Questions on running Shadoes of the Deep (Level Up #2)

[cnath.rm]

Not sure if this is the right area to put this question or not, if not please move it wherever it should go

I'm running the Shadows of the Deep adventure from Level Up! magazine issue #2 Please don't go any further unless you are ok with the surprise being ruined..


spoiler space.

Really loving the adventure!!!

more spoiler space.



Nifty battle on the island, excellent use of the Speak with Dead ritual to learn that there is a ritual of summoning going on. Attached below are pix of the foamcore/cardstock version of the room I put together, the colored rings are from pop/water bottles are work well to show which pc/npcs are marked/bloodied/etc. Pix are towards the end of the battle inside the temple (2-2) in which one players daily power has a storm raging and slowly damaging/destroying the trapped pillars ((markers) to either side of the opening leading further down into the temple) after having killed the enemy in the room, and another players power having blocked off the pools the deep one raiders were entering through with a wall of thorns.

In any case, the party is in room 2-2 in the temple and has heard the chanting of a summoning ritual from the room below them. As they want to disrupt the summoning, they are planning on going directly forward without resting. With the room below being another encounter the storm and wall of thorns caused by the daily powers would normally end, but as they aren't planning on resting I'm figuring on letting it go on for a few more rounds at least. However I'm wondering how long I should let them go... I don't think I'm going to tell the players whatever I decide or roll, as I don't think the chars would know as the powers are being stretched. The party doesn't want to wait and rest, but I'm still figuring on it being a new encounter, with encounter powers refreshing.

Any thoughts? am I being unreasonable if I don't let him know how long his power is going to last? (he has to keep spending minor actions on it, I would just tell him that the storm was breaking apart and would likely dissipate at the end of the round) They are going up against some rather nasty customers already, and if they are not able to stop the ritual, are going to be facing a Shoggoth as well as the Deep ones already in the room, as well as three more from the last room who will either be breaking in through the wall of thorns (taking damage as they do) and hitting them from behind, or will have turned back from the last room and will be joining/re-enforcing the leaders in the last room.

I picked up the Lovecraftian Bestiary pdf and am loving it what I've read so far, the party is definitely going to be facing the upgraded versions this Sat night...

So far both the players and I have been having fun, and I think the adventure has tested the pc's enough that the players will remember the adventure for awhile, which imho at least is always a good thing, I'm not one to hand things to the pc's without them having earned them by blood, sweat, tears, and damn good thinking.

I figured I'd post and ask for thoughts on things as I'm already stretching/breaking the rules as it is.

[Blackdirge]

Hi Cnath. Great maps!

Should you let your player's daily powers continue into the next round? For me, that would depend on your players and how well they're doing in the adventure. If your group is having an easy time of it so far, then I would say the daily powers should end at the end of the encounter. If, on the other hand, the deep ones have been handing your players their collective asses, then yeah, I'd let the daily powers extend into the next encounter for a short period. For simplicity's sake, I'd let the power go for another 1d6 rounds into the next encounter.

Since the power in question requires the expenditure of a minor action, you should let your player know how long the power will extend into the next encounter. That way he can better use the powers he has left.

I hope that helps, and let us know if your players become shoggoth chow in the final encounter.

BD

[cnath.rm]

Hi Cnath. Great maps!

Should you let your player's daily powers continue into the next round? For me, that would depend on your players and how well they're doing in the adventure. If your group is having an easy time of it so far, then I would say the daily powers should end at the end of the encounter. If, on the other hand, the deep ones have been handing your players their collective asses, then yeah, I'd let the daily powers extend into the next encounter for a short period. For simplicity's sake, I'd let the power go for another 1d6 rounds into the next encounter.

Since the power in question requires the expenditure of a minor action, you should let your player know how long the power will extend into the next encounter. That way he can better use the powers he has left.

The party has been doing pretty well, though that is because of some really good thinking on the players part, I've taken the upgrade options from the adventure as I've got 6-7 pc's in the party. So in your opinion do you think the three Raiders should push through the thorn wall and attack from behind or would they more likely have retreated to 2-3 when the pools were blocked and add to the defenses there.

I hope that helps, and let us know if your players become shoggoth chow in the final encounter.

I'll certainly let you know, and if I make another cardstock/foamcore map I will try to get pix of that as well.

I've started running the adventure a second time with a mostly different group when part of the normal group wasn't going to be there for game, downgraded the island because of only having 3 pc's... it's handing them their arses BIG time. A copy/paste of the map also worked decently well in Maptools as well, my buddy couldn't get it to line up 100% but it was close enough to work well. The free pdf also came in rather handy as I had forgot my hardcopy of the magazine at home but had the pdf on my flashdrive.

[cnath.rm]

Well, I meant to post before now, but we didn't get to finish the last encounter and haven't been able to meet since the last session. If I find the pic that was taken I will post it, the foam core battlemap wasn't anywhere as impressive imho then the first one, though those dammed pillars took FAR too long to put together. (four little squares of foam core glued on top of each other rotated 90deg)

I'm not thrilled with certain powers enableing the player to move any creature within several squares of the center of his "storm" as I'm not sure I think a storm that moves Med sized creatures would effect something the size of the shoggoth.

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However on nights where people couldn't show up for the 4e game I'm in, I've been scalling the adventure Down to run with only 3pc's. On the surface of the island they were getting their arses handed to them (I totally LOVE Drowning Demise, and even more the Bestiary version) we had to look up the saves for what happens when PC's go to neg hit points.

Down inside the temple they were doing Much better then the first group, though with the wonderful changes in the refresh rate of Drowning Demise I had two of the three pc's coughing up sea water... It was great!!!

The only issue we found was that the map grids don't match between the different rooms on the map page of the adventure and that was easy enough to deal with. (we took the page from the pdf and put it into Maptool to use as our VTT.)