User:Bill/Thunderspire Mountain Enhanced

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Pregame

The local Encounters group tapped me to run the Season 5 module, Dark Legacy of Evard. I agreed without hesitation, mostly because my efforts to put together a consistent play group have failed for the last two years, but also because I wanted to see how D&D 4 really handles. I've owned a copy of the game for several years, but I've done very little with it due to my general bias against D20 and all things D&D. Honestly, there's nothing wrong with the game; I'm just the sort of person that prefers to avoid popular things.

Anyway, one of the regulars expressed an interest in playing the season at a higher level, Encounters starts at level 1. So I determined to run the game starting at level 5. That presented two immediate challenges. First, I had to generate a set of appropriate characters. One of the strengths of the Encounters program is that anyone, regardless of his or her familiarity with the game can show up totally unprepared and join the game. To preserve that, every element of every character needs to be available for quick and easy reference. Bearing in mind that this season coincided with the release of Heroes of Shadow and the Shadowfell campaign setting, I intended to use HoS characters exclusively for my pregens. Drastically underestimating the time commitment involved in fully detailing each of them, I decided to make one of each class and race option. And, just for my own amusement, I used all of the fey PC races. Ultimately, I completed nine characters with notes for each power, feat, and magic item relevant to them; at approximately five hours per character to complete.

The second challenge would be upgrading the adventure to be suitable for level five characters. Encounters resets to level one every season, so I was anticipating needing to revise the adventure significantly. However, due to an oversight, our Encounters group never ordered the season 5 materials. Undaunted, and because we were two-weeks behind on season 4, I had time to find a substitute. I selected H2 Thunderspire Labyrinth, an adventure for characters from levels 3-5. I probably could have saved myself some work by choosing a level 5 adventure, but I liked the tone of the book. The process of revising the adventure has been very informative too.

The Characters

Below are some notes on my pregenerated characters, including my decision making process. I'm probably not going to include fully detailed character sheets for them though. I'm too lazy. One overarching observation that I made during the character generation process was how similar in power level these characters were to starting Solar Exalted, from White Wolf's Exalted series. That may be nothing more than me projecting my own desire for these characters to be something greater than casual dungeon delving sociopaths, but I'm far from the first to draw these parallels. My years of experience with Exalted probably shows in the names too.

All characters were generated by hand using option two from the Player's Handbook for stats, with one minor adjustment. Instead of adding one two two stats at level four, I added three to two stats. This will be a small perk for folks choosing to play the pregens. I also used the equipment guidelines from the DMG to establish how many magic items each character would have. This was at times very challenging.

Auden Grimson

Heroes of Shadow introduces a new Assassin variant, the Executioner. The class is designed around using debilitating poisons to set up the target for a killing strike. In fact it includes a class feature that literally says the character may choose to automatically reduce a creature with ten or fewer hit points to zero without a save. It's a little over the top, but I'm fine with it.

In effort to use every fey race in the game, I elected to make the character a gnome. It turned out to be disgustingly effective. The character is capable of using stealth reflexively and can create a variety of illusions to further mask his presence. Combined with the poison making gimmicks, it looks like an enormously fun character for folks that like details and playing a character who is never quite part of the group.

Cleitemnestra the Widow

Heroes of Shadow fills in a couple blank areas including dark paladins. The Blackguard aren't necessarily evil, but rather than manifesting the benevolent and heroic side of a gods presence they express their god's wrath. On the surface, the class seems a little broken. It includes very nice at-will attacks that grant the character combat advantage. That by itself wouldn't be an issue except it also includes triggered powers that key off combat advantage and a class feature that stacks the character's Charisma bonus with it's Strength bonus for damage against targets that the character has advantage on. Rather than worry about whether it was balanced, I embraced the idea wholly. I gave the character feats granting it advantage on all enemies the first round and proficiency with a fullblade for maximum damage. I also gave it a feat that eliminates the mobility penalty for wearing heavy armor.

To add insult to injury, I made her drow. While a suboptimal choice as far as the stat bonuses, having the ability to toss around darkness and stun targets, basically means she can grant herself and others advantage in any situation that she might otherwise not have it. I think the character has a lot of opportunity for creative backstory, though I haven't filled any of it in.

Croesus Blacktongue

Up to this point D&D 4 clerics have been all about healing and buffing the party. Heroes of Shadow introduces the death cleric to fill in the gap of harming and debuffing clerics. Death clerics can provide some healing to a party, but not much. And the have a few quirks that really make them more effective controllers than leaders in my opinion.

I knew that one of the regulars, the fellow who had asked about playing at a higher level in fact, had generated a death cleric, so creating this character was more of an exercise in completion than anything else. To be completely honest, I didn't put as much effort into this character as the rest because of that and it shows. Even so, in the event that he is unable to attend or his character gets killed, I have another cleric waiting in the wings.

For Croesus, I went with a revenant. For the most part, I wanted to avoid combining races and classes from the same book. In this case it made sense to do so. However, in keeping with my fey theme, Croesus was an elf in his previous life.

Dyzan Histruk - Windtouched

I've got these in alphabetical order, not the order that I made them or the order that the information appears in the book. For Dyzan, a name I lifted from Flash Gordon, I was looking for a class that would fill a leader spot. I was trying for two of each role and Heroes of Shadow includes three strikers. Perhaps because they're more difficult to play, it seems like there are fewer leaders than any other role.

Anyway, I built a Sentinel Druid from the Essentials books to create a druid with an animal companion. I was really disappointed that the book only included spring and summer variants, but by dipping into powers from Player's Handbook 2, I was able to create a wind themed character better suited to the shadow themed Vryloka.

Vryloka are sort of a watered down version of vampires for players that want to do a vampire character but not the vampire class. Unless you're running a story that actually dips into the vryloka background, they're really just another boring sort of not-human. I really wish they had used the space for a more complex race, or even that they had reprinted the Shadar-kai.

Helfyn Darkstalker

Speaking of Shadar-kai, I happen to have the Dragon Annual that features them and couldn't leave them out of a shadow themed group. To even better tie the character in with the theme, I gave Helfyn the vampiric heritage feat. I ended up with three vampires and four fey all together, one character is actually both.

I'd already made a chain fighter by the time I got to Helfyn and I wanted to steer away from that stereotype anyway, so I ended up making the character a glaive weilding Harrier Battlemind from Psionic Power. This class is absurdly mobile due to its emphasis on teleportation powers and that may lead to some folks thinking it's more of a striker than a defender. However, looking over the rest of its powers will make it apparent that the character is intended to control a section of the board. She can effectively manage two combatants while soaking up lots of damage and shaking off effects. The teleportation gimmicks add a fun bit of control and mobility, but it would be a mistake to focus on them too much.

Luthor Frostwarden

For my other defender, I went with a Warden from Player's Handbook 2. This character and the Shadar-kai above are the only two characters built completely outside of Heroes of Shadow, which features no defenders at all. I think that is a substantial oversight by the publishers. Really, if a company is going to ascribe all characters to a tightly defined set of roles, I think it behooves them to cover all of those roles in a themed product like this. I mean really, it's four classes and possible four races designed to compliment those classes.

I used the Frozen Soul feat to give it a little Shadowfell connection, but otherwise, it's a stock half-elf. The warden does include some nice options for this kind of game though. The Form of Winter's Herald and Winter's Grip powers are particularly well suited to the flavor of the Shadowfell in my opinion.

Sarsariel Bloodthorn

Several people I've talked with have disliked the idea of vampire being a class. And at first blush, it is counter intuitive. However, after thinking it through, I see the logic. Due to the broad array of powers ascribed to a vampire and the wide range of races that feature vampiric members, it's too complex an idea to be handled as a feat chain. I actually see a lot of potential for using this kind of monster class in conjunction with the hybrid class rules to create some very interesting characters.

The craziest combo I could come up with for this class was to combine it with the Wilden from Player's Handbook 3. The idea of a blood drinking plant fey seemed especially alien to me. As I was writing it, the character seemed particularly potent. It uses Dexterity instead of Strength for its at-will attacks and its d10 slam attack stacks the character's Charisma bonus plus a level based increase for damage. It seems over the top, but she also only has two healing surges and half the hit points of a typical striker. In my opinion at least, the vampire makes lots of trade offs to be an effective striker who runs on the edge of her own death.

I think Sarsariel will be best suited to players who are willing to take big risks and back off when her regeneration kicks in.

Seleme - Princess of Terror

Yes, the name is particularly melodramatic. As I was writing up this Shade Nethermancer the layers of creepiness jut got thicker and thicker. The Nethermancer wizard variant is one of two featured in the Heroes of Shadow; the other being the Necromancer. The nethermancer is a fun idea, manipulating shadows and creating zones. For her second school I went with enchantment to further enhance her mind control abilities. Like the Vryloka, the shade amounts to a funny looking almost human rather than a real race, and again they're best used for their background elements in my opinion.

This character is actually the one I put the most thought into. Among her powers are two cantrips that enable her to use Arcana in place of an Intimidate or Diplomacy check, which I like to think of as her manipulating the shadows to terrify her target into submission. The creepiness inspired me. In addition to the fun powers, I gave the character the Arcane Familiar feat from Arcane Power and selected the Arcane Eye from the Dragon magazine article on familiars. A skull mask completes her look.

I'd recommend this character for folks that are looking for non combat solutions and lots of roleplaying opportunities. For an added bit of irony, I made her lawful good.

Volistis Gloomlord

The last of my nine pregens is an Eladrin Gloom Binder. The Binder is a new Warlock variant introduced in Heroes of Shadow. Unlike previous warlock variants, the Binders don't have the ability to curse. The binder is instead a pure controller who manipulates creatures' positions on the field and generates hazardous zones. This caused some issues when it came to selecting equipment. None of the existing rods really compliment these abilities and Heroes of Shadow doesn't include any new ones. It's my greatest complaint about the book; more so even than not being able to build a complete party from just the presented classes.

Volistis strikes me as an incredibly useful character. He's tailor made to control the battlefield. However, it would not be enjoyable for folks that want to get up close and personal.

Session Notes

I've made no changes to the background information of the module. The front material of book one offers several potential story hooks to involve players, but none of them are really level specific in nature. Although it could be challenging to get higher level characters to chase down kidnapped peasants, depending on alignment.

Overall, I really like the style of the adventure, the description of the Seven-Pillared Hall, and the NPCs. It reminds me a great deal of the chapter on Nexus in the Scavenger Lands book for Exalted; down to the gold-masked arbiter of justice. There are some significant holes in the story though. For example, only two of the Mages of Saruun are described and the details of the group's objectives are completely ignored. If the players spend any time investigating the NPCs in the hall, I may have to make some stuff up. I'll probably end up doing so anyway just to amuse myself.

Experience Totals/Participant Log

I prefer to award experience points to players rather than characters. So everybody who shows up, regardless of what character they'll be playing, will be logged here. Session one, I didn't keep track of who was present; so I'll have to add those folks as I recall their names.

Player	Earned	Total	Sessions
Andrew	250	(5750)	1
Bruce	810	(6310)	2
Dylan	900	(6400)	3
Jason	1010	(6510)	3
Maria	450	(5950)	1
Matt	450	(5950)	1
Paul	560	(6060)	2
Rachel	1260	(6760)	4
Thomas	810	(6310)	3

Session 1 - May 25, 2011

The introductory encounter for the adventure pit the players against four hobgoblins and a hobgoblin warcaster. To beef up the opposition, I added a bugbear strangler. I set the scenario up by telling the players that their characters knew each other and had worked together before. I consider this to be an important thing to establish, simply to smooth over the awkward getting to know you phase of play and reduce inter-group conflict. In my experience there's a lot less opportunity for douchbaggery, like the rogue stealing from the other party members, when you establish that everybody is already friends.

In play this worked out to be a less than threatening encounter. A group of six player characters, made up of Cleitemnestra, Dyzan, Helfyn, Sarsariel, Seleme, and a death cleric created by Thomas, slowly and awkwardly took down all six monsters while suffering very little damage themselves. I generally prefer combat to run a little more quickly and to be a little more dangerous than how this worked out. The hobgoblins were completely ineffective and the party pinned down the bugbear before it could do much. I expect that the players will become more effective as they gain greater understanding of their characters' powers and develop some coordinated strategies. And, while that will address the speed at which the encounter is played out, it will only make the monsters less dangerous. For now I'm not going to worry too much about it. In the long run, if I continue to use 4e, I'll need to write my own monster profiles from scratch in order to tailor combat for the pace and drama that I like.

In all it was a good session for me. I learned a good deal regarding the inner workings of the game. The players made one small fumble though and killed the NPC intended to give them some essential clues. I probably could have fudged that or otherwise permitted them some kind of way out, but I strongly prefer to let the players work out their own problems.

Session 2 - June 1, 2011

This week only four players were in attendance. The weakness of the Encounters program is that it is an open game where the group composition can and will vary dramatically from week to week. In the previous season we had weeks with as many as a dozen players and one week with only three. In this instance it worked out well. The session was exclusively made up of roleplay, the closest thing to combat we had was a brief drinking contest. While I can manage a larger group for a roleplay intensive session, it becomes a bit confusing and players inevitably split up. It's also not the most exciting thing for some folks and it would have undoubtedly turned off somebody entirely that we didn't have any combat. I guess I could have thrown in a bar fight if necessary.

Over the course of the session a great deal of information was gathered and one of the important NPCs from the module was introduced. In the original material Brugg is a brutish ogre in charge of the enforcers who manage the Seven-Pillared Hall for the Mages of Saruun. As part of the upgrade for the module, I have revised the character to be an earth genasi who is as cunning as he is powerful. He's still a thug and a murderer, but now he's also smart.

Helfyn, played by Dylan, and Thomas's cleric of The Raven Queen, Rook, ended up in an impromptu drinking contest with Brugg at Rothar's Taproom while Auden, played by Andrew, looked on and Seleme observed through her arcane eye. I probably should have run this as a skill challenge based on endurance. Instead I ended up just rolling a couple 12 sided dice and calling it non-lethal damage. It worked out and the guys played along well. The cleric passed out quickly and Dylan let his resistance to questioning falter as Helfyn got more and more drunk. In the end Brugg robbed both characters and learned that the group of adventurers is seeking the Bloodreavers. The party learned that Brugg is a dangerous and important person.

The remainder of the session consisted of Auden putting the drunks to bed after pickpocketing in the open-air market around the custom house and Seleme doing some exploring. The open-air market is my first addition to the Seven-Pillared Hall, but I can see some potential story opportunities there. Auden also managed to meet Bennik the Wanderer, a traveling minstrel, who referred him to Terrlen Darkseer to guide the party to the Chamber of Eyes.

Everyone received about equal screen time this week, though I think I might have shortchanged Andrew a little. He was a mostly regular attendee last season, so I expect he'll be back and I'll have the opportunity to give him more time.

Session 3 - June 8, 2011

This week saw five players at the table. Bruce, Jason, Paul, Thomas, and Rachel. Bruce is new to 4e and indicates that he hasn't played D&D in about 30 years. Rather than proceed to the next encounter in the published adventures, I randomly selected the Goblin Thieves encounter. This encounter featured more monsters than the typical D&D encounter; a goblin underboss, two goblin hexers, two goblin skullcleavers, five goblin warriors, and an ogre savage. The DMG suggests only have two to three types of monster on the field at any given time. And while that's good advice, I wanted to mix things up and try the group against a larger mob of monsters. I am learning the ins and outs of the game myself, so developing a better understanding of the powers available to the common monsters is important.

The players, having elected to use the enthralled NPC hobgoblin that Thomas's character, Rook, acquired during the first encounter did not wait for Bennik to introduce them to Terrlen. This may become problematic next session as the players must struggle to navigate the Labyrinth unaided. The hobgoblin died when struck by a goblin warrior. And, while Rook was able to enthrall an ogre during this encounter he will be unavailable for the next several weeks due to a work commitment.

The players who have been able to attend more than one session are beginning to better understand their characters' abilities. Had I chosen to use few enemies they would have probably mopped them up with some haste. The overall tone of this encounter, which lasted almost three hours, was better than the first one in my opinion. Cleitemnestra, Rook, and Sarsariel were all bloodied at one point or another. While I don't really want to kill player characters in every encounter, I want the threat of death to be present and real for the players. It will inform their actions and change the course of an otherwise simple encounter. One of my greatest complaints about RPGs is that the frontal assault so often becomes the preferred strategy when a less bloody option would work. Establishing a potential consequence of death effectively counters that impulse and results in highly creative play, in my experience.

Rachel, who has played D&D only once or twice prior to this game, is having difficulty communicating the strategy that she wishes to employ to the rest of the group and she is reluctant to just cut lose with her characters' abilities out of fear for harming the other player characters. Once this issue is resolved combat will begin to speed up considerably as Seleme possesses a number of area attacks. The remainder of the group has similar communication issues, but are able to function effectively independent of the group because their abilities only target one or two enemies.

I'm not sure how to effectively foster tactical collaboration among the players other than by offering them the opportunity to play on a regular basis. Perhaps I can review the available abilities, establish some effective synergies and construct puzzles that can only be solved by performing the correct coordinated action. It smacks a little of pixel-bitching to me, but it could be fun.

It has also been brought to my attention that one of the gentlemen who ran the previous season of Encounters has started his own campaign on the same night. While this reduces my established player base by forcing the existing regulars to choose between Encounters and his game, I wish him luck. Ultimately Encounters is geared for folks with limited experience or opportunity to play. It is a great way to learn the game and meet other players. Once those two tasks are accomplished though, it's probably best that folks start up their own group. Really, if I were running Dark Legacy of Evard as it came from WotC, they'd all be level one characters with no opportunity to advance beyond third. Only due to my own initiative and effort is the game anything else.

Session 4 - June 22, 2011

I spent the last week in Reno, visiting with friends and enjoying the company of my fiancée. As a consequence, I was a bit out of the swing of things for this week's encounter. Even so, I chose to press on with the adventure albeit less prepared than I had been in earlier sessions. In no small part is this due to the next season of encounters starting August 10th. I would like to finish with Thunderspire Labyrinth, or at least the main storyline thereof, on time.

With that in mind, I shorthanded the set-up and skipped over what could have been some valuable role play to put the players at the Chamber of Eyes. This week featured six players; Bruce, Dylan, Jason, Maria, Matt, and Rachel. Bruce elected to play his own character this time out, a half-orc avenger. Maria took on the role of Volistis while Matt played Cleitemnestra. Dylan, Jason, and Rachel continued with their previous characters. I have been asking if they would like to try a different character at the outset of each session. One of the benefits of Encounters is that you can mix things up, but it's certainly not required.

Per the text of the adventure, the player characters were confronted by an antechamber with a locked double door and a balcony. I quizzed the players to see if they could remember what the hobgoblin spellcaster had told them in session one, five weeks ago; they did not. I had everyone that was present for session one make an intelligence check, which none of them passed. Had they done so, I would have reminded the players that the hobgoblin indicated they could bypass the main entrance by going through the balcony. Instead, Helfyn and Cleitemnestra attempted to smash down the door; immediately alerting the monsters on the other side. Even worse, they failed to successfully break down the door. In response to this, I had three goblin warriors with javelins take up positions on the balcony and attack Seleme; who was the most exposed at the time. Owing to her AC, and the ludicrously poor attack bonus that level one monsters have, this was little more than a nuisance. Her response was to blast them with Ebony Razors, one of her more powerful spells, slaughtering two of them outright and leaving the third bloodied. He was further abused by Volistis, who cast an acidic zone over the balcony, and Sarsariel, who used her Dark Beckoning power to finish the poor goblin off.

On his action, Dylan managed to have Helfyn pick the lock and assess the situation on the other side of the door before being noticed. A large, particularly hairy goblinoid, later revealed to be a barghest, was mustering several hobgoblins and bugbears to repel the player characters. The remainder of the session was spent wading through four hobgoblin soldiers, three bugbears, two wolves, and the barghest. Some notable highlights:

Matt at one point found Cleitemnestra surrounded, with only one path of escape. This led his character to be separated from the group, facing the barghest alone. By this point he had also blown through most of the character's powers. Against most level seven antagonists, I'd put my money on Cleitemnestra; I wrote her to be an implacable whirlwind of destruction. Unfortunately everything she can do is based off gaining combat advantage, something that invisible targets generally don't grant. Matt was in the undesirable and not fun position of being picked apart by a foe that he couldn't effectively oppose. The character did survive, but only just, and mostly because I rolled badly.

Maria did reasonably well with Volistis's powers, though she did argue for the most favorable interpretation of the text. I don't really appreciate that sort of rules lawyering, but it's kind of part of the game. She also used both of the character's daily powers. This is potentially very bad, as I intend to have everyone play the same characters next session; proceeding to the next encounter without a rest. I will probably allow her to use Web of Shadows again. Due to a misinterpretation of the movement rules on my part the spell was vastly less effective than it should have been in this encounter.

Rachel is catching on to the rules pretty well at this point. She has mentioned to me on more than one occasion that she does not enjoy or perform well on strategy games, however she seems to be picking up on the most effective application of her character's powers quickly. I would argue that she is better at this than she thinks.

Jason struggled a little with how his character's regeneration functions. Sarsariel is very strange compared to what is typical of D&D characters. Due to her regeneration, she can effectively go down multiple times in a fight and recover. In this encounter she was taken to zero hit points by one of the bugbears, but quickly recovered to kill it. About the only way the character will actually die is if a coup de gras is used to finish her off.

Overall, this was a reasonably successful encounter. The players were challenged and the characters were forced to expend a significant quantity of resources. The downside of it is that this amounts to a level nine encounter. And while both Sarsariel and Cleitemnestra were severely injured, both recovered. I'm not sure how high I would have to push the encounter level to actually kill one of the player characters.

Random Encounters

Thunderspire Labyrinth isn't mapped, which I like. Instead, the author indicates that for every hour traveling through the labyrinth the DM should roll to see if the players encounter a group of monsters, with an increasing chance that they will for every subsequent roll. It's supposed to take about an hour to get to any particular destination in the Labyrinth, assuming the players don't get lost. I'm actively planning to use some of these to fluff out the module and feed the players some additional story hooks. The following list briefly describes the encounters and their source.

Pack Attack (Thunderspire Labryinth)	The Devourer (Thunderspire Labyrinth)
Questing Kobolds (Original)	Bat Cloud (Thunderspire Labyrinth)
Explorers (Underdark)	Lizardfolk Warparty (Original)
Treasure Seeker (Thunderspire Labyrinth)	The Would-Be King (Thunderspire Labyrinth)
Raiding Party (Underdark)	Soul Eater (Original)
The Dark Cultists (Thunderspire Labyrinth)	The Red Eye Gang (Thunderspire Labyrinth)
Troglodyte Crusaders (Thunderspire Labyrinth)	Gnoll Marauders (Thunderspire Labyrinth)
Goblin Thieves (Underdark)	Kruthik Nest (Thunderspire Labyrinth)
Slave Traders (Underdark)	Web of Death (Original)
Minotaur Seekers (Original)	The Praetor of Galth (Original)

Odds of my using all of these in this game are pretty slim. I like having a big list to randomly select from anyway. Several of these include significant story hooks too, and could potentially derail us from the published adventure for some time. I'm actually hoping that happens at least once, just to demonstrate to a couple of the guys how to handle it. I actually prepared notes for all of these encounters, which is quite uncharacteristic of me. For most games, I make stuff up as I go.