First and foremost, this thread contains spoilers. If you are a player in an Curse of Strahd module, please stop reading now.
Hail and well met! Though CoS is a D&D 5e module, my questions are more creative in nature so I decided to post this here. I need some advice from you clever game masters out there. Sorry for the long post.
Short story: Players are in over their heads with the Bonegrinder Hags and I need a way to avoid TPK while avoiding the appearance of going soft.
Long story: So, I'm actually rocking with 7 players. Yeah, 7! And they are all 4th level. It's a bit of a bear of a campaign, but I've managed to scale up the encounters to keep things interesting. One encounter that has not needed any scaling is the Bonegrinder. Let me start with a bit of background. The players first encountered Morgantha, the head Hag, in the Village of Borovia while she was selling her pies. The party accosted her and she made a quick escape. A few days later while traveling to Vallaki, they stumbled upon the windmill. The wizard used his familiar to spy on the building and learned it was the location of the witch they saw in Borovia. Through a combination of the encounter difficulty, some tactical blunders, and an severe underestimation of the hags on the part of the characters, they were driven off with their tail between their legs. I went easy on them. I figured this would really annoy the hags so they started to attack the dreams of a random party member using their Soulmonger ability. I figured that the players would solve this mystery, but they mistakenly believe these fruitless sleeps were caused by bad/poisoned wine.
A few days later, the players decide to go back to the Bonegrinder and deal with the hags again - their pride was previously wounded after all. They approached from the Northwest (by the standing stones) hoping to surprise the hags. To make things interesting, I decided to make the area inside of the standing stones truly desecrated. (The CoS text didn't elaborate on the effect of their desecration.) Whoever entered had to save vs fear and would chatter their teeth uncontrollably - This seemed to fit with the Fey goddess that the hags were honoring.
After removing the teeth, I decided to lift the desecration effects. They then waited hours expecting the hags to leave. I rolled randomly for the hags' actions and ultimately they decided to use Scry to find the characters with the intent to use their Soulmonger ability again. With the help of some material collected during the first encounter, they succeeded and witnessed them standing by the stones just outside of the windmill.
Let's just say that the subsequent battle hasn't gone well. The players split up and the hags are concentrating on one half of the party. Their magic missile spam, mind control spells, and lightning bolt enable them to control the battlefield and lay waste to everyone in their path. I really don't want a TPK this early in the game even though they received ample information that the hags were powerful - they would probably give Strahd a run for his money. Here are a few ideas if it starts looking like it's going to be a TPK.
Ideas:
1) The wereravens come to their aid somehow.. Perhaps they keep the Hags busy while others rush them from the battlefield. I'd say this is plausible since they players undesecrated the standing stones several hours earlier and the ravens were circling above.
2) The characters already have the Symbol of Ravenkind. Since it was created in that very same circle of stones (I think) perhaps it reconsecrates it when the person holding it enters the stones. I'd have to drop some hints about going to the stones for protection against the hags - perhaps the Cleric senses a spark of consecration reappearing by the stones?
3) I could make the other two hags run once they kill Morgantha. I put the characters through the Death House at level 1 and the young boy, Thorn, still haunts one of the characters. I occasionally make him show up to give advice. He could tell them to focus on Morgantha alone and take her down.
What do you all think? I want to give them a fighting chance without making it seem obvious that I pulled a punch.
Hail and well met! Though CoS is a D&D 5e module, my questions are more creative in nature so I decided to post this here. I need some advice from you clever game masters out there. Sorry for the long post.
Short story: Players are in over their heads with the Bonegrinder Hags and I need a way to avoid TPK while avoiding the appearance of going soft.
Long story: So, I'm actually rocking with 7 players. Yeah, 7! And they are all 4th level. It's a bit of a bear of a campaign, but I've managed to scale up the encounters to keep things interesting. One encounter that has not needed any scaling is the Bonegrinder. Let me start with a bit of background. The players first encountered Morgantha, the head Hag, in the Village of Borovia while she was selling her pies. The party accosted her and she made a quick escape. A few days later while traveling to Vallaki, they stumbled upon the windmill. The wizard used his familiar to spy on the building and learned it was the location of the witch they saw in Borovia. Through a combination of the encounter difficulty, some tactical blunders, and an severe underestimation of the hags on the part of the characters, they were driven off with their tail between their legs. I went easy on them. I figured this would really annoy the hags so they started to attack the dreams of a random party member using their Soulmonger ability. I figured that the players would solve this mystery, but they mistakenly believe these fruitless sleeps were caused by bad/poisoned wine.
A few days later, the players decide to go back to the Bonegrinder and deal with the hags again - their pride was previously wounded after all. They approached from the Northwest (by the standing stones) hoping to surprise the hags. To make things interesting, I decided to make the area inside of the standing stones truly desecrated. (The CoS text didn't elaborate on the effect of their desecration.) Whoever entered had to save vs fear and would chatter their teeth uncontrollably - This seemed to fit with the Fey goddess that the hags were honoring.
After removing the teeth, I decided to lift the desecration effects. They then waited hours expecting the hags to leave. I rolled randomly for the hags' actions and ultimately they decided to use Scry to find the characters with the intent to use their Soulmonger ability again. With the help of some material collected during the first encounter, they succeeded and witnessed them standing by the stones just outside of the windmill.
Let's just say that the subsequent battle hasn't gone well. The players split up and the hags are concentrating on one half of the party. Their magic missile spam, mind control spells, and lightning bolt enable them to control the battlefield and lay waste to everyone in their path. I really don't want a TPK this early in the game even though they received ample information that the hags were powerful - they would probably give Strahd a run for his money. Here are a few ideas if it starts looking like it's going to be a TPK.
Ideas:
1) The wereravens come to their aid somehow.. Perhaps they keep the Hags busy while others rush them from the battlefield. I'd say this is plausible since they players undesecrated the standing stones several hours earlier and the ravens were circling above.
2) The characters already have the Symbol of Ravenkind. Since it was created in that very same circle of stones (I think) perhaps it reconsecrates it when the person holding it enters the stones. I'd have to drop some hints about going to the stones for protection against the hags - perhaps the Cleric senses a spark of consecration reappearing by the stones?
3) I could make the other two hags run once they kill Morgantha. I put the characters through the Death House at level 1 and the young boy, Thorn, still haunts one of the characters. I occasionally make him show up to give advice. He could tell them to focus on Morgantha alone and take her down.
What do you all think? I want to give them a fighting chance without making it seem obvious that I pulled a punch.
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