Solicitation Flyer
by D&D Team erdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size:13px"> erdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size:13px">Legacy of the Crystal Shard™ is an adventure for character levels 1-3 set in the fanfavorite Icewind Dale region of the Forgotten Realms®. Players must face an evil that was once defeated but has risen again to threaten the Ten Towns. The adventure is authored by popular writers and designers R.A. Salvatore, James Wyatt, and Jeff Ludwig. The adventure can be played using rules for 3rd Edition (v.3.5), 4th Edition, and the D&D® Next playtest via downloadable monster and NPC stats
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Very cool. I wonder if it'll be the same sort of more sandbox-esque adventure as "Murder in Baldur's Gate"?
It is from what i heard
Glad to hear. Still curious about what's coming after "Legacy", especially given the little hint mentioned in Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle.
Yet another 1-3 pile of railroad poop that I have to pay for?
Sigh...
If you want to run the official encounters program you have to buy the module.
the ending is pre-ordained (at least it is in MIBG). the players have limited impact. sure feels like a railroad to me.
How is the ending preordained? There are at least four possible outcomes of the actions of the adventures antagonists and PCs could conceivably have zero impact on those actions. The entire adventure could happen "around" the PCs. I think you need to reexamine what you consider a railroad.
I fully comprehend the meaning of "railroad" in roleplaing material. The "4" endings are basically all the same. The only difference is to whom the bad thing of Bhaal occurs. In my en counters game I am running I am ingnoring all that aspect of the module. Each fact is evil, they may kill each other off in the end and I am considering having the mountain erupt and cover the city pompei style for the finale. No redeeming value in anyone here - kill em all.
Buying the module gives me the freedom to do exactly as I desire. As far as I am concerned the bhaal god battery is still out of power. The fewer mini godlings left in FR the better.
Cant see the next module doing any better in terms of pre-ordained endings. I will prob ignore that as well. Perhaps a plague... Cant use the same finale each time!
Dup
Dup
Duplicate. I do so love the new forum stem. To think, they paid someone for this...
Is there any way to upgrade the storyline to levels 4 to 6? So players who took part in Murder in Balder's Gate can use the same characters? Or do they have to make new ones again?
Quite honestly, my players thought the next DDE adventure would allow them to continue with their existing Baldur's Gate characters. They'll be sorely disappointed if it doesn't allow that option at least through a download or something that I can get. I simply do NOT have the time to go through the entire adventure and rebuild evey encounter to raise the level of the adventure.
Quite honestly, what I don't like about the Baldur's Gate D&D Encounters is that it has very few combat encounters totally defined. My players expect to have a combat each and every week at DDE. I know about the additional downloads and I use them. But, they still didn't seem to actually define the encounters (i.e. 2 Tough Thugs & 3 Thugs vs. 5 PCs, 2/5 for 6 PCs, 2/2 for 4 PCs, etc.). That's work put upon me (and the other DMs) to do. And, what i paid for didn't even have all the people defined in it. There was an additional download for a complete statting of those, too. I hope the second installment has a bit more of the combat encounters defined and all of the NPCs defined, without the added downloading/printing.
And, somebody mentioned maps ... if that's simply maps of the area, Baldur's Gate DDE has that. But, if that's combat scale maps, the Baldur's Gate DDE only had 1 (the Wide) and that came from the Game Day package. They relied on the DMs to provide all the combat scale maps. Now, I have a DM that has just started running DDE and he doesn't have access to all the prior DDE maps, like I do. That sucks for him. Old DDE provided all the combat maps needed. I hope the new adventure provides a return to the combat scale maps that are needed for the adventure. That's especially true if I have to pay for it, again.
In my opinion, although the more free-flow was a good thing, eliminating the combat maps and detailed combat encounters was a bad thing and I, personally, was disappointed with all the work I now have to do to DM DDE ... and pay for the adventure, too. My wife is already peeved about how much time I spend preparing to DM a game (I presently DM 2-3 different games per week in addition to working 40+ hours/week). Baldur's Gate has not helped that situation. I hope the new DDE adventure will help rather than hinder. The extra work has already made one of my DMs to dramatically reduce how much he supports DDE (he only shows up on occasion and the new DM is left to handle it).
My group is pretty erked that it isn't 4 - 6 as well. I thought when they first announced the Sundering adventures they were supposed to span from level 1 to 10, but it looks like that isn't the case. I put it up to a vote at my table if they wanted to create new characters or scale the adventure up to level 4 - 6, not a single vote to restart. So I will be scaling the adventure up to reflect appropriate challenges. Honestly not too much more effort considering you have to construct the encounters now anyway and I end up invitng variations of each encounter to mix things up (you can only beat up thugs & tough thugs so many weeks in a row before it becomes boring).
Luckily, I was running one of the suplimental events for MiBG last night and the group happened to procure a boat from some rabble that was lighting other boats on fire under the Marshall Law that went into effect (they are in great standings with Ravengard and he let them keep the "Salty Camel" for all their work). So once the final event plays out (the person with Bhaal's favor has too far of a lead to be overcome by the others) the group will scuttle away to the north for adventure in their new ship, making for Luskan and then getting a cookie crumbs to lead them further north.
The thing that really bothers me is the loss of combat maps. Sure, I have my own wet-earse map but there are times when I don't want to draw out the map and with my table's play stay and attitude maps are must. AND! I thought originally these adventures were suppose to be hardcover instead of these chincy little books (pamplets is a better term if you ask me). While I am enjoying my time I have spent with MiBG (as have my table) every time I reach for my book I feel like I got kicked square in the "tender bits" when I remember what I payed for such a low quality low durability book. This time around I almost want to order off Amazon for cheaper than what I can get it in store because of the quality but I feel bad going behind the back of my comic shop that I support.
SublimeBW,
Any chance you'd want to post your scaled up NPC/monster stats for the rest of us? If it's anything like the MiBG, the adventure will come out only a couple days before the game day, which is only a couple days before the season start. I work 40+ hours a week and have a family so that's simply not enough time for me to get it, read it all over, pick out or make maps, update all the NPCs/monsters and be ready to DM on game day. Honestly, I WISH they would do like Living Forgotten Realms has done in their latest adventures and the NPCs/monsters have level band definitions (they have all the encounters set up for level 2, 4, 6, 8 & 10). Okay, maybe not make for every 2 levels but every 4 levels would be more workable. So, if they'd make the future Sundering adventures with NPCs/monsters defined for level 1-4, level 4-7 and level 7-10, that would be just great. At least make the higher level NPCs/monsters available as a web enhancement. Add combat maps and combat encounter definitions to that and it might be worth the money to actually buy the new adventure. As it is, both my DMs for one store are backing out because it's just too much work, now, for them to do. 
But, what do I know. I'm just a lowly DM and I've not seen anything from WotC even acknowlegding our concerns so I guess we'll have to wait and see what they put out for the new season.
geoharpst wrote: