Let’s talk the Lost City

[Bradu]

I’ve been playing the Lost City solo using a party of 5. Solo obviously presents some challenges compared to running with a dm.

SPOILERS AHEAD

One issue I had was meeting Zargon potentially too soon. My party was level 6 and I “barely” survived. With all of his abilities he seemed much, much more difficult than his cr (comparatively, he’s equal to a vampire but a vampire isn’t nearly as dangerous.) As I’ve continued further in the adventure it almost seems as if I was expected to NOT enter that space that dumps you into Zargons lair, and instead make your way to the city and learn a lot about him first, then return to face him later.

Another thing, boy there’s a lot of treasure in this thing! I do realize this is to stay loyal to the original, and that in old school D&d treasure in gp could be used for xp. I’m kinda wondering how to proceed in terms of treasure. There’s really not a ton of spending opportunities anyway (doesn’t seem to be any sort of markets in the lost city?) I’m considering in the end just cutting all the gp value treasure down to only 10% of what I’ve found (which is a lot more realistic in terms of what can be carried anyway.) or maybe I’ll keep it all and buy/build a stronghold.

I’m wondering if anyone did any trading with the Magi of Usimagaras, and if so, how you went about that? It says in the blurb when you first meet them that they are interested in trading magic items for spells, but there’s no more info on how to go about that. Thoughts?

Been really enjoying this, and I also picked up all the others around the Black Friday sale (except barrier peaks). Looking forward to them all!