Thunderspire Labyrinth - Conclusion
Let me just say that the last couple sessions of Thunderspire Labyrinth were quite anti-climactic, at least to me.
With The Keep on the Shadowfell, we had a shiny new edition of D&D that we wanted to learn and explore. Halfway through Thunderspire Labyrinth, I think the shine of 4E wore off and the “flatness” of H2 was shown.
The last half of the module consisted of the party just going from one fight to another occasionally punctuated by one of those lovely skill challenges that if I ever use again, it will not be done using the H-modules as a guide.
The modules were designed to lead the party from A to B to C, but it was in an obvious manner that really gave the party nothing special to do other than be prepared for the next fight.
Here’s the chain the party had to follow:
- Defeat the Grimmerzhul duergars which mentioned something about an organization.
- Get back to town and Mages of Saruun tell them to search for a missing member of their order named Paldemar.
- The next day the party receives a note to meet someone in an “evil organization” seeking to leave it. And yes the note actually said “evil organization”.
- Of course the party is ambushed at the meeting, but that’s ok because the ambushers had information on them saying they were working for Paldemar and to give the party’s corpses to some gnoll chieftain in the “Well of Demons”.
- At this point the whole party is on autopilot. I mean I could have seriously said “just set up the map and prep for a fight”.
- They arrive at the Well of Demons only to find that they have to take some test. Seriously, thanks to the long delays in gaming thanks to the holidays and the lack of need to pay attention, several of our group actually forgot the whole point of why they were in the Well.
- They find and defeat the gnoll chieftain, which was actually a decent fight that pushed the party to its limits. But if not for the fights, this module would have absolutely nothing of interest in it.
- They receive a magical silver key from the gnoll chieftain that actually leads them to their next location, the Tower of Mysteries. Though they take a break in the Seven Pillared Hall to restock, rest, and so on.
- They let the silver key lead them to a hidden location not far from the town, which opens a door to another skill challenge where an apparition of Vecna wants to hear secrets and such. I attempted to give it a larger bit of role-playing and reducing the ridiculous DC of 22 (which on average needs a roll of 15 on a d20). The party failed miserably thanks to horrible rolling, but they bribed me with Gummi Savers and beef jerky, so they passed with flying colors.
- The Tower of Mysteries really wasn’t a tower, just one level on top of another that can only be reached through by teleportation circles. So they effectively teleported from one fight to another.
- Level 1 consisted of a bunch of goblin-like creatures called norkers (call them magi-goblins if you want, but not magic nose goblins – that’s in Ren and Stimpy) and some other creatures known as Enigmas of Vecna which have attacks that cause the party members to not be able to use any non-at-will powers.
- Level 2 is about the same, just add a Bronze Warder (a heavily armored bronze minotaur that can wreak havoc in melee). The party wins again.
- Level 3 is the lair of Paldemar (shocking huh?). In this supposed-to-be climactic battle the party is besieged by more of the same as they were on level 2 plus Paldemar.
Paldemar has a ridiculously high AC for a wizard, a reusable power that can make it even higher, over 175 hit points, and has +20 to hit with a melee attack that deals 1d8+8 damage. That doesn’t include that bonuses he had from being on his home turf or any of his magical attacks.
The party was slowly eviscerated.
They took out all of his mooks (norkers and enigmas) with relative ease, but the bronze warder and Paldemar was too much.
One by one the party fell or flirted with the new death rules until they actually died. They had Paldemar down to less than 30 hit points by the end, and the warder was just under half.
“Why didn’t you pull Paldemar’s punches?”
I did in a fashion, I had him move around a lot and give plenty of opportunity attacks so he couldn’t be cornered in the room, but the party had to roll at least a 12 or better on a regular attack and Paldemar had other defenses.
I couldn’t really pull the punches that much. At least one person in the party would notice. And if they’re even a little like me, I’d rather be TPK’d than fight a watered-down final fight.
My grading of H2:
Combats: A-
The fights were good and solid with plenty of clever ideas
Plot: D
One fight after another, threadbare plot, poorly set up skill challenges, and pitiful treasure (the module hands out less treasure than the DMG suggests) make the module a chore halfway through.
Overall: C+
I feel like I’m being generous with that.
Next session is the first session of Dale’s game with our return to his personal game world of Errin.
With the holidays over I’m hopeful that I can return to a regular upkeep of the blog.
And I’m hoping to add some information of my next actual campaign to begin after Dale’s. I stopped running it right before we began the World’s Largest Dungeon.
Since sorcerers were a big part of this campaign, I’m hoping that some new information about them is coming soon, and will be out in the PHB2.
See you next year.
With The Keep on the Shadowfell, we had a shiny new edition of D&D that we wanted to learn and explore. Halfway through Thunderspire Labyrinth, I think the shine of 4E wore off and the “flatness” of H2 was shown.
The last half of the module consisted of the party just going from one fight to another occasionally punctuated by one of those lovely skill challenges that if I ever use again, it will not be done using the H-modules as a guide.
The modules were designed to lead the party from A to B to C, but it was in an obvious manner that really gave the party nothing special to do other than be prepared for the next fight.
Here’s the chain the party had to follow:
- Defeat the Grimmerzhul duergars which mentioned something about an organization.
- Get back to town and Mages of Saruun tell them to search for a missing member of their order named Paldemar.
- The next day the party receives a note to meet someone in an “evil organization” seeking to leave it. And yes the note actually said “evil organization”.
- Of course the party is ambushed at the meeting, but that’s ok because the ambushers had information on them saying they were working for Paldemar and to give the party’s corpses to some gnoll chieftain in the “Well of Demons”.
- At this point the whole party is on autopilot. I mean I could have seriously said “just set up the map and prep for a fight”.
- They arrive at the Well of Demons only to find that they have to take some test. Seriously, thanks to the long delays in gaming thanks to the holidays and the lack of need to pay attention, several of our group actually forgot the whole point of why they were in the Well.
- They find and defeat the gnoll chieftain, which was actually a decent fight that pushed the party to its limits. But if not for the fights, this module would have absolutely nothing of interest in it.
- They receive a magical silver key from the gnoll chieftain that actually leads them to their next location, the Tower of Mysteries. Though they take a break in the Seven Pillared Hall to restock, rest, and so on.
- They let the silver key lead them to a hidden location not far from the town, which opens a door to another skill challenge where an apparition of Vecna wants to hear secrets and such. I attempted to give it a larger bit of role-playing and reducing the ridiculous DC of 22 (which on average needs a roll of 15 on a d20). The party failed miserably thanks to horrible rolling, but they bribed me with Gummi Savers and beef jerky, so they passed with flying colors.
- The Tower of Mysteries really wasn’t a tower, just one level on top of another that can only be reached through by teleportation circles. So they effectively teleported from one fight to another.
- Level 1 consisted of a bunch of goblin-like creatures called norkers (call them magi-goblins if you want, but not magic nose goblins – that’s in Ren and Stimpy) and some other creatures known as Enigmas of Vecna which have attacks that cause the party members to not be able to use any non-at-will powers.
- Level 2 is about the same, just add a Bronze Warder (a heavily armored bronze minotaur that can wreak havoc in melee). The party wins again.
- Level 3 is the lair of Paldemar (shocking huh?). In this supposed-to-be climactic battle the party is besieged by more of the same as they were on level 2 plus Paldemar.
Paldemar has a ridiculously high AC for a wizard, a reusable power that can make it even higher, over 175 hit points, and has +20 to hit with a melee attack that deals 1d8+8 damage. That doesn’t include that bonuses he had from being on his home turf or any of his magical attacks.
The party was slowly eviscerated.
They took out all of his mooks (norkers and enigmas) with relative ease, but the bronze warder and Paldemar was too much.
One by one the party fell or flirted with the new death rules until they actually died. They had Paldemar down to less than 30 hit points by the end, and the warder was just under half.
“Why didn’t you pull Paldemar’s punches?”
I did in a fashion, I had him move around a lot and give plenty of opportunity attacks so he couldn’t be cornered in the room, but the party had to roll at least a 12 or better on a regular attack and Paldemar had other defenses.
I couldn’t really pull the punches that much. At least one person in the party would notice. And if they’re even a little like me, I’d rather be TPK’d than fight a watered-down final fight.
My grading of H2:
Combats: A-
The fights were good and solid with plenty of clever ideas
Plot: D
One fight after another, threadbare plot, poorly set up skill challenges, and pitiful treasure (the module hands out less treasure than the DMG suggests) make the module a chore halfway through.
Overall: C+
I feel like I’m being generous with that.
Next session is the first session of Dale’s game with our return to his personal game world of Errin.
With the holidays over I’m hopeful that I can return to a regular upkeep of the blog.
And I’m hoping to add some information of my next actual campaign to begin after Dale’s. I stopped running it right before we began the World’s Largest Dungeon.
Since sorcerers were a big part of this campaign, I’m hoping that some new information about them is coming soon, and will be out in the PHB2.
See you next year.
posted by BlueBlackRed at 4:23 PM
2 Comments:
I just want to let you know that your website has been my lifeline for my turn DMing.
I pulled the short straw for the Thunderspire campaign and with little experience I needed some help linking the missions and combat together and I found your blog to be a treasure.
Thanks for the help.
I'm glad to be of help Shayne.
I hope you can do a better job with the latter half of this module than I did.
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