Wrote an adventure, need feedback!

[Sander]

Hey all!

To preface this post: Hvis du er en af mine spillere (E, Siggi, Simon, Soeron, Andreas) så kig lige væk, ikke?

Now that that's out of the way... It's my turn to DM our group's next adventure, and as such I've made one and written it down. It's neither amazing nor actually 100% finished (missing at least 1 fight's mechanics and monsters as well as treasure for the final encounter), but I'd appreciate any and all feedback and/or ideas you might come up with.

I'm no stranger to DM'ing, with varying degrees of succes, but you can always learn something new and the way DM imagines things might not be readily apparent to outsiders or players, thus... I need your help!

Thanks in advance!

Edit: Forgot to link the damn thing... It's here
https://drive.google.com/open?id=16qBa1s7iQa_ciezPKrE8qzn-t75dadwa

Disclaimer: This is not intended for commercial purposes, and, for an example, the images are shamelessly stolen from, well... somewhere, not sure. It's just for my own sake, maybe for player illustration.

[Highfeather]

Fair warning: I am not a DM or a player with much practical experience, so do take my opinions with a grain of salt. Or an entire saltmine, depending on taste.

Anyway, as I'm not a DM I will not comment on the story itself, but I'll take a quick look at mechanics. I'll mostly be mentioning my points of criticism, hoping you'll find them useful.
First up is the Prosperity's Influence environmental danger. I like the general idea, but I'm a bit confused about the mechanics. I do like the (low) attack roll vs Will mechanic as opposed to a saving throw, as this will make a significant difference regarding who is likely to be affected. However - how are you planning on making sure they never notice the effect? It sounds like you mean 'they will never know what causes the effects', because it's impossible for a player to not know about their -2 to attack rolls and the ongoing damage/daze penalty. And on that note, if you want this to be a serious threat, I feel like the -2 to attacks is a more severe penalty than the ongoing damage and daze. Certain characters really aren't affected by daze, and the ongoing damage is likely to be effectively ignorable for almost every character at the Paragon tier.
Moreover, you can increase the extent of the effects, but do give a countermeasure to figure it all out. It sucks being the one guy in the BBEG fight that is effectively taken out of the fight.

...and on that note, I'll get to the monster and encounter design, which is by far the biggest problem. You seem to have two 'solo'-style encounters planned, which generally do not work as they will just get bursted down by the players. Firstly, the stats for your monsters seem to be based on the 'old' math system - I would instead look at Monster Manual 3 and the two Monster Vaults for monsters (or use guidelines like the "MM3 on a business card" thingy that people have made).

The BBEG (Hathag) is probably dead nearly instantly in her first form. Her Charming Kiss takes two attack rolls to do -anything-, she's nearly entirely single target and has zero preventative measures against getting locked down by any controller (or really, defender) showing up at the party. Stuff like Dominate really needs to be used sparingly, but with this being single-target and the general weakness of her first form, I'm fine with that one. I can't say I'm a fan of her replacement in her second form though. 'Uses an encounter attack power of their choice' feels really weird. They're likely to have already gotten rid of them all on her first form (unless she's bursted down too quickly), and even if not the good ones are going to be gone, so it won't do much. A lot of encounter attack powers are also friendly or otherwise incompatible, so what are they supposed to do in that situation? And even in the best case scenario for you, the Wizard is going to take the Barbarian's Storm of Blades and get downed instantly, or die in case of a crit on any of the rolls. That's not going to be fun for anybody.

The Shipwreck Golem has even bigger issues. The Resist 10 can be very annoying for a lot of characters, even multiattack Strikers, but in general this thing as a solo encounter is still going to be bursted down quickly. Its attacks taking two Standard Actions is dreadful, even with the Action Point, and +15 vs. AC is probably not going to hit the broad side of a barn with a level 15 monster. Monsters pretty much never have daily powers, and the targeting on Cannonball is very odd. Is that a Ranged attack? If so, all targets in the 'straight line of 5 squares' except for the first are going to have cover against the attack, since an ally is going to be in front of them. The speed stat is also clearly not expressed in squares like it should, at least I hope so.

The Bandits have the same speed issue, and somehow - as level 8 monsters - have the same vs. AC attack bonus as the level 15 Golem up above, which is not how monster scaling works. Furthermore, this goes for all monsters, you technically do need to specific who the valid targets of a power are (creatures/enemies) to see if the attacks are friendly or not.

In general, most monsters seem to be made for a different edition and then haphazardly converted to 4e without a care. These encounters are very unlikely to be challenging or much fun for your average level 13 party. I would recommend looking through the DMG1&2 as well as Monster Manual 3 and the Monster Vaults for encounter and monster building advice, or perhaps somebody here that has more experience with DMing could give a more considerate answer, as I don't have any experience with solos as encounters and would probably look into adding more monsters to the encounters.

Again, sorry for the possibly harsh and likely uninformative reply since I don't offer much advice aside from reading a few later books, but I hope it has been useful anyhow. ;.;

[Beoric]

You list of story arcs looks like the players are just along for the ride, and aren't likely to have much impact on the area outside of what you have scripted. Its really more of a story outline than an adventure environment. You might want to consider loosening it up, and giving the players more agency.

"Prosperity's Infuence" seems like kind of a gotcha, since players receive no clues as to how to avoid, cure or mitigate it, or what might be causing it. Its also pretty debilitating considering the whole party is exposed to it. I think it would be more interesting if it was linked to player choices in some fashion, and if there were clues or items available to deal with it. You might want to consider toning it down, or using a disease mechanic so characters have a chance of experiencing reduced effects.

The Temple map is much better than you usually see in 4e, with lots of loops to give the party different approaches. Some secret doors would be nice. If it is to scale, those squares had better be pretty big if you want room for combat.

The temple key I'm not sure about. I'm assuming there are things to fight other than Rethah and Hathag, but its not clear. Also, have some rooms with interesting things for the characters to mess around with: look a the "tricks" in the Hack & Slash Trick and Trap Index (http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.com/p/trick-trap-index.html).

Any major NPC that is not a flat-out enemy should have something they have or can do that can help the PCs, a reason not to do that thing, and something they want (or don't want to happen) that can be used by the PCs to convince/pressure the NPC into helping. This encourages interaction and helps you to run a convincing character.

I'm assuming you are going to develop the city more since the expectation is that the PCs will spend a few days there. A focus on interactivity (as opposed to using scenes that PCs passively observe, or interact with only in a predetermined manner) is good. I usually think of the sorts of establishments the party is likely to want to frequent and make one or more interactive NPCs for each. Every location should have one or more NPCs, and every NPC should have one of more locations. For bonus points, give the NPCs relationships with other NPCs which can cause problems or be leveraged by the PCs. You don't need a lot (I always overdo it), but will seem like a lot if everything you do have is gameable.

My $0.02.

[sakuuya]

I took a crack at remaking Hathag with an eye to Highfeather's comments. I used the official monster builder, so all the math should be post-MM3 appropriate, with one exception: Each phase has only half of the HP typical for a level 15 solo. That was intentional, but it might work out to a too-short fight for each form, despite the measures I took to stop her from going down immediately. I'm torn about it.

Basically, my edits were to (a) fix the math for a post-MM3 world, (b) allow her to recover from status effects more easily, and (c) make her a multi-target threat by adding multi-target and minor-action attacks. All while hopefully not making her too much more complex to run. (She is, admittedly, a little more complex, mostly just because she can do more stuff per turn now.) I added more detailed notes below, so you can see my thought process and better decide whether the individual changes are worth implementing.

Here's her first phase:


http://i.imgur.com/OyTqOkv.jpg


Invictus: This is a pretty normal "stop the boss monster from getting stunlocked in the corner" type of ability. I took some of the bite out of the nastiest condition (stunned) in a way that hopefully won't make a player with a stun power feel like they totally wasted it. Note also that she's immune to charm--it felt thematically appropriate for her one immunity, but if you have a player with a lot of charm powers, maybe remove that bit.
Radiant Whip: I gave this an explicit range, made it radiant (it's right there in the name!) and added a pull. Note the "may" on the pull, though: She shouldn't be pulling everyone willy-nilly. The point of having a pull is to get a target in close enough for Charming Kiss.
The Whip Hand: Standard solo multi-attack.
Captivating Beauty: Aside from upping the damage considerably, I gave this one an explicit frequency, which it didn't originally have.
Charming Kiss: The big change here is that this is a minor action now, because a solo should be able to do multiple things on her turn. Despite the action change, it didn't seem necessary to alter it from being at-will because of the stipulation about only affecting one creature at a time. If you're worried about it, you could always add a sustain minor, so at least she wouldn't be able to dominate anyone at the same time.
Dominate: This one did need to be less than at-will, particularly since I lowered its action cost.
Domination: The duration's a little wonky, since Hathag's not using it on her own turn, but bloodying is a good excuse to give a monster, particularly a solo, some off-turn firepower. You could replace Dominate with Captivating Beauty or even The Whip Hand, removing the recharge language in the latter case.


Onto phase 2!


http://i.imgur.com/43Ut74M.jpg


Invictus: Same as above!
Furious Aura: I like giving boss monsters autodamage auras. It makes them more threatening to multiple targets with zero effort on my part. I don't think one would have fit with Hathag's first phase, but I think it does here.
Spine Whip: I gave it a range boost (as well as preserved the damage boost from the original version) compared to Radiant Whip, and got rid of the radiant descriptor. It can't pull the whole distance, but that's fine--she doesn't need anyone to be adjacent to her in this form. She should be pulling people into her aura, though.
The Whip Hand: The only thing of interest here is that I took out the "against different targets" language from Radiant Whip; mechanically, the point of that is to allow her to focus fire on whoever broke her disguise.
Fiendish Charge: I allowed this to be an at-will because, since I added the Whip Hand, it's no longer a strictly superior use of a standard action--honestly, it might be a little weak in comparison, in which case you should bump the damage up a d10 or two. I also made it so the initial movement does not provoke AoOs, to help stop her from getting shut down by movement-impeding defenders. Oh, and I increased the damage to the secondary targets, because 1d12 is basically nothing by the time a party is fighting level 15 opponents.
Forbidden Beauty: This one didn't have a frequency listed in the original, but blinding is pretty nasty, so I gave it a high recharge.
Forced Betrayal: I think Highfeather is right that allowing the target to pick their encounter power leads to some wonky interactions, so I simplified it down to a MBA/RBA and equivalent, Hathag's choice. I also changed the movement to a forced slide to prevent the target from moving themself somewhere inaccessible.
Gates of Hell: Maybe I missed something, but I don't actually know what level party this adventure is for? Assuming it's lowish Paragon, though, CR 6 monsters aren't gonna present much of an obstacle, so I replaced them with (one fewer) CR 11 chain devils, from the Monster Vault. That should be adjusted based on what level the party actually is, but I think the sweet spot is probably somewhere between party level -2 and party level +0, depending on how close they are to level 15. Make sure that whatever you end up using is a monster from MM3 or one of the Monster Vaults, though, for math reasons.
Beautiful and Terrible: Just like in her first form, I'm just using bloodied as an excuse for off-turn action.


I hope that's helpful! If you want .monster files for these versions of her, I can post 'em.

[AslanC]

I am at work right now, but I will take a look when I get home tonight!

So this is sort of a subscription post to follow this one :)