Perilous dark in the shadow deep

[critsmash]

We had a blast playing one of the scenarios in perilous dark with our rangers the other day and I thought I'd share our experience with this particular scenario for those interested. We were three players with one ranger each and their companions. We used the playtest rules that Joe made for ROSD so there was no group activations and skill rolls would be reduced by -2 if it had not been boosted. The skills were not relevant to this scenario either way. We did not use the 11+ rule for increased number of monsters. The scenario we chose was "the dog days" where the enemies will respawn if killed.

We started with 6 chronohounds as suggested for multiplayer mode.
During the first round we realized we had overestimated the rangers. They were still level 1 and the chronohounds are pretty tough! There is also no way to hide from them as they always have los. 
So we decided to make some adjustments underway. Although we introduced the sixth hound by the end of turn one, we agreed that it should not respawn when it was killed. Another adjustment we implemented was that for each crystal we were able to destroy, one chronohound would not respawn. After an intense race to destroy all the crystals we were down to one lone ranger and one stalking chronohound. The ranger approached the last crystal, attacked and failed. He was then set upon by the last hound and killed.
Although it was very entertaining, fast paced and intense, we will probably decrease the armour value for the crystals from 16 to 14 next time we play.
In our experience the scenario was very smooth to port over to rangers, so for those wanting more scenarios for rosd, perilous dark is golden. For those with high level rangers, there is probably less tweaking needed as well. As for rewards, this scenario has no treasure, (Edit: if you destroy all crystals there is treasure to be had!) but a hefty amount of xp (50) for each crystal destroyed. So it can work as a scenario to boost xp and give the rangers an opportunity to skip to more difficult scenarios from the rosd campaign if they want.

To sum up how we will play it for rosd next time (3 players):
Skip the sixth hound for level 1-5 in multiplayer.
1 Chronohound will not respawn per crystal destroyed.
Reduce the armour value of the crystals to 14.


   

[LiamFrostfang]

  sounds great!!!

[Stroezie]

Cool!
I have Perilous Dark on my wishlist for christmas.
I'm hoping it'll let us take our rangers on some dungeoncrawl adventures.

Cheers,
Stroezie.

[critsmash]

We took on another mission from the book, "the writhing fumes".
Instead of vapour snakes we used zombies and skeletons. 1-10= 2 skeletons at a random spawn point, 11-20=2 zombies. Instead of ballistas, we used two temple guardian archers. This worked well for a level 0 ranger group with two players. It got pretty intense at the end as with several zombies and skeletons chasing us.

We decided we wanted a boss fight as well so we did the same scenario again, spawned only 2 skeletons per turn at a random spawn point. Instead of the ballistas/temple guardians we used a gigantic skeleton (reaper miniatures) which I'm always dying to put into a game.
We gave it the stats of Greviks from temple of madness, but if we were to repeat the scenario I would rather use a spectral horseman (Ghost stone) statline with the special rules of that creature. The giant skellie just stood there patiently waiting and as soon as we reached the exit area it attacked. At the same time some of the group had to fend off regular skellies coming up from behind. Some decent rolls saved the day, but I think it would have looked very different if the giant skellie had the stats of a horseman. Maybe he could even be given a +3 missile, 2" area of effect attack, lobbing gravestones at the rangers as they advanced.

It is a very simple change from an already awesome scenario and it worked well for our group. 
   

[LiamFrostfang]

  way cool !!!