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Amurayi
Underboss
1471 Posts
    
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nycfarmkid
Underboss
1210 Posts
Wadsworth, OH
| | 07/04/2006 10:18 PM |
| I was a DM for this adventure and I really enjoyed it. It is fun, but pretty complicated as adventures go. Though I guess it is supposed to be since it is a high level adventure. We played off and on for about 6 months on it before we called it quits. We never did finish it. the party was wiped out during their assault on Castle Mearmidra (sp). I think it would have been a lot more fun and enjoyable if we had played it straight through instead of breaking for two months between adventures.
In any case it is a meat grinder. your party will probably need at least two melee type characters to adequately survive the encounters in the city. Encounters with 4+ fire giants can be pretty nasty if they get through your back line. | |
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Shoe
Sergeant
804 Posts
| | 07/05/2006 2:23 AM |
| I ran one of my groups through CotSQ in 2004.
It was a fun and memorable campaign. I actually changed some of the locations, as the campaign had begun in the Silver Marches region of FR. During the journey through the underdark, I placed magic portals at various locations, with keys to those portals hidden near or held by the various creatures that make up the underground encounters.
With a party of reasonable means, it can be fairly easy to fly through the underdark, getting from the outpost to the city in short order with no encounters - unless you sort of force the PCs to deal with each of the encounter areas.
Checking my game forums, it looks like we started the adventure on April 3, 2004, and finished up in mid-October. That particular group met on Saturdays for "marathon" sessions (10-12 hrs each), at a frequency of once every 3 weeks, or so - probably 10 or 11 sessions.
I thought it was a good adventure - I was also involved (as a PC) with some early playtest work on it. Actually had my dwarf dagger-thrower bite it in the last section of the adventure when he tried walking through a prismatic wall (needed a 2 or better for each of the saves, but rolled a 1 on the poison save). Good times.
It gets close to high-level adventuring, so make sure you are comfortable with all that entails. | |
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Dordledum
Commander
3215 Posts
Netherlands
| | 07/05/2006 3:22 AM |
| I am almost there, have been working towards it for over half a year now. My party of players are nearing level 9 in the Tomb of Horrors, they are halfway that adventure, if they are smart they will leave the tomb early (I'll drop some hints). If not they'll have some tough encounters in the tomb to go. I have planned an encounter on the Fields of ruin map afterwards: 2 cadaver collectors (hope to pull them this week) and a huge construct (WF Titan). then they only have to kill of Quinix the Glabrezu and his Gnolls (Shining South) and they'll find a portal to Shadowdale: enter City of the Spider Queen!
I can't wait to begin to be honest. Have bought and read the adventure over a year ago. Tonight is finally another game night (have had two cancellations the previous times),
D. | |
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Daezarkian
Sneak
110 Posts
| | 07/05/2006 11:17 AM |
| It's an excellent adventure, and one of the best IMHO so far as "mega-adventures" go. It took us about 6 months (weekly 4 hour sessions) to run through the whole thing. One of the nice things about CotSQ is that, despite its length and the complexity of its many high-level adversaries, the plot is extremely straightforward and builds a lot of momentum as the party moves along. It's definately not for the squeamish -- most of the encounters are challenging, and several can be quite lethal to inexperienced players. My favorite section of the adventure was "The Burning City" -- my group had a lot of fun fighting skirmishes with fire giants (but then they are a bit strange). ;)
Daezarkian
Demonic Accountant | |
Daezarkian
Demonic Accountant | |
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AesophDarkfable
Warlord
5628 Posts
| | 07/05/2006 12:58 PM |
| Ive ran it. Gonna say double check your CRs if you do. It was written 3.0 and some of the monsters changed in 3.5
In particular there is a Horned Devil/Barbed Devil encounter that is massivly under CRed as it uses the old 3.0 devils. It lists at about a 12 I think and its now closer to a 16 | |
Im out- find me on Hordelings if you want to chat. | |
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avrivah
Sneak
164 Posts
| | 07/05/2006 2:32 PM |
| | I played it. It was ok. Tough encounters make it interesting, but as I am not a fan of the drow or adventures which bring me in contact with elves of any sort, I found it a bit tedious at times. Outside of Undermountain, it was the longest pre-scripted adventure I've ever played. All told, it took us about fifteen hours to get through. | |
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Gristlemane
Sergeant
623 Posts
| | 07/05/2006 3:24 PM |
| quote:
Originally posted by avrivah
All told, it took us about fifteen hours to get through.
Wow. That seems extremely short. Did you skip right to the castle in Maerimydra?
It is nasty abomination for players who hate drow and don't min/max their characters at all, but I thought is was a fun adventure. When I played we weren't able to get rid of that stupid undead temple. (Yes, the actual building is undead.) But otherwise it was an enjoyable adventure.
If your players haven't rigorously min/maxed their characters, I suggest you prep them with demon bane weapons. And make sure that the party wizard finds a cloudkill scroll before they embark on the adventure. | |
It's deja vu all over again. | |
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Dragon Snack
Warrior
285 Posts
| | 07/09/2006 10:25 AM |
| Our group hated it. We got about 5 rooms in when the Dwarven Cleric who was the hook for the adventure died (apparently no chance to spot the hidden Bebeliths). We told off Randall Mourn and left.
From my POV as a player, it's just a series of lethal encounters strung together. It's even worse because of the differences between 3.0 and 3.5 (not only increased CRs, but some monsters got better without a corresponding increase in CR).
I will admit our DM did start us on it too early, but even if we had been the suggested levels the encounters were still consistantly ELs of party level and above. Not fun unless you like the grind...
That campaign ended about 3 sessions later, thanks in no small part to CotSQ. | |
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taliesin
Underboss
1113 Posts
| | 07/09/2006 3:22 PM |
| quote:
Originally posted by Dragon Snack
Our group hated it. We got about 5 rooms in when the Dwarven Cleric who was the hook for the adventure died (apparently no chance to spot the hidden Bebeliths). We told off Randall Mourn and left.
From my POV as a player, it's just a series of lethal encounters strung together. It's even worse because of the differences between 3.0 and 3.5 (not only increased CRs, but some monsters got better without a corresponding increase in CR).
I will admit our DM did start us on it too early, but even if we had been the suggested levels the encounters were still consistantly ELs of party level and above. Not fun unless you like the grind...
That campaign ended about 3 sessions later, thanks in no small part to CotSQ.
Warning, spoilers!
Sounds more like lousy DM'ing than a problem with the adventure itself. And CotSQ is a lot of RP, with only two real "dungeons" to explore: The Dordrien Crypts (kicks off the adventure with what should be a simple dungeon crawl turns out to be so much more), and the Undying Temple (which you have to fight your way through to reach Irae T'sarran).
Szith Morcane is a small town, not a hack-fest. You disguise yourself, investigate the drow without getting caught, and find a way to end the surface raids (i.e. kill the outposts current leaders), which reveals the happenings in Maerimydra and the danger to the surface it represents.
Most of the side-treks in the journey to Maerimydra can either be avoided entirely or resolved through roleplay. Or hacked, whichever the group enjoys doing more.
Maerimydra itself is a ruin besieged by an army. Which you don't have to fight. Kurgoth Hellspawn might even be convinced to aid in the taking of the Undying Temple, since that's what his army marched here to do in the first place. | |
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gss_000
Commander
3204 Posts
Baltimore, MD
| | 07/09/2006 5:19 PM |
| We also played the module and it was fun for the most part. There were two problems that were mainly due to translation from 3.0 to 3.5:
SPOILER WARNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In the end, many of the monsters are tricked out to use the 3.0 version of haste (so tactics assume you can cast 2 spells a round) and there were a lot of vampire monks, who could use their negative energy slam attacks more than once a round, unlike what it specifically says now in 3.5. Otherwise, it was a blast. | |
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Liquidburn
Sergeant
944 Posts
| | 07/09/2006 11:40 PM |
| I played thru some if it with two different DM's. With the bad DM it was easy as pie. With the good DM, it was very deadly.
Either way, I liked it a lot and would recomend it. | |
Jason Slingerland
"Why do I have to be Mr. Pink?" | |
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