Castle Whiterock: The Quest Continues, Volume Two!

Now What?

The following factors have been lined up: 

• The Thane and his clan are now Aware Of The Party and are Taking Steps To Mitigate, as described in the module. 
• The derro are all but wiped out, the Iron Manacle and the mountain troglodytes are but a distant memory. 
• The Whiterock Orcs have held on to their little postage stamp of territory, against all odds. 
• The stone giant clan is a new factor, as yet unaligned in this struggle. 

The party's plan is to trundle down to the Bleak Theater and rescue the old character party. Heroically!

This leaves me with a number of things to do: 

First and foremost, I need to convert the duergar up from 3rd edition to Pathfinder. There has been some power creep over the years since CW was published, both within D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder, which is now closing in on it's second edition. Things which were dangerous to base classes are now laughable in this later edition of the game, and they need some hardening. I'll try upgrading the NPC-classed duergar to PC classes and keep both version on hand, just in case I've overestimated the party's abilities. 

Next, I need to figure out what to do with the trapped entry to the Theater on level 9. A sealed room with an incendiary cloud trap sounds rough, but I anticipate it being a cakewalk as written. Honestly, 15 rounds of 4d6 - even with the DC 22 reflex save for half - sounds awful for a bunch of 7th level characters, but really that's just a few Resist Energy spells and Channel Energy buffs. It's entirely possible they can walk away from that room unscathed, and I can't have that. 

If they keep sailing through these deeper levels without a serious check to their advance, they won't take the threats seriously until they are in way over their heads and I have a full TPK on my hands. Case in point, while the party handily dealt with bands of kamikaze derro backed up by an ettin and hell hounds, they were utterly crippled by a single Confusion spell. 

No, I need them to feel it. 

The Plan

With regards to the incendiary cloud room, I think I have an answer. I found two fire-wielding NPCs online that would fit nicely in that room; a priest of Wrath and a sorcerer, both half-orcs. The aforementioned 4d6 a round is not troubling on its own, but when backed up with a fully buffed beat-face war cleric and a direct damage and debuff-casting sorcerer augmenting the threat, it should keep the group nicely occupied and force them to be more cautious in their advance.

It works thematically, as well, since Thane Vejik is notorious for outsourcing talent to solve problems for him. 

Again the goal isn't to exhaust them utterly but to make them play smarter. 

Bleak Theater Upgrades

Converting the duergar NPC classes is problematic. The simplest solution is to up-convert them: basically this means adding +1 to their base attack bonus, but that option carries neither flavor nor punch. Ditto applying the "advanced" template; adds a little punch, but doesn't give them any flavor at all. 

Castle Whiterock included a custom NPC class called the Guard, sort of a mixed duty sentry and fighter. These Guards patrol the duergar domains keeping an eye out for trouble. A straight conversion to Fighter would make them better combatants, but at the cost of other skills. Likewise, a straight Thief would sacrifice combat ability in favor of  skills. So maybe I'll do a mix of both.

Thus the duergar "ushers" (Guards) become Fighter/Thieves 3/3 or 4/4, while the "bouncers" (Warriors) become straight up Fighters.

I'll leave the "stagehands" as Experts. Someone has to know how to make the sausage. 

Most of the monsters in the theater can be directly converted. I'm considering tossing out the Grimlocks, because grimlocks are just stupid. I mean, what the hell? They're blind orcs with blindsight. No special attacks or abilities, nothing to differentiate them from other horde-type assailants. Out they go. I'll throw something else cool in there to take their place if I need to. 

Last, but by no means least, I will have to determine what happened to the old character party after their arrival. Since I don't have copies of most of those characters, I'll have to recreate them based on notes I have from before. Or at least the ones that survived. That should be fun! 

So this is me, planning three or even four sessions ahead. That's the game!