Post/Author/DateTime	Post
MarkB 01-24-05, 08:19 PM	I've just finished putting together a one-shot Eberron campaign suitable for running at a forthcoming convention (Conception in Highcliffe, England, if anyone happens to be going). This is the first time I've tried to make this style of campaign, so I was wondering if anyone could look it over and see if I've made any major screw-ups. It's called Errand of Mercy, and concerns a band of 6th-level adventurers racing by airship to avert a plague breaking out in the Mror Holds. I've put it together in fairly clunky HTML, which should all print out reasonably at A4 (I'll see when I try to print it tomorrow). As far as I'm concerned, it seems to work, but then I know it by heart anyway - what I'd like to know is whether I've provided enough information that another DM, coming to it cold barring a reasonable familiarity with Eberron, could pick it up and run it. Also, for anyone familiar with running this sort of one-shot, time-limited session, does the whole thing actually work for that format, or have I made it too samey or too top-heavy? If you happen to spot any glaring mistakes, whether spelling, grammar, punctuation or factual, that'd help too. :) Here's the link. (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/m.blunden/dnd/errand/)
Gurv 01-24-05, 09:33 PM	Brilliant. I just read the entire thing, and I wish that more official adventures were written this well. I think the format will work just fine for a convention DM who has half a clue. I know I could run it after just one read through. In fact, I will make use of it at some point. Awesome job.
Ponderosa 01-24-05, 10:49 PM	I have to agree, this is amazing work! It's got cinematic action, a great plot, and a dash of intrigue thrown in as well. I loved the ending, in particular. Plus, I'm sure it would be fine for a convention, although all of the provided PCs are loaded with the new Eberron features (dragonmarks, artificers, and the whole lot). Was that intentional?
MarkB 01-25-05, 03:31 AM	I have to agree, this is amazing work! It's got cinematic action, a great plot, and a dash of intrigue thrown in as well. I loved the ending, in particular. Plus, I'm sure it would be fine for a convention, although all of the provided PCs are loaded with the new Eberron features (dragonmarks, artificers, and the whole lot). Was that intentional? Yes, I was intending to try and give players a really good taste of Eberron. The Artificer is the only character I was somewhat unsure of - he could be tricky for someone to play who has no experience of them, and I'm considering adding a spare character in case that's a problem. Thanks for the glowing reviews - it's certainly improved my confidence. :)
goldengod 01-25-05, 06:38 PM	This is a great adventure! I'm about to begin a new campaign with a number of players who don't know each other very well and aren't familiar with Eberron. I plan to use this adventure as both an ice-breaker and an introduction to Eberron before the actual campaign begins. Thanks for posting it!
MarkB 01-25-05, 06:55 PM	This is a great adventure! I'm about to begin a new campaign with a number of players who don't know each other very well and aren't familiar with Eberron. I plan to use this adventure as both an ice-breaker and an introduction to Eberron before the actual campaign begins. Thanks for posting it! Excellent! I hope you and your players enjoy it - let me know how you get on.
Solarious 01-25-05, 08:29 PM	This is an incredible adventure. No, really, it's right up there with Flight of the Arrowhawk! You need to run it on the Real Adventures board. No, wait, save it for a newbie DM, who could run this adventure if they were blinded and dipped into a tank filled with Insanity Mist repeatedly. Well, maybe not, but still. ;) I, of course, do not refer myself as a newbie DM who would like to have a nice, easy-to-DM adventure, to get his feet wet with. :D Why are you looking at me like that? :shifty:
dragon0023 01-26-05, 12:03 AM	I am planning on working this into my campaign very soon, excellent work! :cool:
Agentrock 01-26-05, 08:50 AM	I am planning on working this into my campaign very soon, excellent work! :cool: So am I...this was really good work!! Is there a repository of Eberron adventures out there that anyone knows of?? :confused:
MarkB 01-26-05, 11:11 AM	I, of course, do not refer myself as a newbie DM who would like to have a nice, easy-to-DM adventure, to get his feet wet with. :D Of course not. But if you want to run it on Real Adventures, go ahead - I was considering running it myself, but between Flight of the Arrowhawk, Patterns of Creation, the four games I'm playing in online and a couple of weekly tabletop games, I think I have more than enough to occupy myself with at the moment. :D Is there a repository of Eberron adventures out there that anyone knows of?? :confused: None that I'm aware of, I'm afraid.
Harker Wade 01-26-05, 01:46 PM	WOW! This was a great read. I only wish I had gotten to play it rather then read it!
polt 01-27-05, 01:47 AM	I really like it, and it's easy to modify so it won't be one shot :) I really like the scene in the Gorge, very cinematic, great!
Rolapin 01-27-05, 05:16 PM	Overall, it's quite good indeed. You've got the Eberron tone with your NPCs (with NPC levels), the pulp action, the hidden enemies and the great threat to Khorvaire, the player characters are also very well done and in Eberron mood. The adventure is really good, and if it's your first one, i'll be happy to see your next move :) In my view there are still some little problems : - the action repeats itself : the guard that is in fact a killer, the cleric that is in fact a necromancer and the dwarf that is in fact a Rakshasa. It's too much - even if this is the goal. - The high number of fights in the adventure. Well, each D&D adventure has lots of fights but Eberron should be different. So : it's good but not perfect :)
Kaleanae en'i Mori 01-27-05, 05:39 PM	Yes its certainly well written and fels like EB! Congrats.. One question though the NPC from House Medani is Human? Should he actually be a Half- Elf? Cheers.
debatedeus 01-27-05, 05:44 PM	So we all know the addage about not telling PCs how their characters feel. I notice early in the adventure you say "you are alert for any further trouble." Do you consider this falling into the class of things that describe how your PC's characters feel?
MarkB 01-27-05, 06:13 PM	In my view there are still some little problems : - the action repeats itself : the guard that is in fact a killer, the cleric that is in fact a necromancer and the dwarf that is in fact a Rakshasa. It's too much - even if this is the goal. You're right. Initially, it was only the Cleric and Rakshasa - I added the assassin encounter because I needed something to occur between departure and reaching Lake Dark (since the second and third encounters hinge on the geography). I ought to try for something different with the first encounter - perhaps make the assassin a stowaway, perhaps replace him with an aerial attack, Glidewing riders or the like, or a bit of intrigue rather than a straight fight. The tricky bit with the setting is that it's self-contained, so bringing in external threats is slightly difficult. - The high number of fights in the adventure. Well, each D&D adventure has lots of fights but Eberron should be different. I do tend to agree, and I wouldn't pack this much combat into an ordinary game. But I'm not used to writing plot to a tight timeframe, so I think I fell back on combat as more manageable. If I have time this weekend, I'll try and come up with a bit of an intrigue-based first encounter instead of the assassin, which will lessen the repetitiveness and make it a little more Eberron-like. The other flaw I realised today is that I'd given the Rakshasa no escape clause. I don't really want her to escape the PCs in the final battle, but she's got her minions doing their best to stop the airship by any means necessary, and she's sitting on board without even a Feather Fall token. That's just silly. I'll give her some form of teleportation item, I think, but have it require a full round to retrieve and activate. One question though the NPC from House Medani is Human? Should he actually be a Half- Elf? <Slaps self> Oops! I'll get that corrected straight away - he'll just have to do without Improved Initiative and his cross-class Spot and Listen ranks. So we all know the addage about not telling PCs how their characters feel. I notice early in the adventure you say "you are alert for any further trouble." Do you consider this falling into the class of things that describe how your PC's characters feel? I guess it does. I'll change it to "The passengers and crew are alert for any further trouble." Comprehensive, without including the PCs specifically. Thanks very much, guys - I knew I hadn't got all the bugs out. I'll get it polished up over the weekend.
Bluebrush 01-27-05, 06:32 PM	This looks pretty good, I'd conisder keeping it as a backup for when my DM can't run a game. Though the Raksasha unmasking at the end strikes me as a bit too cliche. The Raksasha are subtle manipulators, and this is more than a little unsubtle. I suppose a better rationalisation for the final encounter is that it's make or break for him. If the airship doesn't go down, then the Lords of Dust will all point and laugh. 's not much fun trying to live something down amoungst immortal beings.
MarkB 01-27-05, 06:40 PM	This looks pretty good, I'd conisder keeping it as a backup for when my DM can't run a game. Though the Raksasha unmasking at the end strikes me as a bit too cliche. The Raksasha are subtle manipulators, and this is more than a little unsubtle. I suppose a better rationalisation for the final encounter is that it's make or break for him. If the airship doesn't go down, then the Lords of Dust will all point and laugh. 's not much fun trying to live something down amoungst immortal beings. That's pretty much what I was going for. The Rakshasa is old and clever, but it's only just working its way up into the ranks of the Lords of Dust, so it lacks experience at plotting against mortals - prior to this, most of its time has been spent in the Demon Wastes. It's supremely self-confident, and thinks it can just wade through these pathetic mortals without a scratch, with the possible exception of the Paladin, plus it's seriously frustrated after seeing its mortal minions fail repeatedly. And anyway, it's a one-shot adventure - if they don't have their set-piece big-villain showdown now, they won't get another chance. If you run this as part of an ongoing campaign, I'd leave out the final encounter completely, and have the Rakshasa stay behind the scenes as an ongoing nemesis.
KathyNoland 01-28-05, 06:36 AM	It's really good!! I've liked a lot for a one-shot adventure and it's full of Eberron flavour. I've specially liked the explanations about their characters for the players Good work!!
MarkB 01-28-05, 09:45 AM	I have updated (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/m.blunden/dnd/errand/erranddm.htm) the DM Notes, though I still need to go over it again this evening to remove references to the assassin from later sections. Encounter 1 is now completely re-done, consisting of an assault of locust swarms attracted by a strange device placed aboard ship either before or after departure. It's a pretty tough encounter, but should be winable if the players keep their wits about them, and provides something different from subsequent attacks while still giving an early indication of sabotage and conspiracy. As before, I'd appreciate any comments on whether it works or not. I've also updated Gerron's character sheets - he's now a half-elf, as he should have been. I still need to go into the NPCs document and remove Kef, perhaps adding the Locust Swarm stats for convenience. EDIT: Updates completed. I've replaced the assassin's stats in the NPCs document with the Locust Swarm from the SRD.
Solarious 01-28-05, 01:37 PM	Mmmnn. Locust swarms. Tasty! It probably works better than the changling assassin encounter, and more inventive too. Great work! :)
KimHal 01-28-05, 03:44 PM	Just noticed a typo, so I share : Iraldan Somnuel has prepared "Cause Fear", not "Cause Ear" (an odd spell, wouldn't it ? :) )
Inadequate 01-28-05, 04:13 PM	bump :w00t:
ImmortalBlueMage 01-28-05, 10:53 PM	Just to warn you I haven't read the updated version yet, so this may all be irrelevant, but here goes anyway... Overall, it's extremly well-written. You have a good hand at characterization and making sure your NPCs seem like real people and not just two dimensional bad guys to get offed. Let me stress again that this is excellent writing, because I'm about to go and poke holes in the story structure in a second and I want you to be assured beforehand by how impressed I am with the quality of the work. Now, let's go over this section by section. Part 1: I had no issue with the assassin, although the locust swarm does sound much cooler. I'll give it a read when I have more time later. The point is that you got off to an exciting start that's going to get the player's attention and set them up for the tone of the entire story. Either version of this seems to accomplish that, so let's move right along. Part 2: This is a nice bit of work too, and it deepens the theme of who onboard can be trusted and who cannot. The problem is that you don't go anywhere with that theme. I think every Eberron campaign should have some intrigue, and here you have an occasion rife with it, but it realy goes nowhere. Afer this you mention how the passengers and crew are spooked, but that's all. The captain should sit the PCs down and talk to them about the security of the mission now, not in the last act (by which time I was wondering "What took him so long?"), and I believe that the PCs should conduct some sort of search for more Cultists and more traps on the airship. Even if there aren't any to find, you should milk that atmosphere for everything it's worth, and give the group more chances for role-playing, puzzle solving, skill use, and creative thinking. Part 3: The problem with this section is that it's brilliant. No, really. This is an extremely cinematic fight scene that is dramatic, exciting, well thought out and excellently designed. So what's the ish? By this point, if I'm the player, I'm staring to get a feeling of redundancy. This is the third scene in a row that's dominated by combat. I love a good turn of the sword as much as the next guy (and let me stress again, as far as sword turns go this one is very good), but it'd be a shame for no one to be able to really appreciate this fight because they're too burnt-out on the bloodshed. You need some more space and some more non-combat related material in between this and the undead fight, a period to cool down and get out of "fight mode", because like I said, it would really suck for your best material to go unnappreciated by the audience. Part 4: To me, this is where it falls apart. For starters, why is the Rakshasa even onboard? I thought that monsters like that preferred to work through intermediaries? It seems very uncharacteristic for her to be there at all. If she wanted more direct oversight of the mission, she should have a trusted luietanant (sp?) who takes direct action for her. Why did she bother to put infiltrators onboard in the first place if she could be there to do it all herself better? Why didn't she step forward to dispatch the PCs earlier once it became clear that her subordinants weren't going to get the job done without her help? Why approach them in such an obvious manner and put herself in such jeapordy when surely she could have devised a more devious and underhanded means to remove the offending adventurers? And that final monolouge, it's all too easy. The answers drop right into the player's laps practically before the questions are even asked. "Oh, by the way, this is the end of the game, so here, let me explain the plot to you before we have our last fight". Why in Allah's name would she tell them all the details of her plan at all, other than so that the players know what the story was about? And nobody even has a chance to suspect that something's up with the Dwarf at all until the moment she reveals herself. To me, it seemed like a rush ending. I hate to be so critical of something that I really do think is good, but it's the quality here that makes me feel like it should be pushed further. You've made a lot of room for yourself to play in as a writer, so go nuts, really take full advantage of the opportunities you've afforded yourself. This is good stuff. Now go make it better. But hey, that's just me, I'm only one guy, but there's my opinion, take it or leave it. :)
Nos-4-A2 01-28-05, 11:38 PM	Pulptastic. Its great. It could use a touch of noir. Add some fog.
MarkB 01-29-05, 06:30 AM	Part 2: This is a nice bit of work too, and it deepens the theme of who onboard can be trusted and who cannot. The problem is that you don't go anywhere with that theme. I think every Eberron campaign should have some intrigue, and here you have an occasion rife with it, but it realy goes nowhere. Afer this you mention how the passengers and crew are spooked, but that's all. The captain should sit the PCs down and talk to them about the security of the mission now, not in the last act (by which time I was wondering "What took him so long?"), and I believe that the PCs should conduct some sort of search for more Cultists and more traps on the airship. Even if there aren't any to find, you should milk that atmosphere for everything it's worth, and give the group more chances for role-playing, puzzle solving, skill use, and creative thinking. I agree in principle, and given time I'd probably include some of this. The trick is fitting it all into a 4-hour session. I'll think about this, and see if I can shave some time off other sections to add a bit more variety here. Part 4: To me, this is where it falls apart. For starters, why is the Rakshasa even onboard? I thought that monsters like that preferred to work through intermediaries? It seems very uncharacteristic for her to be there at all. If she wanted more direct oversight of the mission, she should have a trusted luietanant (sp?) who takes direct action for her. Why did she bother to put infiltrators onboard in the first place if she could be there to do it all herself better? Why didn't she step forward to dispatch the PCs earlier once it became clear that her subordinants weren't going to get the job done without her help? Why approach them in such an obvious manner and put herself in such jeapordy when surely she could have devised a more devious and underhanded means to remove the offending adventurers? And that final monolouge, it's all too easy. The answers drop right into the player's laps practically before the questions are even asked. "Oh, by the way, this is the end of the game, so here, let me explain the plot to you before we have our last fight". Why in Allah's name would she tell them all the details of her plan at all, other than so that the players know what the story was about? And nobody even has a chance to suspect that something's up with the Dwarf at all until the moment she reveals herself. To me, it seemed like a rush ending. I'm not totally happy with this myself. My idea was that the Rakshasa was aboard in classic big-villain 'gloat' mode, to witness its plans come to fruition. Its forces are quite thinly-spread at this point - almost all the Cultists are spread through the Mror Holds trying to spread the plague - which is why it takes a direct hand in the end. But I suppose the 'explanation' element is a little too cliched - I'm trying for the classic Bond-villain exposition scene, but I'm not sure I'm getting there. An alternative would be to make the Dwarvern woman genuinely a Kundarak or Aurum investigator (But then why's she waiting until now to reveal the truth? And it needs to be now, as a climax to the tale). The Rakshasa could simply have been monitoring events via scrying, and teleport in to take care of things personally now that its agents have failed and the party know too much. I still want this encounter at the end, in order to keep the adventure self-contained, but perhaps I should reconsider that.
MarkB 01-29-05, 08:32 AM	I agree in principle, and given time I'd probably include some of this. The trick is fitting it all into a 4-hour session. I'll think about this, and see if I can shave some time off other sections to add a bit more variety here. I've now included a little extra at the end of the second encounter. Given enough time in the session, the players can now search Iraldan's cabin and find clues to his involvement in the first encounter, and possibly a clue to the following encounter.
Cairn Stone 01-29-05, 10:40 AM	Excellent adventure. Thoroughly thought out and well plotted. Though I can't fit it in my current campaign, I hope to find some use for it in the future.
Atlictoatl 01-29-05, 02:28 PM	These are comments for the version posted yesterday evening, US time. My connection dropped, and I wasn't able to post until now. Mark -- Fantastic work! Really well done. You definitely have a handle on these airship-based adventures! There's some typos in the text (I haven't scanned the charsheets to this level of detail, but it's worth having another DM go over the charsheets with a fine-toothed comb prior to publishing the thing. Then again, if you are running it yourself in its maiden voyage, you should be able to identify any things off with the characters in the course of the game, and resolve them right there). I've appended the typos to the end of these comments. My favorite thing about the scenario, apart from its overall concept, is the PC party you put together. It's a very nice sampling of Eberron-specific races, classes, and groups and your highlighted use of Eberron-specific Feats is really quite wonderful. Same with your use of the manifest zone. This is a quite phenomenal Introduction-to-Eberron scenario. The swarm is an excellent first encounter. The players are expecting something to occur, and a threat that is initially not obvious as an event planned by bad-guys is very good. Having the method of victory involve the uncovering of a plot is a nice resolution. The night-time attack is a very nice way to introduce the opposition. Spooky and creepy, with undead in a necromantic zone at night, the creepy lake, disconcerting to have a traitor on board, all of that. The canyon encounter, as others have said, is wonderfully cinematic. As to the rakshasha, it's difficult to know what to do here, I think. On one level, it's a one-shot, so it's good to have a villainous high point, and get the explanation from the fiend's lips. On another level, it seems to conflict a bit with Eberron canon, in that it's just hard to thoroughly envision the rakshasha exposing itself in this manner. For an ongoing campaign, obviously the mystery and a recurring element would be the way to go. I'm not certain how to embody that Eberronesque resolution with a one-shot convention module. If you were to take ImmortalBlueMage's comments to heart, have the time for it, and are willing to mess with the well conceived and basically completed scenario, my first thought for a divergence from what you have goes like this: Post-undead encounter, the rakshasha may very well not know about the brigand ambush. It did, after all, leave the planning of the endeavor in the hands of its minion. If the players get a hold of the notebook first, the rakshasha might not be aware there is more coming (an interesting idea -- what if the dwarven financier finds the book first and the PCs take it from her before she gets a chance to read it?). Move the brigand attack to be the final, cinematic conflict. Insert in between a more intrigue-oriented section, where the rakshasha, thinking that its minion has been defeated and the rescue mission will succeed, attempts to manipulate the PCs into thinking that the Jorasco healer is actually a spy impersonating a House Jorasco member in order to sabotage the mission. If the Jorascite can be removed, the rescue mission may still fail. Alternately, the rakshasha can attempt to take control of the ship and crash it, although this will make the canyon scene somewhat redundant, and it is too good of a scene to threaten with that. In any event, the rakshasha abandons its attempts when the PCs defeat it, and it flees the ship, most likely revealing itself as it leaves. Another day, another decimation, and all that. When the canyon ambush occurs, it's doubly disturbing because the players may assume that, with two sabotaging leaders dismissed, their task is essentially done. That's one idea for how to address the problem, although I'm not convinced that the scenario needs to be changed in any way. One real strength of the last scene is how you've given multiple keys to defeating the rakshasha to the players, but require them to figure out that they have those keys. It's all quite possible, though not guaranteed. It's a very successful final scene, in that way. Good luck with the final stages of determining it is ready, and have fun running it at convention! -Atlictoatl Double Typo -- Sable charsheet, p.1, Appearance para., next to last sentence, "Warfotrged," instead of "Warforged." Typo -- Sable charsheet, p.1, Notes on Warforged para, next to last sentence, "intheir" instead of "in their" Typo -- DM's campaign notes, Encounter 1 - Swarm, para commencing with "Call for Spot rolls at this point", in the phrase "clustered around the forward ballitsa", misspelled ballista Typo -- DM's campaign notes, Encounter 1 - Swarm, next para, after Holfam is mentioned, "anyone whose search area includes at lesat half the squares", misspelled least 2 Typos -- same paragraph, third to last sentence, "sutiable water source". The next sentence lacks a period at the end. Typo -- same section, last paragraph, middle, "Aundairan" instead of "Aundairian" Typo -- DM's campaign notes, last paragraph, 3rd sentence, "and with the fall of the continent;s largest bank", should be "continent's"
MarkB 01-29-05, 03:42 PM	Thanks, Atlictoatl, especially for the spelling-checks - I've corrected them now. One other thing I noticed, and corrected, only today is that I'd equipped everyone with ranged weapons, but no ammunition. :rolleyes: I've added arrows and crossbow bolts, as appropriate, to each character's Equipment section. As for the plot, I agree that the last act is weak and needs work, but I'm not sure I'll have time to do it in the time remaining before I need to run the game, so I think I'll stick with it as it is until I've run it once or twice. That will give me an idea of the overall running time, and let me know what I've got to play with, as well as letting me see how the scene plays out in practice - then I'll try and do a little re-writing, and update the online version once I'm back.
Emirikol 01-29-05, 04:50 PM	Mark, I know you're getting great feedback here, but you may also wish to post it to the MoHWriters group on yahoogroups. Locale is in my sig. jh
ImmortalBlueMage 01-31-05, 02:39 AM	To be fair, my criticisms were in the spirit of a more traditional DMing environment. I've never run a game at a convention and can only imagine what a nightmare the time factor must be.
mattpeckham 01-31-05, 07:27 AM	Hey Mark, I was scanning through your module online and noticed the nicely detailed Karnnath map - but also that it's not the same one on page 177 of the campaign guide. Are the base maps you used available? I'm new to the setting (as in less than 24 hours ago), and the official WotC website just has the unmarked pre-release versions. Can't comment on the module yet from a balance perspective, but the writing is refreshingly solid and professional. Best wishes, Matt
Saurenda 01-31-05, 08:07 AM	Heya, very nicely done! ONe thing that is bugging me though: Gerron d'Medani - Male Dragonmarked Human Sorcerer Yet When I click on his character sheet he is half elf and has all half elf abilities. Is this a typo that he is human?
MarkB 01-31-05, 08:33 AM	Hey Mark, I was scanning through your module online and noticed the nicely detailed Karnnath map - but also that it's not the same one on page 177 of the campaign guide. Are the base maps you used available? I'm new to the setting (as in less than 24 hours ago), and the official WotC website just has the unmarked pre-release versions. Awhile ago, some fans managed to compile complete Khorvaire maps including all the political boundaries and place-names from the individual maps. The JPEG versions, from which I made my progress maps, are available from this Maps of Eberron (http://pages.videotron.com/sebby777/home.html) site, which also has a link to a vector version in PDF format. ONe thing that is bugging me though: Gerron d'Medani - Male Dragonmarked Human Sorcerer Yet When I click on his character sheet he is half elf and has all half elf abilities. Is this a typo that he is human? Sorry about that. I originally wrote Gerron as human, but then someone pointed out that House Medani is a half-elven house, so I changed him to half-elf. I must have forgotten to change his race on the front page of the website - I'll do that this evening.
MarkB 02-07-05, 09:49 AM	Post-convention post mortem: Mostly very positive. I ran the adventure three times over the five days of the convention. The first two runs fitted nicely into our four-hour slots, though the last one over-ran somewhat, and all three were very enjoyable. Considering this was my first time writing or DMing a convention game, I was very pleased. Comments in detail: Initial set-up - no major problems. I had printed a copy of the elemental airship picture from the ECS gallery, which was certainly helpful in letting the players visualise the craft - as was the full-size battlemap I printed (fortunately, I have access to very cheap printing and laminating via work). Without those, some good description would have been needed, as many players tended to visualise the airship as a zeppelin-style dirigible by default. I probably need to separate the initial descriptive text into sections, as every second sentence tends to provoke questions from players new to Eberron (or not), and it's easier to accomodate these during natural breaks than to try and plough on through the introduction. One more thing: To those familiar with D&D but not Eberron, 'healer' tends to be synonymous with 'cleric', so some players tended to be confused between Dramel d'Jorasco and the cleric Iraldan Somnuel, either getting them mixed up or thinking they were introduced as a single character. Encounter 1 This worked more-or-less without a hitch in all three games. In each case, at least some players were unfamiliar with swarms, but at least some characters succeeded on their untrained Knowledge checks to know the general properties of swarms. Dangling one player off the rail on a rope to try and find the source of the bug-attractant odour was a common idea, and provided some nice comedy moments (Halfling: "I can't find anything on the hull here." Paladin: "Okay, I let go of the rope and search somewhere else."). Just make sure that the players aren't too reckless about it in-character, as dropping a character over the side during the first encounter would be fairly unfortunate. Most players got the hang of fighting off the swarms quickly enough, and whilst only one party found the censer soon enough to prevent a second swarm from landing, another were sensible enough to pummel the incoming swarms with Fireballs between searching, so that the second swarm arrived with just three hitpoints. Only one party had a player who figured out the solution of extinguishing the censer instead of prying it loose, thus allowing them to examine it in more detail. In all cases, victory was followed by thorough searches of the ship, and I should definitely write in more ways to accomodate and streamline this - part of the reason for group 3's overrun was the amount of effort they put into the search. This included Detect Evil scans of the crates containing the undead, which I ruled on-the-fly were defeated by Nondetection spells placed there in advance. It might have been interesting to see how it played out if the Detect Evil had worked, but it seems like something the Dragon Below sect would guard against as a matter of course (I also ruled that Iraldan's wooden Sovereign Host holy symbol is actually built around an Amulet of Undetectable Alignment). Encounter 2 This turns out to be one of those awkward encounters that can easily go one way or the other. The first two times, the party dealt with Iraldan and his minions in short order, and I was seriously considering beefing them up for the third encounter, but didn't in the end. A good thing too, because this encounter nearly wiped them out due to a few bad rolls, and perhaps Iraldan's increasing tactical competence as a result of my previous two games. First, they failed both Spot and Listen checks despite Sable the Warforged Artificer being on deck close to the companionways (the other character on watch, Neiril the Cleric, was patrolling towards the stern). After two of Iraldan's minions surrounded Sable, pinning him between the companionway and the ship's rail, Iraldan and the other two undead headed for the cargo hold door and prepared to enter. All but one player failed their Listen rolls to hear Sable's shouts from outside (I set the DC at 5 even though the cargo hold had thick walls, but the -10 penalty for being asleep put them well into the negatives. To cut a long story short, one character was hit by Ghoul Paralysis and another immobilised by Iraldan casting Touch of Madness, none of the party inside the hold had made it to their feet, and things would have gone very badly for them if Alita the Paladin hadn't managed to score a critical hit on Iraldan with her trident whilst prone, using her Smite Evil ability and the extra d6 damage from Silver Smite to inflict 40 points of damage in one strike (which, since his hitpoints were 29 at the time, I described as stabbing him through the heart and blowing the top of his head off with the Smite Damage). Needless to say, the end of the encounter prompted yet more searching of the ship, though two parties failed to examine Iraldan's quarters, and the third didn't get to read his journal, Neiril having already converted her Comprehend Languages into a Cure spell. Encounter 3 This did have some problems associated with it. For a start, none of the parties - not even the last one, who hadn't learned anything of a third attack - were happy about flying the airship down a narrow canyon, all of them figuring out well in advance that it would make for an easy ambush spot. The first group went so far as to predict the encounter pretty accurately in-character, with Tammal the bard going and speaking to Captain Elspeth on the matter, achieving a 29 on his Diplomacy check, which made it rather difficult to justify her obstinacy in favour of his superior arguments and logic, and in the end the least rail-roading solution I could find off-the-cuff was to say that the airship was already entering the gorge by the time Tammal reached the captain, and was just rising towards cliff level when the attack began. I allowed those who had figured it out in-character to act during the surprise round, and they had little trouble finishing off the bandits. In fact, the bandits weren't able to present a truly credible threat in any of the games - the best they did was to last about four rounds and take one or two characters down by about 25% hit points. They never came close to the bridge. The airship's out-of-control lurches and the impending doom of the crash into the canyon did work well, though, and a couple of the parties were in some degree of danger by the time they brought it under control. A couple of changes I will probably make here: First, the reason the airship flies into the canyon - and the reason it maintains fairly low altitude above ground level at all times - is due to the nature of the bound fire elemental. Whilst a conventional aircraft might fly faster at higher altitudes where the air is thinner, I ruled that the elemental ring needs a decent amount of air in order to burn at its brightest, so the higher you go, the slower you go. This also accounts for the timescale anomoly (it takes the airship almost as long to cover the short distance from Lake Dark to Krona Peak as it does to cover the long distance from Vedykar to Lake Dark. Answer: the first day's journey is near sea level, whilst the second's is at increasingly higher altitudes, causing reduced speed). The airship goes into the canyon because it can't rise as fast as the gound is rising without slowing to a crawl, and it's just starting to make it back up to ground level when the brigand attack happens. I may also beef up the named NPC opponents in this section, to make them a credible threat. Encounter 4 On the first two runs, this encounter went smoothly enough, none of the players voicing concerns about it seeming silly or tacked-on, but I still felt that it seemed that way. The players managed their Knowledge checks each time, ensuring that the Rakshasa was not a significant threat to them. I'm hesitant to beef up the encounter, as I have a feeling it could turn very deadly if the party don't make their Knowledge checks and uncover the creature's weaknesses. One party was able to push the Rakshasa overboard, and whilst it was able to Feather Fall, it had taken multiple Acid Arrows and fell unconscious before reaching ground level, landed in the freezing river, and drowned or froze. An alternate finale I had come up with was to build it right onto the end of Encounter 3. Make Gilda Fensharam (to be renamed Gelinda, after one group thought I'd introduced her as Guilder, with Fensharam being her first name) a genuine financial assessor, and secretly a member of the Aurum, who knows of the Rakshasa's part in this scheme. When the pirats attack, the Rakshasa lands with them, invisible, and begins attempting to break into the cargo hold as the airship comes back under control. However, elinda, after last night's attack, had quietly provided extra security in the form of a Glyph of Warding on the doors, set to activate on the approach of an undead, aberration or evil outsider. As the Rakshasa smashes the doors (alerting the players), a Wall of Force springs up in their place. and Gelinda, standing at the starboard companionway, uses a magic item to dispel the Rakshasa's invisibility. However, the Rakshasa is able to strike her down (into negative hit-points) on the surprise round, leaving the players to deal with it. After the battle, Gelinda can be healed, and will fill in the players on the backstory at the end of the game. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to try this out in the third game, as the overrun meant I had to cut it short after the third encounter, informing the group that they had won the battle, but the Cult's mysterious master was still out there somewhere. All in all, I'm very pleased with how it went. The players had fun, as did I, and in general the campaign hangs together. I will still probably polish it up over the next week or so, and will post again in this thread afterwards. Incidentally, if you do happen to be in the south of England during February or March (usually March), I can strongly recommend Conception. I haven't been to many conventions, but this was by far the most fun - I don't think I had a single bad game, and several were simply excellent, and everyone who attended was friendly and helped to make it great fun.
Kaleanae en'i Mori 02-07-05, 08:36 PM	Yes the changes made are even better. I have taken the liberty of rewriting this for the current campaign we have. We will start Errand of Mercy tommorrow night. Essentially the changes are: Setting moved to Sharn Expedition is going to the Graywall Mountians. I kept Kef in as a sabotuer, the party can try and smoke him out. I plan to leave him aboard and if he lives, will make his stand with Encounter 4. He can arrive as a Lyrandar crewman to help the party and stick in the knife. My party has an Inquisitive so the sobatage may spark them to investigate and Kef will then try and avoid them. Maybe another shape change and stay away from a zone of truth.... I am considering having the evil Cleric spike the food and having the party make saves vs a sleeping drug? They havea 5th lvl Warforged int he group so thats my only stumbling block there. I won't make the end game easy, if the fight goes against my evil tigger, he will jump ship. Then I get to use him again later.
NeoMorpheus 02-07-05, 08:39 PM	Looks good! I did notice that the 1/2-elf sorcerer has 40 hp and the max. for a sorcerer with a 16 CON is 36. For some reason this jumped out at me and I wasn't even looking for errors or typos. Weird...