Elemental evil: WHAT?!?

[Waazraath]

Warning: contains spoilers on Princes of the Apocalyps (PotA) adventure.

Ok, I'm DM'ing PotA at the moment. The party isn't very far yet, but I'm already looking through the adventure to see how things willl go. And at several points, I'm flabbergasted by how the hell the party is supposed to survive. It seems so damn lethal.

Let's start with chapter 4, the temples. The book says (character advancement) that the first temple the party should be level 6, and most logical (best suited) is the air temple. The book also says that the first time the can encounter a prophet, they do (only then do the other 3 retreat to the lower dungeon).

So: there is this level 6 party, that goes (as planned) to the air temple, and encounters the prophet. Which is a 12th level spellcaster, with chain lightning, lightingbolt, and cloudkill, among others. And is accompanied by an invisible stalker, ten (10!) mooks (ok, poisoned, but stilll), and depending on how the adventure played out, an 8th level spellcaster. Oh, and a Djinn, that can be summoned, as well. How is this not going to end up as anything but a bloody massacre?

And then there are the princes themselves. I'm aware it's not the intention to beat one of them into a bloody pulp, but do the smart thing and close the portal. BUT. How the hell is a party supposed to do that? The air prince can blind everybody as a lair action in a 120 feet, and use a legendary action to bring somebody to 0hp and dying status. Hasn't even taken an action yet, to summon reinforcements or chain lighting. The water princess can suommon a 40ft fog that effectively blinds everybody (except for herself, due to blindsight), as a lair action. And can attack/grapple/crush people quite easily to death, it seems. The fire prince an cause exhaustion in everybody with a lair action, and again 3 times with legendary actions. In less than 2 turns, everybody in the party can be death by exhaustion. All these princes have their prophet with them, who can do stuff too, and waits at the end of a long dungeon trek. The only reasonable option I see for the party is (funny enough) to engage the CR20 earth prince.

Am really curious if there are people who played these encounters by the book, and what happened!

[mgshamster]

Maybe they should try to talk to the prophet instead of blindly trying to kill everything and everyone they meet?

[Breashios]

Obviously a lot of factors will impact how difficult the encounters are for your party. So far our party has killed the leaders of the air and earth cults. That means they will face either the water or the fire elemental prince. I fear for them if they end with the water actually.

In terms of level, the party of five to six characters has reached 9th and has had a few close calls, including a couple of retreats, but never have I had to take the foot off the gas pedal. In fact, I beefed up every encounter by about double (except the big boss fights which I did nothing for the air, but more than doubled for the earth where it made sense story wise). One character was almost turned to stone and then was dropped to 0 but was healed right back up before the last round.

They are currently fighting their way out of the lair, but look poised to make it without too much chance of ultimate loss.


At work now, but I can have more for you later or you could post to me directly and I'll be happy to discuss all kinds of spoiler related stuff like that.

[jaappleton]

.....cast Silence on the spellcaster.

>_>

[Reosoul]

Going to say, that of all the 5e modules I've played in(Haven't done SKT or Strahd), this one is probably the most infuriating to play in as a player if your DM isn't very good. Not even from an encounters stand-point, but the DM simply having no idea how to breadcrumb people places and often leaving the characters with either zero hooks, or hooks that dead-end because they're not sure how to roll with the player wandering around and trying to yank information out of people as to just what the hell is going on in the Valley.

Good luck on running it though. I'd just adjust the encounters some as it felt right/made sense for your DM style. I don't think really highly of the PotA module, but a good DM can still make it a blast to play(I just wasn't that lucky).

[Sjappo]

Been playing it and it is indeed frustrating.

Btw, you might want to spoiler some things.

[solidork]

I'm playing in it right now, and we've just finished completely destroying the fire cult (we were level 9 and had 3 NPC helpers) and the only reason we managed to do it without having to constantly retreat and take long rests is because we have two people who know Counterspell and they spent pretty much all of their 3rd level spell slots countering Fireballs. We used Banishment to skip the fight with the roper which I have no doubt would have killed all of us if we had actually fought it.

[Idkwhatmyscreen]

Warning: contains spoilers on Princes of the Apocalyps (PotA) adventure.

Ok, I'm DM'ing PotA at the moment. The party isn't very far yet, but I'm already looking through the adventure to see how things willl go. And at several points, I'm flabbergasted by how the hell the party is supposed to survive. It seems so damn lethal.

Let's start with chapter 4, the temples. The book says (character advancement) that the first temple the party should be level 6, and most logical (best suited) is the air temple. The book also says that the first time the can encounter a prophet, they do (only then do the other 3 retreat to the lower dungeon).

So: there is this level 6 party, that goes (as planned) to the air temple, and encounters the prophet. Which is a 12th level spellcaster, with chain lightning, lightingbolt, and cloudkill, among others. And is accompanied by an invisible stalker, ten (10!) mooks (ok, poisoned, but stilll), and depending on how the adventure played out, an 8th level spellcaster. Oh, and a Djinn, that can be summoned, as well. How is this not going to end up as anything but a bloody massacre?

And then there are the princes themselves. I'm aware it's not the intention to beat one of them into a bloody pulp, but do the smart thing and close the portal. BUT. How the hell is a party supposed to do that? The air prince can blind everybody as a lair action in a 120 feet, and use a legendary action to bring somebody to 0hp and dying status. Hasn't even taken an action yet, to summon reinforcements or chain lighting. The water princess can suommon a 40ft fog that effectively blinds everybody (except for herself, due to blindsight), as a lair action. And can attack/grapple/crush people quite easily to death, it seems. The fire prince an cause exhaustion in everybody with a lair action, and again 3 times with legendary actions. In less than 2 turns, everybody in the party can be death by exhaustion. All these princes have their prophet with them, who can do stuff too, and waits at the end of a long dungeon trek. The only reasonable option I see for the party is (funny enough) to engage the CR20 earth prince.

Am really curious if there are people who played these encounters by the book, and what happened!

Your the Dm, the 12th level casters don't have to spam their high levels slots, You don't have to spam lair abilities that make the party die

Think of the encounters like Video Game Boss fights. Set Hp thresholds for the more powerful abilities, don't tell the party that you are holding back, but use descriptive language to tell them what is going

"With sweat streaming down the casters face, he steadies himself, his eyes burn with fury as he casts ______"
"The Prince of Fire curses you with oaths in a language you don't understand, he roars up with anger as you feel your strength fail (Take a level of exhaustion)"

[jaappleton]

I do believe its fairly widely regarded that PotA is... the most poorly put together of the adventure paths released so far.

I mean, there's only been so many, but one of them has to be 'worst'. And its that.

[Breashios]

I do believe its fairly widely regarded that PotA is... the most poorly put together of the adventure paths released so far.

I mean, there's only been so many, but one of them has to be 'worst'. And its that.

I can't speak to any others as I have not played or run them, but following the comments about them, I would really not like the way the initial one about the dragons pushed the group. I have also seen some pretty unhappy comments about the underdark adventure.

But I am guessing each adventure has its strengths and weaknesses, making each more of less favored, depending on personal taste more than objective criteria. There certainly are typos in PotA, but I personally favor the adventure for allowing a wide range of decisions and the ease with which I can modify any encounter to fit the flavor of the campaign and the interests of the players.

[Breashios]

For the OP: Are you planning to level by XP or by milestones?

[Waazraath]

Maybe they should try to talk to the prophet instead of blindly trying to kill everything and everyone they meet?

Yeah, that's why we play Debates & Discussions, to have long chats with murderous cult leaders Seriously: yes, talking to the prophet is an option. But choosing the option "fighting the boss at the end of the dungeon" shouldn't lead to a certain TPK. As for the princes: no "talking" option there, if you play by the book.

@Breashios Saw your PM, thanks!


.....cast Silence on the spellcaster.

>_>

Which has a fixed range in 5e, so anybody can walk out of the area; not every party has that spelll; you need to win initiative first.

@Reosoul: yeah, I can understand. I already drasticly reduced the number of NPC's and started to give more concrete hints; for some groups the 'sandbox' approach that the book has works, but for ours (I have 2 novice players, 1 other, and we only play every 4 weeks or so) it's all far too complex. They prefer clear leads and hunches.

@Sjappo: good idea, used the spoiler tag.


Your the Dm, the 12th level casters don't have to spam their high levels slots, You don't have to spam lair abilities that make the party die

Think of the encounters like Video Game Boss fights. Set Hp thresholds for the more powerful abilities, don't tell the party that you are holding back, but use descriptive language to tell them what is going

"With sweat streaming down the casters face, he steadies himself, his eyes burn with fury as he casts ______"
"The Prince of Fire curses you with oaths in a language you don't understand, he roars up with anger as you feel your strength fail (Take a level of exhaustion)"

Yeah, of course, I can, and I will if needed, I'm not going to TPK my party due to a bad written adventure. But I am curious if people have played it by the book, and it is as bad as it seems to me. I think it weird design to write an adventure with overpowered opponents, and leave it up to the DM to tune them down. Why not more appropriate challenges in the first place?


For the OP: Are you planning to level by XP or by milestones?

Yes. Given my party is 3 persons, I think I'll just advance them a bit quicker than the book suggests, have em be 1 or 2 levels higher over the course of the campaign.

[NNescio]

Which has a fixed range in 5e, so anybody can walk out of the area; not every party has that spelll; you need to win initiative first.

Banish first, then Silence + readied Grapples when he comes back?

I mean, sure, not every party has both Banishment and Silence, but I think this is pretty much mandatory if the DM (or the module designer) tosses copious amounts of enemy spellcasters at the party.

[Breashios]

Yes. Given my party is 3 persons, I think I'll just advance them a bit quicker than the book suggests, have em be 1 or 2 levels higher over the course of the campaign.

In that case, you won't have to run all the random encounters you would roll in the wilderness, or reduce the threat of each appropriately. If you are running strictly by XP one of the other concerns I've seen posted is that there isn't enough to get the party to the listed level (oops), but in reality it appears to me, that is because they haven't really been using the random encounters, excursions and cult reprisals as written. There is a lot of XP left out there in those events, that have to be picked up. The most difficult part for me was using the excursions in an appropriate way. Often the party wants to ignore those to get after the main story thread, and that makes sense after they figure out what is really going on.