WAR 2! The Coast to Toast Mission - DM Comments and Remarks

Starting from the beginning of Part 1, the battle with the sea zombies, great tactic to use the Crew Chief and the Warlord to block the stairs and protect the helm of the ship. Also a good tactic to have the bulk of the party together to draw the undead but perhaps it would have been better if they'd been at the base of the mast so that the warlord could have healed them, given them extra attacks?

I liked the battle with the Carrion Lizards, a good sharp battle. This was the first we got to see of the Monk and I was impressed. Again, the Warlord was able to block a key attack route, pinning down or diverting monsters. He's not a defender, but he sure acts like one.

I liked the way the party negotiated, rather than fought the Priests of Orcus, there was nothing to be gained here by fighting. In addition to the two swordsmen the party later saw, there was a powerful Undead Marauder in Plate Armor under the priests' command, a potentially very deadly opponent.

I'm thinking the battle with Sho-Hawk was tougher than it seemed as I rolled near max for damage and the battle with the Dire Bear was easier than it should have been as I was rolling pretty cold and couldn't hit. Still, probably best to avoid a fight if you can (the Tyr Amar group) if you have a long mission ahead.

Pax was red hot in the battle with the Manticora, but missed a lot against the easier bandits. I kind of liked the bandit battle was the terrain forced a lot of maneuvering. I also liked the duel with Spurr and the humorous negotiations with the refugee encampment.

In the main battle of the mission, Tamsin carried the day for the team as he occupied a very large percentage of the enemy at very grave risk to himself, being so far from the rest of the party. I did like the party's method of taking down one or two enemies at a time as they slowly made their way around the corner of the building. If that was your plan, it was effective. The warlord was right there to block enemies from attacking the softer members of the team and to heal them if any broke through. I also liked the way Pax was across the river giving supporting fire against all enemies on that same side of the building. Those boots of her's pretty much saved her as the vast majority of the monsters couldn't strike her and this particular group of monsters was pretty weak on ranged attacks with just two light cross bows, two throwing axes, one great bowman, and the Priest's ranged Lance of Justice (beam of Radiant damage). The group's tactics are improving but I will say, nearly all of the monsters were able to stay in the fight up until the last three rounds or so...

What did you all like the best? Any comments or feedback? Discuss...

Tamsin is a girl.
She also took out the cleric in one round.

Opps, sorry... Tamsin... :-)

Oh, I also wanted to mention that the party went through twelve encounters without an extended rest. The DM did help the party out with four extra healing surges (two for Tamsin and two for Raistlin) but other than that, the group did a very good job in managing their resources. At the end of the adventure, Belladonna had the most surges left (3) and then (2) each for Souldun and Raistlin. Tamsin had (1) and Pax had none. I have to hand it to Pax, she went all twelve encounters, didn't start off with a lot of surges and didn't get any bonus surges.

I think the most successful groups are going to be those where the damage from the monsters is distributed more or less according to how much each PC can take. In other words, a Fighter is able to take far more damage, so they should and at the end of the adventure, if everyone has about the same percentage of damage, then that would be a good use of resources. If only the defenders are taking all the damage and all the attacks, well, that party won't make it very far. Picture a group of one or two Fighters and the rest are very long range (20/40) archers. Before too long, you're going to have two Defenders near zero surges and three or four archers who are all at max. Just a thought...

Soo. Its not necessarily bad when Raistlin periodically gets whomped on?

Great summary and write up. I enjoyed the tactics needed. fun good adventure. Good to see a beginner getting going.