Its a 5th-7th level module, using the Dungeon Creator.
Pursuing a Warband of Orcs, your party has tracked them back to an ancient shrine. Just as you are about to ambush the war party, the ground beneath you gives way and you tumble into the darkness below.... .
The module is more difficult than the original Solasta Campaign as the numbers of bad guys are increased in comparison.
https://www.nexusmods.com/solastacrownofthemagister/mods/37
Here are the things you need to know before you begin...
This is the second module I've done with the Beta Toolset for Solasta, which is in early access at this time.
Download the file, unzip it and place it in this directory
C:\Users\(user name)\AppData\LocalLow\Tactical Adventures\Solasta\UserContent\Locations
Start up your Solasta Game and select New Adventure>Campaigns>User Campaign>change. You should see the module Crypt of the Wight King listed there to select. You can then add characters.
This module requires the characters you use to be 5th-7th level.
So you will have to go into your Character Vault, select the characters you want to use and select the Level Up button and continue leveling them to 5th, 6th, or 7th level depending on what level of characters you wish to take through.
The initial area is the Base Camp, I have left many of the items you would have in the original Solasta Campaign at these levels in a Chest next to the resting point. BUT they will have to be Identified so bring a character capable of identifying magic items if you wish to use them. I have also left Rations in the Chest so you can take a Long Rest and Prepare Spells as your characters are likely to have auto selected spells at this point.
This module is tested with 5th level characters, but if you want an easier challenge you can select 7th level characters to use as well.
Playtime is around 2 Hours and 30 Minutes.
Leave any Feedback of bug reports Here or on the posting itself.
Cool dungeon! I had to turn the graphics down on my (admittedly older) gaming PC, for a couple rooms. The last battle was vicious.
Heh, yeah that last battle is... screwy for lack of a better term.
When I took it on, (Balanced Party with GWF Paladin Aristocrat, Mountain Fighter Lowlife, Life Cleric Lawkeeper, Sellsword Shock Wizard). It completely threw me off.
The first fights in this Module put a strain on your Melees because they can end up sucking up a lot of hits from multiple attackers. So your Mage and Cleric have to use AoEs to try to diminish the numbers of incoming monsters or it gets brutal.
The middle fights are all about the Cleric and Front Liners since the monsters are resistant to some forms of elemental attacks.
The last battle though can completely stalemate your casters. Leaving only your Front Liners to handle the bulk of the work.
(Spoilers ahead)
I came out of the secret door in Cautious Mode, and unleashed a Fireball into the main crowd. While the Cleric threw a Silence Spell on the Altar Group. I was expecting that High Priest to either move away from me out of the Silence Radius, thereby taking us out of his spell range... or better yet, move foward towards us so my Fighter and Paladin could make mince meat out of him.
But no... he just stands there in the middle of the silence zone, fires crossbow bolts at you and counterspells you. It completely stalemated my Wizard AND Cleric so no more Fireballs or healing. I couldn't even heal my guys because he would counterspell me from the Silence Zone.
While the rest of the crew in there is pretty nasty too, they are doable... once you get rid of the High Priest, and you'll probably have to hide your Wizard and/or Cleric behind the Pillars as they just go balls to the wall on the both of them.
So you kinda have to Double Fireball the whole crowd before he gets his turn and send your melees and Cleric w/Spiritual Hammer straight for the High Priest or it gets pretty hard to finish off the ones coming from behind the pillars.
Actually, I smoked the last battle. I sneaked along the back of the tombs from the entry point all the way around, and had both my shock arcanist and cleric throw fireballs. After killing almost all of the low level cultists and evil priests, the Paladin and the spellblade cleaned up the rest. I actually rolled the characters, instead of my usual free edit for stats. Lvl 7 made a difference, but the spectres were tough.
Yeah Technically the Module as a whole could be done with 3 Melees and a Cleric as well, but your Cleric would have to have either the Domain that gives him Fireballs.... OR Alternately use a Lot of Spiritual Guardian.
The Spiritual Guardian spell (3rd level Clerical spell) works really well as any monsters that come at your party get zapped as soon as they get within two spaces of the party. Combined with Multiple attacks from Fighters on weakened enemies its pretty effective. Its not as effective as Wizard Fireballs are, but it works.
Cleric of Einar with the battle domain is pretty awesome, combined with a sell-sword Shock Arcanist, really helps a 4 character party. Stil, I enjoyed the dungeon immensely. I like to think that good tactics served me well in the last battle. Badlands wraiths on the other hand, shiver....
Tactically you're very sound.
You figured out the weak point of their formation right off the bat, so you did well against the final encounter. I know you went through at 7th level vs 5th level like I did, but good job on finding the weakness of the encounter that fast.
The Wraiths... well that one I didn't have as much problem with but I knew to have mercy on players on that one which is why I left the campfire at that point. It starts out small with only a couple, but since they're Wraiths they level drain.
The biggest encounter with them once left my Paladin with a mere 16 hit points and obviously you cannot heal that damage and lesser restore will not give you the levels back.
Key to that one was keeping the Light Spells up so they attack you with disadvantage. Paladin Smite helps a great deal, so does Cleric Spiritual Weapon, Guiding Bolt, and Spiritual Guardians. Another tactic with a Cleric when multiples of any undead attack you is to Turn Undead and make half of them flee or not attack you, Thins their numbers out, and you can take them one at a time at your leisure.
They got initiative, which never helps. But all in all, a thoroughly enjoyable dungeon. I look forward to more of you work.
Thank you for the compliments once again.
I did in the end reduce the final battle slightly as a lot of people were having some difficulties with it.
Man this is the 3rd dungeon I have dl and played, so far it this was the best one I played, really good job, the last battle, really gave me no problems, snuck in and fireballed a bunch of guys, was easy after that. I went in as 6th level, as I thought 5 might be to hard, and 7 to easy.
It was the battle with the ogre and orcs, that gave me the toughest time, 1st time, was my fault forgot to verify my spells after long rest so I did not have fireball, tried to sleep a bunch of them, only 2 went to sleep. 2nd time when I had my spells, even with fireballing a bunch of them the still managed to get to my mage and knock him down.
Did not notice, 2nd campsite after I got level drained so went back to start to rest, I was like man I wish they had fast travel in dungeons, then I noticed it, and was like I am an idiot.
Anyways great fun dungeon, I really liked it and look forward to playing more of yours for sure.
CostlySpider
FULL REVIEW (SPOILERS)
So I finished the play-through on Cataclysm and I liked it much better because 2x fireball won't come close to solving your problems with +200% enemy HP (difficulty setting).
HIGH POINTS:
It was great to see a couple of horde battles, where your team really is fighting for its life (on Cataclysm). Multiple times, on the first play-through, before I knew the extent, location, details, etc. of each battle, I found myself fighting for my life. I did standard stat roll (very good stats can be achieved this way) and min/maxed the crap out of my party, focusing on survival, defense, and cc. Also, entered at level 6 (level range was 5-7), and never leveled in the module. Some highlights were:
1) For the orc goblin/battle, I had the entire party falling back on my cleric, who literally "dodged" the entire time while keeping Spirit Guardian active, while my shield-wall of melee-focused companions, ground down the enemies and performed spot healing. It was truly an adrenalin-fueled session, and I estimated there were 2,000+ HP to overcome in the orc/goblin battle.
2) The badlands-wraiths battle was a nightmare the first time I ran it, because my lightning-cleric decided to Misty Step to a chest (unaware, until later, you could walk around to the same location) and triggered the wraith-fight separated from my party (haste makes waste... not the spell, just stupidity). Ranged combat support was greatly reduced in effectiveness with all the resistances of the wraiths (fire, non-magic attacks, necro, etc.) and it was a costly battle that drained the team of spells, scrolls, resources, etc. I finished the battle and it would have been more impactful if we weren't able to rest again (more on that later). Still, great fun.
3) The priest/temple battle was a bloody good affair, because no amount of raw-AOE-damage was going to kill the bosses (110-198 HP each). However, crowd control (cc), was the key to victory. I'm not talking just AOE cc, I'm talking everything we had (blindness, hold person, charm, etc.) to keep the mobs tied up for as long as possible. With the mobs gaining +3 on Saves and on To-hit (cataclysm), this was a cluster, but not insurmountable.
I surprised the mobs and threw Hypnotic Pattern... Maybe I hit 40% of the mobs (with saves). Rinse and repeat the second round on Hypnotic Pattern. Kept my wizard blurred, while chucking charm, hold, etc., while my cleric dodged (and bonus action healed the party!). What was amazing, was I didn't have enough raw-damage output to finish many of the mobs before Hypnotic Pattern dropped (never happened before)! Also, on cataclysm, enemy damage is +150%, so when they hit, especially on crits (20), it is devastating, requiring massive healing, lay-on-hands, second-wind... heck, I was using triple-targeted Aid on a single character to keep them alive... I didn't even know that was possible (thought it was only a multi-person buff), but desperation created creativity. To be fair, if I knew what I was up against, I could have prepped some potions/spells better, but it was more exciting facing the unknown face-first. In the end, I managed no one to drop, without reloading, but I had nothing left in the tank (maybe 2-3 spells left from everyone, no lay-on-hands remaining, second wind spent, no special abilities left, etc.).
Overall, the highest challenge I've had in Solasta and the most exciting (measured by rise in blood pressure and tactical thinking). I believe that battle to be impossible without cc. I tried again with Spirit Guardian tactic, combined with damage spells, and we were soundly defeated. Great battles and mood (for no voice acting or cut scenes), just wish we had a true boss battle, but maybe when the game is completed and the full library of mobs is available. Good job overall, thank you!
SUGGESTIONS:
1) More weapons and armor (not even magical) at the start (in the chest). If you focus on weapons and armor in feats/backgrounds (lvl 5+), I found myself making some tough decisions.
2) Too much resting available. I definitely needed a rest between the Orc and Priest battles, but wraiths and spider battles (once I figured out the map) would have been more interesting with just the starting resources (to be fair, the player can enforce a one-rest restriction).
3) Once the module starts, more magic weapons should be discovered, of different varieties (some starting magic weapons, and armor, were useless for a martial-focused party).
3) Would have loved a final-final battle, where the dark-god's champions are summoned in the next room (after a long rest...), composed of Paladin, Priest, Priest, and Wiz, throwing some hideous spells (and countering spells). Not sure if this option is even available from the editor, but one day would like to see a group of three level-8 casters and a paladin (fully buffed and kitted-out with items) on deadly AI. Depending upon surprise, counters, and saving throws, the battle could end in a defeat, with only two turns. The masochist in me :)
Thanks again, it was great fun for a rainy afternoon!