Having bested the troglodytes, the PCs soon learn that there is some very funky stuff going on beneath the Karak Fortress. As if gnolls and troglodytes and chokers and harpies weren't enough, there are also undead, spiders and a demon wandering around.
This is a strange encounter. It includes 2 carrion crawlers, a bloodweb spider swarm, a chillborn zombie, and a barlgura demon and players who value verisimilitude would rightly be entitled to shake their head and mutter darkly about adventure writers who don't really try.
Having said that, the encounter does create some interesting issues for the PCs. The chillborn zombie and the bloodweb spider swarm begin the encounter in natural choke points, and each has an attack that slows or immobilises, presumably aimed at trapping one or more PC "out front". The barlgura and carrion crawlers then have reach 2, allowing them to attack that trapped PC from behind the front line. The carrion crawler immobilise ability then grants the chillborn additional damage via its Ice reaper trait. Alternatively, one of the carrion crawlers can fill a front-line slot and allow the bloodweb swarm to shift among the PCs, allowing its Swarm attack aura to trigger multiple times per round.
Unfortunately, as has so often been the case in Scales of War, the enemies aren't really set up to take advantage of those synergies. The carrion crawlers begin the encounter almost a round away from the front line, and the Barlgura (who would be best off hiding behind the swarm or the chillborn) starts the combat way out front in an easily surrounded position. It's technically hidden, but only until a PC makes a DC12 perception check
Remember, this is an adventure for 6th level PCs - unless a PC has a wisdom below 10, they automatically have a passive perception of at least 13. The Barlgura will be seen unless you adjust that DC to reflect it's +7 Dex (and thus Stealth) modifer, and even then the chances are that someone in your party is going to spot it withough even really trying. And then the lovable cranky orangutang is going to forced to run away like a little girl or get absolutely destroyed. Which isn't really the way most DMs like to start an encounter.
Despite the problems with placement, the encounter does feature an interesting piece of terrain: a vein of rock named Elemental Chaos. The vein is conspicuously placed in the middle of the combat area, grants +2 attack and damage to chaotic evil creatures, and imposes a -2 to attack and damage on other creatures. In other words, get the Barlgura on the vein as fast as you can, and rely on the PCs to keep off it.
The encounter also features some carrion crawler eggs that the creatures fight ferociously (+2 to attack against creatures within 10 of the eggs) to protect, but the author falls into the old "put the new and interesting terrain at the far corner of the area"TM trap. Which is a pity.
Encounter rating: 3+
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