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    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    PirateGuy

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    Default Re: Yet Another Red Hand Of Doom Campaign Journal, Part II: The Fane of Tiamat

    AslanCross and BooNL, you are both correct regarding the defensive capacities of the Fane. Were I a better DM, I would have forseen this better and planned accordingly.

    However, I will point out that even if Kull knows that the Fane is being invaded, there's not all that much he can do. He can slowly summon reinforcements, weak ones - three blackspawn and an abishai per day. Maybe it would do well for Kull to have a better source of reinforcements - I had some of the dead wyverns come back as zombie wyverns, but that didn't help all that much.

    I will also note that if Kull has 24 hours to complete the ritual. If he can pull this off, he wins, or at least has made the party's job much more difficult. At this point, perhaps he is just thinking, "**** it, I'll finish this ritual or die trying." But this does not really excuse what is otherwise pretty blatant stupidity in his defense of the Fane.

    As I observed before, I think the real problem here is that the Fane is very large, and has a bunch of encounters that don't really add anything. If I were to redesign the Fane from the ground up, I would include:
    • Tyrgarun, of course, and the trap on the front door
    • The foyer, more heavily defended
    • The torture chamber, more or less unchanged
    • The barracks and the priest's chambers, merged into a single area somehow
    • The temple, guarded by the dragonspawn from the cave (I think my selection of dragonspawn worked out pretty well)
    • The treasury, guarded by the barbed devil, combined with the bedchamber - put the erinyes in the Inner Sanctum with Kull himself
    • The inner sanctum, of course


    So this leaves out the kitchen, the altar beneath the Inner Sanctum, the cave (not thrilled about this, but I like the temple and wyverns are just lame at this level), and merges the barracks and the priest quarters. I think this would result in a much tighter, more satisfying Chapter V.

    EDIT: BooNL, 3 4th level gestalt characters can probably handle the module. However, AslanCross' statements regarding action advantage are spot-on - many times, the party will find themselves in trouble due to sheer numerical disadvantage. However, I cannot agree with his advice to have each player play two characters, as this severely hinders roleplaying. ("Ok, which one of you is talking right now?") I would recommend including a 4th character as a DMPC. As long as you create him to fill a support role, one that the party lacks, and don't use him as a self-insert character, you should be OK. The module even contains several possible characters that could fill this role - Jorr and many of the NPCs from Drellin's Ferry in Chapter I, Trellara Nightshadow or Killiar Arrowswift from Chapter II. These characters can, of course, be re-statted to taste.

    I urge you to at least consider this option.
    Last edited by kjones; 2009-09-14 at 11:09 AM.
    My Red Hand of Doom campaign journal: Part I, Part II
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