Expedition to ruins of Greyhawk guide?

[ramrod]

Hi guys!

In a few weeks I will be DMing expedition to ruins of Greyhawk. Most of it seems fairly straightforward but I do have a lot of concerns with running it. I know that a lot of other campaigns have guides written by people who have dm d them before.

Can't seem to find much of good quality. Can anyone recommend a diary, play through, guide or similar for this campaign?

[ramrod]

No dice? This makes me sad! Need help!

[Allanimal]

I don't know of any guides, but I am DMing it and my group is about 1 session away from completing it.
So, if you have any questions let me know.

[ramrod]

That's a nice offer :) I will have a think and send some messages your way!

[ramrod]

How has it gone anyway? General summary wise? (as much or as little detail as you like!)

[ramrod]

(SPOILER ALERT)

Oh also, at which points did you level up? There is no mention of leveling up in the books, the only mention I have found so far is the encounter with Vayne that hints that the party might/should be level 11 by that point

[Allanimal]

One big thing I kept running into is that my players had trouble putting together the behind the scenes activities of the opposition, so I think it often felt like a dungeon slog that didn't always seem connected. Part of the problem is that we only play once/month, and took occasional breaks for another campaign, so this has been going on for nearly 3 years now (and only 1 of the original PCs is still alive...). That's another issue - some of the new characters don't know about the early events, so they don't have as much reason to care.

The group is somewhere in the middle of the optimization scale, and some encounters were trivial, others quite deadly. Since we have 5 PCs, I tended to beef up the encounters a bit.

I also felt that the encounters used many large creatures in small rooms. Rooms with interesting features, but due to the size of the enemies, the interesting terrain was hard to use. A lot of the later encounter areas could be doubled in size, I think.

The authors make some assumptions that are poor for mid-level characters. Like they usually assume they will not be flying. Or they can't see invisibility/detect magic easily. That trivialized some encounters, made others awkward. Long story short, I had to tune a lot of the encounters for the PCs. Not much, but a bit. There were a few errors in the stat blocks / CR. for example, the side quest where the PCs can buy a house - that nearly wiped em out because, if I remember correctly, they used the CR of a normal monster not the enhanced one they statted.

Some parts towards the end get weird, like the ochtych trials. The Players didn't understand what was happening, I think, and it didn't really mean anything. It doesn't advance the story at all, so could be easily skipped.

There was one near TPK, that was the fight in the cavern with the pyramid over the tunnel to the underdark. They managed to trigger 3 of the encounters in the area nearly simultaneously.
The fight in the library of the mages guild was also near deadly, but when you see the opposition, you will know why.

Finally, there was a TPK that we all agreed to rewind and ignore. It happened in the library rightnext to where Vayne is encountered. That was mostly poor choices by the players, but also a tough opponent that they weren't prepared for and didn't have the means to effectively fight.


(SPOILER ALERT)

Oh also, at which points did you level up? There is no mention of leveling up in the books, the only mention I have found so far is the encounter with Vayne that hints that the party might/should be level 11 by that point

I tracked XP in the beginning, but around the halfway point I decided to have them level as needed.

I had them level to 14 just after the encounter with Livashti, near the end.

[Aetis]

I find that the underground pyramid level and near-the-end series of encounters are especially deadly for PCs.

The group of PCs I've played with were completely wiped when they faced Shylock and her archer demons. (turn 1 Confusion took out the duskblade and the rogue, wizard got attacked 24 times via arrows turn 1)

Another group of my players (more experienced) were down to 2 characters by the time they faced Livashti: a generalist Wizard and a Warblade.

They were killed. (although I did roll obscenely high for all of my save-or-die Will saves against the wizard)

[ramrod]

You hit one of my concerns right on the head, that the story line seems to be really good, but almost invisible to anyone actually playing it... I will be reading ahead and having some of the story that is missing to them dictated by NPCs as they unveil it I think.

Some of the encounters are very Save or Die situations which does concern me, I don't want players dying all over the show, I want it to be challenging, but not with lots of fatalities, so I'll need to keep an eye on that.

The levelling up bit is a bit of a pain in the ass, I don't know a DM that still tracks XP anymore (not saying they don't exist but I know quite a few at my games club/other friends and not one does it) so I would have thought that the writers would put this in, or alternately they would simplify the XP system into much smaller experience blocks.

Thanks for your help. ANYTHING else you can offer would be much appreciated! If you find it noteworthy of mentioning, no doubt I will too. This is my first big premade adventure, I have made all of my own before, or patched together bits of other adventures into something continuous.

[Allanimal]

I expect the PCs to reach the BBEG in tonight's session. I'll let you know how it turns out. I am a bit nervous, I can see it be a quick TPK, but these players manage to surprise me. If they see the warning signs and prepare, they will do OK. If they stumble in without preparation, it will be ugly...

Later I'll flip thru the book and try to see if it triggers any memories of things to look out for.

[ramrod]

I expect the PCs to reach the BBEG in tonight's session. I'll let you know how it turns out. I am a bit nervous, I can see it be a quick TPK, but these players manage to surprise me. If they see the warning signs and prepare, they will do OK. If they stumble in without preparation, it will be ugly...

Later I'll flip thru the book and try to see if it triggers any memories of things to look out for.

Thanks, that would be appreciated! Would love to see how yours panned out!