Playing already made designs, or designing your own?

[Milos Gulan]

Oh lol 10 dragons is really too much. I remember playing JG2 Tegel Manor and only guy that was a real problem was a wizard with delayed blast fireball, though he was just there with some scrolls and not really important for the story still after many tries I couldn't kill him without him damaging the party so avoided him.

Anyway it seems that good tactic is to start with a little higher character level then needed as most of the modules at the end pack some seriously tough fights which I couldn't sometimes pass because of starting with low or normaly needed level of characters, also normal fights go much faster though that challenge factor is a bit down and games can look a bit more easy then it should.

For me now, I am doing the Castle Greyhawk, and though it is good it is one of those megalo dungeons where You can meet almost any monster and well up till now I have met ninja turtles and some others lastly some dungeon designer asked me to pick up a fight to help him with dungeon setting, so there were 6 red dragons without treasure, but also a beholder with bunch of gems, beside those minor like kobold with +1 dagger and graz'zt with 1pp. I tried beholder that and finished turned to stone and well just reloading seemed a faster route  

Anyway I was thinking about writting a review for this module after finishing it, which I hope I will. Good thing is that it is actualy a complete Castle Greyhawk, the not so good is probably that I am somwhere in the middle about lv5 or six and I think there are at least 10 levels of it still lots to go probably . Also I was thinking how long would take me to complete that module playing it on table top and I think it would take years so I guess I should be happy after all while playing it.

[PetrusOctavianus]

Actually it was "only" eight dragons, I noticed on my second try.
And typically enough, after getting Rings of Electrical Immunity for all, suddenly Hold Monster started working and I was able to hold three of the freaks.
I guess my previous comments were a bit harsh. Instead of metagaming, one could argue that buying Rings of Electrical Immunity for all is good planning "for all eventualities". I even got everybody Rings of Fire Resistance, but not Cold Resistance (damned 16 items limit makes me have to sacrifice something), so I guess I'll meet some mutaded ice dragons soon.

EDIT: Heh, the first that happened when I resumed the game was sea elf telling me about mutated dragons. 
But fighting them will have to wait a while, since the Guided Tour bug again reared its ugly head. 

[Milos Gulan]

Yea lol I am still fighting that Beholder though after this talk for a moment i thought about Xp for fighting those dragons but my party would probably just die hm actualy I just might try it once also I might try fighting that kobold with +1 dagger if I don't get those 25 gems beholder have soon Planing to play Helmetlands soon too prelude then cold trail probably

[ProphetSword]

Played some more of Marauders of Triangle Bay, and my enthusiasm has waned somewhat.

The Mountain Pass and Minotaur Fortress were quite easy until the last battle in the fortress, where good tactics could not save my somewhat underleveled characters with 35-80 (no savescumming for max HP on my watch) were severly reduced by the damage prior to the encounter. And when those bloody Wizards were able to cast several Delayed Blast Fireballs before my own guys could react, despite my guys having 17-18 DEX and the Wizards only 16 DEX, I had to edit the Damage event down to half the damage, and after a few tries and finally not having rotten luck with initiative (only one Wizards was able to cast DBF) I was victorious against the pompous wind bag of a Beholder and his minions.
It was a good fight though, but the Damage event obviosuly assumed the party had much higher HP.

Then we were attacked by 10 Blue Dragons en route to our next assignment. OK, 10 regular Blue Dragons each with 80 HP and 0 AC is already quite nasty, but 145 HP, -6 AC and 45% MAR (Blade Barrier had no effect whatsoever in all the rounds it lasted) is just sick. The only way to win is by metagaming and buying Rings of Lightning Immunity to all characters.
My guys lasted quite a long time thanks to two Scrolls of Prot Dragon Breath and three Rings of Blinking, but with 10 enemies each with 145 HP and -6 AC they just could't kill the enemy fast enough. Even if they were 5 levels higher and had max HP I don't think it would have worked. As it was I was only able to kill three of the dragons by brute force. Magic was useless.
Sorry, but IMO it's bad design when you are forced to metagame like this.

Ah yes...the days before play testers.  I'm not surprised that these encounters aren't as well balanced as they should be.  Though, to be fair, it sounds like you're playing with a party that's not high enough level...so that's part of the issue.

[nologgie]

... Though, to be fair, it sounds like you're playing with a party that's not high enough level...so that's part of the issue.

A couple of levels above or below 11th make a big difference when dealing with magic resistance.  I'm playing it again with characters generated within the design instead of an imported party like I used before.  The characters are re-rolled for good stats, particularly prime requisites and dex, but not maxed.  They're doing okay so far, but it's early yet.

And while it definitely isn't up to your current standards, I still like the feel of the game.

[PetrusOctavianus]

Ah yes...the days before play testers.  I'm not surprised that these encounters aren't as well balanced as they should be.  Though, to be fair, it sounds like you're playing with a party that's not high enough level...so that's part of the issue.

Yes, they should have been more experienced, but the problem was that I couldn't find any suitable module for leveling them up after completing Ghost of Greyhawk Manor with about 750,000 XP.
There are lots of modules for low level characters, but not so many for mid level to high level characters, and I don't like the idea of creating new higher level characters if I can import characters. And I really wanted to use the same party as in Road to Armageddon.
Also, I much prefer the challenge of playing with an underpowered party than breezing through with an overpowered one.
So far only the final battle in the Minotaur Castle and the battle against eight blue mega dragons have felt "unfair". In comparison the third town, its jail and its arena was a cakewalk. Even the guards at the town council was easy in comparison, partly because the the enemy groups are too close and the Wizards won't cast DBF for fear of hitting their allies.
So except for the two mentioned battles the module has had just about the right difficulty level for my taste. Of course, having superior equipment helps quite a lot.

[PetrusOctavianus]

Marauders of Triangle Bay:
Just beat The Dark One and his minions, and I must say the final battle was anticlimactic. My guys had about 30-50 HP each (thanks to Fire Wizards and their DBFs) and they did no prebuffing at all, although they all had equipped Rings of Lightning Immunity and Fire Resistance, and proceeded to win the batte comfortably on the first try with no casualties. Even the old dwarf NPC survived. All characters used their Scrolls of Prot Dragon Breath in the first round. Then it was one DBF, one Haste and lots of chop! chop! chop!

I actually found the Fire Wizards to be much more of a problem than the dragons. Even with Rings of Fire Protection and making their saves my guys still took 20-30 damage on each DBF the Fire Wizards got off, while the RoFP combined with successful saving throw meant no damage at all from red dragons' breath.

All in all I enjoyed this module. The ending left room for a sequel. Did it ever materialize?

[ProphetSword]

All in all I enjoyed this module. The ending left room for a sequel. Did it ever materialize?

The module that followed it was "Shadows in the Sky," which is for characters in the 18-22 level ranges, I believe.  Not sure if any of the story elements carry over, though, so much as it was just the next adventure in level order that I built during 1993-1995.