The report here (about how the adventure ran for us) is one I originally sent to the Waterdeep PoC, but with the threads here I figured it would be a nice start for discussion and sharing experiences.
Report WATE1-1 GenCon-UK
Our party consisted of Valencia (my PC, a female wizard/warlord), Wil (a dwarven cleric of Sune, a real ladies man - no, seriously), Slief (human rogue), Jax (elf ranger), Zebulon (humans wordmage), and WD40 (a warforged).
Most of the investigation was conducted by Wil, with some aid from Valencia (who made lots of friends with the men from the Thirsty Sailor), and WD40 (who easily beat Saku).
I noticed a small problem with the investigation.
While we followed all the clues given, we didn't actually learn more from, say, fighting Saku, or going to places such as the Trade ward city guard. In fact, you can skip all encounters from Trade ward: if you go immediately to the docks, you get to the thief much quicker.
Unfortunately, this doesn't really work since you first have to obtain a number of successes, so you have to do these encounters anyway. I would advise that in future mods, the author tries to add a bit more extra info to some encounters, such as extra rumors that may aid in identifying the agents or their escape route. That makes questioning Saku after the Sune cleric has wooed Helgara less futile.
First time I saw a quest card used, by the way. Still got to get myself one.
The fight with the thugs engaging the noble and his lady was fairly easy - wizard and swordmage = lots of dropped minions in the first round.
The lady Silmerhelve thanked us. Valencia suggested she left her no-good boyfriend and instead lend support to Geth Stormlight. She claimed he was too busy for her, but Val pressed her to visit anyway - no idea if she followed up on that. She was definitely too good for the guy she was hanging out with.
Note: I eventually decided to take her favor, partly since Valencia wished to be her friend, and because info on festhalls is useful for Valencia (as she is a bit of a bard).
Once we found Kovick's Bazar bazar and intimidated the name of the thief out of him, we visited House Boots and pressured the proprietor into revealing the secret lair (well, the warforged did, which made our initial plan of stake outs and stealthy subterfuge a bit moot).
We entered the lair, set off the alarm, and ended in a very cramped fight (with everyone on the stairs). the delay in getting some people in the room ment that by the time we could immobilize some of the thugs, one halfling had already fled to warn the gnomes.
We managed to subdue Fang, and struck a deal: if he told us who hired him, we would let him go. After all, Fang was a colorful thief and, afawk, not a murderer. He agreed, and we left the lair (though Valancia plans to go back to study the magic circle).
The gnomes had left the tavern when we got there, but we tracked them down and engaged them in the street. The gnome leader used teleport to flee, but left the sextant behind (lucky us).
The adventure had some nice roleplay encounters, though the combination of noisy rooms + con + DM focusing too much on one player meant we didn't optimally use it.
Still, Valencia managed to make sketches and notes of many places (she draws everything). She also gathered info and sketches of Fang and his lair, but these (and how he was found) were left deliberately vague and inaccuarate - there is no point in spreading tales about a mysterious thief if everyone can then track him down.
She is now also, apparently, the only female to frequent the Thirsty Sailor (what is this? a gay bar?) provided she manages to not be run over by drunks on the way there - I didn't comprehend the rule that you loose healing surges if your perception is 12 or less... though possibly my DM misinterpreted that part.
Our party consisted of Valencia (my PC, a female wizard/warlord), Wil (a dwarven cleric of Sune, a real ladies man - no, seriously), Slief (human rogue), Jax (elf ranger), Zebulon (humans wordmage), and WD40 (a warforged).
Most of the investigation was conducted by Wil, with some aid from Valencia (who made lots of friends with the men from the Thirsty Sailor), and WD40 (who easily beat Saku).
I noticed a small problem with the investigation.
While we followed all the clues given, we didn't actually learn more from, say, fighting Saku, or going to places such as the Trade ward city guard. In fact, you can skip all encounters from Trade ward: if you go immediately to the docks, you get to the thief much quicker.
Unfortunately, this doesn't really work since you first have to obtain a number of successes, so you have to do these encounters anyway. I would advise that in future mods, the author tries to add a bit more extra info to some encounters, such as extra rumors that may aid in identifying the agents or their escape route. That makes questioning Saku after the Sune cleric has wooed Helgara less futile.
First time I saw a quest card used, by the way. Still got to get myself one.
The fight with the thugs engaging the noble and his lady was fairly easy - wizard and swordmage = lots of dropped minions in the first round.
The lady Silmerhelve thanked us. Valencia suggested she left her no-good boyfriend and instead lend support to Geth Stormlight. She claimed he was too busy for her, but Val pressed her to visit anyway - no idea if she followed up on that. She was definitely too good for the guy she was hanging out with.
Note: I eventually decided to take her favor, partly since Valencia wished to be her friend, and because info on festhalls is useful for Valencia (as she is a bit of a bard).
Once we found Kovick's Bazar bazar and intimidated the name of the thief out of him, we visited House Boots and pressured the proprietor into revealing the secret lair (well, the warforged did, which made our initial plan of stake outs and stealthy subterfuge a bit moot).
We entered the lair, set off the alarm, and ended in a very cramped fight (with everyone on the stairs). the delay in getting some people in the room ment that by the time we could immobilize some of the thugs, one halfling had already fled to warn the gnomes.
We managed to subdue Fang, and struck a deal: if he told us who hired him, we would let him go. After all, Fang was a colorful thief and, afawk, not a murderer. He agreed, and we left the lair (though Valancia plans to go back to study the magic circle).
The gnomes had left the tavern when we got there, but we tracked them down and engaged them in the street. The gnome leader used teleport to flee, but left the sextant behind (lucky us).
The adventure had some nice roleplay encounters, though the combination of noisy rooms + con + DM focusing too much on one player meant we didn't optimally use it.
Still, Valencia managed to make sketches and notes of many places (she draws everything). She also gathered info and sketches of Fang and his lair, but these (and how he was found) were left deliberately vague and inaccuarate - there is no point in spreading tales about a mysterious thief if everyone can then track him down.
She is now also, apparently, the only female to frequent the Thirsty Sailor (what is this? a gay bar?) provided she manages to not be run over by drunks on the way there - I didn't comprehend the rule that you loose healing surges if your perception is 12 or less... though possibly my DM misinterpreted that part.
This be a thread for the discussion of WATE1-1- Heirloom.
The report here (about how the adventure ran for us) is one I originally sent to the Waterdeep PoC, but with the threads here I figured it would be a nice start for discussion and sharing experiences.
Gomez, you did? I don't remember getting it. Sorry.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/lfrx/community
Which is a helpful page unless you want to contact us Dalelands admins...
WATE1-1 Report - Weekly game at our FLGS
I DMed the high-level version of this for our regular weekly gaming group tonight and got some decent feedback from all of the players. The party consisted of six players: L2 Ranger, L3 Rogue, L3 Swordmage, L3 Cleric, L4 Warlock, L2 Fighter. No controllers, two defenders, three strikers, and a leader.
First off, the feedback from the players. The first and most universal bit of feedback was their unhappiness at the story awards. They 100% completed the adventure and thus earned all three story awards, and since this is the first time something like this has come up for us I got to break the news that they had to choose two (some of them were honestly unaware of that). They had to essentially blindly choose which one not to take. Everyone chose to drop #3 (the favor of the minor house), and everyone's hoping that one wasn't starting a quest of any kind since no quest was indicated for any of the awards. I was under the impression that situations like this weren't supposed to come up - mods with three story awards were supposed to have at least two that were mutually exclusive (a good example of this is DALE1-1). I'm a big fan of the players getting what they earn (see my previous complaints about the XP in CORE1-3) and this seems like a pretty crappy thing to do to players who do well in a module.
The other feedback that came from pretty much everyone was praise for encounter 5, the gnome fight. They managed to catch the gnomes while they were still in their room. Two of them went up to the room to attempt to talk the thieves out, which prompted the gnomes to spring their trick (popping the window but hiding in the room). They heard glass breaking from outside the door, and they already knew there was a window out to the alley and that there was a back door. This prompted them to split the party - four of them immediately took off for the back door, while the rogue and swordmage stayed up top to crack open the door and prevent them from escaping back into the room. The group's encountered gnomes before, and knew that they can hide and go invisible and such, so they assumed that they were hanging around outside with the wagon. The rogue popped the door and the two characters stormed in, at which point the gnomes all popped out, everything in the room concentrated their fire on the swordmage, and he dropped (for the first time ever with that character, I believe). The fighter managed to climb back up the rope and get in quickly, while the ranger had to spend a couple turns running back around to the stairs and the cleric and warlock played artillery on what they could see from outside the window until closer to the end of the fight. The bottom line here is that it was a brilliant trick that the gnomes pulled off plausibly and well, and due to the early dropped PC the entire fight had a good sense of urgency and danger while never seeming unbalanced, unfair, or unwinnable. One of the best fights I've encountered yet in an LFR mod (if not THE best), and I think I've played and/or run all but two or three of the 1-4 mods.
One thing the players were a bit confused on was encounter 3 - the rescue of the young nobles. It didn't feel like a fight to them, and it felt like it had been randomly dropped into the mod. Running at high-level and scaled up for 6 PCs, there were 11 humans - and the party still had them all out cold in one round plus two turns, even without a controller. Most of them were waiting for "The Big Man" to show up (see CORE1-3). I know it was mostly in there for flavor and was intended to be an easy fight, but that one verged on the ridiculous - at high-level, level 1 minions just aren't a threat anymore to any semi-competent adventuring group, no matter how many of them there are.
My commentary from the other side of the screen is mostly stuff I've already seen up here on the boards about this mod. There has been a fair amount of complaining about the lack of setting flavor in modules to date. Heirloom didn't have that problem - in fact, I feel it took it a bit too far back the other way to reasonably fit into the time slot for one module. I could easily have taken them through a full session just on that skill challenge, with all of the RPing information and background details that were there. As it was, I had to push them quickly past a lot of the flavor text just so we could finish at a halfway-decent hour, and I think that's a real shame because the players missed out on a lot of good stuff about the people they were meeting, the places they were walking into, the areas they were in, and the city as a whole. I'm happy that you guys are bringing Waterdeep's character and regional flavor out, but I think you could turn the volume down on that by a few notches, concentrate the flavor text more on a few specific points rather than giving infinite info about everything, and still be clearly "in" Waterdeep.
Overall: We were very happy with this adventure, right up until I pulled out the story awards at the end. I give 4/5 overall - fix the story award issue and it'd be far closer to 5/5. Keep up the good work! I know I'm looking forward to further adventures from our home region.
First off, the feedback from the players. The first and most universal bit of feedback was their unhappiness at the story awards. They 100% completed the adventure and thus earned all three story awards, and since this is the first time something like this has come up for us I got to break the news that they had to choose two (some of them were honestly unaware of that). They had to essentially blindly choose which one not to take. Everyone chose to drop #3 (the favor of the minor house), and everyone's hoping that one wasn't starting a quest of any kind since no quest was indicated for any of the awards. I was under the impression that situations like this weren't supposed to come up - mods with three story awards were supposed to have at least two that were mutually exclusive (a good example of this is DALE1-1). I'm a big fan of the players getting what they earn (see my previous complaints about the XP in CORE1-3) and this seems like a pretty crappy thing to do to players who do well in a module.
The other feedback that came from pretty much everyone was praise for encounter 5, the gnome fight. They managed to catch the gnomes while they were still in their room. Two of them went up to the room to attempt to talk the thieves out, which prompted the gnomes to spring their trick (popping the window but hiding in the room). They heard glass breaking from outside the door, and they already knew there was a window out to the alley and that there was a back door. This prompted them to split the party - four of them immediately took off for the back door, while the rogue and swordmage stayed up top to crack open the door and prevent them from escaping back into the room. The group's encountered gnomes before, and knew that they can hide and go invisible and such, so they assumed that they were hanging around outside with the wagon. The rogue popped the door and the two characters stormed in, at which point the gnomes all popped out, everything in the room concentrated their fire on the swordmage, and he dropped (for the first time ever with that character, I believe). The fighter managed to climb back up the rope and get in quickly, while the ranger had to spend a couple turns running back around to the stairs and the cleric and warlock played artillery on what they could see from outside the window until closer to the end of the fight. The bottom line here is that it was a brilliant trick that the gnomes pulled off plausibly and well, and due to the early dropped PC the entire fight had a good sense of urgency and danger while never seeming unbalanced, unfair, or unwinnable. One of the best fights I've encountered yet in an LFR mod (if not THE best), and I think I've played and/or run all but two or three of the 1-4 mods.
One thing the players were a bit confused on was encounter 3 - the rescue of the young nobles. It didn't feel like a fight to them, and it felt like it had been randomly dropped into the mod. Running at high-level and scaled up for 6 PCs, there were 11 humans - and the party still had them all out cold in one round plus two turns, even without a controller. Most of them were waiting for "The Big Man" to show up (see CORE1-3). I know it was mostly in there for flavor and was intended to be an easy fight, but that one verged on the ridiculous - at high-level, level 1 minions just aren't a threat anymore to any semi-competent adventuring group, no matter how many of them there are.
My commentary from the other side of the screen is mostly stuff I've already seen up here on the boards about this mod. There has been a fair amount of complaining about the lack of setting flavor in modules to date. Heirloom didn't have that problem - in fact, I feel it took it a bit too far back the other way to reasonably fit into the time slot for one module. I could easily have taken them through a full session just on that skill challenge, with all of the RPing information and background details that were there. As it was, I had to push them quickly past a lot of the flavor text just so we could finish at a halfway-decent hour, and I think that's a real shame because the players missed out on a lot of good stuff about the people they were meeting, the places they were walking into, the areas they were in, and the city as a whole. I'm happy that you guys are bringing Waterdeep's character and regional flavor out, but I think you could turn the volume down on that by a few notches, concentrate the flavor text more on a few specific points rather than giving infinite info about everything, and still be clearly "in" Waterdeep.
Overall: We were very happy with this adventure, right up until I pulled out the story awards at the end. I give 4/5 overall - fix the story award issue and it'd be far closer to 5/5. Keep up the good work! I know I'm looking forward to further adventures from our home region.
WATE1-1 Report - Weekly game at our FLGSI'm happy that you guys are bringing Waterdeep's character and regional flavor out, but I think you could turn the volume down on that by a few notches, concentrate the flavor text more on a few specific points rather than giving infinite info about everything, and still be clearly "in" Waterdeep.
I'm not one for big reviews, but this is one of the better adventures I have run or played. Very easy to DM effectively and varied engaging encounters. That last fight was really challenging for a striker-heavy party with no AoE abbilities.
We also intentionally put as much flavor of Waterdeep in the adventure as possible w/o becoming a true travelogue. As stated, if a group is not interested, the DM can leave out details. Limiting information limits options.
We had multiple reasons/considerations for the design/inclusion of Encounter 3. I will share in a spoiler block for those who want to peek behind the curtain.
Enounter 3 of Heirloom
Encounter 3 is intentionally easy; whether that was too easy is a matter of taste. In part, we added E3 to help break up the long skill challenge of E2, in case there was one or two gamers who were bored by the skill challenge, and to keep all gamers/PCs on their toes, using other "skills." We wanted to introduce another noble house or two, that might be used in future adventures. We wanted to footstomp flavor of dock ward, with perspective of danger to nobles (ordinary folks) versus adventurers. We wanted to keep to the overall mix I mentioned at the start of this post. As a first wave LFR adventure which might be the first 4E game a gamer played, we wanted to introduce minions and the rule about knocking creatures unconcious. In a city with reasonably moral laws, usage of the latter rule is helpful.
If a DM does have a tables of players who prefer more combat, less investigation, he can beef up the E3 combat, lowering the challenge level of the E2 skill challenge. Just keep the total xp the same. Inclusion of the E3 combat also made that option easy for a DM to recognize. In that case, the young nobles might have stumbled on some of the information to help point the PCs in the right direction, and they supply it after being rescued.
If a DM does have a tables of players who prefer more combat, less investigation, he can beef up the E3 combat, lowering the challenge level of the E2 skill challenge. Just keep the total xp the same. Inclusion of the E3 combat also made that option easy for a DM to recognize. In that case, the young nobles might have stumbled on some of the information to help point the PCs in the right direction, and they supply it after being rescued.
As it was they had to do some polite talking and were bailed out by the families involved. So for my players it was a good introduction in how to behave in civilized areas, which I think is part of the Waterdeep flavor. It also brought out some roleplaying as the group had various attitudes including one unrepentant killer ("I guess next time I'll subdue them, but I won't be happy about it"), so for me it was a successful inclusion.
