[3.5] My Night Below campaign again ...

[Amiria]

Conversion of the old Ad&D campaign to D&D 3.5.

Next up in Book II is the "Monsters at War" subchapter. A bunch of Quaggoth (Drow of the Underdark) are in a war against Hooked Horrors (MM2) and the PCs against them all.

The PCs have already killed the Trolls and just killed the Grells and the Quaggoth now seem very weak compared to those (well, even in the AD&D campaign they would have been no match for Hooked Horrors or PCs).

The PCs (old school style big group, 6 people but not heavily optimized, 2 warrior types, 1 warrior/rogue type, 1 wizard, 1 cleric, 1 bard) are now Lvl 8. The Greater Quaggoth (Drow of the Underdark) might work, they have some barbarian levels ... but what would be an alternative to them ?

It doesn't matter if the monsters are a bit weaker challenge(rating)-wise then the PCs because the monsters will outnumber quite a bit (in the original adventure there are ~77 Quaggoth in ~5 different locations in their cave system). So please no monsters with many weird abilities that are difficult to manage as a DM.

Mind Flayers, Kuo-Toa, Derro are out, they will come a bit later in the campaign. Something in the same vein but a bit tougher than the Quaggoth would be great, humanoid-shaped, a bit primitive, uncomplicated, maybe a few spellcasters as bosses.

[Thurbane]

I have fond memories of DMing this back in my 2E days (although we only got about 1/3 of the way through)...look forward to the journal. :smallsmile:

[Malphemism]

I actually played through a good chunk of Night Below in a 3rd Ed conversion. We allied with the Quaggoth rather than slaughtering them because we were on a big "Coalition of the Willing to Not Be Illithid Slaves" kick. I agree-- they're just not that much of a threat once you get to them.

In terms of subs: lizardfolk and troglodytes will be too weak if you don't put class levels on them.

Here's an option for a challenging encounter: stick with quaggoths, but assume the tribe has been enslaved (common for quaggoths) by a lone fomorian giant (MM2). After a few fights with groups of quags (and an advanced quag or two as leaders), spring the giant on them.


For the boss fight, include a handful of Quaggoths. Make the fomorian a level 1 Druid, swap Alertness for Iron Will, and assume that it uses the extra skill points from its level to keep spot and listen up. This means you can use its published sheet from MM2, but increase HP to 168, Fort save to 17, and Will Save to 10. Have it memorize two castings of entangle and assume it keeps to mossy cavern areas where the spell is usable. When combat breaks out, have the fomorian will try to pin your party down with an entangle, the quaggoth swarm anyone getting free and generally run interference, and the Fomorian smashes anything (preferably casters) stuck in the entangle.

In earlier fights against quaggoth chump groups (with an advanced leader or two), have quaggoths turn and run relatively early. If any get away, spring the giant and its minions on the pc's 10 minutes or so after the fight, when they're low on spells. If, on the other hand, the PC's think to capture and interrogate quaggoths, reward them with information about the big bad.

[Amiria]

The Fomorian Druid is a good idea, maybe I add a normal Fomorian as his mate.


We allied with the Quaggoth rather than slaughtering them because we were on a big "Coalition of the Willing to Not Be Illithid Slaves" kick.

The PCs don't have such a coalition yet, in fact they haven't encountered a single Illithid yet. They only have heard stories of them from the Deep Gnomes but I have an encounter planned to happen soon, maybe even before the "Monsters at War".

Still, if the PCs manage to free the Quaggoth from the Fomorian(s) they might have their first monstrous allies in the Underdark.

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Overall, the use of Celestial Brilliance combined with the Radiant Servant of Alintan's Radiance class feature has proven a bit problematic. Especially sightless creatures like the Grells and the Hooked Horrors who rely on Blindsight (usually only 60 ft.) are at a severe disadvantage unless the environment prevents the utilization of the full light radius (120 ft. bright light + 120 ft. shadowy illumination). But in the wide open main chamber of the Grell nest it was like clay pigeon shooting for the PCs.

I already had a thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=123626) on the use of the spell here two years ago (yes, we took quite a large break) ...

Don't resurrect that thread ! comment here if you want

...and how monsters that see the light would react. I use the campaign's standard rules for random encounters which are quite low (chance of 1 in 6 every 4 hours) so I guess that most monsters are rather avoiding the light than seeking a confrontation with its source.

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Bump

Another thing that's bothering me a bit about "Monsters a War" is the alignment of the monsters. Quaggoth are usually neutral evil while Hook Horrors are usually neutral. Both have an average intelligence score of 7, the Hook Horrors (http://images.wikia.com/forgottenrealms/images/4/4a/Hook_horror_-_Heather_Hudson.jpg) are just more monstrous (large abberations) compared to the Quaggoth (http://images.wikia.com/forgottenrealms/images/b/bc/Quaggoths_attack.jpg) (medium monstrous humanoids.)

So apart from the fact that they are strange aberrations (but hey, aberrations can even be lawful good, see Flumphs) and that one of the party warriors has aberrations as favored enemies it seems that the Hook Horrors are a better choice as allies. Hook Horrors are capable of speech and can usually speak undercommon.

In the adventure they are ruled by a Rakshasa that has used its Change Shape power to appear as a Hook Horror (not possible under 3.5 rules which limits the power to humanoid forms but I'm willing to waive that requirement) Maybe its influence has made the Hook Horrors evil too, but maybe they'll be very grateful if the their Rakshasa chieftain is exposed and deposed.

[Malphemism]

Well, Quaggoths are pretty social animals (they're generally found enslaved). And they're evil, sure, but on the underdark-o-meter there's evil, and then there's drow, derro, kuo-toa, and then there's mind flayers, and THEN there's Aboleths.....

In that kind of environment, you go to war with the allies you can stand, against the ones that will enslave your soul and eat your brain.

At least in older editions of D&D (I haven't read the 3.5 fluff) I thought hooked horrors ate humanoids for breakfast pretty regularly-- and didn't share a language with other species. I understood them as apex predators who happened to be sentient, which makes them N like a tiger or a shark not something you could sit down and reason with. But that may have just been our table's interpretation.

And honestly, my last pass through Night Below I was playing a Blackguard of Hextor, and I was seriously the ethical (and often the moral!) paragon of the adventuring party. So, yeah, dealing with evil monsters wasn't really a deal-breaker. We allied with the orc tribe, plus factions of the Kuo-Toa and the Drow by playing kingmaker. As I recall we slaughtered the trolls because they wanted to eat us, and walled the troglodytes off to starve to death because it made the gnomes happy, and troglodytes smell bad.

[Amiria]

Hmm, after I slept on that chain of thought I also think that it will be best to ally with / free the Quaggoth and kill the Hook Horrors. They'll give better xp anyway. :smalltongue:

I don't think that any PC ever fought against either monster in our campaign world so I can just change the alignment / bestiality of them a bit.

Our party is mostly good aligned, well, since I demanded it for the campaign. 1 x LG, 2 x NG, 1 2 x CG, 1 x CN (but already leaning towards good).