On the other hand, the monsters in the epic do hit hard so maybe giving them another chance to go is a good idea. Upping their offenses doesn't help if the main bad guys are dead at the end of round 1(the module does a pretty good job of dodging the alpha strike, but the beta strike...) Upping their Hp's is a decent idea but you don't want things to drag and if you run it in one long session, it can. I would see what works best in your group but I would think higher offense is better early on and higher hp's is better later.
I recently DM'ed EPIC3-1, and noticed that the party was a bit too optimized for the mod. Like: most fights didn't last past round 2, and the players could sometimes just skip their short rest. The returning pattern was that monsters just didn't have high enough defenses and HP, and were often not accurate enough and didn't do enough damage to really make the players panic.
Now they had plenty of fun, but I want to up the challenge a bit for the next adventure. What would you advice regarding combat encounters, just up the monster level by 1 or 2 across the board?
Hey Sven,
I think the best option to add challenge for the party is to simply increase the number of monsters. Adding either to hit bonusses or defenses will make investments in those area's for certain characters worthless or less releveant, which can lead to frustration. Additionally, most combats in Epic 3-1, from my perspective as a player, ended in round one/were rather easy since half or more than half of the monsters were immediately and permanently locked out of the fight. Adding one or two more monsters with a more spread out starting position should counter this nicely. I think it's a more reliable way of upping things than increasing the damage, since, if things go similarly, you'll have at most half the monsters to threaten the party in any encounter. As a party, it's far easier to screw over singular monsters with increased damage with interrupts than to deal with multiple enemies without boosted stats.
Then again, i know nothing of the module or the combats other than that the reaction of everyone in this thread is highly postive. Looking forward to it
I DM'd EPIC3-2 yesterday, and we had a very good time. Sure, the stuff that everyone mentioned in the thread did apply (adventure took long, challenge level was relatively low even when I increased the difficulty of the encounters), but I'm sure the authors don't want to hear about that anymore. So instead, I'm just going to relate what we liked about it.
Travel through Carceri: we had great fun with the journey through the plane. The Fire Giant in encounter 1 asked for parley pretty quickly, so the players were received as almost-equals in a court of giants and titans. I roleplayed King Karsus as a pretty cheerful guy as long as the players didn't anger him in some way. They didn't, and even convinced him to let them take the Fire Giant from encounter 1 as a tag-along to show them the way to Minethys to wipe out Neferkhaba.
The other islands were also a lot of fun. Highlights were the verbal sparring match with the Queen of the Court of Blood, meeting and dealing with Gero and fighting through the walls of ice.
The party consisted of (mostly) good guys, so they all rejected Sinmaker's offer repeatedly. They were a strong party, so they didn't need the "extended rest" he provided.
We really enjoyed the roleplaying opportunities this part of the adventure provided. So thanks for including them!
Agathys: this is where the s**t was gonna hit the fan. Or so I thought. Turns out my players really were prepared for anything. Well, with a wizard who is in love with Dark Gathering, an initiative-boosting attack-granting warlord, a charge-opped warforged barbarian, a warlock that gives out temp HPs like nobody's business and a Hospitaler paladin, I really shouldn't expect otherwise
Anyway, the skill challenge with the endless hordes of abominations was good fun. The paladin offered to use a power to "just take the damage for the entire party" when there were 7 abominations left after scene 3, but fortunately for him the others quickly talked him out of taking the full 175 damage.
My absolute favorite combat encounter was the one with Tyranoth and the heaps and heaps of poisong damage. It was the only one where the players felt threatened after the Vortex exploded and everyone suddenly had vulnerable 10 to all damage.
The Hungering Dark encounter made me smile, if only because the players managed to free every prisoner except for the Cyricist and the fake Mystra worshipper, and then only because they chose not to. Wizard casts Arcane Gate, warforged and warlock blast the doors out of their hinges, and paladin tanks the Hungering Horde. The Hungering Dark once came close to the wizard, but then they freed the chosen of Ilmater and I just called the encounter.
The last encounter was fun, but not too hard because the players freed 5 prisoners. The wizard put up a Wall of Ice and a Wall of Stone to seal off one side of the room and the others quickly completed the remaining skill checks to open the portal, but then the prisoners jumped through the portal so it became really unstable again. But the players synched up their actions and all got through the portal except for the paladin. He decided to take the risk and jump through the unstable portal, and got very lucky to make his saving throw. That also was really cool. Everyone watched the d20 roll with fear in their hearts, making this a real "save or die" moment.
After that they mopped up the 3 abominations that got through the portal, and after 15 hours we were done!
I increased the difficulty level of the encounters to challenge my players a little more. For those who care, this is what I did:
Encounter 1: add a second Fire Giant and 4 extra minions. Ecnounter 3: made the mud rise twice per round (halfway through and at the end of the round ) and added some extra ghouls. Encounter 4: skipped it. Encounter 5: Added a third glacial wall, another Jarlakk and a Reaver. Encounter 7: Added 2 additional swarms. Encounter 8: Made the players fight 12/15/18 abominations. Encounter 9: Added a third Drow Arcanist, made Tyranoth attack with ranged attacks while she was still performing the ritual, and every time someone took ongoing damage I stacked it with the ongoing damage they already had. Encounter 11: Added a third Storm Devil, made the Hungering Dark shift 2 square forward every time 10 minutes passed in real time. Encounter 12: Added a Living Maw and 2 additional Hungering Abominations, made 2 Elemental Eyes appear after round 1 (there was no round 3).
And still, they didn't need Sinmaker's help, I never dropped someone to 0 HP and I think everyone had some surges left at the end of the adventure.
Thanks for writing it, and we all really look forward to EPIC3-3!
Did Sinmaker escape Carceri? I have not heard of a run where he does not.
How about Gero? Did team Good Guy decide to bring him along with them?
Nope, sinmaker got left behind We rejected his offers of help twice and the third time he didn't even try.
Gero offered to replace our wizards dragonling pet, but at least half the party loved him so it was a futile effort. In addition to that, his conning was found out when the barbarian instantly drank his potion, and he decided to run before he suffered further abuse.
So yeah, we did a full 'knight in shining armor run' with upscaled encounters and still made it. I'll have a detailed report up later today.
Did Sinmaker escape Carceri? I have not heard of a run where he does not.
How about Gero? Did team Good Guy decide to bring him along with them?
About Sinmaker: after reading the adventure again, I understand that he should try to escape even when the PCs didn't want anything to do with him. But I didn't think that was realistic, or fair to the players. They gave their solemn vows to the marut guarding the gates of Carceri that they wouldn't let anything escape. If I had Sinmaker, who's been rejected multiple times, suddenly dispel his invisibility when the gate opens and run through, it would've left a bad taste in the player's mouthes. So I didn't - that brewer has been left to rot in the Red Prison
I DM'd EPIC3-2 yesterday, and we had a very good time. Sure, the stuff that everyone mentioned in the thread did apply (adventure took long, challenge level was relatively low even when I increased the difficulty of the encounters), but I'm sure the authors don't want to hear about that anymore. So instead, I'm just going to relate what we liked about it.
Travel through Carceri: we had great fun with the journey through the plane. The Fire Giant in encounter 1 asked for parley pretty quickly, so the players were received as almost-equals in a court of giants and titans. I roleplayed King Karsus as a pretty cheerful guy as long as the players didn't anger him in some way. They didn't, and even convinced him to let them take the Fire Giant from encounter 1 as a tag-along to show them the way to Minethys to wipe out Neferkhaba.
The other islands were also a lot of fun. Highlights were the verbal sparring match with the Queen of the Court of Blood, meeting and dealing with Gero and fighting through the walls of ice.
The party consisted of (mostly) good guys, so they all rejected Sinmaker's offer repeatedly. They were a strong party, so they didn't need the "extended rest" he provided.
We really enjoyed the roleplaying opportunities this part of the adventure provided. So thanks for including them!
Agathys: this is where the s**t was gonna hit the fan. Or so I thought. Turns out my players really were prepared for anything. Well, with a wizard who is in love with Dark Gathering, an initiative-boosting attack-granting warlord, a charge-opped warforged barbarian, a warlock that gives out temp HPs like nobody's business and a Hospitaler paladin, I really shouldn't expect otherwise
Anyway, the skill challenge with the endless hordes of abominations was good fun. The paladin offered to use a power to "just take the damage for the entire party" when there were 7 abominations left after scene 3, but fortunately for him the others quickly talked him out of taking the full 175 damage.
My absolute favorite combat encounter was the one with Tyranoth and the heaps and heaps of poisong damage. It was the only one where the players felt threatened after the Vortex exploded and everyone suddenly had vulnerable 10 to all damage.
The Hungering Dark encounter made me smile, if only because the players managed to free every prisoner except for the Cyricist and the fake Mystra worshipper, and then only because they chose not to. Wizard casts Arcane Gate, warforged and warlock blast the doors out of their hinges, and paladin tanks the Hungering Horde. The Hungering Dark once came close to the wizard, but then they freed the chosen of Ilmater and I just called the encounter.
The last encounter was fun, but not too hard because the players freed 5 prisoners. The wizard put up a Wall of Ice and a Wall of Stone to seal off one side of the room and the others quickly completed the remaining skill checks to open the portal, but then the prisoners jumped through the portal so it became really unstable again. But the players synched up their actions and all got through the portal except for the paladin. He decided to take the risk and jump through the unstable portal, and got very lucky to make his saving throw. That also was really cool. Everyone watched the d20 roll with fear in their hearts, making this a real "save or die" moment.
After that they mopped up the 3 abominations that got through the portal, and after 15 hours we were done!
I increased the difficulty level of the encounters to challenge my players a little more. For those who care, this is what I did:
Encounter 1: add a second Fire Giant and 4 extra minions. Ecnounter 3: made the mud rise twice per round (halfway through and at the end of the round ) and added some extra ghouls. Encounter 4: skipped it. Encounter 5: Added a third glacial wall, another Jarlakk and a Reaver. Encounter 7: Added 2 additional swarms. Encounter 8: Made the players fight 12/15/18 abominations. Encounter 9: Added a third Drow Arcanist, made Tyranoth attack with ranged attacks while she was still performing the ritual, and every time someone took ongoing damage I stacked it with the ongoing damage they already had. Encounter 11: Added a third Storm Devil, made the Hungering Dark shift 2 square forward every time 10 minutes passed in real time. Encounter 12: Added a Living Maw and 2 additional Hungering Abominations, made 2 Elemental Eyes appear after round 1 (there was no round 3).
And still, they didn't need Sinmaker's help, I never dropped someone to 0 HP and I think everyone had some surges left at the end of the adventure.
Thanks for writing it, and we all really look forward to EPIC3-3!
Damn it, you beat me to it :P Anyway, Nice report For those interested in a more detailed report on the fights in a semi-narritive form from a player POV, I've added some notes below. We played the adventure with the same group of players we played epic 3-1 with a month ago, consisting of :
-A halfling paladin/hospitaler/ceaseless guardian.
-A human Warlock/hellbringer/keeper of the everflow.
-Am eladrin wizard/spellstorm mage/planeshaper.
-a warforged barbarian/x/reincarnate champion.
-me, an 'eladrin' warlord/Battlellord of kord/legendary sovereign.
Everyone knew eachother and everyone's character was at least reasonably optimized. Personally, I was testing out an insightful warlord build for the first time, since bravura didn't really work too well for the party, with warlocks blowing themselves up for the melee basic and stuff. Since we had a bit of an easy time in the last adventure, Svendj upscaled everything as mentioned above.
Note: all encounter were upscaled as Svendj detailed above. This battle report describes the upscaled encounters.
After our merry band of adventurers had recovered from, um, humiliating correlon and saving his realm as they did, he conveniently decided to overlook this and sent them out on another suicide mission, this time into the prison plane of Carceri. He wasn't sure of what exactly they would find , nor was he sure if there was any way out at all (he only had a hunch), just that they would probably find the source of the endless abominiation hordes and that the carceri compact had probably somehow been broken. So of course the heroes were all eager to go ASAP. Except for the warlock, who was kind of skeptical, but he came along anyway. Looking back on it, maybe he was right and Corellon secretly wanted us dead anyway...?
Encounter 1:
After the Maruts let us pass and we ended up scattered all over the map, the defender found himself alone, while the warlock and wizard ended up together, leaving me with the barbarian. Most of the enemies got the jump on us since they rolled high on initiatives, but the wizard and the warlock still beat them. The fun started in turn one as the wizard immediately prevented two of the giants near him from moving towards him, and then made the warlock jump right over the forest into the melee, where he proceeded to be unhittable and started giving out temp hp shields like it was nobody's buisness.
The minions did manage to hit the paladin, though he was near-immune to their attacks, and the barbarian, who did have a problem being grabbed. I was able to use faervian's special spell-storing attack to kill three of the four minions near us, including the ones grabbing the barbarian, and critted one, which gave everyone except the wizard a free attack by my epic destiny feature (I love that weapon). This left the barbarian to charge off, and halfway through the second round he and the warlock had killed or bloodied roughly half the enemies, and with the rest of them bloodied and /or in restricting zones of control, I critted the diplomacy/intimidate check and made them surrender.
total damage to the party: 1 surge (barbarian, from minion damage).
1b Interlude:King karsus.
Upon hearing of an earth titan, the barbarian joked about killing him and claiming this as our own island, should things go bad. However, Karsus was a very jovial and friendly fellow. With a group diplomacy check of 200 or so, we managed to convince him to give us the fire giant as a tour guide for the rest of the islands. However, he couldn't well go on our wooden boat, so he had to carry his own raft around with him.
For some reason, the warlock had a … questionable outfit with him that he wanted the giant to put on. We decided not to ask.
Encounter 2:Skill challenge
It felt a bit unlogical to me as to why we were not allowed to use endurance to resit being infected, since that was how I think all diseases you contract are initially resisted, but I can understand tying it to a high dc rare skill with no allowed alternatives so that sinmaker has more leverage in the next encounter. We had four infections since noone was trained in nature, but we did have two ointments to remove two of them.
Encounter 2b: Enter sinmaker
Sinmaker did seem like an interesting NPC and the DM did a good job in making him me almost sympathize with him, but fact remained that he just had too much a lack of morale for the everyone in the party. The wizard remarked almost prophetically that it was awfully convenient that he was a legendary poison/brew mixer when arvandor had just been devastated by something like that. While I did seriously consider signing his contract as a trade for more information on the situation and his knowledge on how to prevent a god from discorporating (we didn't need any of his services, but something told me I'd be running into someone really powerful who really hated corellon soon), in the end we all decided he was too dangerous to leave carceri.
Sorry bro You just ran into the wrong party.
Encounter 3:skill challenge #2?
Though the ghost wasn’t able to offer us a significant reward, our knight in shining armor party immediately decided we didn’t require compensation to rid the realms of another major threat (even though he couldn’t get out of carceri, but that’s beside the point).
I think we used our overland flight speed of 20 to skip part of the skill challenge, since I cannot remember rolling any checks myself here before we entered the combat. That ritual we casted before we departed really came in handy....
Encounter 3b:the Ziggurat.
Since we won initiative, the babarian and I decided to use our overland flight 20 speed and forego our standard and minor to immediately fly to near the top of the ziggurat in turn one. I think everyone would have done that and completely avoided the hazard, if the DM hadn't made it act twice each round, so everyone else was attacked and pulled closer. What followed was a REDICULOUS string of teleports from the various PC's to get out of the mud and into safety, and eventually everyone made it to the top with some difficulty.
...Except for the paladin, who was by then stunlocked by the ghouls and in the mud, though not drowning. The abilities of the dragon were pretty powerful and I can remember him downing the mage and bloodying one other character, which called for a desperate finish. In the last turn, both the barbarian and myself were blinded and I was immobilized out of melee range, and I knew I had to finish it somehow, so I gave myself a save vs blind, made it, dropped faervian and drew my blade of the eldritch knight, and used death from two sides from 5 squares away. In a streak of high luck, we both critted the dragon and the resulting critical damage + party free attack finished him off.
Encounter 4: “please don’t anger the psychotic queen”.
…And we didn’t, albeit barely. The DM himself said he preferred the encounter 5 battle anyway, and thus we didn’t get eaten alive by carnivorous plants. Instead we’d get frozen alive. Joy.
Encounter 5: Gero.
The paladin got taken in with his obviously fake story about having children to feat and being abused by big demons and monsters, so he decided to trade in his old weapon in exchange for (useless) information. In addition, he offered to replace the wizards familiar, and since that was our pet, I nearly choked him. The potions he offered against the remaining corroding doom effects were bought since they were so ‘cheap’ (5000 gold is so little at epic). Unfortunately for Gero, the warforged IMMEDIATELY drank it and he was found out, after which he ran.
Encounter 5b: shelter from the storm.
The upscaled version of the encounter we played had a triple wall of ice and two more monsters to work through, and it was brutal (for my character, at least). The fight started with absolute insanity as me and the warlock melted through the ice wall, after which the wizard used a damage boosted quickened thunder wave to remove the other two walls. Then, the wizard used mass charm and the paladin used his mass charm from the corellon boon to move the aspect of baphomet and one of the maravhan reavers 12 quares out of the cave, attack eachother twice and slow them out of range.
Then, the remaining 4 monsters came out and blasted me for roughly 100 points of cold damage before I got to act again. Everyone hurried into the cave at turn two, me using superior will and the plainstrider boots to teleport around a solid wall, then I used my boon of corellon to use a third mass charm to make all the monsters inside clump up and kill one of them, after which they were blasted by the warlock for a lot. As a parting gift, the aspect of bapomet, who had been near-death at turn 3 due to the barbarian’s charges and whom I landed the finishing blow on, hit me THREE times for a total of 120 damage even though I had an ac of 45 against him (rolls 18, 17, 18). This fight costed me 3 surges and a lay on hands from the paladin.
Encounter 6: sinmaker 2.
We did a quick tally of the remaining surges and this is what came up:
Paladin: 8/15, warlock 10/15, barbarian 5 or 6/10, wizard 2/8, me 3/9 (both me and the wizard took a lot of damage in the last encounter). We used a succor ritual for the lock to give the wizard and me two of his surges, which left everyone with 5 or so surges except for the paladin, who had 8. On the upside, we had the large majority of our dailies intact. And that was when sinmaker approached us again. This is roughly how the conversation went:
SInmaker: but I have very powerful potions that can restore-
Us: “No. You’re too dangerous to let out of carceri.”
Sinmaker: Er, well, I can see that some of you are in a bad condition and going to the final island like this might not be the best-
Us: “go away”.
Sinmaker:
Dm during the break: hmmm, I’m very interested to see how many of you are going to survive the adventure. I guess it will depend on how much surgeless healing you have remaining…
Encounter 7: “wait, your buff does what, exactly??”
It was obvious from the start that these were guardians of the prison plane that were fighting us, and that at least the angel of ilmater might be open to reasoning, so I tried to get everyone to at least spare her. We tried not to waste any resources fighting and most of us used diplomacy checks to convice the angel of ilmater to not attack. The angel of bane got stunlocked by the wizard while the barbarian and the warlock killed two of the maruts before the onslaught of abominations was upon us. “Good luck heroes, please clean this up and if you survive, maybe you’re worthy of entering after all.” Great. At least the +1 healing surge they left us behind was a godsend.
We were attacked from all sides by 4 swarms and some additional support, but did have the first strike. This was when the warlock to use his level 20 unleash the inferno daily to hit 6/8 targets at range and prone them, upon which the wizard used a damage buffed daily to ‘stunlock’ 4 of the mobs, which left us with 4 more. At this point, I teleported next to the wizard who said he had a very powerful defensive buff for me, and I took it…. And read that it slowed me for the rest of the encounter, with the nearest enemy now 12 squares away. Oops. Not to worry, since a jump spell with result 55 jumped me 11 squares back in.
One of the highlights of the combat was when a swarm tried to move into the warlocks and my square. We both hit the oppotunity attack, with me critting him, causing the warlock to slide him away using eldritch strike, then me using echoing dirge to slide him away, then the wizard using magic missile to slide him away, and finally the warlock again with his second eldritch strike. He was able to still get adjacent, but it was close
After the swarms used their semi-dominate to use someone’s daily for the first time, we used some of our limited resources to kill all of them before they could again. In the end, we lost surprisingly little, given how threatening the setup was.
Encounter 8: minion waves.
I can remember being in a similar skill challenge before during another special, and it stood out to me for two reasons: the first is that I liked that this time, the non-controllers without having access to at-will blasts could at least contribute with skill checks to get more than 1 kill each turn. The second is that these types of fights are the only ones in which the tempest of triumph paragon path power is worth anything , and I used it twice to kill 5 of the minions in round 2 and 3. It took a lot of effort to get the waves of 12/15/18 minions under control with 5 players, but in the end we only took 1 surge of damage each. The warlocks temp-hp shields were also invaluable here. The paladin had the idea of taking 175 damage himself to take all of the damage from 1 round, but we were able to talk him to his senses.
Encounter 9: drow ritual.
The highlights of the encounter were the wizard petrifying one of the spiders in round one, and also trapping the other spider in a wall of ice. Both spiders died to these effects before they got to make an attack, though the remaining 3 venomcasters were able to ramp up the ongoing really quickly, making save-granting invaluable. There were a few worrying moments, but the combined healing and saving throws from the warlock (who for some reason was not hit even once in the entire encounter), the paladin and myself got everyone through it.
Sinmaker did not appear after the encounter. I think it doesn’t make much sense for him to be there either, since we refused his aid twice, but the module doesn’t seem to take that into account and would have placed him in that room anyway (good DMing?). I just hope he wasn’t there invisibly and had been walking along with us all the time. It wouldn’t have been hard, since no one was trained in perception (yes, an all-epic party without anyone being trained in perception. It can happen).
Encounter 10: the hungering dark.
Compared to all the other encounters, this seemed a bit too easy and slightly boring, though I did love the setup of it. Arcane gate was able to put everyone halfway through the hall and behind the hungering horde. The guardians went down easily to the barbarian and some control (but why would they want to fight us with the hungering dark approaching them so quickly?). We opened all of the cells except for cyric’s champion, since we judged him/her as being just too evil/dangerous to release, and he/she met a gruesome end. If it were up to me, I’d have left the follower of loviatar there as well, since I had a bone to pick with that diety, but she was released before I was able to stop the barbarian from doing so. Oh well.
Encounter 11: See Svendj’s report, with one addition. At the end, we were left with 3 abominations in a small room, and they were killed in a stylish fashion with a warlord nova (vanguard weapon + war masters assault + rush of battle), the only one I was really able to pull off this adventure. Not that it mattered much, since we would have definitely won anyway, but I thought it was a suitably epic finish J
Ending surge pools:
Paladin: 1 (used lay on hands twice to give others temp hp shield before jumping through the portal)
Wizard : 2
Me: 3
Warlock : 2
Barbarian: 3.
Sinmaker: left behind on carceri (we hope/think).
Looking over the remaining surge pools, I'd like to think that the insightful defensive buffs and 1 to 3 misses I was able to cause with it's power and presence each combat were relevant, and I'm fairy happy with the build I was testing.
Overall thoughts: With the upscaled encounters, I feel that the challenge level was a lot better and more fun than the unscaled 3-1 adventure, even though I enjoyed that one as well. I liked the idea of having to deal with sinmaker (an obviously evil entity and potential threat) if you weren’t as well prepared as you could have been and that the clearly (morally) best ending is both far more difficult and actually dependant on your choices as a table. For rewards, both myself and the paladin are getting rings of tenacious will to increase the party surge pool higher in case a similar situation occurs in future adventures.
I’d like to thank the wirters again for a great module and Svendj for both DMing it well and providing interesting upscaled encounters. We’re set to play 3-3 somewhere in the next two months with the same group, and we’re all looking forward to it. I’ll definitely battle report it again for those interested when we do.
Did Sinmaker escape Carceri? I have not heard of a run where he does not.
How about Gero? Did team Good Guy decide to bring him along with them?
About Sinmaker: after reading the adventure again, I understand that he should try to escape even when the PCs didn't want anything to do with him. But I didn't think that was realistic, or fair to the players. They gave their solemn vows to the marut guarding the gates of Carceri that they wouldn't let anything escape. If I had Sinmaker, who's been rejected multiple times, suddenly dispel his invisibility when the gate opens and run through, it would've left a bad taste in the player's mouthes. So I didn't - that brewer has been left to rot in the Red Prison
One of the difficulties of organized play is (1) you want to provide players with choices that actually matter and affect future adventures and (2) not everyone is going to make the same choices, so there can be a disconnect if the reality of your PC's world is different than the reality of the shared world.
For example, what if the "official campaign result" is that Sinmaker escaped Carceri because that is what the majority of the players did? And then Sinmaker shows up again in a future module because he escaped? Well, that wouldn't make any sense for groups like yours that left him in Carceri. Having the possibility that he secretly escaped Carceri explains the disconnect between an individual group's "reality" and the larger LFR campaign "reality."
Another example: In writing NETH 4-1, I tried to provide an explanation for the "official campaign results" of the Year 3 NETH adventures that made sense regardless of what your individual table chose to do. "NETH 3-X Adventures"Show
In the Year 3 NETH trilogy, PCs had to make a choice between killing Prince Yder or not killing him. Most tables killed Yder, so the official campaign result is that he is dead. If a group chose not to kill Yder, the official LFR storyline could still be explained by saying that a different group of adventurers assassinated him later (or he died of natural causes or whatever). If the official result was that Yder was still alive, that discrepancy could also be explained for tables that killed him by saying he was resurrected or killed someone else or...
If Sinmaker shows up again in a future mod (i.e. if that is what happened at the majority of tables and is the official result), saying that Sinmaker secretly escaped Carceri on his own is a logical explanation to repair the discrepancy between the official storyline and an individual table's actions. It requires significantly less suspense of disbelief.
Lori Anderson WotC Freelancer, LFR author @LittleLorika
CALI3-3 The Agony of Almraiven (co-author) NETH4-1 Containing Shadow (co-author) CALI4-1 Plain of Stone Spiders (author) QUES4-1 Liberation (co-author) EPIC5-1 Plaguewrought Prism (co-author)
Yeah, that would/will/shall be my story to the players as well. Of course, I hope the writers cook up something better than "although you didn't let him out, he escaped the unescapable anyway a few days later". But I trust they will
You just ran into the wrong party. 
