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View Full Version : Altering a Mod - Asking for advice from other DMs



Josh the Aspie
2009-06-12, 01:54 AM
In one of the campaigns I'm running, I've started them out using the link-up reasoning in the D&D free module "A Dark and Stormy Knight" found here: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20030530b

As this provided a really good reason for the group to get together. Also, with one exception, each of the characters has some level of prior connection with one of the others, and they all have their own mini-quests to be considered journeyman (or the equivalent) of their profession.

In any case, I am thinking of pulling out some of the low powered magical items, and removing the gold scattered across the throne room floor.

One particular item I'm looking at removing is the kidney belt of lifting, which I think may well be a rather poorly stated item. The other items are more or less reasonable, but I'm not sure I want to include permanent magical items on the first mission, while I can still get some excitement out of giving folks masterwork weapons (which are also included in this module, and the next one that they will see the hook for, and may or may not follow up on).

The module specifically states that the treasure for the rat encounter was spread out else-where, and rats don't normally give any treasure at all, so i'm not to worried about it if the treasure winds up being a -little- weaker.

I'm considering adding some healing potions to the treasure chest, since their only healer is a druid, and I don't want him consigned to the healer role -too- hard.

Any advice from other DMs on what to remove / keep in, and if I even should?

Kol Korran
2009-06-12, 03:45 AM
i dislike that module, but that's another story. zombies don't make good end fights...

about the items: i'd ditch the lifting belt and pearl of power level 0. useless, and more over- boring items. the translator's ring could be interesting if and only if you're actually using languages in the campagin. if so, it could be nice. try flavouring it a bit depdnding on the languages you choose for it. i'd suggest goblin, (which might be used in the adventure to read glyphs on the walls or tomb, learning a bit more about the place) and perhaps celestial or infernal (depending on the gods the people worshiped)

as to the headband of stout heart... meh, i have no opinions. it's nice.

i'd suggest you replace the items, or even some of the treasure either with healing potions, or better yet- a cure light wounds wand with few charges left (get more healing for the same GP). the triggering word might be the answer a riddle in written in goblin on the wand (translator ring coming in handy?)

just my thoughts...
Kol

daggaz
2009-06-12, 04:05 AM
That was the first module (not first game) I ever played, and I remember that stupid kidney belt... its not overpowered. Its Meh. Or quite possibly, The Suck.

Josh the Aspie
2009-06-18, 05:57 PM
Well actually they are headed down the longest corridor first, so the crescendo of danger is actually going to be the one off to the left room. I'm thinking about making the zombie a hobgoblin zombie, and the Vargoul not nerfed.

Instead of having all 4 ancient doors burst at once, they are going to burst at different times. I determined when by rolling dice (10 siders) and having the time between them bursting open equal the difference on the dice, in minutes.

They're built with 36 point buy, and have 5 party members, so I'm experimenting to find the sweat spot when it comes to power. Given that none of them had area effect spells, and most took 'cold' light sources, I probably should not have elevated the rats to a swarm.

As for the belt, I'm not saying it was 'broken good', I'm saying that the belt it's self is the type of magical item I'd rather not introduce into the campaign, and that the editing on the mechanical aspects needed more work.

And no, not goblin in the ring. Why would goblins have a ring that lets them speak their native tongue? I was planning on the languages of other savage tribes besides goblins. Perhaps orc, or draconic (since that's what kobolds speak).

herrhauptmann
2009-06-18, 11:45 PM
Having both played and run this adventure, I'd recommend changing a few of the fights as well. A normal monstrous spider was boring when I ran it, but when I played it, it was a Harpoon Spider or something. Catches you with a thrown web, then reels you in. Much more interesting.

Any sort of undead that isn't mindless would be a far better boss fight. Just remember, if it's a vampire, that you give the party some way of killing it off permanently. Even an evil cleric controlling some undead mooks would be better.

Scrolls, and other limited use magic items as well, depleted wands and the like.

Josh the Aspie
2009-06-19, 02:49 AM
The problem here is that it's an adventure for level 1 characters. Throw a level 1 caster at them AND add in minions, plural? Rather hard to justify, since just a single CR 1 zombie and a CR 1 cleric together make CR 3, and they're all at squishy level 1, and already had some trouble with the rat swarm.

Yes, they have nice classes available, and yes, they have high stat buy, and yes they have 5 members rather than 4, but that doesn't mean facing a CR 3 encounter as a CR1 party is even remotely reasonable.

Edit:

Like I said, I'm thinking of changing the mod around a little to reduce the threat of the zombie, and put a bit more of the "EEEK" into the last encounter with the vargoul by de-nerfing it.

magellan
2009-06-19, 03:12 AM
Hard to justify?
Justify to whom?

Are you trying to tell me you have concience? :smallconfused:

Tsotha-lanti
2009-06-19, 03:29 AM
EL 1-3 is just fine for a party of 1st-levels. EL 4-5 would be getting to that "big boss fight" lethality level. A single CR 3 monster might destroy them, but enough 1- or 2-HD mooks to make an EL 3? Nothing to it.

You're supposed to use EL (Average Level-4) to (AL+2) as regular encounters, and EL (AL+3) to (AL+5) or so as tough or climactic encounters.

And two CR 1 opponents makes EL 2. EL 3 would be a CR 1 (level 1 cleric) and 4 CR ½ (zombies).

Coidzor
2009-06-19, 03:36 AM
A low-level cleric using his rebukes to counteract any turning and acting more as a debuffer (Dooming the party, that sort of thing). If you're worried about CRs... hmm, what's a good way to nerf skeletons/zomblebees to make 'em about equal with a kobold.... Could explain it by them being especially old and decayed before being brought back so they're not the most exemplary of undead base minions. Several decrepit goblin zombies with a handful of HP led by a bugbear necromancer or sommat is going to be more interesting than a single bugbear zombie with 12 hp or whatever....

Maybe have him not fight to the death but try to cast sanctuary and flee into the storm to lose the party(perhaps his treasure is something minor he drops or forgets in his haste to depart rather than die)

Would give you a good hook to lead them wherever you wanted them to go while they followed the tracks this guy left in all of the mud that's started to dry in the wake of him tearing through the sodden soil and ripping it apart...

Or a pissed off ghoul who's found out that the bodies here have become affected by the necrotic taint following him before he could get at them due to being entombed for so long so they've come back as crappy zombies, so when the party shows up he's eager for some real flesh

Or just a pissed off ghoul who they hear cursing and going over the corpse(s) in the tomb proper before they come upon him and he turns slavering upon them.

Another_Poet
2009-06-19, 10:34 AM
My own semi-relevant thoughts...

I recently ran this adventure for some new players. I'd heard good things about it. Yet in my opinion it is not a good dungeon.

The fact that you'll have the doors burst at different times helps, though the big question I had is why are the doors bursting at all? Weird.

But I've read enough of your threads to guess that you can probably dress it up well enough with some homebrew.

To answer your actual question...
Indeed, the kidney belt is lame! And I don't think your party will miss anything by having it and some of the other loot removed. I like the idea of healing potions, but make it into a puzzle of sorts. Have, say 8 potion phials of which 4 contain viable potions, unlabeled of course (the labels are so old and water-damaged they are unreadable). 3 phials are empty or just contain the rotted, corrupted remains of once-magical liquids. And the 8th potion?

I like the idea of making it a Bottle of Change Potion. I threw this into a level 1 adventure once. The PCs can identify it as a potion of some 1st-level (or if you're feeling generous, 2nd-level) spell. But when they pull it out to use it they get a different effect. The phial changes the potion it contains every 12 minutes. It only changes it to other potions of the same spell level, so no free upgrades. It has no effect on non-magical substances, so you can't pour water in there and hope for a potion to come out. If you drink the potion it contains, it effectively does nothing until you pour a new potion in there.

This can behandy because, if you find a potion you don't need in a pile of random loot, you could pour it in and wait for it to change to something useful - if you're willing to babysit it and have a means of telling what it changes into every 12 minutes. It's a fun item for a low level group to mess with.

If you want to be devious, allow it to change potions into any spell of the same level, even spells not normally made into potions, so Inflict potions could come out. Though I think this is a little too much paperwork - easier to just roll randomly on the potion table in he DMG and see what you get.

ap

Josh the Aspie
2009-06-20, 06:38 AM
Why thank you! If my collection of posts on this forum has left a favorable impression, I am glad of it.

Oh! And a reply to an above point I had forgotten to reply too.

Why do the doors shatter? Well because of the thunder in the area. The doors provide a nearly-sealed barrier between 2 different air chambers. The difference in pressure, and the resulting high powered vibrations channeled through the doors, due to the weather in the area has caused them to weaken over time. The tower-keep at the top of the hill has seen far better days, and the storms in the area are one of the major reasons it has fallen into such disrepair in under a century.

I admit that having all 3 doors be very strong after all this time, and thus very resistant to PCs trying to go through them 'too early' is a little jarring. So whichever door went first, I decided was the weakest, and had a glaring weakness in the door when it was examined... a hairline crack had formed in one of the two doors that form the double-doors, and was running from ceiling to floor, likely an underlying flaw in the stone that was worked. When it broke, that crack tore open, and -that- half of the door fell to the ground, bursting apart into large chunks of rock. The lightning strike that caused this is ALSO the strike that sundered open a path for some of the water channels in the eroded hill to flood the warrens the rats had built in the under-ground naturally formed narrow cave passages beneath the grate, thus causing the subsequent rat swarm. The lightning struck the actual hill, thus causing the thunder to be quite violent indeed.

This strike also exacerbated existing flaws in the other two doors, that subsequent less-powerful blasts will shake apart over the course of several minutes. One blast will burst around the locking mechanism of the doors, letting both doors swing with the violence of the thunder-bursts in the area. Another double-door set will have the upper hinge come loose, and have the door be easily pried open at that point (or fall open a minute or two later, if nothing is done to it).

As for why the storms are so violent in the area, as the opening suggested?

Well, there is a large curving mountain range in the area, which frames the area to the south and west, and thus channels the energy of storms to concentrate it's self. There is also a sea one elven forest-kingdom away, thus causing lots of moisture-laden air to come in on the powerful winds that often flow off of seas.

Also, I do believe I will keep the pearl. It many not see much use among more potent casters, but perhaps it was all a certain incompetent that got caught in the spider's nest could afford? I actually plan on using it as a part of a tie in I'd rather not go into to much detail on.

Also, everyone in our 5 person group is either a caster now, or will be eventually. We have a Wizard (me), a Beguiler, a.. Duskblade? Whatever the Gish is from PHBII. We also have a Druid, and a bow-ranger. Our group is heavy on elves, apparently having 3 of them, and a half elf, as well as a single human. It doesn't really make sense to work a spellbook in, or anything that's very druidy (or even any ranged weapons), so I want to have at least some things that will be specifically interesting for casters, item wise, and a 0th level pearl fits well with that. If nothing else, it can be used to give the druid back a healing orizon for an extra point of healing a day.

The belt, however, is going to go, being replaced by an equivalent amount of potions (which I feel the group may well need some of already).

I've already established (due to players asking for more area info and back-ground) that there -used- to be orcs in the area, and that there are now more goblinoids and kobolds in the area... I think having a ring with Orc, and Draconic in it may be thematically appropriate for the area, make sense for why goblins would have it, AND be of use to the group.

The real loot questions, in my mind, are why there is gold just lying around the orc's lair, why there are multiple masterwork weapons (unless I mis-read that somewhere, I know the zombie has one), and WHY the author felt the need to put in treasure to account for the rats, who's monster entry says they have no standard treasure... and at the same time ruin the armor and other weapons on the zombie lieing in state.

This module is DEFINITELY a mixed bag. I really like the idea of Storm-Truce for getting the motley band together, combined with making the Tor with the tower on it a local land mark, which is sometimes used for people to meet up near.

Most of the characters involved have SOME connection to one another, how-ever tenuous, due to back-story, which combined with being alone in a storm, and each having tasks to prove themselves to someone else, makes them working together to explore the ruins not only plausible, some of the characters, at one point, asked 'what are we waiting for!'