Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 zombiegleemax Aug 08, 2004 16:58:45	ok i have some serious issues with the gardians for the shattered temple .... i mean seriously hardness 8 and fast healing 5!!! wtf!!! that cant be right for a cr 4 monster... anyone else see this problem?? what have other people done?????? my players are giving up oretty much after meeting them...any ideas??
#2 cam_banks Aug 08, 2004 20:02:24	Originally posted by Rev_Jake2 ok i have some serious issues with the gardians for the shattered temple .... i mean seriously hardness 8 and fast healing 5!!! wtf!!! that cant be right for a cr 4 monster... anyone else see this problem?? what have other people done?????? my players are giving up oretty much after meeting them...any ideas?? First of all, are there no clerics in your character's party? Presenting a medallion of faith of one of the gods of Light should prevent the sacred guardians from attacking. Secondly, they should not have hardness at all - sacred guardians have damage reduction 10/magic. They're described more properly in the Bestiary of Krynn and the guardians in the module were based on Medium animated objects with the template added. The DR replaces the hardness. Cheers, Cam
#3 zombiegleemax Aug 09, 2004 2:44:44	well thats odd because after looking into the BoK and reading that template they're not the same thing. yet another found mistake, and no unfortunatly we dont have a cleric so no one could just turn them... i still think 10/magic is a bit much but it is better then the hardness 8 they are written up as in the KoD, which pretty much acts as DR 8/- and was by-passable only by magic spells... but at any rate i have canceled my campaign until the errata is out as ive killed 4 players with the gardians and 1 witht the lions so far and thats including me fudging things to keep them alive, theve grown to really not enjoy this adventure and i cant say i blame them... although its not entirly S.P.'s fault as these aren't the best of roleplayers and this game is designed with heavy roleplaying in mind. so until i have an errata and some new decent roleplayers (im so sick of these hack and slashers..) i guess it doesnt matter... P.S. if you dont believe me about it being wrong in the KoD ill bring it with to gen-con
#4 cam_banks Aug 09, 2004 3:50:23	Originally posted by Rev_Jake2 P.S. if you dont believe me about it being wrong in the KoD ill bring it with to gen-con No, I believe you. I looked it up myself once you mentioned it. Personally, if they were having such trouble with them and didn't have a cleric to help, I would have avoided them completely. They're not essential. I didn't use them at all when my players were in Hurim. Cheers, Cam
#5 calabozo Aug 09, 2004 11:22:34	I belive the encounter says to show a medallion of faith of the gods of ligth not that a clric presents it or turn them, and since in the swers of pashing was a medallion of kiri-jolith I let the solamnic knigth of the group present it to the guardians and they stoped attacking. They cleric of our group is of sirrion.
#6 zombiegleemax Aug 10, 2004 5:23:03	the fact of the matter is that they only had a mystic (kinda of an anti-god person) and as i said not the best roleplayers so out of the 2 medalions they found they didnt keep either....
#7 wolffenjugend_dup Aug 10, 2004 21:38:50	You've got to take some of the responsibility yourself. As DM, didn't you review the encounter beforehand? You should have known they would have difficulty with it and adjusted accordingly. Not playing an adventure until errata comes out? Huh? Why? Fix it and move on.
#8 zombiegleemax Aug 10, 2004 23:30:42	that is true and i do take some amount of the blame for this.... but regardless as i said there are other reasons then the errata for droping the campaign
#9 zombiegleemax Sep 15, 2004 12:08:47	I havent gotten that far in the game yet with my players. Are they really that bad? Those monsters are in what source? I thought I saw them in the Towers of High Sorcery book.
#10 frostdawn Sep 16, 2004 12:21:58	That's odd. I mean, sure the hardness 8, and regeneration 5 is pretty tough, but if memory serves, each statue only gets 1 hit a round, with a +4 to attack. I didn't scale the statues down at all, and barely fudged anything, and the group (average lvl 4) still took them out. It took a loooooong time, but they did it, and without any serious planning. Just surround the statues with fighters, and as the fighters did their thing, the (neutral) cleric of Shinare went around the group healing as necessary. The toughest things my group has run into were the silver shadow assasins and a young adult dragon I threw at them. They've taken everything else out rather handily. I've actually thought several of the encounters were a little on the light side. (group of 4 with 1 NPC)
#11 zombiegleemax Sep 16, 2004 12:31:01	send a shadow dragon at them for fun and see how well they handle that!
#12 cam_banks Sep 16, 2004 15:19:58	That's odd. I mean, sure the hardness 8, and regeneration 5 is pretty tough, but if memory serves, each statue only gets 1 hit a round, with a +4 to attack. They shouldn't actually have the hardness any longer - check the entry in the Bestiary of Krynn. Cheers, Cam
#13 frostdawn Sep 17, 2004 15:59:28	They shouldn't actually have the hardness any longer - check the entry in the Bestiary of Krynn. Cheers, Cam Even so, I think I liked the guardians having hardness vs damage reduction/magic. As they are in the book, they actually provided the first REAL challenge my group has had yet. And from what I've seen of fights, it was the most fun for them (aside from 1 or 2 people flat out saying that was among their favorite encounters in the adventure so far) Not to mention, with a magic vulnerability and only 40 odd hitpoints, those guardians would have fallen in a mere handful of rounds, since almost everyone at that point had +1 or better weapons. Anywho, it's rather a moot point now, since they've already beaten the guardians and cleared the ruins. Each character so far has a MINIMUM of a +1 weapon, and roughly 70% of their attacks are hitting ACs around 20 or more. IIRC, almost none of the enemies listed in the adventure have an AC higher than 20, so most critters are getting hit almost every time. Plus, the 2 wizards are using spells with auto-hit rules like magic missle, etc. The PCs have ACs that start at 18, and the highest is about a 24. Most monsters in the adventure can't hit that unless I roll a 16-18 or better, or I flat out fudge rolls so the players fear they could potentially die in a battle whenever they take damage. Case in point. They took out the gelatinous cube in 2-3 rounds of attacks at most. I had to throw an allip random encounter at them to keep the cube from simply becoming a exp punching bag for the group (and easy kill). The wraith in the dried springs? One hit kill. The guardians? They took about 15-20 rounds of combat. THAT was a fight the group enjoyed. Even the Barbazu (and 2 shades that I sprung on them at the same time) fell within 3-4 rounds. So far, I find most of the encounters in the adventure just lack a certain level of danger for my group so far. I honestly don't think they will have any troubles until they run into the cockatrices.
#14 Miles Sep 20, 2004 5:18:51	I'm about to run this encounter with my group. The only trouble I seem to be having with it is that the Guardians are described as having Large +1 weapons. First, the stat blocks don't describe them as dealing large damage. Second, how can a medium sized creature wield a large +1 quarterstaff, anyway? Wouldn't that be impossible with the 3.5 rules? And shouldn't they also be at a -2 for using them? Problem #2: If the guardians have an intelligence of 10, wouldn't that mean that they are intelligent enough to be reasoned with? Problem #3: If they now have a Wisdom score of 12, wouldn't their Will saving throw be +1? I'm working on reapplying the template to 2 medium constructs, giving one a normal sized quarterstaff, and the other a large longsword, just to see what happens. Though I am still intrigued by the intelligence... Miles.
#15 frostdawn Sep 20, 2004 9:02:58	I'm about to run this encounter with my group. The only trouble I seem to be having with it is that the Guardians are described as having Large +1 weapons. First, the stat blocks don't describe them as dealing large damage. Second, how can a medium sized creature wield a large +1 quarterstaff, anyway? Wouldn't that be impossible with the 3.5 rules? And shouldn't they also be at a -2 for using them? I didn't think anything of it, since like you say, they don't deal large weapon damage, so I just gave them normal sized weapons. Problem #2: If the guardians have an intelligence of 10, wouldn't that mean that they are intelligent enough to be reasoned with? Except they were summoned to guard the temple from anyone who "doesn't belong there"- ie anyone who isn't a cleric of the gods of good. Their last command (the the one that animated them to begin with) I think would supercede anyone's trying to reason with them. Problem #3: If they now have a Wisdom score of 12, wouldn't their Will saving throw be +1? For what purpose? I would think being that these are constructs, they would be immune to charms and mind influencing spells anyway, so most if not all attacks that would create a need for a will save would be useless against the guardians.
#16 Nived Sep 20, 2004 10:00:43	None of my players were clerics but they came up with an amusing way to handle the situation. While the stupidly high dex Ranger (two weapon fighting short swords) was warding off and being beaten to a bloody pulp by the Sacred Gaurdian of Paladine, the Rogue had a brilliant idea. He tied a rope to an arrow and (with peneties) shot the arrow into the leg of the Gaurdian of Mishakal, (Yes contructs are immune to critical hits, so the damage was normal but since he rolled a crit on this attack I allowed the arrow to stick). Then he handed the rope to the monk. With his fast movement he pulled a "Hoth manuver" running around the gaurdian wrapping up its legs and getting it to topple over... where they picked up big rocks and proceeded to smash it lots. Then they all ganged up on the gaurdian of Paladine saving the Ranger and eventually wearing it down. Luckily there wasn't too many serious encounters left because the party was really ravaged by this encounter.