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View Full Version : [3.0/3.5] City of the Spider Queen



Ernir
2011-01-21, 06:30 PM
I was given this adventure a year or two ago, but have only recently started giving serious thought to actually running it.

I have not finished my read-through yet, but the basic concept seems cool enough. And it is apparently a relatively popular adventure. Does anyone have experience with the thing they would like to share? Aside from everything needing a wholesale upgrade from 3.0 to work in a full-splat 3.5, what should a potential DM be aware of?

Ozreth
2011-01-21, 07:13 PM
I'm interested in this as well. Just how much updating does it take? Could I run it and ignore a lot of the stuff? I'm into handwaving rules :p

Amphetryon
2011-01-21, 07:18 PM
There's only one really annoying bit, that I can remember:

Ropers are only appropriately CRed if the party is big on CharOp.

:smallyuk:

Ozreth
2011-01-21, 10:49 PM
There's only one really annoying bit, that I can remember:

Ropers are only appropriately CRed if the party is big on CharOp.

:smallyuk:

Everything else is good to go with 3.5?

Runestar
2011-01-22, 06:14 AM
Some of the crs may need to be reevaluated. The drow npcs seem fairly weak (likely due to their +1cr adjustment, con penalty and classed npcs having inflated crs to begin with). So you might want to spend a little time optimizing their statblocks.

As for the later stages, I would recommend restatting them with tome of battle's martial adept classes. For example, instead of monk5/assassin5 mooks, make them swordsage10. Instead of maar being a monk/rogue/assassin, make him a swordsage13 as well. The balor in act 3 is likely too challenging for the party, replace him with a cornugon or something?

The most obvious change that springs to mind is the maurezhi encounter, since its cr was substantially revised in fiendish codex (the 20HD version is just cr10! now). That and it should have the element of surprise (I would recommend having it join the fray in the fight with the drow party), or ambushing the party if they rest there for the night.

Ernir
2011-01-22, 09:39 AM
There's only one really annoying bit, that I can remember:

Ropers are only appropriately CRed if the party is big on CharOp.

:smallyuk:
Haha! :smallbiggrin:

Some of the crs may need to be reevaluated. The drow npcs seem fairly weak (likely due to their +1cr adjustment, con penalty and classed npcs having inflated crs to begin with). So you might want to spend a little time optimizing their statblocks.

As for the later stages, I would recommend restatting them with tome of battle's martial adept classes. For example, instead of monk5/assassin5 mooks, make them swordsage10. Instead of maar being a monk/rogue/assassin, make him a swordsage13 as well. The balor in act 3 is likely too challenging for the party, replace him with a cornugon or something?

The most obvious change that springs to mind is the maurezhi encounter, since its cr was substantially revised in fiendish codex (the 20HD version is just cr10! now). That and it should have the element of surprise (I would recommend having it join the fray in the fight with the drow party), or ambushing the party if they rest there for the night.

OK, more or less par for the course on the Drow PCs - 3.0 NPCs just don't match up to late 3.5 PCs.

Thanks for pointing out that with the Maurezhi! I'd never have noticed.

Ozreth
2011-01-24, 12:37 AM
About how long does this module take to run? Is the length/depth on par with something like Expedition to Greyhawk?

I'm looking for something I can complete in about 4 months meeting once a week for around 5 hours.

Innis Cabal
2011-01-24, 12:41 AM
Playing every Saturday, for a full day. It took half a year and we didn't really finish it.

Ozreth
2011-01-24, 01:31 AM
Playing every Saturday, for a full day. It took half a year and we didn't really finish it.

Whoa. Maybe I'll run the Cormyr module and its sequels instead...

Ernir
2011-01-24, 02:49 PM
Playing every Saturday, for a full day. It took half a year and we didn't really finish it.

Full day? Do you mean 8-12 hours full day? :smalleek:

RagnaroksChosen
2011-01-24, 03:16 PM
I've played through some of it twice, As a pc only ever made it to the City once, 4 month game not a ton of roleplaying, very min maxed, GM also min maxed the npcs though.

However the time before that one was alot of fun we only made it to the point where you hit the underdark. lot of rping though took us about 3-4 months but we where meeting irregularly.

I've attempted to run it 3 times. 1 failed while still in sith morcane. the other made it to the underdark and the last one made it to the city. In all of them there where a ton of off dungion adventures so time scale is bad.

What I can recomend. Is if you have alot of power gamers you will need more work. IF you have a good mix of powergamers and non power gamers then realy i just ignored the modules round by round tactics and changed around some of the spells a bit. (adding in spc). This is mainly due to pritty much all the spell casters tactics are to haste them selves then pepper the party with AOE dmg, ususaly through lighting bolts.


This module does kick alot of ass though. Highly Recomend it!

Ozreth
2011-01-24, 04:42 PM
All this talk and a few reviews I've been reading have got me really excited to run it. Problem is I don't think I'll have the time. I'll be moving in about 4 months and don't want to have to quit it half way through. I did that with Expedition to Greyhawk and now I'll probably never run the thing again ha.

We shall see.

Looks like WotC put out a box of City of the Spider Queen Miniatures. Has anybody used these?

thorr-kan
2011-01-24, 06:14 PM
Looks like WotC put out a box of City of the Spider Queen Miniatures. Has anybody used these?

They're unpainted metal figs, but they look good. I've got a box opened but complete. Available cheap. PM me.

Callista
2011-01-24, 06:42 PM
Don't bother with minis, seriously. You have to cart them around all the time and then you never have just the right ones you need...

Glass beads, pebbles, etc. work just fine. Get some pretty ones from a craft store.

Ozreth
2011-01-24, 07:00 PM
Callista: thanks for the suggestion but I already use beads when I don't have a suitable mini. Also, all of the gaming happens at my place so I dont have to cart anything around.

Thorr: pmd

Does it make much of a difference if myself of the players have read the novels that coincide with this module?

Ozreth
2011-01-25, 02:03 PM
Don't want this thread to die away too quickly : )

Is the story pretty dull if you havent read salvatores war of the spider queen series?

Also, has anybody else had better luck in running this thing in less than a year? Any campaign journals out there?

Thanks : )

Yora
2011-01-25, 03:34 PM
We didn't take very loong to play through it. I guess 4 or 5 sessions. We did play it as a quite linear dungeon crawl, though.

I think the adventure has a very good premise and exiting backstory, but as written it's rather uneventful and very linear. But if you're willing to use it only as the main plot for a bigger campaign, I think you can make much more out of it. We simply barged through the main gate of every stronghold and slaughtered our way through to the central chamber, but if the dm and the players are into infiltration and negotiation, you can make a lot more of it.
It was the first big adventure I ran as a dm, but I think now I would do things very differently.

While it does take place during the War of the Spider Queen, the events don't touch with the adventures of the Menzoberanzan Party at all. It's a different part of the world, and the only real connection is that both places are affected by the disappearance of the main deity.

Ozreth
2011-01-25, 05:14 PM
4 or 5 sessions? Really? I understand that some groups tend to draw out circumstances depending on role playing and whatnot but one person saying five sessions and a few others saying a year is crazy to me ha. I guess I'll just have to run it and risk never finishing it.

Thanks for the info : ) It sounds great.

Runestar
2011-01-25, 06:20 PM
I remember the 1st half of ACT1 being a flurry, because our DM frontloaded the drow encounter into 1 massive, staggered fight (the araneas attacked us right after the bebiliths fell, then the drow readied an ambush), followed by the maurezhi attacking us when we camped there for the night.

A solid 2+ hours of combat. Think that was the only climatic fight in the entire act, being the only one which started taxing our resources and made us feel like we might just get overwhelmed.

Think the DM gave the drow cleric some scrolls (so she could contribute more) of revenance? Flamestike? Wizard became a warmage8 (slightly weaker offensively, but better hp/defenses). Fighters became warblades, but think they fell too fast to showcase their skills. :smallredface:

Maurezhi was the fully-advanced 20HD version. One PC died, IIRC. This one is tough, and probably counts as a mini-boss fight. Think the fiendish codex revision kinda overcompensated there.

Also slotted in a sub-plot involving an issue of dungeon (sadie the drider with her white dragon cohorts), she was plotting a raid on the surface in a bid to regain the favour of lolth.

I thought the roper encounter was quite okay. We skipped the scene with the summoned trap, and the lady ghost. Vampire fight was a walkover.

Stopped playing shortly after act2, so not much experience after that. :smalltongue:

Ozreth
2011-01-26, 02:50 AM
Any reason you stopped? Or just due to the group falling apart? How many acts are there?

Runestar
2011-01-26, 04:54 AM
Any reason you stopped? Or just due to the group falling apart? How many acts are there?

The game has 4 acts, IIRC.

We started playing during our university break. When school reopened, it just became difficult, and later, virtually impossible to find a common time slot to meet up and play. Even weekends became no-goes as 1-2 were so overloaded on modules that sundays were burnt for project work. Eventually, as we started doing our own stuff, the motivation to get together to game just kinda fizzled and gave way to other stuff.

Basically, we got together to play as a social gathering kind of thing.

From time to time, I would find a group to join, but I soon realised I was the sort of player who preferred reading about the game to actually playing it (or rather, having to deal with the logistical issues required in running a game). :smallredface:

Skaven
2011-01-26, 08:44 AM
Playing every Saturday, for a full day. It took half a year and we didn't really finish it.

Ditto.

WoW's release killed the game for my group.

Ozreth
2011-01-26, 04:52 PM
WoW's release killed the game for my group.

WoW's release killed a lot of things for a lot of people ha. Vanilla WoW was SO good : /

Runestar
2011-01-26, 06:13 PM
That said, is there a resource for converting CoTSQ to 3.5, taking advantage of the newer resources? For instance, drow of the underdark splatbook?

Ozreth
2011-01-26, 10:09 PM
Yeah wotc actually published an official update to the module actually but I'm at work so can't find it atm.

Ernir
2011-01-27, 02:39 PM
That said, is there a resource for converting CoTSQ to 3.5, taking advantage of the newer resources? For instance, drow of the underdark splatbook?
Apparently, there was (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/21789545/City_of_the_Spider_Queen_-_3.5_Conversion), but the WotC forum change ate it. :smallmad:

And no, Archive.org doesn't have the link the thread points to. :smallfrown:

Yeah wotc actually published an official update to the module actually but I'm at work so can't find it atm.

Ooo, it's hidden in this web enhancement (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20040313a) for PGtF! Didn't know they did that for modules. (That has to be the least compressed PDF I've seen, though. 10 pages, 4.5MB file size. What?)

Of course, it's still only a straight edition upgrade, but still.

Ozreth
2011-01-29, 02:49 AM
Apparently, there was (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/21789545/City_of_the_Spider_Queen_-_3.5_Conversion), but the WotC forum change ate it. :smallmad:

And no, Archive.org doesn't have the link the thread points to. :smallfrown:


Ooo, it's hidden in this web enhancement (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20040313a) for PGtF! Didn't know they did that for modules. (That has to be the least compressed PDF I've seen, though. 10 pages, 4.5MB file size. What?)

Of course, it's still only a straight edition upgrade, but still.

So If a monster (the named bosses even) AREN'T in that CotSQ update then I can just play them as is? For example the first boss... Cahir the vampire uses haste on himself. Does it work the same in 3rd as in 3.5?

Runestar
2011-01-29, 04:50 AM
So If a monster (the named bosses even) AREN'T in that CotSQ update then I can just play them as is? For example the first boss... Cahir the vampire uses haste on himself. Does it work the same in 3rd as in 3.5?

Haste no longer grants an extra standard action each round, so there is little point in spellcasting foes using it. It does however, make an excellent buff spell for combat npcs (like the drow hunting party in the cave).

For most part, spellcasters' stats remain unchanged, though you could spend a little time revising their spell selections (such as giving them some swift/immediate action spells like celerity if you wish to maintain their spell economy).

That said, many years have passed since 3.0, and some assumptions about the game has changed, so you may find that certain tactics used in the game may not be as effective as the designers thought they would be. For example, multiclassed spellcasters stink for their cr (I still don't understand the intent behind the arcane guard, they just don't work), so you could consider restatting them as duskblades, or use prcs like spellsword, eldritch knight or abjurant champion.

ToB would be useful in ensuring that even lower-lv mooks still remain threatening to the players.

Ernir
2011-01-29, 03:28 PM
Yeah, Haste and Lightning Bolt seem to be the tools of choice there.

That first boss...Should probably be using more gish-like spells. Haste is fine that way, but Haste + Lightning Bolt is a useless combo. Replacing the Acid Arrow with something like Wraithstrike and the Lightning Bolt with, well... anything non-blasty should help here.

Runestar
2011-01-29, 06:57 PM
Personally, I would just optimise their spell damage to offset the loss of haste.

Since the vampire sorc favours lightning bolt, I might give him arcane thesis and empower spell, together with the metamagic specialist variant in PB2. This allows him to cast 1.5*(10d6) lightning bolts using his 4th lv slots (which otherwise remain unutilised) without increasing the casting time. Effectively simulating 2 lightning bolts/round.

So prior to combat, buff with mage armour, shield, false life (empowered), improved invis.

Also, I noticed some of the drow use this item granting 24 temp hp. Might want to replace with necklace of tears (MIC), which does a similar thing (needs a swift action to activate), but is not destroyed, so the PCs let to keep it.