DCC 17.5 question

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Napftor
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DCC 17.5 question

Post by Napftor »

I'm running this for my group tomorrow and, while reading, stumbled upon an omission. In Area 3-2 - Hall of Thorns, the poison damage for the darts is listed without the actual type of damage inflicted (Str, Dex, Con?). I suppose I could just pick my favorite but was hoping for Harley's official input. :)
Bret Boyd
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CharlieRock
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Post by CharlieRock »

I don't know what they had planned for that poison, but in absense of a stat I put the damage to hit points.
Napftor
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Post by Napftor »

Not a bad idea. I was going to go with Dex but none of the PCs fell victim to the poison so it didin't matter. Surprisingly, no one was slain by the Witch Queen either.
Bret Boyd
Freelance Writer
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Tricky Owlbear Publishing
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losloris
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Re: DCC 17.5 question

Post by losloris »

I am currently looking through this module for my regular, everything to do with Olhydra, adventure. Our next step is to go to Homlett, which is so named mostly to tease me. I would love to throw my party into an extensive dungeon crawl but that is not how we are built, and so, quickshot adventures are what provides us the most fun.

Anywho

Level 3 is so very problematic to me I wonder if anyone redesigned it. Trap, trap, exploding trap (that explodes but has no impact on the night hag in the center of the trap, trap), and then Kyleth. We met Kyleth before in that other adventure she is in. Having her reappear would do great things for a major thread of our story line. However, what is she doing in the bottom of level 3? No, seriously, what is she doing there, just waiting for someone like a party of adventurers to show up so she can try to kill them while running away? Says the adventure; 'Kyleth knows that if the PCs have made it this far, her only hope for survival is flight'. This sounds like a crappy plan on her part - great ingredients for a scrap but lousy plan when trying to make a situation somewhat realistic.

On a bit of further consideration, there is also the matter of the Crown of Sett. A) problem that it is only useful while you are in the Sett; so, B) I am going to change that. To Identify the crown a party member will have to put it on, at which point they will become controlled by the crown which, for our storyline purposes, will be controlled by Olhydra. That character will be trapped to stay in the Sett until a high level cleric can cast a remove curse on him. This will require the party to leave Biff behind, go find our friend, Cardinal McKracken, come back to battle Biff into submission to then cast that spell (oohh, this sounds delightful). :mrgreen:

Losloris
losloris
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Re: DCC 17.5 question

Post by losloris »

Just to follow along on that., as I would not mind your opinion, I have a problem with instant party deaths but not if there are chances to get out of the situation.

For example, I will completely disregard the completely random Phantasmal Killer affect when you enter level 3 because I find it totally random - there seems to be no sense to it and it runs directly against the whole idea of asking players to invest in the characters. By contrast, I am totally cool with the complete and total death of Khalil. In that case we were in the near bottom of the vault of the Dragon Kings, opened the door for the ice basilisk, we rolled to see what happened, who was caught in the gaze, and then two rounds later the big guy with the sledge hammer complete killed Khalil by shattering his ice form. There were plenty of checks and balances along the way for this fate to be avoided.

I am currently working through the math of trapping a player onto the 3rd level via the Crown of Sett and mentioned this to a friend in the form of bouncing ideas. He noted that in video games it is particularly detested if things just happen without any opportunity for a person to react and perhaps counter act what is about to happen. His point was (and I totally agree) was that there should be a realistic opportunity to avoid the nasty fate.

The third level is nasty but I think posed with threats that can not realistically be avoided. This is why I have a problem with Kyleth just hanging out in her room waiting for the party to show up. It is much like some of the set ups in Revenge of the Rat King where, in theory, you have some bad guy waiting for eternally, perpetually ready with arrow knocked, waiting for someone to walk through that door. I need for there to be a reason. I would prefer if Kyleth was busy concocting some type of incredibly potion, pouring over some type of map, consulting with her legion of doom on how they are about to take complete control of Homlett and so much more. Just waiting in her room for a party that must equal her doom just doesn't ring right.

Losloris
heading for a christmas party and wishing well to you all
losloris
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Re: DCC 17.5 question

Post by losloris »

I only have interest in using the 2nd & 3rd floors of this module.

The party got to Homlett and had a chance to meet three people; two of varying degrees of St. Cutherbert and one ftr/thf. They opted for the middle of the road (second St. C guy) who professed knowledge of the underground ruins of the great tower that once was. One of the early Dragonlance modules ( I think involving Skull Cap) offered a nice section of entry into the lower works via a stairway that had been blown apart. I made up something like that to create a treacherous but scalable entry. In part this is done to make the party use magic & spells.

After climbing down some the party arrived at a level that showed destruction and abandoned. Enroute to the doorway as lead for the bridge trap they managed to avoid every pit trap I laid. They got to the room of many deaths, explored and failed to discern the pathway close behind them. No where to go but onwards. For the bridge I had the walls fade away as the choloth's tentacle attacked. More spells including druid change self-ing after taking considerable damage.

Into the library lab, I made the statue of Kyleth (whom the party met in her other module appearance) into a stone golem (to keep in line with what the module prescribed). While the party did not find the secret door they did take the prize of the lab; Kyleth's spell book! It seems very reasonable to me that if this is her house, her lab, this is where her spell book would be.

For a number of reasons we decided to withdraw back to Homlett. The party knows there must be a secret door on to somewhere for reasons like how the library/lab are well maintained as opposed to the pre-bridge ruins. Returning to town with the spell book will create more story lines. I can imagine Kyleth responding to the loss of her book as Smaug did to the loss of a bauble. And, the party may be forced to actually meet the third, seedier guy who will have his own agenda.

Now, all of that noted, I still have to rework the third floor. The candle burning for ten rounds thing is poorly thought out, as Kyleth has teleport in her spell book and is wearing her crown which can teleport. The best I can figure right now is the candles are stun candles like what we saw in Serenity.

We meet in two.

Losloris
losloris
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Re: DCC 17.5 question

Post by losloris »

Area 2-10 is a very neat setting that poses a cool problem for the party to consider. In our case, the setting is entirely geared towards water elementals. So, I am changing the BoneDevil that is provided to water elementals. I found a picture (searchable under water archons, wave elementals - you will see three beings together) was so inspiring, and, I am fully on board with providing whatever stats are required to present a potentially winable situation for the party. And, who can beat good eye candy.

Losloris
losloris
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Re: DCC 17.5 question

Post by losloris »

Let me get to the end of the story first. We had a rocking good time, it was very exciting, the challenges were challenging, death was at hand as the party strength was winding down. Everything was great right to the very end.

I will try not to make this a simple recounting of our campaign.

I focused on levels 2 and 3 for our adventure. We are now four, a Druid 11, Ranger Druid 9/8, a Monk 6 and a cleric 9.

We had crossed the bridge from the room of many dead, had entered the library and lab and had retreated as we had not found a secret passage. We got back and decided that rather than check the water to see if there was a beach (2-3) we would look again for a secret door. When the party got back to the room the big difference was the room was broken - I had imagined that Kyleth was pissed at losing her magic book, had a tantrum and trashed the place. Part of that trashing was blobs of pink goo all over the place, with one blob concentrated on where the secret passage was. There I put a pink sundew (great trap).

2-10 was the ziggurat with now two of those water archons in a stasis field, with water pouring in from the roof, which also sustained the stasis. There was a notion to address the quasits but better minds held out. The druids shaped the stone to redirect the water, then turned to polar bears then dropped the temperature, raced up and basically broke the frozen water archons.

2-8 I put a mask on the medussa, which I realistically think is the only way to have a functioning medussa as part of your crew. Great fun with this scene.

As mentioned above I was not happy with the lay out for the third floor, and, I was not using the teleportation aspect to get from one floor to another. So, I crafted in the first few rooms from the Lost Shrine of Tomaochan. So, from 2-8 there was only the door for 2-9 which actually became a room with sandy earth floor and a few small ever taunting crabs and one giant crab. It was a blast taunting the party who (smartly) stayed away from the encounter. To the southwest of this room were a few passages that led towards the beach of 2-3, one of which held a neried. the eastern passage led down a hallway with a sharp bend and the log trap, which the party detected and avoided. Along this passage I planned for the temple room from the LSoT and that is where the glass tomb of Kyleth was to be but we did not find it.

From there we got to 3-1, which I made a little longer. This had four statues of Kyleth at four different ages (teens, twenties, thirties, fourties - she is that vain) and there was the door leading to 3-5. For 3-2 I used the false door and the oily pitch trap. The trap only functioned once more than half the party was passed half of the distance, which beveled the floor, out came the oil, out came the flaming arrows, up went the flames. This party stuck with the idea of the false door and so took extra damage.

Back to 3-1, out popped Kyleth with her mirror image and blur and crown, which I allowed to have its own action. Its first move was to teleport the cleric back to 2-3 just before he retrieved the medussa head, When troubled, Kyleth teleported back to 3-5. Eventually a big battle occurred, the party ran and tripped the log on wall trap they had expertly passed before.

Again, we had a blast with this module.

Losloris
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