adventure critique/suggestions... + chances of survival

[big teej]

greetings playgrounders,

as many of you know, I've been running a 'teaching' module for my on campus group, and we're nearly done with it (yay!)

however, one of the players can't make it next session, and the last part of the module is.... well
if anything in the module is going to kill them, this is it.

so I want them all to be present for it,

so I have to come up with an interm adventure until next session.

I have come up with the following,

I want to know
- any suggestions/critques you have
- predicted survival rating
- changes you'd make
- questions you have for me

the party is all level 2 and consists of
Human Paladin
Human Ranger (melee)
Half Elf Ranger (ranged)
Elf Druid + wolf animal companion
Elf Rogue
Dwarf fighter - absent player

given this, and the obvious inexperience of the group, what would you rate the chances of survival for the following encounters?

(these have not been fleshed out, this is merely a framework I plan to build on)

also, if anyone cares to know, its a slaneeshi cult

Spoiler

Show

As you are all sitting in the tavern, taking a well earned rest from your fight with the orcs, a messenger stumbles into the tavern, appearing very distraught and disheveled. He looks around the bar and spots you, and hurries over.

“you must come quickly” the man pants, still out of breath. ‘marlak the sorcerer requires your presence immeidietly!”

As you enter marlak’s abode, you notice that the old man is sweating profusely and is clearly distressed. as you enter, he shudders and turns from gazing at the fire.

“a great evil will occur this night if you do not stop it.’ He states. ‘there is a demon-cult within this town, up until recently they have not been worth the trouble to destroy. But something has changed, they’ve become far more focused and degenerate over the past few weeks, and tonight they plan a sacrifice to their god. I know not how much destruction they can wreak with their first sacrifice, but I do know that this is but the first step on the road to damnation and greater power for the individuals within the cult’

Pause for questions

Marlak gives you directions to the location he believes the rite will take place. He emplores you to proceed with all haste.


You arrive in the general area well after night has fallen, but according to marlak, you should still have a few hours before the sacrifice.

……..What do you do?

As you proceed towards the sacrificial circle, a mist rises from the damp ground, slightly obscuring vision … after a few moments, off in the distance, you see a humanoid figure shuffling through the darkness in your general direction.

Encounter 1
Depraved commoner
10 HP
Stats: all 10’s
Unarmed
AC 10
Masochist

‘as the man notices you, he giggles dementedly and shuffles towards you, muttering under his breath’



Encounter 2
4 ‘hell’ hounds
Replace fire breath with acid stream.


Encounter 3
X number of cultists (all possess masochist)
1 leader, conducting sacrifice
If sacrifice is interrupted – 4 manes are summoned and attack the party
If sacrifice is completed – 4 manes are summoned + cult leader gets to roll on ‘benefits’ table

For x, I’m thinking somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 – 20 with varying deformities (vile feats) from the BoVD

thanks in advance.

have at it

[holywhippet]

Spoiler

Show

Hell hounds are CR 3 - which means an average party of that level will find it a challenging encounter. That's for a single hound, and you want them to face 4 of them? Hell hounds do 1d8+1 plus 1d6 fire damage per hit not to mention their 2d6 cone shaped breath weapon. Against a level 2 party (even assuming they have maximum HP) they are going to do a whole lot of damage in a short amount of time. Potentially they could down a party member about once a round.

[big teej]

hm....
well, I was planning to use the 'hellhound' stats from the teaching module, which, if memory serves, is far weaker than your standard hellhound

module hound stats

Spoiler

Show

hit die: 4d8 + 4
AC 16
attack: bite d20 + 5
damage: d8+1
fire breath: d6+1
saves
fort +5
reflex +5
will + 4

they've already fought one, and trounced it.... granted that was underground.

but given those stats, if the playground feels that 4 of them is still to much, I'll certainly change it.

in fact, given taht this will be open terrain, I may lower it anyways..

[holywhippet]

Well, the thing to remember is that there is strength in numbers. The more monsters there are the more dangerous they are. Consider what happens in the first round if they all use their breath weapon on the same target. It's 2d6 damage, reflex save for half. Say that character makes half of the saves and gets an average 50% damage each time. So that's 2 * 6 + 2 * 3 damage = 18 damage. That's about enough to take down a single character at level 2.

That's only one character also - the breath weapon is a 10 foot cone so it might hit several characters.

Those training module ones aren't as bad though. The breath damage is only 1d6 + 1 and they don't do extra damage with melee attacks. If you use those ones a fight against level 2 characters is tough but doable.

[big teej]

Those training module ones aren't as bad though. The breath damage is only 1d6 + 1 and they don't do extra damage with melee attacks. If you use those ones a fight against level 2 characters is tough but doable.

the stats from the module are what I plan to use, with the one modification of acid damage instead of fire.

so 'tough but doable' is .... what? a projected survival of 50%? 30%?