I'm running a 3.5 campaign and am eager to use the Maure Castle adventure from Dungeon #112. The problem is the party level. The adventure is for 4 12th-level characters, who apparently are to make forays in and out of the dungeons, ending up at about 16th level.
In my campaign, we have 3 16th-level PCs. What I want to avoid, if I can help it, is going through and having to beef every single encounter in either numbers or level of antagonists to challenge them. Doing all that will take forever. It seems like a very deadly adventure, just as written, and I'm wondering if I can present a dangerous adventure without having to sit down and scale everything up.
What if the characters entered Maure Castle with Dalt's key, but discovered, once they were in, that they were trapped in the dungeons until they destroyed the ID Core on the Statuary level (albeit temporarily, since it regenerates in a day). Until that time, they can't teleport outside of the dungeon itself, can't escape through the planes, the key doesn't get them back out through the Unopenable Doors, and thus must try to hole up in random rooms (besieged by wandering monsters) to even recover their spells and heal.
The only other way in or out besides destruction of the ID Core would be persuading/forcing Eli Tomorast to use his demonic hands to open the doors for him. (The explanation for the presence of Seekers, gnolls, etc. is that Eli is able to shepherd his allies in and out as he desires, either through use of the Tome or his demonic hands.)
For those of you who have run this, do you think this will work in presenting a decent challenge? I can harry the party mercilessly once they're in the dungeon; even if the opponents aren't "level appropriate" all the time, resources will be constantly diminishing. . . .
Interested in any observations or advice from those who've run this!
Yes I have ran -most- of Maure Castle. I think you've presented some good solutions of your own. As to scaling, I'd just do it to the major threats. I'd make sure Tomorast is well ahead of the players., maybe give Kerzit some extra resilience and so on...
When I ran Maure, my players had lower level characters than recommended which ramped up the fear factor. There's little you can do to trouble 16th level PCs except, yes, taking away their ability to leave at will. If Maure was easy to get in/out of, then Mordy would've cleaned it out a long time ago right?
Also for extra material I hope you know about the later levels in issue #124 and #139. Plus the 3.5 converted Warlock's Walk found in Oerth Journal #23 (which includes a Maure comic by me!). IIRC the later levels were much higher level as well. You could just leave #112 as is and lead into these levels with increasing danger before they can gain their freedom from the megadungeon.
Thanks for the reply! I do know about and have all the additional Maure resources. I only wish there were some fan-created levels to fill in the gaps.
When I ran Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure for 1st edition a million years ago, I remember being disappointed by how fast Eli and, especially, Kerzit went down. The iron golem was as scary as it was supposed to be.
This time my concerns are almost the reverse. I might tinker with Eli's spell selection, but he seems like a worthy opponent for 16th level adventurers. Kerzit I'm less sure of and I'd love to hear how deadly he was to other parties. My biggest concern is just making sure the Iron Golem is as frightening as it's supposed to be. Has anyone had a party overcome it without construct-bane weapons or adamantite? Just by pure badassery?
My sense from reading the adventure is that the ruins levels might need the most tinkering to be challenging, but the Statuary should be fine for 16th level characters. I'd love to hear of some real play experiences, what was satisfying, what wasn't.
Related to your idea of sealing the party into the dungeon is whether or not the party should be able to summon others to aid them (summon spells, but more especially planar binding/planar ally). How much it affects the difficulty of the adventure might depend on the make-up of the party. If allowed, then the party can keep introducing new assistants and allies and being 16th level, they could find the adventure not particularly difficult. If not allowed, and one of the party members focuses on conjurations (say they play a Malconvoker), then it you could conceivably be reducing a player's character to near uselessness (no fun for him or her).
To temper the extreme results of either case, maybe a magical item must be sacrificed as an additional spell component to perform such conjurations while within Maure Castle. The NPC's in the dungeon know of this and have the odd, inexpensive potion or scroll ready to sacrifice when they do their own summonings, etc. Discovering this limitation could be a new twist the party needs to discover.
I hadn't really thought about summoning--that's a good call. None of these characters ever summon much of anything, so I don't think it'll be much of an issue. The wizard is a specialist diviner/loremaster and the favored soul mainly heals and blasts.
But I love the sacrifice a magic item to power a summons idea, mainly because I love anything that whittles down party magic. It might be fun to even encourage them to summon a few things, just to get rid of a few scrolls or potions.
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