Concern over Madness in Freeport finale... (spoilers)

[arnon]

Next session might bring us to the end of the Freeport Trilogy.

But i have some concern that the two (2) final encounters at the lighthouse might be too difficult.

My party consist of 5 players, all level 4.

The encounter with N'Tal is calculated at EL 8 and the final encounter is EL 10.

Isn't that a bit too much???

[mxyzplk]

Hmmm. Level 4 is a little short, but when we played through it (lo these many years ago) the final encounter wasn't all that hard.

One of the sad drawbacks of the CR/EL system is that it doesn't work all that well for levelled NPCs. The traditional "party vs single caster" fight requires that the caster be real high level to not just die in round one.

You could try to do a side fight/adventure to level them first - the mod is supposed to be for levels 4-6... But N'Tal is only a Wiz7 with a couple trash mobs, and that should be fair game for a level 4 party. Drac's only a cleric 8, but is there with Melkior and Gorn too which is a challenge. Of course if they know to swap idols they can kill them all without a full 'fair fight'.

So it comes down to two things.

1. How optimized is your PC party? There's a real 2 EL difference between what a Joe Blow PHB only party can do and what a super specced party can do.

2. Do they know that swapping the idols will stop the threat? If so, then all they're really going to have to do is hold off an EL10 for a couple-three rounds, which is a much easier task.

[arnon]

They are in the lighthouse now.

Last session they finished off the fellas at the second level of the lighthouse and the cleric and sorceress expanded most of their high level spells.

I decided to level them up for the last session, so I now have 5 level 5 players (barbarian, monk, rogue, cleric & sorceress) which makes me a bit more relaxed as to the possibility of them (or at least some of them) surviving to the end.

2. Do they know that swapping the idols will stop the threat? If so, then all they're really going to have to do is hold off an EL10 for a couple-three rounds, which is a much easier task

I have not spelled this out for them but they do know that only the idol can defeat the Unspeakable One, and i'll try to describe the scene at the top of the lighthouse in a way that might hint at that, but will not tell them out-right.

[Set]

I'm not terribly fond of 'McGuffin saves the day' endings, so I was leaning in the other direction, towards making the idol only blind / 'debuff' the bad-guys, and requiring the PCs to finish up the job and fight them.

[arnon]

I actually have no problem with the idol saving the day, although I do like the idea that it'll debuff/hurt the bad guys and perhaps heal/restore spells to the good guys....

Hmmm... i have till tonight to think about it.

[arnon]

Update:

Just came back from our final session.

The toughest battle was the one with N'tal and his bodyguards. He cast Wall of Fire and divided the barbarian (who rushed up the stairs) and the rest of the party. This left the barbarian alone against all the bodyguards.

The battle was characterized by bad rolls by all (me and the players). The cleric player almost died (at -6) from both fireball and lightning; the sorceress was blinded by a spell, but still managed to pull her weight and deal damage with amazingly high rolls, but did not participate in the last battle; and even the barbarian almost fell from loss of hit-points and the end of his rage.

It was a long & tough battle.

The big finale, on the other hand, was almost a walk in the park. The rogue dwarf immediatly understood what to do and told the monk what to do. This, combined with redicoluosly high initiative of the PCs, gave them an advantage on the bad guys, and the whole battle lasted maybe 4 rounds...

Ohh well.

But it was fun none-the-less.

[Set]

Update:

Just came back from our final session.

The toughest battle was the one with N'tal and his bodyguards. He cast Wall of Fire and divided the barbarian (who rushed up the stairs) and the rest of the party. This left the barbarian alone against all the bodyguards.

The battle was characterized by bad rolls by all (me and the players). The cleric player almost died (at -6) from both fireball and lightning; the sorceress was blinded by a spell, but still managed to pull her weight and deal damage with amazingly high rolls, but did not participate in the last battle; and even the barbarian almost fell from loss of hit-points and the end of his rage.

It was a long & tough battle.

I *love* these sorts of nail-biters, where multiple party members hit zero or less at various times.

The cakewalks are not so fun.

In my finale (which got cancelled due to real-life issues ending our game), Maeorgan was blinded and feebleminded, but the other two (Gorn and the Sea Lord) made their will saves and were only blinded, and the party ended up killing them. Much later, Maeorgan resurfaces (having been taken into custody by his sister, who took his seat on the council), with a long prophet-returned-from-the-wilderness beard and unkempt hair, still sightless, bearing strange omens and prophecies (I pictured the return of the messiah dude from 4400 here, for visuals). His sister didn't really expect him to 'come back' from his state, but made the mistake of not killing him in his bed, and he's become something of an embarassment to her, but he's also developed some sort of protection, and is quickly amassing a cult who regard him as a blind messiah.

He's also not Maeorgan in any real sense of the word, but something else that decided to take advantage of his body to walk around.

[mvp]

Our group didn't had any troubles surviving the last encounters. By the end of the day the adventurers had used maybe 2/3 of their resources. Battle in the stairway was a much tougher one than the one on the top of the building. Here too there was a barbarian with the run feat who got up really fast. In the end, the flying serpent had to hide himself in a cloud of darkness, but still couldn't escape from the bloodthirsty PC:s.