Sunday, February 15, 2009

D6 & D7 (Ironbriar)

Ironbriar waits here inside his office (unless he's somehow been alerted to the party's presence). When combat takes place in area D6 he spends two rounds donning his robe and mask before emerging on his initiative count during the third round of combat. I suggest the following encounter for a party of five adventurers:

Total: 2,350 xp (Level 10 Encounter)

The warlocks should focus on the same target, taking their turns consecutively in order to scour recently-cursed PCs. The thugs use each other to flank defender characters while Ironbriar and the war mage try to keep strikers blinded. Ironbriar spends his action point to use his bolts and dazzling burst on the same turn, and if he successfully hits a number of PCs he uses his sustaining incantation the following turn to keep the debilitating effects going.

It is possible to discover that Ironbriar is under the effects of a powerful charm. A passive or active Insight check at DC 24 (after engaging him in some short conversation) indicates that he is subject to an outside influence of some sort. A character aware of this and trained in the Arcana skill can detect magic as a standard action (DC 19) to identify the effect as arcane charm magic. Alternately, if the players knock Ironbriar out instead of killing him they can use detect magic to sense the presence of the charm effect on Ironbriar (DC 19). Either way, if they can render him helpless and get ahold of a Remove Affliction ritual they can remove the charm from Ironbriar and use him for information as outlined in the adventure.

Ironbriar's office now contains a Commune with Nature ritual book, the painting (worth 240 gold pieces) and the filigreed tome (worth 550 gold pieces). These altogether are treasure parcels 8 and 10 from level 7. He also carries - or stores in his office - treasure parcels 1 and 2 from level 6. His reaper's mask is non-magical in this conversion.

Stat block(s):

7 comments:

Jamie Lovett said...

Glad I delayed my game a week. We're about to go through the sawmill, and while I was trying to accomplish the same goals as you with my encounters, you did a much better job! Thanks!

My only question is, where do I find the cultist warlock and thug? I can't seem to find them, but I'm probably just overlooking them somewhere. Or did you perhaps create new monster blocks for them?

Scott said...

Ah, apologies! I forgot to add my citations. Both of those monsters are from Dungeon Magazine #157. I've updated the post to include correct citations and links for all the monsters in the encounter.

Starfox Musings said...

Where in Dungeon #157, if I may ask?

Scott said...

Pages 75 and 78, within the In the Depths of Avarice adventure article.

To be honest, I'm going to end up pulling monsters from so many different sources that it probably will be a hassle to track them all down without using the Compendium to pull their stat blocks up. I'm including the sources for people who don't have access to it, but getting a subscription for that purpose is something I really want to encourage. It is, I think, a steal at twice the price.

Starfox Musings said...

Yes, I too noticed the place to easily find these stat blocks were in the compendium - much easier than looking through Dungeon articles - that I anyway need the DDI to access legally.

tadkil said...

I had a really bad XP with the Compendium back when it was in beta and buggy. Just went back and used it based on your suggestion. Excellent! It's become a very useful tool.

Scott said...

Yeah, I've been very pleased with the digital team's willingness to refine their applications instead of putting them out and forgetting about them other than adding the new content every month.