Eyes of the lich queen advice. [Eberron, 3.5, Spoiler]

[Kol Korran]

so, our regular DM might take a break in a few more weeks, and the party asked me to run an adventure for them.
one option is RHoD of which i heard many good things (especially due to Aslan Cross detailed campaign journal)
but i just got the Eyes of the lich queen module. my players never realy heard of Eberron. i was wondering of the forumites experiences with it and advice.

my thoughts so far:
1) i like the part with the young black dragons and the hatches. though i fear a character might find an early death by trying to follow one, and then getting stuck along with them both.
2) the second part of the adventure felt a bit "railroad"y to me... especially the part with dreadhold, when only one way in is suggested. i think i might try to give more options.
3) the undead whale thing should be fun and memorable. the ring of fire encounter feels utterly out of place.
4) the last part of the adventure, traveling to argonessen feels iffy to me. the dragon's involvement in all of this feels out of place, just an excuse to run over to "dragonland" and fight a dragon. i highly think of replacing it somehow. perhaps with other, powerfull agents of Vol? maybe have the characters have to infiltrate Atur, the city of night? maybe Vol is served by some fiend instead? a Rakshasa?
5) why the Godslayer? isn't a dragon enough of a capstone? like the wrath of tiamat in RHoD, i just don't really see it's purpose, other than raising the likelyihood of a player's death.

so playgrounders... thoughts, critics, ideas?
Kol.

[RebelRogue]

I've DM'ed it for a group of friends, but we only got to part 2 before ending the campaign (well, technically we never did, but I doubt we'll continue playing that scenario). The part with the young black dragons turned out to be one of the funniest, most action-packed combat scene I've played in D&D 3.5, I think. Somehow that just worked extremely well, especially with stressing the players with closing the secret doors in the wells while them climbing down there and so on. Good times.

As for that animated whale, make sure to inform any Cleric player of the changed turn undead mechanic for that encounter. I tried to hint at it to the cleric PC and he didn't really realize it until it was too late (the sorcerer PC mistaking the Emerald Claw cleric for an arcane caster did fare well either: I killed him outright with her Death domain ability )

As mentioned, we never got too far, but it still felt pretty railroady before the last parts. But if your players aren't hellbent on taking things in a totally different direction you should be fine. Conversely, allow them some freedom in the way they approach things and you should do fine.

Regarding the trip to Argonessen, I think it's appropiate inasfar as this module has a "travelogue of cool Eberron places" feel to it. But I see no problem in you tweaking stuff to better fit your idea of what the adventure should be.

[AslanCross]

Hey, thanks for the plug. :) I also own the module, but I had one of my players (Kikkeni's player as she was the only one who has the managerial skills to do it) DM it with me as a player so here are my thoughts:

so, our regular DM might take a break in a few more weeks, and the party asked me to run an adventure for them.
one option is RHoD of which i heard many good things (especially due to Aslan Cross detailed campaign journal)
but i just got the Eyes of the lich queen module. my players never realy heard of Eberron. i was wondering of the forumites experiences with it and advice.

In general it's kinda fun. I've only played until the first chapter's end, so I can't vouch for the rest, but I think it offers some interesting and memorable scenarios.

The first encounter, with the poison dusk ambush, is more dangerous than it sounds. The swordsage and ranger in the party got poisoned and lost most of their strength. Thankfully I was playing a warforged, but between Adamantine body and the difficult terrain, I could barely move. :P

my thoughts so far:
1) i like the part with the young black dragons and the hatches. though i fear a character might find an early death by trying to follow one, and then getting stuck along with them both.

The DM didn't really get to run it this way. I think she said we made enough of a ruckus to provoke them to take a look, but eventually we took the fight to them by jumping down the hole. (After standing around the well rather stupidly for a while and figuring how to get down without right killing ourselves.)

2) the second part of the adventure felt a bit "railroad"y to me... especially the part with dreadhold, when only one way in is suggested. i think i might try to give more options.

I think it makes sense for a high-security Alcatraz to have only one way in. The PCs COULD try to get arrested themselves (in Baldur's Gate II, in the part where you had to enter the Spellhold Asylum in order to rescue your sister, convincing the wizards you were insane and getting yourselves committed was ONE way of getting in), or otherwise pose in disguises---say, escorting a prisoner or delivering food. Those are typical ways of getting into a prison. The problem now is getting out. At least the Laughing Lady provides an easy egress.

3) the undead whale thing should be fun and memorable. the ring of fire encounter feels utterly out of place.

Haven't gotten to that point yet, but wasn't the crashed airship with the fire elemental an important plot point anyway? I thought the players were pretty much searching for it. The undead orca does sound pretty awesome.

4) the last part of the adventure, traveling to argonessen feels iffy to me. the dragon's involvement in all of this feels out of place, just an excuse to run over to "dragonland" and fight a dragon. i highly think of replacing it somehow. perhaps with other, powerfull agents of Vol? maybe have the characters have to infiltrate Atur, the city of night? maybe Vol is served by some fiend instead? a Rakshasa?

1. Given the complex nature of intrigue in Eberron, I don't think it's a stretch. After all, it is an Age of Demons artifact that the Chamber wants.

2. I thought the premise was that Vol WANTS the artifacts. For practically all of the adventure, Team Rocket the Emerald Claw was trying to get their hands on the artifacts and failing. The adventure's going to have to turn out pretty differently if you're going to have the PCs go after Vol's HQ.

3. If you're going to change the last part, you're going to have to change Sur'Kil's identity as well---or at least have the person who captures him be pretty darn strong.

4. I thought the idea of fighting a dragon on top of an orrery overlooking a battlefield with raging barbarians was pretty awesome.

5. I also like the idea of traveling a lot. It's one thing that I rarely get to run in D&D, and running all over the place is IMO kinda cool.

5) why the Godslayer? isn't a dragon enough of a capstone? like the wrath of tiamat in RHoD, i just don't really see it's purpose, other than raising the likelyihood of a player's death.

You're right about the Godslayer, though. I always thought it was pretty anticlimactic to have THAT be the power of the Dragon's Eye made manifest. You could instead merge the two encounters to make it trickier, or even superpower the blue dragon instead as a result of gaining the Dragon's Eye's power.

As for the Wrath of Tiamat in RHoD, watch out for what I'm going to do with it.