Tag: Wizards of the Coast

The PCs began this week’s encounter wet, dirty and in a very foul mood. Last week they faced off against members of the Dead Rats and the fight ended when the only surviving member of the gang managed to open a floodgate which flushed everyone through a series of underground sewer pipes.

The PCs finally got spit out in an underground cavern alongside the unconscious Dead Rat and the loot from the hideout. They tied up their unconscious prisoner and prepared to interrogate him. After all, they needed his help to navigate back to the surface because as it stood they were completely lost in the depths beneath Neverwinter.

Because encounters 9 and 10 were so short we ran them back to back last week. This meant that the party was unchanged between the two encounters. Our table consisted of a Human Wizard, Eladrin Cleric (Valenae pre-gen), Tiefling Bard, Tiefling Battlemind and Tiefling Warlock.

When the Dead Rat awoke he showed genuine fear of the party. He was outnumbered and out matched. He immediately agreed to cooperate in exchange for his life.

We began this week’s encounter after the party completed their short rest in the boathouse. The PCs easily found the trapdoor under a dirty old rug in the centre of the room. When the party was fully recovered from the previous encounter they ventured down into the sewer pipe.

When I read this chapter I realized that the encounters for weeks 7 and 8 were both very straight forward and wouldn’t take very long to complete. Forearmed with this knowledge we ran back-to-back encounter last week which certainly provided added continuity.

I was unable to play in my Monday night game so we’re back to following the exploits of the Wednesday night group at Dueling Grounds in Toronto. The party was made up of a Deva Wizard (Necromancer), Halfling Bard, Halfling Rogue, Eladrin Ranger (archer), and Genasi (Watersoul) Swordmage. Some players had extensive D&D experiences while others were fairly new to the game. This kind of mixed experience level always makes for interesting encounters.

After a thrilling bar brawl (the second in four sessions) the party took a much needed extended rest upon completing last week’s encounter. However, before we proceeded with this week’s adventure we first needed to resolve some of the outstanding issues that still lingered from week 6.

The problem we faced last week was a lack of information which caused players to struggle with motivation for their PCs. I had to try to answer the repeated question “Why are we doing this?” Based on the fantastic comments left here and on the Wizards forums last week along with details I managed to pick out of the adventure after re-reading it, I think I managed to get the train back on the tracks. (A big thanks to Erik Scott de Bie, author of Lost Crown of Neverwinter, for replying personally to some of the comments left here last week.)