Is it just me, or is the entire module extraordinarily similar to CORE 1-4: Crystal Clear? We had a ton of fun, but a few notes, for DMs prepping:
- There aren't a lot of good hooks as to what the characters are doing in Westgate, even if they've just come from DALE 1-7. I told them that the Stellar Fellowship helped the PCs arrange the meeting once the PCs announced they were headed to Westgate.
- Shou culture—from what I gather—is heavily inspired by feudal Japan and China (although nowhere in the mod does it explicitly state this) and the cultural differences provide some clues to the PCs. Also, see if any of your PCs are Shou or speak Shou. Since FR-specific languages are so rarely used, this is a good chance to play it up.
- The entry RP encounter is fairly challenging to DM because it involves two NPCs interacting, and the PCs are supposed to be interrupting. Many groups may have other reactions: pay no attention and watch amusedly are two common ones.
- Most of the fights are going to be pretty easy for seasoned players, and a lot of the monsters are repetitive. The heart of this one is in its skill challenges and RP encounters, so I recommend being a ham.
- Much of the information the PCs will want in Encounter 1 is in Encounter 2, scene 1.
- Change the map for Encounter 3. It makes no sense. The only two monsters with any damage potential (the bandits) are put outside the reach of their attacks, with no good way to get to the party other than a double climb, no way to get combat advantage once they reveal themselves and no way to throw PCs off the roofs if they pursue.
- The skill challenge portion of Encounter 5 is pretty difficult, because the PCs will probably stick together and will rarely have the stats to cover all of the skill rolls required, and the DCs are all pretty hard. My group failed after four skill checks. That's OK. The penalty for failure here is minimal (not even half XP).
- Encounter 6 is tricky because the damage is really spikey. At 4th level, PCs will have ACs averaging 19 (chain + 1) – 23 (plate +1, heavy shield). Expect the berserkers to miss. A lot. One of mine missed on a coup de grace. Similarly, the mage can sling a lot of damage by hitting the tables with her burst powers. Be careful not to trap the PCs on the stairs, or you'll miss out on this very cool terrain feature.
- The concluding text assumes that the PCs have met and alerted Featherby. This may not happen, so be aware when you're reading.
Finally—why I love my LFR group—is how they dealt with Encounter 5. Convinced they didn't have the skills to sneak in, they sought to rent a wagon in an attempt to Trojan Horse their way inside. It being an unfriendly neighborhood, the best they could get was an open-topped wagon filled with fish.
The warlock (who spoke Shou) did the driving with the female drow avenger up front and the men hiding beneath the fish. Of course the warlock failed a Nature check to handle the horses correctly, but she easily bluffed the guards into passing off as an accident. However, the drow's bluff check to disguise herself as Shou failed, and the men hiding (barbarian, warden, cleric) failed miserably on a group stealth check. The barbarian grabs the rabble who discovers them and pulls him into the fish in an attempt to muffle the shouting, but it's too late—with three failures—the alarm sounds.
The warden gets initiative, stands up and whips a halibut at one of the rabble, dropping it. Both guards' halberds clunk harmlessly into the wood of wagon, and then the warlock uses a double move to drive her wagon through the doors of the compound, over two more rabble.
The party took so much damage from the crash, and the scene was so epic, that I declared the wagon stuck in the doorway and the party free to run deeper into the compound without further issues with the guards.
Aside for some of the issues mentioned above, we had a lot of fun with this module. Thanks for a great story arc.
In regards to bullet point 1, very few adventures give you a reason to be in a town. Authors do not know the individual characters and the usual job offer only works when there is no time issue involved. Adventures usually assume you just are at location X, leaving the reasoning to the individual players and DM. If you did play DALE1-7 the quest assumes you are tracking down the source of the problems in DALE1-7 in order of the employers in said adventure (Stellar Fellowship is one option, so is the Cormyrean authorities or the leader of the school).
I think the extended skill challenge left a great deal of options available for the players to achieve success. It also allowed me to play up all the "on the spot" NPCs that ended up being generated.
The fights seemed a bit easy but I also attribute my suckful dice rolls to that in part... and I also dig opponents who don't think fighting to the death is a viable idea.
Cheers
Glad to hear the skill challenges were well accepted - I tried to provide a variety of options & flesh out each of the scenes for Encounter 2, and was happy when I found out that the 3 playtests run all took different paths.
The infiltration part was fun to write as well - I tried to write the skill challenge element to reward players who tried to enter the compound without stirring up all the guards, and to create a situation where successful PCs were better prepared to deal with the final encounter if they thought their infiltration plan out. I purposely made the checks difficult, as they should be (it was a drug lord's compound, which should be hard to infiltrate). Plus I liked the idea of giving the PCs 'their head' - letting them decide how to approach their entry into the compound. There has been a void of LFR adventures that encourage this so far (IMO).
Unfortunately, I ended up being a bit pressed for time when it came to meeting the deadline - a miscommunication with my writing director resulted in me writing the bulk of the adventure in 8 or 9 days to get it submitted in time. As a result I was a bit pressed, and the combats could have been more challenging if I had more time available to tailor the combatants involved (i.e. using other creature stat blocks & renaming them). The last encounter can be difficult if the DM's dice roll well - I know during my playtest the players were all standing around the table instead of sitting quietly - a sure sign that they are feeling the pinch so to speak
Thanks again for the feedback
Cheers,
Andrew Cowan
DRAG1-7 Author
One item you might want to mention in the mod - time line, that this mod takes place after DRAG 1-1. That while playing this mod before DRAG 1-1 has no game changing effects, if you plan on playing both mods, you should play DRAG 1-1 first.
We had some interesting conversations about trying to gain entry to the compound, the initial idea was to bluff their way past but the best in the group for bluffing (dwarf cleric) refused to lie about his business there as it was against his nature so it turned to sneaking over the wall, this dwarven cleric isnt too hot at climbing either which was fun.
The fight scene with the guards, due to passing the skill checks to get inside, would have been more than trivial .. i really dont understand how 2 guards and a few minions would take more than a couple of turns to demolish with taking next to no damage.
Instead i had these guards follow the group down to the basement after a few rounds in to the final fight. This made the final fight an actual challenge which the players enjoyed.
We prevailed in the end through some extraordinary luck (and DM fudging), but three PCs went down (one making Death saves for about 5 rounds before anyone got close to him, and another two falling multiple times, expending all our healing potions), and the combat felt like a grind right from the second round or so.
The 2 things I particularly loved were:
1) The idea that failing the infiltration skill challenge didn't really affect XP rewards it instead increased the challenge of the final encounter. I also loved the openess of the infiltrtion and the schematic provided. It gave us as players as many options as we desired.
2) I actually liked the relatively simple combats to start with and the one challenging but not over the top combat at the end. For me the combats flowed well and logically to the story and ended in the infiltration of a drug lord's base of operations, which you would expect to be far more challenging that the minor skirmishes on the way there.
The biggest problem I saw was the potential for DMs to give away information that the PCs couldn't know (ie links to Arts before getting to it, or links to DRAG 1-1 before playing it) but there's not much you can do about this as a writer in a system that allows stories to progress in any order.
Well done Andrew
they went in during the day, and for some reason kept throwing 1's and 2's. I missed a reason why choosing the correct sewer entrance would alert the guards, so i made up that it went as a farce through the district. Alerting the guards a bit. I think the compleet fail should have more opponnents.
I thought it was a bit boring to use the same monsters for the second combat as the first. Especially since the minions are about the worst minions in the mm. Perhaps: one of the guards has a guard drake or one guard is a kenku or halfling.
with a bit more preparation this can be quite a good mod.