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Infernum
2010-07-06, 02:34 PM
I was curious what the general consensus on the 3.5 module "The Shattered Gates of Slaughterguard" is. I have run it before and enjoyed it, but I am curious as to how it stands up around here. I found it to be somewhat like an AD&D adventure as they give you a lot of places you can do what you want with that are only barely described. The plot was ok if not a bit contrived, but its easy enough to adjust to what ever world setting your in. My only real complaint would be the crappy magic items it doles out at the players. But again, a competent DM can just fix that by making adjustments.

I am curious what you all think of this module.

Jarveiyan
2010-07-07, 03:17 PM
I think they need to adjust the tactics of the creatures in the very beginning. Because of the armor their wearing and theyre tacics the AC's are beyond what a 1st lvl group should be seeing, I almost saw a group decimated by the first encounter because we had a hard time hitting the archers, but they had it easy nailing our ***.

Eldariel
2010-07-07, 09:34 PM
I think they need to adjust the tactics of the creatures in the very beginning. Because of the armor their wearing and theyre tacics the AC's are beyond what a 1st lvl group should be seeing, I almost saw a group decimated by the first encounter because we had a hard time hitting the archers, but they had it easy nailing our ***.

Ahem. Do anything but try to hit them with a pointy stick? They are extraordinarily poor against:
- Color Spray
- Sleep
- Grapple (Touch AC 12, Grapple-check +1 and lack of weapon to use AoOs for Archer; Touch AC 10, Grapple-check +2 for Impalers - A level 1 Fighter can go up to +5 regardless of race and Orc Barbarian can be +9 and that's before we involve any possible magic like Enlarge Person, let alone feats)
- Trip (same as Grapple, if anyone has Improved Trip, it's a wash

Really, the way to kill them is to hit them anywhere but their AC. PCs should quickly realize that heavily armored, relatively poorly trained warriors tend to both, lack the mental discipline to shrug off spells and lack the martial prowess to actually defend themselves.

Grease is quite efficient against them too since they're untrained in Balance and have only 1-2 points of Dex-bonus with big ACP. And with their armor, they can't even efficiently skirmish against the PCs. And a single Alchemist's Fire can well be enough to kill one (averaging 7 damage to their 6 HP), again hitting their Touch AC.


The encounters are really fine, IMHO. It gives PCs some nice treasure to sell or use and rewards approaches involving anything but hitting things until it stops moving. The worst thing you could do is to try and hit the Archer with ranged weapons; just climb/jump up (Jump DC 20 but a Barbarian could reasonably do that with 40' movement speed, high Str and possible ranks in Jump easily making for ~+12 or so) and grapple him or have the Wizard deal with him or someone throw an Alchemist's Fire.

Jarveiyan
2010-07-07, 10:51 PM
Ahem when we have to be the ones to engage melee while ranged picks us off from a elevated position; grapple and trip isn't going to be a issue, much less spells since they were always assuming cover after acting. AC's of like 20+ are not easy to hit at like 1st lvl. We had 1 fighter, 1 swashbuckler, 1 druid, i sorceress, and 2 rogues. No sleep or color spray, but seeing as how the archers were seperated I do believe, that wouldn't have been a good use of resources To clarify I have no problem with the rest of the module, just the very beginning. I was of the impression that these adventures were made for a base 4 person party(well not if you go by the first encounter).

Eldariel
2010-07-07, 11:03 PM
Spoilers regarding module inside:

Ahem when we have to be the ones to engage melee while ranged picks us off from a elevated position; grapple and trip isn't going to be a issue, much less spells since they were always assuming cover after acting. AC's of like 20+ are not easy to hit at like 1st lvl. We had 1 fighter, 1 swashbuckler, 1 druid, i sorceress, and 2 rogues. No sleep or color spray, but seeing as how the archers were seperated I do believe, that wouldn't have been a good use of resources.

The first encounter in the Lab, right? The alcove is only supposed to be 5' high. That's a DC 5 Climb-check, should be rather trivial for any Fighter-type to do and the Archers can't take AoOs due to lacking a melee weapon so you can just climb up and grapple; you've got easily enough movement to do that in one round. They don't get Total Cover so you have line of effect with spells and if not otherwise, use readied actions. And honestly, don't want to burn a level 1 slot? Use Daze. It's the combat cantrip you should be preparing a few of anyways until you get more slots, and works just fine to trade action-for-action with the Archer while someone climbs up and eats him.

And Alchemist's Fire still works just fine (if a bit expensive; you make enough to afford to use one or two though); have some martial type throw it with hefty attack bonus and you can even hit behind the Cover just fine; optimally you just ready an action to throw when they shoot tho. Though it sounds like your DM has changed some things (the book only contains one Archer in the lab, for example), so I'm not sure what exactly the scenario was in your case.


By the book though, it's definitely not an overwhelming or even terribly difficult an encounter; bit challenging due to the setup but not very much so. Chances are the DM added the second Archer due to the size of your party. Also, without Cover the ACs are under 20.

That said, attacking the AC of heavily armored opponents is stupid; attack Touch AC or saves instead. Those are much easier. No reason to try to hit something when you can just ignore their armor entirely. Though with your party, I can see that you're a bit combatant-heavy for this.

Jarveiyan
2010-07-08, 12:12 AM
I don't know what was going on however the archers had like breastplates and with cover bonuses kicked it up to 21AC which isn't impossible to hit, but at first level expect to be rolling high constantly unless you reset the ladder and climb(provoking a AoO from the archer when you move from the ladder to the alcove). At first level you shouldn't be having to fight on average enemies with breastplate and half-plate right off the bat. And as for spells used, the groups I play with usually don't optimize.

Eldariel
2010-07-08, 12:41 AM
Mayhap one ought to spoiler this discussion. Anyways:
Yeah, well, obviously if your DM runs the campaign in the wrong order and throws an EL 5 encounter at you on level 1, of course you're gonna have trouble. Mind, it's still winnable, but a lot, lot harder.

Surprising that you aren't dead, really. +12 attacks for more than your HP is pretty rough. A Wizard is still the key though (would require some Tower Shield action from party martialists, or just Abrupt Jaunt, to keep him alive against the archers though); Grease is extremely potent against the Barbarians given their -1 Balance and +1 Reflex, and they're still dogs (heh) against Color Spray, at +3 Will vs. DC ~15-16. Not nearly as good there tho.

And the Archers...yeah, that's rough. Tower Shields, approach under cover, try to get a spell off or something. Wait, how the hell did you survive again? Without extreme tactics, you should be paste
But yeah, point being, the adventure is fine, the order of the chapters is just a bit strange.

Jarveiyan
2010-07-08, 12:46 AM
My bad he was using it in the right order, either way we almost lost a sorceress if it wasn't for the generosity of our killer GM who usually rolls better than us. Or the fact that we can't use superior tactics on the creatures(but they can on us).