Storm king thunder dming question

[othaero]

The party just finished defending triboar and is about to set out on the quests they get at the end. Am I correct in assuming the encounters in ch 3 happen along the way to each of these quests?

[BeefGood]

I think you could handle that however is most fun/convenient--either use the Ch3 encounters along the way to the quests or save them for another time. If memory serves, however, there's at least one connection between a quest and an encounter. See spoiler box. I've also got a question in another spoiler box.
If memory serves--there is a Calling Horns encounter in chapter 3 and by pursuing it the party can get a letter of recommendation that can help them with the Urgala Meltimer quest in Yartar.
Here's a question about the Triboar encounter
The defense of Triboar seems like a TPK to me unless the number of creatures is cut way down. Was that your experience? How did you handle it? I'm looking for ideas before I try running it myself.
Thanks!

[Oramac]

Here's a question about the Triboar encounter
The defense of Triboar seems like a TPK to me unless the number of creatures is cut way down. Was that your experience? How did you handle it? I'm looking for ideas before I try running it myself.

I'm actually getting ready to run this in my campaign as well, and would love to hear your thoughts on it.

Sorry I don't have an answer to the OP's question. I haven't gotten that far yet myself. :(

[nilshai]

I believe the fights are supposed to include a host of city militia that split the enemies.

Chapter 3 describes a number of irrelevant locations that can be visited after Chapter 2, but it has also relevant ones with relics, that are not supposed to be visited at that point.
The locations in Chapter 3 are in my opinion a big waste of space and should have been in a book like the Guide to the Sword Coast or whatever.
Some of the Quest given in Chapter 2 lead to locations in Chapter 3. They are however completely irrelevant, too.

The goal of Chapter 3 is for the party to kill random stuff, get random stuff and run around like headless chicken only to meet Harshnag, who tells the party to go to the Eye of the All-Father.

Chapter 2 (starting adventure) -> Chapter 3 (walk through the realm and meet Harshnag) -> Chapter 4 (talk to the oracle) -> Chapter 3 (get a relic) -> Chapter 4 (return to oracle and meet Iymrith)

[othaero]

Yeah nilshai that's what I thought. It is such a huge chapter with so much extraneous material.

For those wondering how I ran the Triboar encounter:

So alot of how the city survives depends on where your party is at the time the giants come. To me it didn't make sense for the party to show up and more or less arrive right before the giant attack. So I had the attack start the next morning. My party happened to be at the INN that is on the right side of the map, can't remember the name atm, so they were pretty close to the giants. I ended up running the NPCs myself since this was in Roll20 and the character sheets had alot of spoilers on it.

Things I wished I did differently/did:
1)Don't have the enemies start in the same location. There are alot of them and the Orogs pack a decent punch and have a pretty high AC. Most of the NPCs are spread pretty thin and the map is huge. So it is easy for them to get over run and wiped out in a round or 2.
2)The reason to start the enemies closer because the scale is 30ft per "square" so it took the giants something like 10 rounds just dashing to get to their objective.
3)By spreading out the enemies it gives the player's more choices than just sitting in one spot and being the rock breaking the wave.
4) Have the fire dog things run around "lighting" things on fire. I decided it would take them 2-3 rounds to light a building on fire and it gave my player's a different goal other than kill everything.
5)Watch out for the giant's damage. One rock will kill most PCs. We had a barbarian with the resistance to all damage feature. The giant threw a rock and rolled a Crit. The Barbarian went from 70 something HP to 20 something HP. The axe swings will also do something like 20 or so damage.
6)Even in the end playing the orcs semi-smart they managed to kill all of them and damage one of the giants to 81 HP. Granted the Orcs killed the Top 2 Npcs (the dwarf and the wizard), the guy who starts near the Lady(Lord?) of Triboar got dropped to 0, and the ex-adventurer inn keeper got dropped and healed back up 2x. But my player's were literally out of every resource.

I hope some of this helps.

[Oramac]

For those wondering how I ran the Triboar encounter:

So alot of how the city survives depends on where your party is at the time the giants come. To me it didn't make sense for the party to show up and more or less arrive right before the giant attack. So I had the attack start the next morning. My party happened to be at the INN that is on the right side of the map, can't remember the name atm, so they were pretty close to the giants. I ended up running the NPCs myself since this was in Roll20 and the character sheets had alot of spoilers on it.

Things I wished I did differently/did:
1)Don't have the enemies start in the same location. There are alot of them and the Orogs pack a decent punch and have a pretty high AC. Most of the NPCs are spread pretty thin and the map is huge. So it is easy for them to get over run and wiped out in a round or 2.
2)The reason to start the enemies closer because the scale is 30ft per "square" so it took the giants something like 10 rounds just dashing to get to their objective.
3)By spreading out the enemies it gives the player's more choices than just sitting in one spot and being the rock breaking the wave.
4) Have the fire dog things run around "lighting" things on fire. I decided it would take them 2-3 rounds to light a building on fire and it gave my player's a different goal other than kill everything.
5)Watch out for the giant's damage. One rock will kill most PCs. We had a barbarian with the resistance to all damage feature. The giant threw a rock and rolled a Crit. The Barbarian went from 70 something HP to 20 something HP. The axe swings will also do something like 20 or so damage.
6)Even in the end playing the orcs semi-smart they managed to kill all of them and damage one of the giants to 81 HP. Granted the Orcs killed the Top 2 Npcs (the dwarf and the wizard), the guy who starts near the Lady(Lord?) of Triboar got dropped to 0, and the ex-adventurer inn keeper got dropped and healed back up 2x. But my player's were literally out of every resource.

I hope some of this helps.


Good to know. Thanks!! I just read the section on Bryn Shander (sp) last night and was thinking that even with the NPCs it would be deadly. Especially since my party is only 4 people and they're all new to D&D. I may nerf the monsters/numbers just to be on the safe side. If they're mopping the floor with them I can always have a "wave 2" of giants rush in.

[Stygofthedump]

My Triboar went ok, I had the giants focus on dashing toward the objective and only attacking when attacked. They had 2 pcs making death saves and then moved on. This allows for rescue from healers. The orcs go down pretty fast but those Orogs are tough! They are also fast! I had players and NPCs ignored if they move clear and don't attack. The fire things attacked anyone however. As the giants were leaving I had one of the 12 show up with a large group of peasants with short bows to harry giants out. Only giants lived with near full health!