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Post by Scott on Apr 4, 2021 22:20:10 GMT -5
We played more of G3 last night. After a short stint on level 2, the party decided to head down to level 3. And they ended up fighting Brazzemal, the huge, ancient red dragon. Huge, ancient red dragon sounds a lot more epic than 1E dragons are. By the time you have a party capable of reaching level 3 of the Hall of the Fire Giant King, there really isn't a single (non-unique) dragon that will be much of a challenge without setting it up to give the dragon a serious advantage. They try to do that hear, but a party of eight 9th level average PCs have a lot of resources ay their disposal. Giving the Dragon spells seems to make it worse, since they spend rounds trying to cast spells that may get interrupted or saved against. With the fire resistance, and wall of force, true seeing, etc. the dragon didn't stand a chance. The 2E treatment of dragons is one of the few points that I actually like. Without a 'gotcha' setup, 1E dragons kind of lose their menace at about 8th level, unless you start throwing dragon families at the party. The dragon woke up when they moved the boulder, used ESP, used invisibility. The party saw the hoard, assumed dragon, threw up a wall of forces that saved them from the first blast of fire.The dragon tried casting confusion, he lost initiative, took damage, I assumed the spell was spoiled like any other casting. The party lit the dragon up with magic missiles, cone of cold, some missile weapons. 2nd round of combat, the party won initiative and the dragon was dead before getting another action. To be fair, the dragon had some bad rolls and I could have fudged it, but BTB, they sure aren't Tolkien dragons. A rule that I think a lot of people forget about: "When a dragon attains 5 or more hit points per die, its saving throw is calculated by dividing its total hit points by 4, thus giving a higher number of hit dice than it actually has", this dragon would save as a 22 HD monster, but it still blew it, it rolled two save a 5 and a 4 (I used the fighter table, should it have been M-U? he would've made them both, was the a bad call?). He also lost two initiative rolls, winning either would have had a big impact on the combat. Now that I am writing this, maybe the party was just lucky. One die roll the other way could have been very bad for the party.
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Post by Scott on Apr 4, 2021 23:11:14 GMT -5
Also, the illusionary dragon just outside the real dragon's lair really helped the PCs with this encounter, since I think that was why the party went right to "this is the real dragon" when they moved the boulder and saw the huge, unguarded hoard of treasure. After the prior illusion they went straight to True Seeing and on guard for a dragon attack.
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Post by GRWelsh on Apr 5, 2021 6:59:35 GMT -5
According to the DM screen: "Most monsters save as fighters, except: 1. Those with abilities of other character classes gain the benefit of the most favorable saving throw score, i.e., be it cleric or magic-user or thief. 2. Those with no real fighting capabilities save according to their area of ability -- cleric, magic-user, thief, etc." So yes, BTB you should have allowed the dragon the better saving throw since it was a spell casting dragon. But other than that, I agree with how you handled it. If your players thought it was fun and exciting, that is all that really matters. Like we were discussing yesterday, 1st edition dragons are a lot of like magic-users in the sense of being glass cannons -- they have a powerful attack that could potentially wipe out an entire party, but if they don't get that off they can go down rather easily under a pig pile of character attacks. I think 1st edition dragons are the way they are to allow mid or even low level characters a chance to go up against them, so that the DM doesn't have to wait for his player characters to be high level before he can use dragon encounters.
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Post by Scott on Apr 5, 2021 8:36:11 GMT -5
I knew there was some direction in there somewhere, but I couldn’t find it in the moment. For the most part, I like the way 1E handles dragons. I don’t think they should be that rare. You You could encounter one on the 1st dungeon level using the random dungeon generator. But I think they cap out too soon. The rooms with the fire giant women and children shouldn’t be a tougher encounter than the biggest, baddest dragon in the book. Even in the encounter I ran, he could have done more damage, but he still would likely been killed after 2-3 rounds. Greyhawk’s Ancalagon the Black will be coming soon to lay waste to a town near you.
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Post by GRWelsh on Apr 5, 2021 8:53:50 GMT -5
I use the 1st edition dragons but don't feel limited by their upper level of power... The MM dragon is a springboard to the imagination and there can be more powerful dragons, unique dragons, dragon-hybrids, etc. I don't know if you played in Brian's "Blackrock" campaign several years ago, but one of the things I liked about him as a DM was he didn't feel constrained by the MM and had a silvery black dragon that was like a demigod who gave us a quest and a white dragon that was not evil. So he played with our expectations. I liked that a lot, especially for a lot of old players who practically have the original books memorized. Wes did something similar with goblins, since he had dust goblins and shadow goblins and they were slight variations or had different abilities so we didn't know exactly what we were dealing with. Gene's BROKEN CASTLE is filled to the brim with uniqueness. EGG once told me "don't be so tied to the system" and I think it is a good lesson from veteran DMs.
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Post by Scott on Apr 5, 2021 9:20:46 GMT -5
Yes, I’m the same way with the material I write. Just an observation on the BtB state. I think a lot of issues stem from the expectation that PCs retire around name level. There really wasn’t a lot of play testing beyond that. Most of the levels you see for the early PCs were inflated for publication, and the actual PCs retired much earlier. My cousin’s M-U is currently a higher level than Tenser ever made it to.
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Post by Scott on Apr 6, 2021 15:24:54 GMT -5
Wow, drow are hard to work with. I've read some Driz'zt books, but I think I was in 9th grade the last time I DMed drow. There are a million variables and special bonuses to worry about. The GD series is iconic, so you want to make it good, but the encounters are bare bones, so if you want to do them justice, and not stop the action at every encounter, there's a ton or prep work required. And that's just the few encounters in G3. I shudder to think about D3.
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Post by Scott on Apr 8, 2021 22:42:32 GMT -5
Speaking of EGG being an off the cuff writer, there are a couple issues with the EEG. There’s nothing in the GD series that implies the EEG IS imprisoned, and it’s already too similar to Thaizdun. Having them both imprisoned is too much. If you cut stopping Eclavdra from releasing the EEG from the adventure, you can make the elimination of the Eilservs the goal, or you could make up something else related to the EEG or make up a reason for the party to do Q1. I think Paul has said that there is info related to Gary’s version of the end of the series in Gary’s papers. I’d love to see them, but I’m inclined to take the easy out on this and have the party eliminate the Eilservs and move on. It’s already such a long series,
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Post by GRWelsh on Apr 9, 2021 9:40:55 GMT -5
Since the initial motivation for the characters is to strike back against the giants, I would say G3 completes that series. Slaying Nosnra, Grugnur and Snurre along with the bulk of their fighting forces ends the threat. Pursuing the Drow into the Underworld is more like an optional follow up. If the players somehow find out Eclavdra was behind the giant conspiracy, they may want to hunt her down to punish her and/or prevent her from causing more trouble on the surface going forward. That's more like preventing a long-term threat. I suppose it comes down to how you present this and what information is available to the players. At the end of G3, do they still see the Drow as an imminent threat if Eclavdra and the other Dark Elves are retreating back to where they came from? That sure seems like victory.
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Post by Scott on Apr 9, 2021 10:13:29 GMT -5
Identifying Eclavdra as the instigator is pretty easy. As early as G1 her name is mentioned. I definitely want to run the D series. The preferred method: If the party speaks to Nedylene, she will provide the background to the whole thing, and embellish quite a bit. She'll tell the party that most of the drow just want to be left alone but Eclavdra is power hungry and will probably try again if she isn't stopped in an attempt to weaken/remove her rivals. She could also be a good source of info on navigating the city.
The rulers that sent the party, and the elves, would want additional info on the drow, but this is kind of a vague option, and I could see the party getting there and going, "What do we do now?"
Eclavdra would love to get revenge on the party. She could plant false information to try to lead the party into a trap. She might want to sacrifice them to the EEG, but she's afraid to stick around the giant Hall, so she will try to lure them to the city where she feels like she has more strength.
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Post by Scott on Apr 9, 2021 10:32:17 GMT -5
There's a lot of creatures with magic resistance (even ropers have 80% MR), and a lot of dispel magic coming up. It's good that the party has fighter/magic-users and not straight magic-users because the adventure is set up to nerf them. The party is already frustrated by the saving throws that the higher HD monsters make. I know this is going to piss them off. It's going to be the fighters' time to shine.
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Post by GRWelsh on Apr 11, 2021 5:53:14 GMT -5
Will your players talk to monsters like the Drow? Will they even care that there are rival factions? Or do they have an attack on sight and kill them all mentality?
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Post by Scott on Apr 11, 2021 11:22:31 GMT -5
It depends on what the monster is and what the monster does. Mike (Corbek) is probably better at following instructions, so if part of their mission is to assess the threat the drow pose he's more likely to try to collect info. Since these probably won't be the first drow the party encounters, and it's likely the prior encounters were fights, they will probably be in an 'attack first, ask questions later' mindset. Nedylene might recognize the party as the cause of Eclavdra's plans falling apart, and may offer tp parlay. The party will usually stop and listen in these cases.
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Post by Scott on May 2, 2021 0:04:27 GMT -5
The party returned to the Fire Giant Hall tonight. The again ignored most of the second level and descended to the 3rd. They wandered into the area where most of the remaining hell hounds and fire giants were holed up. Through the use of a potion of fire giant control, the party ended up charming Boldo. The leader of the remaining giant told them where Eclavdra might be found, the temple or her quarters, and the location of the passage to the drow homeland. After killing Boldo the party went looking for Eclavdra. It took them a few minutes to figure out the illusionary wall entrances to the temple, and they were afraid to walk through them, so they decided to check out the weird brown purple rock wall preventing access to where the believed Eclavdra was. The cast dispel magic on the wall and it triggered it into activity. The wall is killer. The 20 tentacles lashed out and started doing major damage to the party. PLasolder used his horn of Valhalla, and all of the berserkers were quickly killed. Ingo the gnome was killed by the wall. After a few rounds of melee, another dispel magic spell, and a disintegrate scroll and the wall was destroyed. Standing there waiting for them was Eclavdra and hew two assistants. The magic resistance and Eclavdra's -8 AC really gave the party problems. Jastra used three 9th level spell scroll in this encounter, a Monster Summoning III, Bigby's Crushing Hand, and a Wish, plus the disintegrate scroll she used earlier. Jastra summoned giants, and Eclavdra dispelled them. Corbek thought he was going to do some damage with a flame strike, but it was nullified by Eclavdra's magic resistance, a segment later her flame strike came down on him. At the end of the battle Eclavdra ended up escaping using her word of recall scroll as Bigby's Crushing Hand was crushing the life out of her last assistant.
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Post by Scott on May 2, 2021 0:16:33 GMT -5
Several party members also lost the potions they were saving for emergencies when they got caught in Eclavdra’s dispel magic AoE.
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Post by grodog on May 2, 2021 1:08:50 GMT -5
Very nice! Did you have Eclavdra Word to the Vault directly, or to location #20 on Level 3?
Allan.
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Post by GRWelsh on May 2, 2021 5:52:01 GMT -5
That's such an iconic encounter, and it looks like it played out perfectly. That's awesome.
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Post by Scott on May 2, 2021 8:53:51 GMT -5
Very nice! Did you have Eclavdra Word to the Vault directly, or to location #20 on Level 3? Allan. She went to level 3, but she is getting ready to flee to the Vault.
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Post by Scott on May 2, 2021 9:14:44 GMT -5
That's such an iconic encounter, and it looks like it played out perfectly. That's awesome. Yes, it really was a great encounter. The party found the illusionary walls to the Temple, but were afraid to pass through, so Ember used a true seeing spell to try to see what was beyond. They just saw stairs down and a bending passage, but they also discovered the wall blocking Eclavdra's chambers was more than just a wall. With true seeing a described it as a writhing mass of movement and energy, which is why the cast dispel magic on it. The 20 tentacles, and the damage they caused, stunned the party. Several of the party were momentarily held by the tentacles, but they all broke free, except Ingo. That's when the magical darkness arrived. They didn't see it, but they heard nasty rending sounds and Ingo's screams of pain fade to what the correctly guessed was his death gasp. They countered the darkness with continual light and then disintegrated the rest of the wall. When the wall faded, they saw the three drow, the two males in front serving as meat shields. The party tried putting Eclavdra in the Cage of Zagyg, but she saved. Several members closed to melee. Initially the drow magic resistance and saves were blocking everything. In the following rounds the party did get through the lesser drow magic resistance, but Eclavdra's held against the party's spells. The look on their faces when they first tried to hit her and asked what her AC was, and I answered -8, was priceless. Eclavdra's spells worked very well, but after one lesser drow went down, and Bigby's crushing hand appeared, she fled.
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Post by Scott on May 15, 2021 23:19:44 GMT -5
More adventures in the Hall tonight. The party explored the Temple tonight. After touching the alter they got it transparent with the black mass within. They were so close to playing the drums, chimes, and triangle, but decided not to with a last second, barely majority vote. The explored a mostly deserted 2nd level after that. They did run into 18 trolls and about 40 gnolls ("Holy Gnolly!" Plasolder exclaimed), which they were able to dispatch much faster than I expected. Eventually they returned to the 3rd level. DMing drow are the hardest encounters I can remember DMing. Large number of mixed levels, male and female, with spell casters and different strength drow gear, with poisoned hand crossbows and atlatl launched javelins, etc. is a nightmare.
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