Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Pauper Aug 06, 2015 14:49:40	I played DDEX 3-2 last weekend at GenCon and, while I mentioned in the GenCon blog thread that it was a bad experience, only part of that can be laid at the feet of the module itself. I'd give the module 3 stars out of 5, not because the whole thing was 'meh', but rather because a number of really cool and interesting things were counterbalanced by seemingly thoughless or pointless design choices that undermined the cool stuff. This is a module that could be so much better if the bad stuff were smoothed over or weeded out and the good stuff allowed to shine.   Caveat: I haven't read the module, and am relying on the DM who ran the mod's descriptions of some of the mechanics. It's possible he either misread or misunderstood some of the mechanics, in which case I'll apologize in the sense that the issues are less issues with the module itself and more issues with how obvious how to operate the mechanics are to inexperienced DMs (our DM said this was his first time DMing at GenCon) and/or DMs short of prep time.   Also, last SPOILER WARNING -- if you want to avoid spoilers, stop reading now!   . . . . .   The module starts off well, with a nice take on the 'you meet in a tavern' trope -- the party is invited to a puppet show in the basement of a tavern outside Hillsfar, and meets their contact there. She informs you that a family of halflings who have helped her faction have disappeared and she'd appreciate you investigating their farmstead.   When you get there, you find a human and his sons, who claim they've lived on the land their whole lives, yet are in the midst of building a log cabin in the shadow of smaller, burned out buildings. A bit of pressure reveals that his brother, a member of the Hillsfar city watch, gave him a tip that the land was available, so you get ready to head off to Hillsfar. Before you get far, though, an elven voice from the brush whispers that she can take you to where she's hidden some of the halflings before they could be captured. If you agree to follow the elf, she leads you to a small village where you're ambushed by a dozen mooks and their leader, as she disappears into the nearby woods.   By the end of the first round, though, you find out the mooks aren't really mooks -- they're likely higher level than your party, with the ability to make two attacks per round and as many or more hit points than your party fighters likely have, plus crossbows that fire bolts coated in sleep poison. Yep, it's the old 'unwinnable fight to capture the party' trope!   I'd like to point out that this is an example of a larger issue pointed out by Sorsohka in another thread: a single player who is motivated to do so can troll an entire party, and there isn't a whole lot the rest of the group can do about it. In this case, the adventure designers seemed to want to reward parties that recognized the unwinnable fight and gave in with bonus XP, but our single uncooperative 'chaotic neutral' player refused to give in, costing us both adventuring time and XP. While folks in that other thread point out that a regular game group in a store should be able to deal with such problems on their own, I'll respond that in a convention setting, where players and DMs are likely seeing each other for the first time, such issues are harder to identify in advance, and much more damaging to player experience if not caught and resolved quickly. Handing trollish players the tools they need to troll the adventure (and 5-6 other players' fun) is only useful if you do it quickly enough, and empower the DM to kick the troll out of the group before he ruins the mod. If you're not setting one of these 'troll traps' to make use of it to improve the gaming pool, think very hard about including it in your adventure design.   The tragedy of this encounter is that it's probably unnecessary -- our DM pointed out that our group was the first he'd run all weekend that had any humans in it at all, and even the humans could probably pass themselves off as half-elves or half-orcs in a pinch. Had the initial contact simply pointed out 'we think the halflings were taken and are now sitting in the arena dungeons and we'd like you to go in and confirm this', it's very likely the party would have agreed to go in and be captured in a non-combat encounter, saving time for the more interesting fights later in the mod. As it stands, the module didn't burn any resources (because we had three days to heal up after the fight while we were taken to Hillsfar, and the rules for spellcasting don't require you to re-prepare your spells every day, though most classes actually can even if captured, and even the wizard got her spellbook back the day before the arena fight so she could swap out her own prepared spells). We didn't even lose attunement to our attuned magic items! We did pick up a level of exhaustion for being ill-fed and getting poor sleep on the road, but our captors gave us just enough food and just enough straw in our cell to heal that level the night before the arena fight, so pretty much the only point of the encounter is to provide XP by dropping the leader and then surrendering, neither of which our group did (which was apparently the biggest reason our group earned the minimum XP for the module).   The other possible purpose of the encounter was the betrayal by the elf -- because she's forced into the cell with you right before you begin the big arena fight. If you let her live long enough to tell her sad tale (groups with evil Zhents or Lords Alliance members might not), she'll likely reward you with a magic rapier (or you can probably take it off her corpse). So she's an emotionally manipulative treasure dispenser, and drops the name of a drow who is likely to be an NPC in future adventures so you're less likely (or more likely, depending on what you thought of her) to attack the drow when you finally do meet him.   The arena fight is the highlight of the adventure -- a retelling of a bit of Realmslore in an intriguing setting: a flooded arena with platforms, zip lines, and a giant bell in the center. Plot-device elf finishes her task by diving into the water and revealing that it's filled with ravenous flesh-eating fish who immediately devour her, which is a bit of a downer but hey, ravenous flesh-eating fish in the water! You also end up fighting a bunch of goblins and kobolds who turn out to be halflings dressed in goblin and kobold disguises, so folks with powerful ranged attacks might end up dropping a few before the deception is revealed, which is a nice thing to torment good-aligned players with. For some reason, though, these aren't the halflings you're looking for, as if that detail would be the one that would strain credulity to the breaking point. Good-aligned parties will probably want to help break the halflings out of the arena regardless, so you can either openly defy the leader of Hillsfar or fake the battle so well that you drive the bloodthirsty audience to riot, providing cover for your escape (a legitimately nice option there, especially for parties with high Charisma characters and/or illusion-based characters).   Your escape is interrupted by some demonically-empowered dude and a rematch against some of the guards who ambushed you in the first fight (at least mechanically -- there's no indication they're the same actual guys), and then the adventure is over. Want to figure out where the halflings you're actually looking for are, which was part of your mission to begin with? Well, we can hand-wave that you break them out in the chaos, or we can point out how suicidal it would be to go back into the dungeons in the midst of a riot where being discovered will likely lead to quick execution, given your demonstrated ability to escape the arena, depending on how motivated you are to pursue that line -- there's no bonus reward for doing so or not doing so.   Lastly, and this is something of a nit-pick that won't apply to most groups, the 'flooded arena fight' seemed less special to us, because we'd played the Season 3 Epic the night before where the highlight of the module was...a fight in the flooded Hillsfar arena, though this time set up for a mock naval battle. Running around on platforms and ziplining to other platforms seems a lot cooler when you didn't spend the previous evening taking over a platform full of clockwork armor golems, getting them on your ship floating in the arena, and sending them as your vanguard on an amphibious assault on the next island in the chain. It felt like 'going to the well' once too often.   How to make the module better? Our DM had the first and probably best idea -- tweak the order of the combats. Have the first combat be the arena fight, the second be with the guards as you try to get the halflings you came for out of the arena, and the last combat be the ambush as you're turning in your mission with the rescued halflings -- only instead of an unwinnable fight where your goal is to surrender, it's an unwinnable fight where your goal is to buy time for your faction contact and the halflings to get to safety before you run away yourselves, so you don't actually have to beat your unbeatable opponents to 'win' and even if you're defeated, you can still feel like a hero.   Anyway, that's my $0.02US -- curious to hear how others who played this at GenCon felt about it.   -- Pauper
#2 Ainulindalion Aug 06, 2015 15:22:58	I playtested the module.  Given the time period between the playtest and GenCon it doesn't sound like many (if any) changes got made.  My group's playtest feedback probably read a lot like your post, Pauper.   Also, the drow she is referring to is apparently one of the NPCs in 3-1, from what got said during our playtest.
(Reply to #2) Nutation	I ran this five times at GenCon. The final copy is much clearer than the playtest. Explanations of things have changed, and some additional possible PC actions are accounted for. The flow and mechanical details are just about the same, however. This module generally runs quickly. It fits in the 3.5 hour GenCon slot, unlike some others at the con. Pauper covered the story flow, so I will only get into that where events can branch out and differ. So, spoilers! . . . . . People liked my puppet show, what can I say. There's time available to ham up the acting, throw in some biggoted guard dialog later, and (sometimes) detail the final rioting. The party arrives at a valley that is the site of burned down halfling homes and some new building. Potentially, they will swallow the story of the humans who are present. ("Elves attacked.") Not likely though, as the PCs can also talk to a human miller and an elf (Deriel) in hiding who have the real story - it was the Red Plumes of Hillsfar. Here is the first branch point: The PCs are going to go after the Red Plumes, and they will either follow the elf into an ambush or be suspicious. Or go by themselves and have the same fight. The real branch point is whether they surrender, lose quickly, or drag it out. The fight doesn't scale upward, so a very strong party can win or escape. I'm not real happy with this design. Another module at the convention also had a "supposed to lose" fight as well, so some players saw two of them. Besides the heavy-handed writing, a long fight eats into time, and a fight where some PCs escape then requires complicated management by the DM. I saw pretty much every possible outcome. So, PCs captured and wheeled off to Hillsfar along with the halflings they were looking for. Depending on the time, they can banter with the evil mastermind, console the halflings, etc. As Pauper observed, though, they probably recover all their resources before the next fight. Hillsfar is full of crazy people, an indication of the Rage of Demons storyline. PCs get examined and sold at the arena, a scene I prefer not to put a lot of detail into, but it's another RP opportunity. The arena fight is fun and three-dimensional. I did run this after Epic3 for some players who saw both modules, and they didn't let on about it being a let-down. But, I see the point. More problematic, the enemy halflings probably have too many hitpoints to beat in a straight-up fight. But, the audience riots at some point, and that can easily be before the PCs are in too bad a shape. (Parenthetically, I had two groups that never got to the arena fight. One was because they were powerful and cut a deal with the Red Plumes, the other because some PCs escaped they wanted to try a breakout the night before. Always say yes to your players by default. For these, I manufactured a setting below the arena in which the guards let out the rabid enemy halflings to deal with escaping PCs.) One thing Pauper didn't see is other possible interactions with Deriel. She's thrown in with the PCs before the arena fight, despondent because she has lost her drow lover from 3-1 part 2. PCs can treat her like dirt (and she kills herself) or they can cheer her up, earning XP and a possible ally. At the end of the arena fight, the evil mastermind (see above) d-doors in to pick up the fight while the audience is rioting. Various things can happen. He's powerful enough on his own that I usually leave his guards behind. (Arena guards, actually, not as strong as the Red Plumes.) Some groups beat him (with difficulty); at least one just ran. At this point, the great escape, entirely in narration. The PCs know where the halflings are to be rescued, down in the utility rooms of the arena. They should just choose that route for their exit. I don't know why a DM wouldn't just decree this to be the plan. There's an awkwardness as I see it regarding Deriel's drow lover from 3-1. If Deriel was cheered up and survived, the PCs can also rescue him from the arena cages. But, as I understand it, the drow most often dies in the prior module. In conclusion, I like the storyline except for the manditory loss. That could have just been done with narration, or the whole module could be restructured to avoid it. The fact that at least 2 other stories out there have the same gimmick means, though, that someone likes it a lot. There's plenty of opportunity for RP in this and the time to do it. We have to wait for future modules for the consequences of the rioting in Hillsfar. Both 3-3 and 3-4 take place in the Underdark. Epic 3 didn't mention it, but that has a narrow scope.
#4 devlin1 Aug 07, 2015 13:46:02	I read this when it was in playtest and didn't like it. Then I played it at Gen Con and... didn't like it.   There's that we're-meant-to-lose fight in the beginning (having read the adventure, I didn't try to take a leadership role, nor did I mention the ambush), then a lot of the DM talking to themself, then a big setpiece fight in which the outcome is basically in consequential, then the DM telling you "Hey, you rescued the halflings, good going." So neither fight really matters, in that they don't drive the story forward -- they just give you the illusion that something important is happening.   I dunno. The arena fight has a lot of cool components, but it's a real let-down in play that you're just killing time until a bunch of uninvolved NPCs trigger an event. I completely agree (and said so in my feedback when I read 3-2) that the author just really wants this arena fight to happen, and doesn't seem to care how or why. I even would've bought "Infiltrate the games and find those halflings," as long as the halflings in question had actually figured into the final fight.   Complicating this was that my PC was human -- the only human in the party -- as well as a Trade Sheriff, with a badge of office and everything. So on the plus side, it really woke up him to the corruption and injustice that plague Hillsfar, but it was also a little harder to swallow. Mags and all those Red Plumes made my list. There'll be a full investigation later.
#5 Rob_U Aug 07, 2015 14:23:01	*Spoilers*   The module is a bit heavy handed. While we were playing, I couldn't help but try to calculate the CR for the ambush. As near as I could figure, it would have been between a CR6 and CR8. Kind tough when 50% of the party is level 1.    That said, our GM made the overall adventure into the best role playing experience I've had at a convention. The puppet show, the lead up to the ambush, and final theatric battle were expertly handled. While the adventure was obviously written to railroad characters into an interesting fight, once their we found the situation fun and well worth our time. We of course took the theatric approach to stirring up the crowd ending the fight with every halfling still on their feet. Deriel's non-sequitur suicide was a bit of downer though. Especially since we had gone extensive lengths to convince her he that her BF was alive. But hey, sometimes you just need a Dues Ex to point out killer fish.   All-in-all I give the adventure a 6 out of 10. Our DM was a 10 out of 10. And the overall experience was a 9 out of 10.   Can't wait to play again next year.
#6 Ravix Aug 07, 2015 14:39:28	Even if you escape, your contact is supposed to encourage you to sneak back into the arena to find the halflings.  You actually find the halflings when you get captured and travel with them to the arena, so you know where they are.  But then you're put in a situation where you have to fight in the arena, escape being nigh impossible without the eventual riot.   I've had players defeat the Very Strong encounter before, but the general idea is that they will fail and be captured.  I think a lot of trouble just comes from groups who think they are invincible and get dejected when they meet a foe that they cannot beat.  I actually like that about this module, it manages to help teach them things that otherwise would be learned by a TPK.   Quite like the Roper fight in 3-4, sometimes the easiest solution is not to fight at all...
#7 Cascade.rpga Aug 11, 2015 9:55:26	This event was very discouraging...   essentially our group escaped the ambush (we had 2 dwarven clerics that roll advantage on poison) but it took an hour and a half.   the rest was the DM trying to figure a way to get us back on track. It was frustrating at best and a pointless waste of time at worse. I can see where the adventure was going once we saw the end but we never really got to experience it.   If the module wants to try and capture players, it should be done completely in box text..."you wake up surrounded, disarmed..."
#8 Nozareem Aug 11, 2015 14:50:59	Cascade.rpga wrote:
#9 ZHDarkstar Aug 11, 2015 16:47:24	Railroading capture like that via a text box would upset a good chunk of the players at my FLGS. They would prefer to go out swinging than be told "you lose because the box says so," and frankly I don't blame them. If I need to show that escape is imperative, I'll simply add more bad guys to the equation or not pull punches (using Multiattack whenever possible or casting their best spells first) to stress the severity of the situation at hand. Usually that does the trick in informing the party that they're in a Kobayashi Maru scenario.   I understand the concern of time restraints, but there are other means of railroading the adventure than simply riding the text boxcar.
#10 Sartredes Aug 14, 2015 12:26:04	I played this at Gen Con. I was annoyed with it. Players were railroaded from from the start to the end. I don't feel the characters made any significant decisions at all. You're railroaded into the puppet show at the start and I felt like every encounter thereafter we were just along for the ride. I left the table feeling pretty "meh" about the whole thing. The final combat was interesting enough I suppose, but otherwise it seemed like the GM could have just narrated the events from the tavern up to that point. I give it a thumbs down.
(Reply to #9) klobbermeister	ZHDarkstar wrote:
#12 Tyranthraxus Aug 20, 2015 22:03:30	Thanks for the heads up. This will be the first Season 3 expeditions I will run so its good to know it will require some managing.
#13 ZHDarkstar Aug 21, 2015 10:44:13	klobbermeister wrote:
(Reply to #13) Cascade.rpga	ZHDarkstar wrote:
(Reply to #14) Skerrit	Cascade.rpga wrote:
#16 Peoplemuver Sep 03, 2015 18:32:21	i read through this and yea i doubt many players will like it. it just takes any freedom of choice out from the players. I will change it so that that players have more choice. I think that the writing and story is good but who ever wrote it didn't keep in mind the players point of view. like yea who wants to play a dnd game where you just will get captured no matter what. (though a better experinced DM could fairly easly make it seem like they had a choice but that is a diffrent subject...)
#17 Ralif_Redhammer Sep 14, 2015 12:20:40	I just played Shackles of Blood this weekend, and I have to say, I didn’t feel railroaded at all, and had a good bit of fun. There were multiple points where the group spent a fair bit of time trying to decide what to do next, in fact. And we did defeat the Red Plume slavers (admittedly, it was a tough fight, especially because the poor paladin continually rolled badly to escape the net that had ensnared him – we joked that it must be a masterwork net).   The arena battle was fun, but I think we all agreed it could’ve been better-planned. After the adventure, the DM and the players sat around and talked over the final arena battle. What happened was, but for two of the PCs, we spent the battle on one platform and sniped while letting the Halfling gladiators come to us. In retrospect, once the bell is rung, instead of the central platform sinking, I thought that the platforms that the PC and enemies start on should sink into the water, forcing an engagement and adding uncertainty to the encounter.
#18 SilverStorm3 Sep 16, 2015 12:12:00	Honestly, I liked it. Yeah, it was kind of linear...but if you are a hero then the linear nature is implicit and if you aren't a hero then you'll probably be captured anyway.   The humans in the halfling farm meant we were suspicious, and so the random elf watching us (which we saw) was also suspicious. We expected to be ambushed, but also knew that being ambushed would take us to where the halflings would be (because there were humans trying to claim they lived on the halfling's farm! Obviously they shouldn't belong there, unless they are with the Red Plumes).   During the trip, we realized that the elf led us to an ambush to save her boyfriend (who the other characters recognized because it was actually they who got him captured!). So it brought forth a little bit of karma that "we are in this situation because of what we did". And that was a nice little touch.   Also during the trip, we coordinated our Warlock's telepathy and Druid's wild-shaping to free the prisoners so perfectly that the guards didn't even realize it was us masterminding the entire plan. We were rewarded for being quiet little prisoners, even though we actually caused the most chaos. Now, I know that most people who think in terms of "Me hero, me fight bad guys" won't understand why we did this. Why not escape? Because we knew that the prison caravan was going exactly where we wanted to go to free the rest of the halflings. If we had no other option, then we could have gone "guns ablazing"...but then we would have probably failed and died. Instead, our plans went better than we had expected.   After that, we were brought to the dungeon before the fight. Well, across from us were the other prisoners. Wouldn't you know it, the Druid wild-shaped again and both our Warlock and Barbarian I distracted the guards. Thus chaos was wrought above and chaos was wrought below while our Cleric easily freed the other prisoners. Literally, we freed the last of the kidnapped halflings by actively breaking them out and keeping the guards off their tails.   -----   I mean, it's absurd to think that anyone could complain about not actually freeing the prisoners since there are prisoners to be freed at multiple points. It's absurd to thing that you can't do anything, when a moderately-creative group has so many choices to make that they give up on choosing any and just combine every option that they can.
#19 Ralif_Redhammer Sep 17, 2015 8:05:12	That was pretty much our thoughts as well. With a  bunch of demihumans in the party, the only way we were getting into Hillsfar was probably going to be as prisoners. I had plans on how to escape, but put my trust in the DM to not say "and you're imprisoned forever until you die in the arena."   SilverStorm3 wrote: