For reference, it was a six player group. Four at 4th level and two at 5th. Ranger, Warlock, Fighter, Swordmage, Cleric and Wizard. We played the low level version.
First, the good parts. The opening scenes in the Inn and the meeting on Gwynneth were very effective in setting the tone. Lots of soft roleplay and engaging descriptions. I appreciated the instructions given for how to run the Gwynneth island mood. It left my players nervous and excited. Everyone was expecting things to jump out at them at any moment. The suspense and relief generated by getting through without incident was more fun for them than many of the more forgettable combats have been in previous modules.
Second, the Ogres on Oman made for what everyone agreed was the most epic and memorable encounter of any adventure yet played. A really well balanced encounter that challenged all my players. All the players were bloodied at one point or another, and everyone but the Warlock and Wizard went down at least once. However, even during the worst of the battle it never felt unbalanced or hopeless. That said, I would strongly recommend that this adventure NEVER be played up by a low level party. Unless the DM has consistently crappy luck or is fudging every second roll, you will be looking at several dead PCs, if not a TPK.
Finally, the battles on Moray were fun and interesting. The unusual terrain options sold them as much as anything else. However, the Ogres were the real high point of the module and everything after that was a little anticlimactic.
I think future modules can learn a lot from this one. By not breaking up the XP budget into a half dozen forgettable encounters and resisting the urge to turn every bit of interaction into tiny skill challenges this was a more effective adventure. Instead, it used the vast share of the XP budget on two memorable encounters and one smaller but well thought out battle to bridge them. It made my players feel like heroes instead of pest control.
Now, my one large problem with this module is the use of diseases in the final encounter. Why the final encounter? In a module where extended rests are built into it and diseases have the chance to be meaningful, why put them in the one encounter that makes them meaningless?
Also, I think the final encounter would have been stronger if it had used a few higher higher level minions and monsters instead of the horde of low level ones. Frankly, level one minions just don't cut it at this point, no matter how many of them there are. The +6 to hit means that 17s are needed to hit my front line players, the 3 damage is almost meaningless and the AC 15 means that they all die in the first round, almost regardless of what the players roll.
Finally, the optional bear encounter at the end is cute but a little unlikely. Between the Ogres and the wererats/wolf encounter with the hoard of enemies in it, I can't see many groups having the time if they are sticking to the planned 4 hours.
So, really fun module. Highly recommended. Should be played with care by striker heavy or healer light groups.
Combat: ****
Plot: **'
Roleplaying Food: ****
Regional Flavour: ***
Rewards: ****
Overall: ****
Thrall or Food?: Thrall
1. Ahh, a storm. And another storm. How many contrived ways can we come up with to ensure that no party ever ever ever gets an extended rest. Yeah, writer's guidelines, blah blah blah. But seriously, it's pretty tired by now and is only getting more annoying.
2. More island hopping. Encounter 1 on this island. Encounter 2 on that island. Let's see if we can predict what will happen on island number 3. Any more signposting and we could have filled a dorm room.
On the other hand, I didn't have any problem at all with the use of low-level minions. Since the job of a minion is to die and to make characters with autodamage or area damage think that they are useful, I don't think it matters much if they need to roll a 15 to hit with Combat Advantage. (That's about the situation PCs are in in the standard goblin hexer mod). Also, after having played Luru 1-2 last night and had all of the monsters hit my battle cleric on a roll of a 4 or higher, it would be nice to see a foe that can actually miss for a change. The whole "PCs only hit if they roll well, monsters hit every time no matter what (unless you are a paladin with +2 plate, a shield of faith power bonus to your AC and a heavy shield)" math that seems to be the hallmark of LFR is rather tiresome.
Also, after having played Luru 1-2 last night and had all of the monsters hit my battle cleric on a roll of a 4 or higher, it would be nice to see a foe that can actually miss for a change.
The attack rolls of opponents depends on their level. The level of the monsters in LURU1-2 is more or less equal to the level of the adventure and hence this is not an effect of LFR, but of 4E D&D. Either you are having a too low AC for a battle cleric (in which case you shoud probably invest feats in armor proficiency, again, not an effect of LFR, but of 4E), you are overreacting, you are constantly playing up or a mix of the above.
The highlight for me was the tie back to MOON1-1. I hope more of the upper-tier adventures will have references back to major plotlines, even when they are just sub-plots in the background.
Kudos to the authors (or DM empowerment) for
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having the ogres attack us as we brought barrels to fill water because they thought WE were the poisoners! This theme of poisoning in the region was very well received at our table!
The attack rolls of opponents depends on their level. The level of the monsters in LURU1-2 is more or less equal to the level of the adventure and hence this is not an effect of LFR, but of 4E D&D. Either you are having a too low AC for a battle cleric (in which case you shoud probably invest feats in armor proficiency, again, not an effect of LFR, but of 4E), you are overreacting, you are constantly playing up or a mix of the above.
Gee, comment on the side that it's ok for monsters to miss every now and then and you're in for a world of snark apparently. With a side of "your character build probably sucks and you're doing it to yourself." I'm quite well aware of the math in 4th edition, and I have taken steps to protect my character (scale armor proficiency, and, at times, shield of faith, veteran's armor action point bonus, etc (actually, at the time the monsters were hitting on a 4, I had shield of faith going). And yes I was playing up. (Though, in theory, that should only increase the monsters chance to hit by 10%). But back off with the "4th edition works perfectly, therefore your experience is wrong or you suck" crap.
I'm not saying that it was unbalanced. I'm not even criticising Luru 1-2. I thought it was a good mod and enjoyed playing it. However the monsters hitting regularly IS a function of default LFR encounter design which is generally keyed to using monsters of the party's level or higher. (Sure, that is 4th edition, but LFR writers do not have to write default 4th edition encounters any more than LG writers had to write every encounter with one monster). Since the topic of conversation was Moon 1-2 going a little bit outside the box and using lower level monsters in some encounters, I think it's perfectly legitimate to say that I appreciate that element of the encounter design.
But my original point in my MOON thoughts came from my experience that encounters built using hordes of low level creatures, while technically level appropriate, does not really present much challenge. Also, battles involving lots and lots of monsters take longer to run. I felt that the final MOON battle was pushing a little too close to that territory for my taste. My problem is not so much that the monsters were missing, it was that they would never hit. If a monster is going to have 0 net impact in a battle, one way or another, it seems to me like there could be better ways to use that bit of the XP budget.
In any event, I know that when I played Moon 1-2 the first time, the minions landed one or two smacks in the surprise round and were then cleared out by a combination of the artificer's wall, swordbursts, and the howling hag's shriek, so I did not actually know that they were level 1 minions until reading it here. (The second time I played through, we were a four character table so it was only the lycanthropes--losing the howling hag made a huge difference in the challenge of that encounter.) The higher level creatures in that encounter provided plenty of difficulty and the regeneration on the bad guys combined with aura damage from the hag, rather than the number of minions were what made the combat last a long time.
Well, even playing up, the highest attack bonus in LURU1-2 is +14, with most in the +8 to +10 range. That means that either your AC is 18 or lower, there are circumstances that are not being shared or your DM was screwing around like nobody's business.
But my original point in my MOON thoughts came from my experience that encounters built using hordes of low level creatures, while technically level appropriate, does not really present much challenge. Also, battles involving lots and lots of monsters take longer to run. I felt that the final MOON battle was pushing a little too close to that territory for my taste. My problem is not so much that the monsters were missing, it was that they would never hit. If a monster is going to have 0 net impact in a battle, one way or another, it seems to me like there could be better ways to use that bit of the XP budget.
We had:
level 5 Warforged Warlock (Hexforged)
level 5 Tiefling Bard (Cunning)
level 4 Dragonborn Paladin (Balanced)
level 4 Eladrin Warlord (tactical)
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The Ogre was frequently doing 40+ damage a round. Our warlord opened with a lead the attack (which hit!) on the big elite ogre. We spent the rest of the fight beating on it. At one point the warlock got in a good position to unload with help of the Warlord. 24 AC from shadowwalk and etheral stride with 40/56 HP and 5 temps. 2 Swings from the Ogre, a crit and a 17 on the die. 47 damage and down went the warlock. The Warlord was heal checked out of unconsciousness by the bard once and then stabilized the second time he went down. Eventually we got through the ogre but it used an incredible amount of resources and almost killed us all. After that the rest of the adventure seemed trivial.
The Ogre was frequently doing 40+ damage a round. Our warlord opened with a lead the attack (which hit!) on the big elite ogre. We spent the rest of the fight beating on it. At one point the warlock got in a good position to unload with help of the Warlord. 24 AC from shadowwalk and etheral stride with 40/56 HP and 5 temps. 2 Swings from the Ogre, a crit and a 17 on the die. 47 damage and down went the warlock. The Warlord was heal checked out of unconsciousness by the bard once and then stabilized the second time he went down. Eventually we got through the ogre but it used an incredible amount of resources and almost killed us all. After that the rest of the adventure seemed trivial.
My main beef was that the really cool parts of the mod, where we thought players really wanted to be involved
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(Help the boat through the storm, escape from the giants)
I haven't read the mod, but the DM has played everything else straight. He did mention something about a ritual that improved the monsters in the final fight (because one of the hobgoblins escaped from the first battle) and I know that they had combat advantage for at least several of the attacks, but my AC of 23 (lvl 5, +1 veteran's scale (with action point bonus) and Shield of Fatih) was getting smacked on a 4. (It was the evistroi though--maybe everything else had lower attack bonuses).
Hobgoblins escaping? Evistroi? Doesn't sound like LURU1-2, but more like
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IMPI1-2
Hobgoblins escaping? Evistroi? Doesn't sound like LURU1-2, but more likeShowIMPI1-2