Thunderspire Labyrinth #1
One thing about this new edition of D&D is that it is a lot easier to scale encounters to get them to the difficulty you’d like.
With 1E & 2E AD&D the game changed drastically when the casters in the group attained a new spell level. A level 4 magic-user usually paled in comparison to a level 5 magic-user with Fireball. This made tweaking encounters a bit more of a shot in the dark.
With 3E D&D, a single missing player or being 1 level off on encounter levels could turn an adequate combat into a TPK, or possibly an easy and forgettable encounter.
With 4E, scaling is as easy as adding or subtracting a single monster in an encounter. Or better yet, don’t bother changing the setup at all. 4E has done an excellent job of making sure encounters a few levels higher than the party are tougher, without as much of a risk of a TPK.
The “H” modules were meant for 5 PC’s, but tonight we only had 4, and they did quite well. I contemplated making changes to some encounters, but felt it wasn’t needed after all. In fact, I probably could have made them tougher. When all 6 players are around, I will probably have to make things harder.
As a DM, something I like about H2 is the quests they’ve added.
(Yeah, it’s definitely a bit like World of Warcraft. Really WoW took it from D&D and gave it a more defined format. But that’s not a bad thing.)
You can have major quests that get the action started, and minor quests that add a little more to the game and help nudge PC’s in the right direction or even to link two major quests together.
Since I’m a big proponent of tweaking modules to match your taste & style, I added a few little things to H2 that I felt it could use. Mainly I tweaked the quests to mesh module H1 with H2.
No Dale or Brian this week. Both have family things that had priority, so no XP for them.
Our lineup for this session:
Aaron, playing Valenae, the level 4 eladrin rogue
Justin, playing Stout, the level 4 dwarven fighter
Scott, playing Earl, the level 4 dragonborn paladin
Mike, playing Ander, the level 4 elf cleric (with some ranger multi-classing)
On that note: everyone misses Tornok the warlord, at least everyone but me. Everyone likes the guy who heals them, gives them a second chance at an attack, and allows a free save. But playing that guy, not as much fun. Next time I’m playing Faerel.
We started this session with the group having closed the portal to the Shadowfell and returned to Winterhaven only to be thrown a giant village-wide party as a giant thank you for lifting the darkness that was weighting them down.
They were heroes in the town, and of course there was more that needed to be done.
Several sessions ago the PC’s fought the blue slime and a letter to Kalorel from Chief Krand of the Bloodreavers. In it was Krand asking Kalorel to sell him any potential slaves he might come across and send them to Thunderspire.
Lord Padraig had learned from other leaders in the region that slavers had become a very real problem, though currently small one.
So after the celebration had died down, Padraig had a nightcap with the party and asked them to check into this before it became worse.
Since even rumors of slavers can have drastic effects on a region, he and other leaders of the region offered the party 1000gp for the head of Chief Krand and pointed them in the direction of Thunderspire Mountain. He told them that inside the place is a small and prosperous trading community, and they should start there.
The next morning the party bought provisions to set out to Fallcrest and then on to Thunderspire Mountain.
During that time Valenae accepted a task to take a package for Bairwin (a merchant in Winterhaven) to Gendar in the Seven Pillared Hall in Thunderspire. Bairwin had heard that the PC’s would be heading there, so he offered Valenae 400gp to be a simple courier of an ancient dagger and then bring back some special stones for him.
(FedEx quests are much less annoying when done this way aren’t they?)
It’s 3 full days by foot to Fallcrest, but on the third day an exhausted boy of no more than 12 ran up to the party begging for help. In his near delirious state, he told the party that goblins had raided his family’s farm.
Long story short – the party helped the boy with his exhaustion, then he lead them back to his house where they found the goblins robbed the place blind and there were no dead laying about, so the boy’s parents and 3 sisters had to be somewhere nearby.
With some excellent perception rolls and some help from the boy’s knowledge of the area, the party tracked the goblins down to some caves a few hours away.
The combat was a simple something I added to the module to drive the point home about the slavers. With relative ease the party took out the 10 goblins (6 minions, 2 sharpshooter, and 2 skullcleavers) and saved the family. A note was found on the lead goblin, offering gold for slaves, signed with the symbol for the Bloodreavers, a bloody axe held in a toothy, bear-like maw.
The party escorted the grateful family back to their home, and even assisted them in the recovery of livestock. They spent the night there before heading to Fallcrest a day later than expected.
Fallcrest was effectively just a pit stop for the party.
Aaron has gold burning a hole in Valenae’s pocket, and he’s itching to buy magic items, or at least the ritual to make magic items. Unfortunately this DM is not going to just hand over such a nice ritual at some village so easily. But I did give the party a chance.
The only person in Fallcrest who would have that ritual was a wizard known as Nimrozaran the Green, High Septarch of Fallcrest. But he’s an arrogant old man who won’t sell any rituals to someone not in the mage’s guild.
To join the mage’s guild you have to be able to prove you’re a wizard and you have to pay 500gp. The group could afford the 500gp, but they had no wizard. Ander (the group’s only ritual caster for this session) did try to bluff that part, but he failed miserably, so no ritual this night.
But I’m not a total jerk; I let the party buy simple +1 items from the city at a 25% markup from the Azaer Merchant House (450gp for a +1 weapon/armor/implement is still cheap).
When the pit stop was over they spent the rest of the day heading to the thundercloud-covered peak of Thunderspire Mountain.
The mountain is actually a hill, but it is single structure pushing up from the ground, with no other hills or mountains in the vicinity, making it appear to be taller than it is and the thundering clouds make the place more foreboding.
The party traveled the large and ancient cobblestone road up to and into what is called the Labyrinth. The road appears to be of dwarven make and there is plenty of lighting inside of the mountain through enchanted torches hanging on the wall.
Not far into the Labyrinth a small bit of road splits off and the party can hear some harsh voices yelling at a single not-so-harsh voice.
The party, spoiling for a fight, charged into the room and took on 5 hobgoblins (4 soldiers and a warcaster).
Stout took the brunt of this fight as he was stuck in a position that made him a target to all the hobgoblins.
Ander and Earl aided Stout while Valenae snuck behind (rather over and then behind) and took out the warcaster.
After the warcaster dropped, the soldiers dropped in due time.
The halfling is Rendill Halfmoon, a very cocky young halfling who had followed these hobgoblin Bloodreavers around to make sure they weren’t starting any trouble. That got him captured, and almost sold in slavery had the party not shown up.
He thanks the party profusely and as a reward Rendill buys them several drinks at his aunt’s inn at the trading post known as the Sever Pillared Hall. The inn is the Halfmoon Inn and the party now has free room and board as long as they want.
The Seven Pillared Hall itself is a huge and ancient cavern (about 800’ x 500’) of that houses many merchants and connects many roads together that lead into the labyrinth, the Underdark, and the surface.
Rendill also filled the party in on the little ins and outs of the Seven Pillared Hall:
The Mages of Saruun run the place and allow free trade in the Hall, for a cut
Several merchants make a nice living trading between the surface world and the Underdark
Don’t start problems in the Hall as punishment is usually swift and harsh
Don’t irritate Brugg or start any trouble for him – he works for the Mages of Saruun
If you’re looking to buy rituals, try the Grimmerzhul Trading Post or maybe Gendar’s Curios and Relics
And finally he gives them directions to the hideout of the Bloodreavers, a place known as The Chamber of Eyes.
While the party is drinking it up, Valenae sneaks off to Gendar’s to trade packages for Bairwin and try to buy ritual he so desperately wants.
Gendar, a drow (‘nuff said), throws a snag into the mix. He states that Bairwin left him in a bad situation last time, so he wants something done for him to make things straight.
He wants Valenae to find a magical silver box he had found in the labyrinth, but dropped it when he was ambushed by several zombie-like undead. In return he will honor the deal with Bairwin, get the ritual (if he can obtain it), and possibly have more work for Valenae in the future.
And wouldn’t you know it; the silver box is somewhere in the vicinity of the Bloodreaver’s abode.
The next morning Valenae filled the party in on their new task, and they headed that was as best they could. (Though the labyrinth has many marking, the lack of a skilled dungeoneer might cause problems for them later.)
Not far down the road they find the road leading to The Chamber of Eyes, and move on. They want the ritual more than the XP. I find that humorous.
Luckily for them I wasn’t making this quest that hard. An hour farther along the road, and without getting lost – no thanks to the many switchbacks along the down-sloping road, they find a small expansion that holds some old dwellings. Thanks to some good passive perception they notice something isn’t right, and don’t get surprised by the 4 rotwing zombies and deathlock wight.
As expected the zombies swarm the party, pinning them in, while the wight blasts them with its gravebolt.
One poor zombie was critted out of existence by Ander’s Turn undead, then was reanimated by the wight, only to be critted out of existence again by an attack from Earl.
When the party got too close for the wight he used his Horrific Visage to send them back into the waiting arms of the zombies.
Aaron likes to call that power the “Tell’em Large Marge sent ya.” move.
The undead did well, but were no match for the party.
Among the treasure was a silver box, exactly as Gendar described.
They took the box back to Gendar, but since it had only been 3 hours, he didn’t have the ritual just yet. He told them to come back tomorrow, he might have it then.
With that we stopped for the evening. I think it was a good start for the module, though the players thought the fights were a bit easy.
I can remedy that.
With 1E & 2E AD&D the game changed drastically when the casters in the group attained a new spell level. A level 4 magic-user usually paled in comparison to a level 5 magic-user with Fireball. This made tweaking encounters a bit more of a shot in the dark.
With 3E D&D, a single missing player or being 1 level off on encounter levels could turn an adequate combat into a TPK, or possibly an easy and forgettable encounter.
With 4E, scaling is as easy as adding or subtracting a single monster in an encounter. Or better yet, don’t bother changing the setup at all. 4E has done an excellent job of making sure encounters a few levels higher than the party are tougher, without as much of a risk of a TPK.
The “H” modules were meant for 5 PC’s, but tonight we only had 4, and they did quite well. I contemplated making changes to some encounters, but felt it wasn’t needed after all. In fact, I probably could have made them tougher. When all 6 players are around, I will probably have to make things harder.
As a DM, something I like about H2 is the quests they’ve added.
(Yeah, it’s definitely a bit like World of Warcraft. Really WoW took it from D&D and gave it a more defined format. But that’s not a bad thing.)
You can have major quests that get the action started, and minor quests that add a little more to the game and help nudge PC’s in the right direction or even to link two major quests together.
Since I’m a big proponent of tweaking modules to match your taste & style, I added a few little things to H2 that I felt it could use. Mainly I tweaked the quests to mesh module H1 with H2.
No Dale or Brian this week. Both have family things that had priority, so no XP for them.
Our lineup for this session:
Aaron, playing Valenae, the level 4 eladrin rogue
Justin, playing Stout, the level 4 dwarven fighter
Scott, playing Earl, the level 4 dragonborn paladin
Mike, playing Ander, the level 4 elf cleric (with some ranger multi-classing)
On that note: everyone misses Tornok the warlord, at least everyone but me. Everyone likes the guy who heals them, gives them a second chance at an attack, and allows a free save. But playing that guy, not as much fun. Next time I’m playing Faerel.
We started this session with the group having closed the portal to the Shadowfell and returned to Winterhaven only to be thrown a giant village-wide party as a giant thank you for lifting the darkness that was weighting them down.
They were heroes in the town, and of course there was more that needed to be done.
Several sessions ago the PC’s fought the blue slime and a letter to Kalorel from Chief Krand of the Bloodreavers. In it was Krand asking Kalorel to sell him any potential slaves he might come across and send them to Thunderspire.
Lord Padraig had learned from other leaders in the region that slavers had become a very real problem, though currently small one.
So after the celebration had died down, Padraig had a nightcap with the party and asked them to check into this before it became worse.
Since even rumors of slavers can have drastic effects on a region, he and other leaders of the region offered the party 1000gp for the head of Chief Krand and pointed them in the direction of Thunderspire Mountain. He told them that inside the place is a small and prosperous trading community, and they should start there.
The next morning the party bought provisions to set out to Fallcrest and then on to Thunderspire Mountain.
During that time Valenae accepted a task to take a package for Bairwin (a merchant in Winterhaven) to Gendar in the Seven Pillared Hall in Thunderspire. Bairwin had heard that the PC’s would be heading there, so he offered Valenae 400gp to be a simple courier of an ancient dagger and then bring back some special stones for him.
(FedEx quests are much less annoying when done this way aren’t they?)
It’s 3 full days by foot to Fallcrest, but on the third day an exhausted boy of no more than 12 ran up to the party begging for help. In his near delirious state, he told the party that goblins had raided his family’s farm.
Long story short – the party helped the boy with his exhaustion, then he lead them back to his house where they found the goblins robbed the place blind and there were no dead laying about, so the boy’s parents and 3 sisters had to be somewhere nearby.
With some excellent perception rolls and some help from the boy’s knowledge of the area, the party tracked the goblins down to some caves a few hours away.
The combat was a simple something I added to the module to drive the point home about the slavers. With relative ease the party took out the 10 goblins (6 minions, 2 sharpshooter, and 2 skullcleavers) and saved the family. A note was found on the lead goblin, offering gold for slaves, signed with the symbol for the Bloodreavers, a bloody axe held in a toothy, bear-like maw.
The party escorted the grateful family back to their home, and even assisted them in the recovery of livestock. They spent the night there before heading to Fallcrest a day later than expected.
Fallcrest was effectively just a pit stop for the party.
Aaron has gold burning a hole in Valenae’s pocket, and he’s itching to buy magic items, or at least the ritual to make magic items. Unfortunately this DM is not going to just hand over such a nice ritual at some village so easily. But I did give the party a chance.
The only person in Fallcrest who would have that ritual was a wizard known as Nimrozaran the Green, High Septarch of Fallcrest. But he’s an arrogant old man who won’t sell any rituals to someone not in the mage’s guild.
To join the mage’s guild you have to be able to prove you’re a wizard and you have to pay 500gp. The group could afford the 500gp, but they had no wizard. Ander (the group’s only ritual caster for this session) did try to bluff that part, but he failed miserably, so no ritual this night.
But I’m not a total jerk; I let the party buy simple +1 items from the city at a 25% markup from the Azaer Merchant House (450gp for a +1 weapon/armor/implement is still cheap).
When the pit stop was over they spent the rest of the day heading to the thundercloud-covered peak of Thunderspire Mountain.
The mountain is actually a hill, but it is single structure pushing up from the ground, with no other hills or mountains in the vicinity, making it appear to be taller than it is and the thundering clouds make the place more foreboding.
The party traveled the large and ancient cobblestone road up to and into what is called the Labyrinth. The road appears to be of dwarven make and there is plenty of lighting inside of the mountain through enchanted torches hanging on the wall.
Not far into the Labyrinth a small bit of road splits off and the party can hear some harsh voices yelling at a single not-so-harsh voice.
The party, spoiling for a fight, charged into the room and took on 5 hobgoblins (4 soldiers and a warcaster).
Stout took the brunt of this fight as he was stuck in a position that made him a target to all the hobgoblins.
Ander and Earl aided Stout while Valenae snuck behind (rather over and then behind) and took out the warcaster.
After the warcaster dropped, the soldiers dropped in due time.
The halfling is Rendill Halfmoon, a very cocky young halfling who had followed these hobgoblin Bloodreavers around to make sure they weren’t starting any trouble. That got him captured, and almost sold in slavery had the party not shown up.
He thanks the party profusely and as a reward Rendill buys them several drinks at his aunt’s inn at the trading post known as the Sever Pillared Hall. The inn is the Halfmoon Inn and the party now has free room and board as long as they want.
The Seven Pillared Hall itself is a huge and ancient cavern (about 800’ x 500’) of that houses many merchants and connects many roads together that lead into the labyrinth, the Underdark, and the surface.
Rendill also filled the party in on the little ins and outs of the Seven Pillared Hall:
The Mages of Saruun run the place and allow free trade in the Hall, for a cut
Several merchants make a nice living trading between the surface world and the Underdark
Don’t start problems in the Hall as punishment is usually swift and harsh
Don’t irritate Brugg or start any trouble for him – he works for the Mages of Saruun
If you’re looking to buy rituals, try the Grimmerzhul Trading Post or maybe Gendar’s Curios and Relics
And finally he gives them directions to the hideout of the Bloodreavers, a place known as The Chamber of Eyes.
While the party is drinking it up, Valenae sneaks off to Gendar’s to trade packages for Bairwin and try to buy ritual he so desperately wants.
Gendar, a drow (‘nuff said), throws a snag into the mix. He states that Bairwin left him in a bad situation last time, so he wants something done for him to make things straight.
He wants Valenae to find a magical silver box he had found in the labyrinth, but dropped it when he was ambushed by several zombie-like undead. In return he will honor the deal with Bairwin, get the ritual (if he can obtain it), and possibly have more work for Valenae in the future.
And wouldn’t you know it; the silver box is somewhere in the vicinity of the Bloodreaver’s abode.
The next morning Valenae filled the party in on their new task, and they headed that was as best they could. (Though the labyrinth has many marking, the lack of a skilled dungeoneer might cause problems for them later.)
Not far down the road they find the road leading to The Chamber of Eyes, and move on. They want the ritual more than the XP. I find that humorous.
Luckily for them I wasn’t making this quest that hard. An hour farther along the road, and without getting lost – no thanks to the many switchbacks along the down-sloping road, they find a small expansion that holds some old dwellings. Thanks to some good passive perception they notice something isn’t right, and don’t get surprised by the 4 rotwing zombies and deathlock wight.
As expected the zombies swarm the party, pinning them in, while the wight blasts them with its gravebolt.
One poor zombie was critted out of existence by Ander’s Turn undead, then was reanimated by the wight, only to be critted out of existence again by an attack from Earl.
When the party got too close for the wight he used his Horrific Visage to send them back into the waiting arms of the zombies.
Aaron likes to call that power the “Tell’em Large Marge sent ya.” move.
The undead did well, but were no match for the party.
Among the treasure was a silver box, exactly as Gendar described.
They took the box back to Gendar, but since it had only been 3 hours, he didn’t have the ritual just yet. He told them to come back tomorrow, he might have it then.
With that we stopped for the evening. I think it was a good start for the module, though the players thought the fights were a bit easy.
I can remedy that.
posted by BlueBlackRed at 6:48 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home