MandibleBones
2008-02-24, 01:59 PM
WARNING: The following post contains spoilers for the Expedition to Undermountain (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=products/fracc/957327200) campaign module. If this bothers you, don't read it.
So I'm playing in an Expedition to Undermountain game with my IRL group. There's six of us, and we're level one (EtU is advertised as being level-one friendly - it lies!).
We consist of:
- Me (Strongheart Halfling Warlock 1)
- A human cleric with Multiple Ability Awesomeness who is going minor-league 'Zilla without using DPMM.
- An elven rogue heading toward assassin (player's 1st time playing)
- An elven druid heading toward 'Zilla
- A dwarven artificer (player's 1st time playing)
- A human (if I recall correctly) monk.
So the monk aside (and he's not really any worse off than a bard is at level 1), we should be able to survive and thrive here, right?
WARNING: Spoilers follow. I'm not spoilering this, but just so you know.
No, no. The first room has a secret door carved into rock, and since we have two elves and a dwarf in the party, they all find it. As they attempt to open it, three goblins with some sort of psionic-slug-with-metal-embedded-in-it ambush us. This encounter is CR5. In the first room.
We survive out of pure dumb luck (I beat it in initiative and sickening blast it, which prevents it from one-shotting the monk and the artificer), and because the DM never used its death attack - the one that fills the room with flying metal shards which do 4d6 damage to all creatures in the room (reflex for half).
For those of you not tracking hit point totals, that's a nearly-automatic TPK. In the first room. It didn't happen because we were lucky and our DM doesn't read fine print very well. Later on, he lets us know that the module INTENDS for it to be used when we are on our way OUT of the dungeon, ostensibly when we are higher level.
The problems with this logic are:
1.) There's random encounters in here with a frequency that would make Final Fantasy blush, most of which are somewhat level-appropriate, so no resting for us - this means we have to leave to sleep or risk being killed during the night.
2.) On our way out of the dungeon, we are more likely to be injured, out of spells (except me), carrying wounded or just plain exhausted. Luck or not, we would not have survived this fight without the cleric's spells, without full HP, and without the scrolls or potions we were carrying.
It gets worse from here on in. So though I am having fun (and have a couple back-up characters readied), I have two questions:
1. How in the name of the People's Republic of Hell is this supposed to be "appropriate for 1st level characters" ?
2. How would you survive to reach level two?
3. Any tips, spoilers, anything that we can use to be better prepared? The DM doesn't frown on metagaming, which ordinarily I would find annoying, but here it looks to be a survival tool. In fact, he rewards it when it's used well and without being too blatant (such as finding the one way out of the room with the antimagic field that didn't trigger the carytid column to attack). By the way, Warlocks? Totally useless in an AM field at 1st level.
So I'm playing in an Expedition to Undermountain game with my IRL group. There's six of us, and we're level one (EtU is advertised as being level-one friendly - it lies!).
We consist of:
- Me (Strongheart Halfling Warlock 1)
- A human cleric with Multiple Ability Awesomeness who is going minor-league 'Zilla without using DPMM.
- An elven rogue heading toward assassin (player's 1st time playing)
- An elven druid heading toward 'Zilla
- A dwarven artificer (player's 1st time playing)
- A human (if I recall correctly) monk.
So the monk aside (and he's not really any worse off than a bard is at level 1), we should be able to survive and thrive here, right?
WARNING: Spoilers follow. I'm not spoilering this, but just so you know.
No, no. The first room has a secret door carved into rock, and since we have two elves and a dwarf in the party, they all find it. As they attempt to open it, three goblins with some sort of psionic-slug-with-metal-embedded-in-it ambush us. This encounter is CR5. In the first room.
We survive out of pure dumb luck (I beat it in initiative and sickening blast it, which prevents it from one-shotting the monk and the artificer), and because the DM never used its death attack - the one that fills the room with flying metal shards which do 4d6 damage to all creatures in the room (reflex for half).
For those of you not tracking hit point totals, that's a nearly-automatic TPK. In the first room. It didn't happen because we were lucky and our DM doesn't read fine print very well. Later on, he lets us know that the module INTENDS for it to be used when we are on our way OUT of the dungeon, ostensibly when we are higher level.
The problems with this logic are:
1.) There's random encounters in here with a frequency that would make Final Fantasy blush, most of which are somewhat level-appropriate, so no resting for us - this means we have to leave to sleep or risk being killed during the night.
2.) On our way out of the dungeon, we are more likely to be injured, out of spells (except me), carrying wounded or just plain exhausted. Luck or not, we would not have survived this fight without the cleric's spells, without full HP, and without the scrolls or potions we were carrying.
It gets worse from here on in. So though I am having fun (and have a couple back-up characters readied), I have two questions:
1. How in the name of the People's Republic of Hell is this supposed to be "appropriate for 1st level characters" ?
2. How would you survive to reach level two?
3. Any tips, spoilers, anything that we can use to be better prepared? The DM doesn't frown on metagaming, which ordinarily I would find annoying, but here it looks to be a survival tool. In fact, he rewards it when it's used well and without being too blatant (such as finding the one way out of the room with the antimagic field that didn't trigger the carytid column to attack). By the way, Warlocks? Totally useless in an AM field at 1st level.