miniatures for Drow Wars?

[Calvertfan]

Hello

We're going to be starting running Drow Wars in a couple of months and wondered if anyone could recommend any good Drow miniatures or general monsters used in the campaign?

Also if any other GMs could share their thoughts on encounters that were too tough, or other problems they had, that would be great.

 

[TopCat]

Reaper do some nice drow minis plus a lot of other (mostly humanoid) useful ones. For a lot of the non-humanoid monsters I've made good use of D&D Miniatures figures plus a handful of Citadel minis.

My group are only just into the Warriors of Winter chapter in book 2 so I can't comment on any encounters after that. So far, they've only had to run from 1 encounter (the Animus Operative on Lost Athul) but I've also had to dissuade them from taking on a couple of other encounters that would have been too tough for them (Scallandriax and Omorogg).

In book 1 the two encounters that stand out as being particularly dangerous were the drow "pets" in the cells under the castle in Beacon City and the zombie bear at the Colombe mansion. A few others that I thought were going to be tough turned out not to be

I guess it all comes down to the party composition and tactics so things may be different for you. My group never seem to do what I expect so I have to be constantly ready to improvise.

How the signature items are configured can also have a major impact on encounters. At first, my party experimented with the powers (the rogue, who was the first to get his signature item, had his shortsword configured as Keen when they did the Temple of Kharad but almost everything in there is immune to criticals!) but have pretty much all now settled on Holy with as many plusses as they're allowed. That means that every hit on almost every opponent is doing 2d6 extra damage so, to counter that, a few of the lesser opponents are getting a CON boost from me.

TC

 

[Graphil]

I think the main thing that caught me was the scale. Most of the maps don't have scale on them so you should work out beforehand what you want to use. For overland travel write out a travel time scale for the army. I found that the suggested one was not realistic and didn't give the party enough time to do all the plot.
Later on scale is very important for travel in book 2. If you work out distances based on the size of chillarme then it takes 2 months to get to Xoth Serandi by boat. Also it is not possible to teleport to the warriors of winter location since it is out of range.

As for the combats there were a few challenging ones. I had to tone down the animus since it would have killed the party otherwise. The ogres in the hedge was also tough for a starting party. The drow pets was another almost deadly one. The final fight against the terror was the deadliest however it killed 3, 2 unconcious and 1 left standing.

 

[Jinta]

I have two groups that have run through book 1 and are starting book 2. The interesting thing about running the two separate campaigns is that I get to see just how subjective the 'toughness' of the fights are.

Early on, it's pretty much a toss up, 'cause it's so easy to damage low level characters - that said, I'd say the major fights in book one were:

For my Friday Group: the Ogre in the hedge at Hockton Barrow - It was just a roll of the dice, but a crit with a scythe is x4 damage and caused the first player death in one group.

The columbe mansion was tough in places mostly because of a series of failed turning rolls - but it wasn't severely life threatening - although the same rogue got hit with the cocatrice's nastiness, and had to be hauled to Saragost in a stolen cart. One of the most fun fights ws the hooka. Come on, how many DMs get to bash on their PCs with a hooka? both groups failed to find that trap, and got wailed on.

Neither of these encounters were a problem for the other group... However I did get a TPK in my Thursday group from the ambush in Saragost - completely due to a series of poor choices, and really bad die rolls. Again, the other group had no problem here.

After they got their weapons, I"m having to alter the monsters - usually I"m just giving them max hit points instead of average. The players who've settled on holy damage (most of them) do prety serious damage almost all the time.

In hindsight, the thing I'd change in the first book doesn't have to do with fighting, but with divination... The deck of cards in the columbe mansion, and the orb in the temple of Karad both have divination abilities. That, combined with the cleric's spells are giving these characters a ton of divination attempts. In one day, one of my parties used divination 5 times.... now I'm getting very good at precise but confusing answers, but It's still a bit excessive. I'd rather they didn't have the divination from the items.

js

 

[Calvertfan]

Excellent feedback guys, very much appreciated.

Are any of using any kind of fate points in your campaigns? The players have all played Conan, and now want fate points in every campaign we play. I'm thinking of using them, but think it might slightly devalue starborn daily powers or luck powers and feats (from Complete Scoundrel)

 

[TopCat]

I'm using action points for the Starborn and Host only. They worked really well at low levels but are getting to be a pain now (the party is currently 12th level).

We've agreed to change the action point rules so that the characters get 5 points to use each level (not carried forward) and they have to declare the use of an action point BEFORE rolling the dice. This way it forces them to save the action points for the really crucial saves that they know they have to make, rather than just using one each time they roll less than a 5 on the D20.

 

[gym_wizard]

I haven't been to the forums in a while to this thread may be old so forgive me....

I use Dwarven Forge dungeons along with WOTC minis.

But more importantly I have supplemented the Drow War 'signature items' with personalized Weapons of Legacy (supplement from WOTC).

There is alot of moaning and groaning- but I like to torcher my PCs :twisted: [/url]