We ran Confrontation at Candlekeep as a “Goodbye to 2015” special event at Guf Ballarat on December 19, 2015. The adventure is a multi-table event, where all the players are working together to stop Candlekeep from falling to the forces of Asmodeus. We had 4 tables participating: 23 players, 4 DMs and 1 co-ordinator.
It isn’t a D&D Adventurers League event, but rather one that you can buy from dndclassics.com and just run anywhere you can organise it. The adventure is written to accommodate between two and nine tables.
Pregenerated Character Sheets
I provided each table with a set of six pregenerated characters, which you can download here. They are all 2nd level and built using the full D&D rules, but have enough reminder text to be playable without constantly referring to the Player’s Handbook.
These characters are not D&D Adventurers League legal, as they’re second level. (You could use them as the basis of legal PCs, however). Let me know if you spot any errors and I’ll correct them!
Adventure Modifications
The adventure was written using the D&D Next playtest rules, and requires a small amount of modification before being played. I decided that the best way of doing so was simply to use the 5E hit points of each monster, and to use the rest of the statistics as-written (in general they’re very close to the final stats).
I doubled the hit points of the Chosen of Asmodeus.
In addition, the “intoxicated” condition basically became the “poisoned” condition, and we played it as such.
Revised monster hit points:
- Basilisk 52
- Dark Acolyte – no change
- Dark Adept – 33
- Doppelganger 52
- Giant Frog 18
- Giant Lizard 19
- Giant Snake – no change
- Goblin 7
- Hobgoblin – no change
- Human Warrior – no change
- Imp 10
- Ogre 59
- Skeleton 13
- Spined Devil 22
How our event played
They won! But it was close – on one table, everyone was unconscious. On another, one of the PCs was killed when he fell 100 feet to his death. One player dropped to 0 hit points then rolled a natural 20 on his death save and was able to rejoin the fight.
At times, the players from one table desperately requested aid, only to discover that no aid was available! All the healing potions and spells were used!
The final encounter took longer than I expected, mainly because the players weren’t attacking the chief foe, instead dealing with the smaller creatures. When they did get the idea, the end came a lot more quickly, especially when three characters got critical hits in consecutive turns. That slew the Chosen of Asmodeus, and everyone rejoiced!
Thank you all for participating in the event, and for making D&D in Ballarat such a rewarding experience this year! On to 2016!
I’m reading it to Alice, we’re still trying to figure out how 4 tables were coordinated for one mission. I told her I didn’t think everyone had to wait for 22 other players and PCs to go before their turn…
Nope. Each table acts independently. They go through an individual mission (one of areas 1-8), then each fights a separate battle on the towers. However, players may move between groups in the final battle, and the Chosen attacks each group in turn, spending a couple of rounds with each group. The waves of enemies keep coming until the Chosen is defeated.