check, which the party made, to hint at the mechanic before seeing it happen. The Spirit of Winter did manage to send 1 of the 3rd level players over the side (thanks to some luck recharge rolls and his Bolddied Burst), and I was happy the PC survived. In the mean time the wizard attempted Thunderwave quite a few times, and almost got the SoW to go over the side as well (in the end his high Fort defense and 2 lucky saves prevented it from happening).
As for the final encounter:The big problem here is falling off. I estimate it would take 5-8 rounds to get back into the fight, which I consider unfun. Therefore, I simply seal the edges of the roof in ice so that falling is impossible.
I was interested in some feedback about the DME I made to the final encounter.
Looks like a good change to me. Our DM simply
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Had the roof enclosed with no chance of getting thrown off.
The descriptions and maps obviously don't do a very good job of making this clear, but the idea was that...
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Although the tower is "encased" in ice, it's more like a shell and less like a tight wrapping. So there would be some space between the ice walls around the tower and the walls of the tower itself.
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Had the roof been encased in ice, we'd have probably TPK'd when I played it. Dropping the Spirit of Winter off the roof really helped us manage a difficult combat.
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We had a part of 4, 2x Sorc's 1x Barb & 1x Avenger...no tank or healer. We had a absolute blast, the only problem we encounterd was the last one, with the ice yeti guy. Our Barb got knocked UC during round 1, however with good dailys and tatics we managed to kill him. We WOULD have slid him off the tower, BUT he made his save to move. So with both Sorc's alive, the aventer KO'd and the Barb dead, we finally killed him. We made our heal checks to save the Avenger, but the Barb was out of luck. Fun stuff, not bad for 4 strikers @ level 1..
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In the final encounter in both both runs, the DMs kept the danger of falling off the edge - in my run, two players fell off, with everyone else in a panic afterwards to ensure not falling off. It was a bit dangerous, and exciting. Removing the danger of falling seems to me to be like putting training wheels on a motorcycle - why bother?
In the final encounter in both both runs, the DMs kept the danger of falling off the edge - in my run, two players fell off, with everyone else in a panic afterwards to ensure not falling off. It was a bit dangerous, and exciting. Removing the danger of falling seems to me to be like putting training wheels on a motorcycle - why bother?
Folks don't need to make a discussion nearly illegible spoiler-ing stuff up
So, seriously... we're in the forum for spoilers about adventures in a thread about a singular specific adventure with spoilers in the thread title...
Folks don't need to make a discussion nearly illegible spoiler-ing stuff up
Actually you do. I personally feel if there's a SPOILER in the thread title you shouldn't bother, but the mods have said you should bother, so you do have to.
Not according to the forum sticky here - was that revised somewhere?
All I know is a mod told me to use spoiler tags. Whether or not that fits the guidelines I don't know.
* Avenger 1, Bard 3, Fighter 3, Sorcerer 2, Warden 2, Wizard 2
One character died in the final battle. Another was out of surges.
Everyone else had 2-3 surges left. We spread out damage taken.
Overall I thought it was a challenging, but generally fun scenario.
ADAP1-1 was also challenging, but I though this one was more fun.
I ran this one for my home game. We played it over two 4 hour sessions because we are less concerned with time and moving quickly... since it is a home game.
My question is this: If you have run this in one session, or tried to because of venue constraints, how long did it take you to complete?
I am wondering about this since I may run this one at a public venue and want to make sure it can fit within the time constraints provided/mandated by that venue....
My question is this: If you have run this in one session, or tried to because of venue constraints, how long did it take you to complete?
I was able to run it once in about 5 hours...but that was with a group of players I mostly knew, and we didn't role-play much at all.