Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 mrdaykwan Dec 10, 2011 11:39:36	Hey all, I'm DMing HS1 for my three PCs, and I'm wondering how the adventure went for anybody else who ran it, just general observations, how quickly the group found the stone, whether or not your group played the kobolds against the goblins, or just general plot stuff. We've done well, several near death experiences, but they actually managed to convince Kiris Hoyt to join them so they're doing alright. Also, I've pretty sure my PCs are going to want to head after Dreus Matrand (Treona's no-show apprentice), and I'm wondering f anybody has any pre-made setups for her. Moreso though, I'd just love to hear how other groups did against Rort, Speelock, and the gang.
#2 mcmillan Dec 10, 2011 14:44:24	My players went through it pretty straight forward, without much exploring, and didn't even end up interact with the kobolds at all. They were initially sypathetic towards Kiris Hoyt, but when the goblins burst in and he started yelling that they betrayed him and attacked, pretty much all sympathy was gone. Rort was a fun fight, but went too quick for all of his tricks to come up. I was happy that exploding minion attack came up, which was fun and got a good shock out of my players. I also had a player blow up the table with alchemical items on it, which made for a nice way of changing things up. They were pretty nervous once they realized they were about to meet a dragon since they were pretty convinced it was going to have to be a fight. It was fun when they tried to send in the ranger to scout things out, who then rolled horribly on a stealth check, followed by a horrible roll on a bluff to explain himself. Convinced he was about to get eaten, the rest of group rushed in to try and fix things. Took a bit of conincing but they did manage to walk out with the Stone. I ended up downplaying Dreus since I was using this as a branch point between two possible storylines, and my player's were pretty hooked on the other direction. But there is a published adventure in Dungeon that lets you track her down. Haven't read through it so I'm not sure how it is.
#3 mrdaykwan Dec 10, 2011 17:17:43	Pretty sure my PCs are the opposite. The barbarian keeps trying to steer them into the "get the stone and get out" direction, but the other two are having a good time playing through all the kinks of the city. In regards to the published adventure: Cool! I didn't know there was one somewhat pre-made, I might just have to locate a copy. Thank you, you may have just directly affected my player's gameplay!  And yeah, there's a point when the party sees the big scratches on the wall and they immediately jumped to the conclusion that it was a dragon, so in the hopes of keeping the reveal powerful I had to downplay the scratches a ton. I've also ended up integrating a Traveling Merchant into the mix, as my PCs kept wanting for a place to offload coin and I didn't want to have them go out of their way to some nearby town.