EPIC3-3 is a direct sequel to EPIC3-1 and 3-2, so please attempt to play those two adventures before this one. This thread contains spoilers for EPIC3-3 and its prequels.
A trail of assassination and devastation leads to Lolth’s throne. The path to the Queen of Spiders is treacherous and the soul of many a brave hero is trapped alongside the demons ensnared in her webs. Can you weave your way through the Demonweb to untangle the truth? A three-roundLiving Forgotten Realms adventure set in the Demonweb for 23rd level characters. This adventure is a direct sequel to EPIC3-2 Cracks in the Crimson Cage and the conclusion to the first season of the Epic Campaign.
Printing: Consider printing 3 copies of Player Handouts 2, 4, and 6 so you can give multiple to the table, and even keep one for yourself if desired.
Introduction: Limit on Rituals and Time Limits - 30 minutes now, only get a short rest from encounters that count as milestones. Prisoner Benefits - Each PC gets only one, based on the prisoners they saved themself, no one else. Player Handout 1 - Beneficial teleports over 4 squares are weird - that'll come up often. Offensive teleports work fine. Almost any time the PCs want to climb, assume the walls are made of webs. The dangerous mists never come up in an encounter - they simply stop PCs from flying anywhere they want in the Demonweb or trying to do all ranged attacks while flying to avoid danger.
Encounter 1: Note the web "safety net" for falling (apply the same 60 foot limit to the monsters falling) and that you can climb anywhere in the encounter. The hive demon warrior's talon skewer is a basic attack. You can use this to do ridiculously cool granted attacks and charges (like being able to charge for two attacks from 16 squares away)
Encounter 3: Be familiar with the handout rules! Also, large creatures (like pact dragons and mounts) will be exposed to poison the entire time unless they squeeze (which makes them medium) onto the boats. When the reaper shows up, put him about 6 squares in front of the party to start so it's difficult to nova him down before he acts. Don't put all of the wraiths in a burst 2 (makes it too easy to control them before they act). Use the maw's relentless attacks. Maws and wraiths all do attacks on death.
This adventure is intended to run in 12 - 15 hours. If you have less than that and/or if your group is slow in some areas (if they're a convention group, assume they are - there's always at least one guy whose turns take forever), you may want to consider any of the following methods for increasing speed.
Pre-draw all maps (this can easily save an hour or more!)
Pre-roll initiative (or use predone initiative provided below)
Use average damage (provided below)
Call fights when it seems clear no PC will die. Some fights have early win situations that end the encounter. If they don't, if you're pretty sure the enemies will die this round, make one last attack then call it - don't bother rolling out those last few rolls. If you're more pressed for time and there are still a few monsters on the field, as a rule of thumb, charge the PCs 1 healing surge, daily utility, or daily attack per half an enemy remaining in the fight. So, 1 untouched standard (2), 1 barely bloodied standard (1), and 5 minions (1) - let them spend 4 surges or equivalent, spread among whoever they want, and it's done.
Enforce a time limit on stating what you're doing for your turn. As a general rule, people should know what they're doing within about 30 seconds of their turn starting, and even with various rolls only the most area-filled action point turn should take more than 3 minutes. It's very often the case that play literally pauses or stops when it comes to one or two particular players, and may even pause for 10 minutes at a time in that way.
Don't allow "take backs" or long tactical suggestions from allies during someone else's turn. The game can be a lot more exciting and suspenseful if it's not dragged to a halt, and it's not so difficult that you can't make the occasional mistake.
There are some scenarios in which you'll want to do multiple modifications. Perhaps you're time limited, but a group wants a greater challenge so you do glory tier (which can add extra time due to tactical necessity and danger) but you call the fights quickly (without charging them extra resources).
Predone Initiatives (feel free to roll your own, these may help if you're in a hurry or want to directly compare multiple tables): Encounter 1 - Start of Round (Acid Targets), 42 (Hive Demon Warriors), 35 (Hive Demon Drone), 34 (Hive Demon Queen), End of Round (Acid Lands) Encounter 3 - 40 (Dread Wraiths), 32 (Reaper of the River), 29 (Demonic Maw) Encounter 5 - 39 (Drow Archmage), 27 (Lolth Venomspitters), 23 (Drow Zealots), End of Round (Collapsing Roof, Draegloth Shadowspinner) Encounter 8 - 36 (Xunarra), 33 (Cave Spider), 20 (Lolth Reaver) Encounter 10 - 38 (Malothezon), 37 (Eclavdra), 25 (Drow Gate Archer), 23 (Drow Stalker), End of Round (More Minions) Encounter 12 - 36 (Revenancer Death Knight), 30 (Dread Zombie Slayer), 28 (Vengeful Banshee Disciple), 24 (Priest of the Vengeful Banshee) Encounter 13 - 40 (Shard), 34 (Hammer), 30 (Shard), 27 (Blade), 20 (Shard)
Epic tables have amazing variation in effectiveness. Be careful about scaling for difficulty if the tables don't wish it, but feel free to offer weaker tables the option to get the adventure done faster and stronger tables the option to show off a little more. For the truly optimized, see if they're willing to take the risk of serious danger at glory tier. Do NOT use glory tier unless the players choose to do so. It is not intended for normal tables.
General Option: Weak table: Consider running as if there was one less person. In a group of 4 where that's not possible, consider dropping the hit points of standards by 40 and elites by 80. If dealing enough damage is not the problem, but surviving attacks is, consider instead reducing the damage of all attacks by 5. Strong table: Consider giving the monsters one of the following bonuses. You can vary the bonus by encounter or even by enemy in an encounter, where appropriate.
+5 Initiative
+2 All Defenses during Round 1
+2 Attack Rolls during Round 1
+5 Extra Damage against Unbloodied enemies
Crit on an 18, 19, or 20 and deal extra damage on criticals (minion 5, standard 10, elite 20, solo 40)
Monsters may spend 50 hit points to gain a +5 bonus to a save just rolled.
Whenever a monster misses a target, that target takes a -1 penalty to all defenses until the end of the encounter. This penalty is cumulative, to a maximum of -5. (Use carefully: mostly there for parties that make themselves relatively unhittable)
Encounter 1 (Average Difficulty): This may be the first opportunity in months for people to play their characters and there's a real chance for complications like falling. The hope is that there will be some excitement or fear as people scramble to deal with being dragged off by an insect, stranded on a pillar with acid, or similar. The strongest method the DM has for flexing difficulty is focusing, or not focusing, fire.
Glory Tier: Give the hive queen two additional abilities - Instinctive Assault (Trait) On an initiative of 10 + the queen’s initiative check, the queen makes an acidic claws or acid spit attack as a free action. If it cannot take that free action due to a stunned or dominated effect, it instead ends that effect.
Rush of Battle (Minor Action * Daily) Effect: Each ally in a close burst 5 can make melee basic attacks as minor actions until the end of the queen's next turn. These attacks are made with a +7 power bonus to attack.
Note that encounter 4C may be swapped with encounter 2, if the group was very mistaken about being optimized enough for glory tier.
Encounter 3 (Average Difficulty) The environment may make this combat much more difficult for some parties, while others are unaffected. Try to have a feel for how reliant on melee and/or maneuverable your party is before you begin so you know how mean to be. Unless the party has amazing opportunity attacks, it's almost always worth using Relentless Attacks from the Vicious Maws so you can pull a target off a boat then fling them far away, potentially breaking their boat at the same time. It also gets the combat done faster (more damage to you, more damage from you) and is more exciting.
Glory Tier: Make the following three changes to the Reaper: Fell Attraction: 'Any enemy currently in the aura is marked by the reaper.' Marked Torment: Exchange ', and the attack instead targets only the reaper' for 'and the damage and effects that would have been done to the ally are redirected to the attacker.' Cry of Longing: Can now be used as a free action attack on Initiative 55. (It does so once at the start of combat, then again after bloodied if it has the targets - otherwise it must use it as a standard action) Place the Reaper initially close enough to put the PCs into a blast 5 and its aura 5.
Encounter 5 (Above Average Difficulty) The first round is fairly easy (the zealots should pretty much just die), but the draegloth really steps up the difficulty. He does an area burst 2 on his entrance location, then has a powerful close burst 2 that dazes and blocks line of sight. He can also web to restrain some PCs inside the collapsing area. This swings the combat in a strong fashion. The minions can be really dangerous as long as you keep them safe at ranged to put some ongoings before moving them in to die in explosions. Between the collapsing roof and the draegloth, less maneuverable PCs can be put into very serious danger. Prone and/or restrained, in difficult terrain, with a hazard attacking every round can drop people very quickly (for good or bad)
Glory Tier: Give the Drow Archmage invisibility until it is hit by an attack. Give the Drow Zealots a free action attack when bloodied to fullblade all adjacent enemies. Allow the Lolth Venomspitters to use temple defender to teleport as part of their death burst.
Keith Richmond Living Forgotten Realms Epic Writing Director
As a reminder, I can provide the adventure to any convention that needs it... that said, I expect the finished version should be out by sometime next week (unless it runs into some other problems before posting *fingers crossed*)
With EPIC4-1 releasing at DDXP, I encourage folks to make plans to play the adventure in December and January so they're ready for the convention.
Keith Richmond Living Forgotten Realms Epic Writing Director
Any update on this yet? Two Epics in 11 months is a bit underwhelming, and DDXP is coming up quick, particularly with the holidays in-between. Keith? I see you submitted the mod, and that it should be up 'soon'...
Played this mod yesterday and had a great time. As a bonus, we had Keith at our table as a player. It was nice that whenever the DM had a question about something, he could just ask the author.
Killing Lolth in less than 1 round. I just wish I had a chance to actually go (well at least got a couple of opp attacks in). lol Yes, we killed her -- prevented her from disincorporating -- and killed her before she went. Now, we did blow a whole bunch of dailies and resources but killing her was the easiest fight we had. Definitely shows how unbalanced the game can be when a party of level 23 adventurers can smoke a level 35 god.
Unbalanced, but fun as hell.
Thanks again to our DM (Eric) and all of the other players. Was a fun, if long, time.
Played this mod yesterday and had a great time. As a bonus, we had Keith at our table as a player. It was nice that whenever the DM had a question about something, he could just ask the author.
Killing Lolth in less than 1 round. I just wish I had a chance to actually go (well at least got a couple of opp attacks in). lol Yes, we killed her -- prevented her from disincorporating -- and killed her before she went. Now, we did blow a whole bunch of dailies and resources but killing her was the easiest fight we had. Definitely shows how unbalanced the game can be when a party of level 23 adventurers can smoke a level 35 god.
Unbalanced, but fun as hell.
Thanks again to our DM (Eric) and all of the other players. Was a fun, if long, time.
Daren
Excellent. Thanks for the feedback. Yours is the first feedback to appear on these forums. I'd be interested in hearing more about your experience in the adventure.
I'm shocked that you were able to dispose of Lolth so quickly. Also quite surprised that you even tried since it wasn't really necessary. Did burning all those dailies and resources have any affect on the difficulty of the remainder of the module?
Excellent. Thanks for the feedback. Yours is the first feedback to appear on these forums. I'd be interested in hearing more about your experience in the adventure.
I'm shocked that you were able to dispose of Lolth so quickly. Also quite surprised that you even tried since it wasn't really necessary. Did burning all those dailies and resources have any affect on the difficulty of the remainder of the module?
Played this mod yesterday and had a great time. As a bonus, we had Keith at our table as a player. It was nice that whenever the DM had a question about something, he could just ask the author.
Killing Lolth in less than 1 round. I just wish I had a chance to actually go (well at least got a couple of opp attacks in). lol Yes, we killed her -- prevented her from disincorporating -- and killed her before she went. Now, we did blow a whole bunch of dailies and resources but killing her was the easiest fight we had. Definitely shows how unbalanced the game can be when a party of level 23 adventurers can smoke a level 35 god.
Unbalanced, but fun as hell.
Thanks again to our DM (Eric) and all of the other players. Was a fun, if long, time.
Daren
Excellent. Thanks for the feedback. Yours is the first feedback to appear on these forums. I'd be interested in hearing more about your experience in the adventure.
I'm shocked that you were able to dispose of Lolth so quickly. Also quite surprised that you even tried since it wasn't really necessary. Did burning all those dailies and resources have any affect on the difficulty of the remainder of the module?
I enjoyed the mod. I still think these mods are too long – playing for 12+ hours just takes some of the fun out of the game. That said, I did enjoy the variety of the combats and some of the different mechanics involved, etc.
We were a very optimized group. All of the fights were pretty easy. The only fight that had any challenge at all was the last one – with the different checks required and getting forced back and forth and splitting the party, etc. I liked it, but did think it was bit complicated.
I don't see it as a good or bad thing. Really, who [besides people at the table] cares? It obviously has no effect on the plotline or anyone else playing the adventure. A few of the other players had played the mod before and I think just wanted the challenge of killing her. It sounded fun to me, so I went along too. With all of the powers we held and used, it was easy – in essence coming up with the plan was the challenge, carrying it out was routine and ho hum. In the end, it will just be a cool little story to tell mostly among ourselves (both in character and out).
Any update on this yet? Two Epics in 11 months is a bit underwhelming, and DDXP is coming up quick, particularly with the holidays in-between. Keith? I see you submitted the mod, and that it should be up 'soon'...
Yep, I started this thread after the module was ready for conventions. There are some things still happening on the globals side that I hope can resolve soon, but unfortunately real life (and the difficulties of intercontintental ballistic Sean-ing, who has been bouncing around Europe and Asia of late) are conspiring to slow things down. I can still provide it to conventions, and hopefully Sean will surface from foreign lands to work on story awards in due time.
Played this mod yesterday and had a great time. As a bonus, we had Keith at our table as a player. It was nice that whenever the DM had a question about something, he could just ask the author.
Was great meeting you all, and I had a ton of fun playing. I'll admit I was a lot less helpful than I could have been (on purpose) because I really wanted to not interfere with Eric's DMing and to more closely observe where we can improve the modules for the DMs, and what the players can get away with
Of course, the best part of the mod was ... Spoiler:Show
Killing Lolth in less than 1 round. I just wish I had a chance to actually go (well at least got a couple of opp attacks in). lol Yes, we killed her -- prevented her from disincorporating -- and killed her before she went. Now, we did blow a whole bunch of dailies and resources but killing her was the easiest fight we had. Definitely shows how unbalanced the game can be when a party of level 23 adventurers can smoke a level 35 god.
It was interesting to see you guys gather together the exact research and plan needed to almost 3-man her stat block. As I said at the table, there's a reason I don't throw solo big bads into epic. Too many tricks you can do to them - even without the specialty trick you guys used, if she'd been able to do her full suite of effects it would have only prolonged things slightly. She might have gotten a chance to act, but... even if she did, it wouldn't have changed much.
If I were putting an actual encounter with Lolth in the adventure (and presumably making it a _much higher level_ encounter), her allies and environment would have been a serious issue. Think a lot more guys that would have to be dealt with, some of them who could redirect damage off her, others of which could help with conditions, and lots of environmental effects to make the combat trickier. After all, it's a god on her domain, stuff like "The webbing of the floor stretches open, attemping to dump you into a pit full of spiders below." which would have prevented the ease of just surrounding her.
The next module (4-1) has some decent examples of the things a fight against a god at epic would have to have to make it more interesting.
I'm shocked that you were able to dispose of Lolth so quickly. Also quite surprised that you even tried since it wasn't really necessary. Did burning all those dailies and resources have any affect on the difficulty of the remainder of the module?
It made a couple of combats slightly more difficult, since they weren't breaking out some of their knocked unconscious stuff and saving a die from their dice of cheese and reroll from something else... but not _really_. Most of the stuff was pretty specific to her, to negate her abilities, cope with saving throws, etc.
I enjoyed the mod. I still think these mods are too long – playing for 12+ hours just takes some of the fun out of the game. That said, I did enjoy the variety of the combats and some of the different mechanics involved, etc.
I would definitely encourage you to try playing epic mods in multiple sittings - there's no real hurry involved, so 2-4 sittings breaks things up pretty well in my experience.
We were a very optimized group. All of the fights were pretty easy. The only fight that had any challenge at all was the last one – with the different checks required and getting forced back and forth and splitting the party, etc. I liked it, but did think it was bit complicated.
As a general rule, if you're really optimized and you _want_ a challenge, you're best off letting the DM know so they can pull out the evil tricks or tweak a couple things. The epic mods are tuned high enough that normal parties are at serious risk if they DM chooses, and there are lots of tricks an optimized and prepared DM can pull on an optimized party... but they're not designed to kill optimized parties, because average parties would just find them unfun. As it is, the version you played killed several PCs and came close to TPKing a couple tables.
Imagine, on the other hand, if the DM (Eric) had been less going for "fun" and more for effectiveness. Spoiler:Show
Encounter 3 (Spider Temple) he could have really thrashed the warlock and his dragon, who got stuck in the collapsing room. Or could have (with the tools available) dropped the bard and rogue, instead of just bloodying them.
Encounter 4 (Web Room) - the minions spread all their attacks around. Put all of those attacks on, say, the ranger or the rogue and you can drop someone.
Encounter 5 (Black Gate) - he could have dropped the portcullis splitting the party in two. The minions and archers could have put up clouds of darkness to hinder the PCs in pretty notable ways, as well as improve their damage.
Encounter 7 (Crystal) - this fight already did have people drop in it, and was pretty threatening due to the hitting yourself factor, but it actually could have been _much_ more threatening. There are a lot of attacks he could have taken and didn't, and aura damage we could have taken and didn't. Like easily another 200 damage taken (spread over the group) per round. Even with how optimized you guys were... it's possible I could have actually TPKed the group if I were running it. Certainly I could have dropped several. If I were being an optimized killer DM (the reverse of the optimized killer PC, as it were) - it's pretty easy to drop the bard, and I don't know how many outs you guys had with him down (cause they didn't come up).
As is, we had one PC drop and another PC _not die_ because of forcing a reroll on a crit. I'm pretty happy with that level of challenge in general. It's an end fight, though, so one or more people dying would have been fine. It also might have caused a wrinkle in your other plan since the most likely deaths were, well, two of the most key people to the plan.
I don't see it as a good or bad thing. Really, who [besides people at the table] cares? It obviously has no effect on the plotline or anyone else playing the adventure.
That's pretty much it, yeah. If this were something that affected the campaign, it would have been a different situation... but similarly if folks wanted to kill Karsus in the previous mod, and the DM made something up for that - frankly, I'd consider it grand fun and not affecting anyone else.
And, just for anyone who might shrug and think these guys were bad for being optimizers. There was a discussion about avoiding one optimal power "because it made fights unfun" and some of the RP from the mafioso bard and insane battlemind were the highlights of my con. Stormwind Fallacy and all.
Keith Richmond Living Forgotten Realms Epic Writing Director
I would definitely encourage you to try playing epic mods in multiple sittings - there's no real hurry involved, so 2-4 sittings breaks things up pretty well in my experience.
Yeah, I am hoping to play Epic 3-2 this way. We will see. The problem with splitting up this or any mod is that you have to be 100% sure that everyone can make multiple sessions. With real life issues, that is tough. I wish the mods were just formally split, but understand the difficulty with challenging Epic parties in a shorter timeframe.
Imagine, on the other hand, if the DM (Eric) had been less going for "fun" and more for effectiveness. Spoiler:Show
Encounter 3 (Spider Temple) he could have really thrashed the warlock and his dragon, who got stuck in the collapsing room. Or could have (with the tools available) dropped the bard and rogue, instead of just bloodying them.
Encounter 4 (Web Room) - the minions spread all their attacks around. Put all of those attacks on, say, the ranger or the rogue and you can drop someone.
Encounter 5 (Black Gate) - he could have dropped the portcullis splitting the party in two. The minions and archers could have put up clouds of darkness to hinder the PCs in pretty notable ways, as well as improve their damage.
Encounter 7 (Crystal) - this fight already did have people drop in it, and was pretty threatening due to the hitting yourself factor, but it actually could have been _much_ more threatening. There are a lot of attacks he could have taken and didn't, and aura damage we could have taken and didn't. Like easily another 200 damage taken (spread over the group) per round. Even with how optimized you guys were... it's possible I could have actually TPKed the group if I were running it. Certainly I could have dropped several. If I were being an optimized killer DM (the reverse of the optimized killer PC, as it were) - it's pretty easy to drop the bard, and I don't know how many outs you guys had with him down (cause they didn't come up).
As is, we had one PC drop and another PC _not die_ because of forcing a reroll on a crit. I'm pretty happy with that level of challenge in general. It's an end fight, though, so one or more people dying would have been fine. It also might have caused a wrinkle in your other plan since the most likely deaths were, well, two of the most key people to the plan.
It is pretty funny that the most damage any of us took were from our own attacks -- I crit myself when Eclavdra re-directed it on me and Blaise’s Battlemind through his shadow stuff and other control effects did a bunch to the Rogue.
No doubt that the Lolth encounter could have had more support for her or other effects that would have made things difficult.
I do agree that a more focused DM could have made things a little more difficult. But, if that happened we could have acted different too. In other words, with the exception of the Crystal fight, there wasn’t any danger feel at all. If things did get dangerous, we could have taken different actions.
For the Crystal fight, I did hold back a lot because I wasn’t sure if we would get a short rest before fighting Lolth. So I didn’t Action Point, Oath of Emnity, or activate bloody weapon. I think our Bard also kept some things in reserve. Of course, if we weren’t planning on fighting Lolth we could have just blown all of the resources in this fight and smoked it. I never used Blade Cascade (saving for Lolth, even though I correctly predicted that I would not even get to go J) for example.
The bottom line is that I think we all had fun and that is what the game is about. It was interesting to me that you as the author didn’t really give anything away and instead just helped out the DM when needed. That also applies to the Bill and Blaise who had played it twice already. Everyone did a good job of not spoiling or using previous knowledge.
