Well I DM’ed two and half more sessions of The Forgotten Portal adventure. I should have blogged after one session but I forgot to. Oh well. In case you have no idea what’s going on, the short story is that my players have to get through a dungeon to kill some guy, save a village, and maybe get some stuff in the process. You can read the previous entries if you’re interested in things like the plot.

What amazes me is how quickly they were able to progress through the second half of the adventure. It took four sessions to get through the first half and only two sessions to get through the second half. That’s a big change. Part of it could be the group being able to assemble and start quickly. Another factor is the fact that the challenges they faced included puzzles as well as combat. Combat always has the chance to just drag on an on. Puzzles, even when there’s errors, tend to not take too long.

And I made my share of errors, believe you me. I didn’t pre-read the adventure closely right before I ran it. When you’re running an adventure that is heavy on the puzzles, you need to pre-read it to understand all the details about it. I didn’t, so I had problems understanding what the characters had to do as well as telling them the information that they needed to know. That really was a pothole on the road to adventure.

I also had some problems running the combats oddly enough. I just have trouble keeping track of all the different modifiers and “fiddley” bit. However, when it comes to board gaming, I enjoy complex games with lots of fiddley bits. I play Agricola and Le Harve for Gygax’s sake! Why can’t I run a 4E combat?!? I don’t know. Maybe it could be because when I DM, I can’t focus on just the game mechanics. I have to focus on a bunch of other things during a session (you know, like that plot). I don’t get every detail but I like to imagine that I get close enough for jazz.

Even though running the adventure has some bumps along the way, it also had it’s share of cool, fun stuff. Highlights include players finding their characters prone on the ceiling, accidentally pulling the correct chain (instead of one triggering a trap) on a suicide attempt, and a Princess’ Bride reference. “The game” encounter really stands out to me since it really benefits from 4th Edition focus on tactical movement. The final battle was fun too. I got to throw a bunch of hell Panthers right around the defenders and on the party bard. I managed to get that bard to spend eight healing surges in that battle alone. Have you ever had an encounter where anyone spent eight healing surges? Yet they managed to win even though there was only four of them. They are (mostly) good optimizers.

Now that I’m done Dming for the moment, I’ll turn over the reigns to my friend. This campaign was originally his and I bet he’s ready to step behind the screen again. He plans on starting things over by having everyone write up new 7th level characters. I wrote up a hybrid Paladin/Warlord and I think she’ll turn out to be a good character. Expect a blog post detailing her backstory some time in the future (if I don’t forget to do it).

MichaelSomething

Karl, the guy who owns and runs my FLGS, The Games Keep, future greatest gaming store in America, has agreed to do a cameo role as the Great Eagle Lord during the next session of my D&D campaign. To make sure he knows what’s he talking about, I’m making him a handout that explains the general situation. Here it is.

1. You will be playing the role of The Eagle Lord, or the spirit of the Eagle Lord to be exact. You have come to the material plane to advise the party. I’ll be playing the roll of the great Blessed Bird, your animal companion. I’ll play a supporting role to fill in details or take over when you need to deal with customers.

2. Your general history (as well as the village’s) is told below. Feel free to re-tell this to the Party if you want to.
Long ago the people of the land worshipped devils and made sacrifices of blood in order to appease them. One day, a great warrior named Karl The Eagle Lord left his home village. He spent many years searching for a way to defeat the devils and stop the blood sacrifices. After countless adventures and trials, he found a great blessed bird. With the aid of the blessed bird, Karl returned to his homeland and defeated the devils. From one blessed bird came many others and from them a great age of peace and prosperity came to the land.

3. Be sure to explain that it will be up to the party to protect and guide the last blessed bird. The party is destined undergo a series to trials and challenges that will test them in order for the last blessed bird to ascend to the higher level of being required to stop the devils and save the day. As this point, I plan on having the egg they’re carrying hatch. Ask the party to name the bird then.

4. You need to tell the party that they need to go explore the lower areas of the temple and go through “The Nine Trials.” They are nine rooms of traps, challenges, and puzzle that simulate the very challenges the Eagle Lord himself had to overcome so long ago. They need to gather a feather from each of the trials because it may be useful later. Also, the traps have been made more lethal.

5. The party needs to find Tlacocelot and stop his reign of terror by any means possible. After he is foiled, it will become clear what needs to be done next.

6. If the party offers you the +2 Javelin with your name on it freely, act very glad to have it back. Ask them to place it in your tomb. The tomb will open when you command it to be so. You will also reward them for their kind action. I’ll handle that part.

7. Last but not least, you are (the spirit of a) 30th level super epic ranger. You are totally awesome. Feel free to play that up as much as you want.

After meeting the Eagle Lord, they'll gain access to a new epic destiny, The Eagle Lord.
　
The Eagle Lord

There is no such thing as impossible. I’m proof of that.
Karl the Eagle Lord

Prerequisites: 21st Level

The legendary Eagle Lord, great father of the blessed bird, conqueror of the devils, he who has triumphed over the gods themselves. All know of his adventures and of his greatness. Some say his deeds were great there could never be another Eagle Lord. You are proof that they are wrong.
You will walk the steps that The Eagle Lord once walked. You will undertake the same trails that The Eagle Lord once undertook. If you defeat all the challenges that lay before and give rise to the next great blessed bird, you can become the next Eagle Lord.

Immortality?

After you pass the trails of the gods, give rise to the next great blessed bird, cleanse the land of devils, and triumph over darkness, you will become the New Eagle Lord. For the rest of your living days, you will rule over the people, starting a new age of peace. Your kingdom could be as small as a village or as grand an empire. When your final day has come, you will not simply die. You will ascend to the heavens; to your rightful place among the court of the Gods.

Eagle Lord Features
All Eagle Lords have the following features.

Flight of the Blessed Bird (21st level): You and up to four of your allies can ride upon the Blessed Bird. It can travel up to 1,000 miles a day and can take you to a different plane once a day.

Rise Above the Challenge (24th level): Whenever you engage in a skill challenge, you automatically start with two successes.

Talons of The Eagle Lord (30th Level): Twice per day as a free action, you may spend a healing surge to treat the result of a d20 you just rolled as a 20 instead of gaining hit points. If you use this feature for a daily power, you spend two healing surges instead of one.

Eagle Lord Powers

Song of the Blessed Bird Eagle Lord Utility 26
You call upon the Blessed Bird to aid you in this challenge.
Daily Conjuration
Minor Action
Effect: You call upon the Blessed Bird. It appears in an adjacent space. The Blessed Bird is not affected by attacks and can move 5 squares on your turn. Once per round, an adjacent ally may do one of the following as a free action: take an extra move action this turn, spend a healing surge, re-roll a d20 roll, or gain a +4 power bonus to all defenses until the end of his next turn.


Oh yeah, I forgot to mention this material is for my next session of DMing "The Forgotten Portal" adventure. 　

MichaelSomething

Between playing in three different D&D campaigns and my new soul-sucking job, I haven't found the time and energy to blog. Even though I should be sleeping right now I want to at least do something. Since I'm too tired to do crazy, I guess I just amaze you with more tales of my DMing.

In a previous blog post, I stated that I was gonna run Dungeon Crawl Classics 58: The Forgotten Portal. After three sessions, I ran my players through about a third of the module. If it really does take 9 sessions to run, I would have paid $1.77 per session's worth of material. What a great deal! Of course, they might finish it sooner so it might change the total cost per session. I'll inform you all of the final cost per session when's it's done. Spoiler: it'll still be a great deal.

Of course, killing three characters (and writing up/getting used to two new characters) tends to slow things down a great deal. Jack99 was right; some of those combats do need tweaking. Elite Soldiers that are five levels above the party are almost impossible to hit. They can also singlehandly kill 3 PCs in one fight. Certain powers and good tactics would have allowed them to win without anyone dying but you can't always count on that. Luckily, my group has an entire backup squad of PCs so we were able to get through that.

After my player group goes through this adventure, I want to write a detailed review/E-companion/advice/etc. for the adventure. So what do I do in the meantime? Well I can always mine Level Up for material to use. I can't wait to throw a monster with the "Hell Beast" Templete at them I also plan to run the little adventure in it called "The Hill Giant Thane" after they complete this module. I can also screw around with custom treasure. I'm including things called "upgrade crystals" which convert certain level 2 items into level 7 items. It basically means I'm upgrading some +1 items into +2 items.

It turns out that I really didn't have a problem adjusting the story of the module to fit within the campaign. Subtract x and add y and it's all good. It was a lot easier since a friend and I were taking turns DMing this campaign. He had a great set up that was simple for me to follow up on. I will quickly explain the story so far:

Long ago the people of the land worshipped devils and made sacrifices of blood in order to appease them. One day, a great warrior named Karl The Eagle Lord left his home village. He spent many years searching for a way to defeat the devils and stop the blood sacrifices. After countless adventures and trials, he found a great blessed bird. With the aid of the blessed bird, Karl returned to his homeland and defeated the devils. From one blessed bird came many others and from them a great age of peace and propersity came to the land.

But nothing lasts forever. The darken hand of the devils raise again. With the blessed birds nearly wiped out and those in power becoming corrupted by the devils, a new age of blood seems to be at hand. The world's only hope is a band of heros. With the last blessed bird in tow, they search for a way to strike back at the darkness. Their search has lead them to the home village of the Eagle Lord. There they must enter an anceint temple and defeat a corrupted priest. What dangers will they face? Will they survive the challenge? Will the temple hold the key to victory or will it become their graves?

MichaelSomething

Thanks in part to Jack99's (the one with the "got milk" avatar) Ultra Short Reviews and amazing conquinentence, I'll be DMing Dungeon Crawl Classic Number 58: The Forgotten Portal in a few weeks.

There has literally been a perfect series of events leading up to this. The campaign I'll be DMing for is has just hit 4th level and it takes place in an ancient South American type area. The Forgotten Portal is a 4th level adventure that takes place in a South American type area! Isn't that perfect! Buying this adventure also allowed me to support my FLGS and a third party company, plus use a gift certificate. I got like a dozen good reasons to buy and run this adventure!

There is one bad reason to not run it. I'm gonna need to change it a bit to fit in the campaign. You see, there’s a corrupt chancellor who allied with devils, killed the emperor, and framed the party for it. Despite the fact that it fit conveniently into one sentence, it’s a major twist in the story and the beginning of a major arch. Well, the first thing to do would be look at the adventure.

*SPIOLER ALERT FOR THE ADVENTURE! DON'T READ THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPHS IF YOU DON'T WANT IT SPOILED! I WARNED YOU!*

The Forgotten Portal story can be boiled down to several points:
1. Long ago the great hero Cuauhcuhtli when on an epic level quest to bring a good spirit to his village and stop blood sacrifices.
2. Hard times have fallen on the village. The new high priest Tlacocelot restarts the blood sacrifices to save the village.
3. A lamia steps out from The Forgotten Portal pretending to be an owl goddess. She tricks Tlacocelot, takes away the good spirit, and leaves. Now the evil spirit is in control.
4. The PC find silver weapons and are believed to be heroes of prophecy. They are tasked with entering the temple and defeating Tlacocelot and saving the village.

Now how am I gonna polymerize these two things together? Time to brianstorm. Well, there are devils. I suppose putting them in the adventure would work. Putting something related to the chancellor would be good too. The simple thing to do would be include devils in the history somehow. So rewriting the plot points would be...

1. Long ago the great hero Cuauhcuhtli when on an epic level quest to save his village from devils and end the blood sacrifices that they required from the village.

In the original adventure, Cuauhcuhtli when on his epic level quest to bring a good dragon spirit to balance out the evil dragon spirit (more or less). I simply changed the end goal to defeating the devils. The part about blood sacrifices does not need to be changed.

2. Hard times have fallen on the village. The new high priest Tlacocelot restarts the blood sacrifices to regain the devils' favor and save the village.

In the original adventure, Tlacocelot restarted the blood sacrifices to gain the favor of the evil dragon spirit. This was the simply matter of changing evil dragon spirit to devil.

3. A powerful devil appears and recruits Tlacocelot to their cause.

Once again, it’s a simple matter of replacing something with a devil. But there are now other things to consider. Now I have to think about the two Dragon spirits. Originally, the village started with an evil dragon that required blood sacrifices to ensure that the village was safe. Cuauhcuhtli ended the blood sacrifices by going on an epic quest and bringing in a good dragon to balance out the bad one. Do I want to keep the dragons in the story or not? I really don’t know. It could go either way. I’ll think about it later.

4. The PC find siliver weapons and are believed to be heroes of prophecy. They are tasked with entering the temple and defeating Tlacocelot and saving the village.

This won’t change too much either. It’s still a dungeon after all.

Another thing I need to do is to put the PCs on the path to this adventure. Now how am I gonna do that? Well one of the PCs made a really good religion check so I can use that to push the PCs there. The religion check result can reveal the village and some info about the great hero Cuauhcuhtli. That should be good enough.

Two other things I need to think about are the dragons and the portal. The nature of the portal itself is designed as segway to the next adventure. I guess I can leave it for later. I have no idea what to do about the dragons. I might just skip the dragons and put in a devil to fight instead. I could also link the dragons to the gameworld somehow with a bit of effort. If I think of a solution I’ll be sure to blog it later. Man, I sure do have a lot of unresolved subjects lately.

MichaelSomething

I just got back from running my first session of 4th Edition. More truthfully, I ran my first session a few days ago and I wrote this over multiple days. Anyways, I'm gonna tell you about it now.

Yesterday Ryan the DM told me that he wasn't ready to run the upcoming session. I told him if he couldn't run, I would be willing to run something for a session. I decided to run the adventure "Challenge of Champions 6" from Dungeon #138. I wanted to do something different from the normal hack 'n slash and this is different. The whole adventure is a bunch of puzzles basically.

Preparing for the adventure was tough. You do need at least 3 hours to really prepare for this. For one thing, this is a 3.5 adventure and this group switched over to 4th Edition. That means I had to convert some 3.5 skill checks over to 4th edition. It's not impossible but it is inconvenient. Seriously, how do you convert a "Use Rope" check to 4th?

Another factor was the need for handouts. You need to print out at least 4 things to get by but printing up to 10 pages of stuff would be helpful. The pictures you need to print out for the handouts from the magazine are small too. That means you'll need to scan them and enlarge them if you want full page print outs; unless you like smaller handouts. Are full page printouts of the maps and stuff available on paizo's website? I hope there are. It would have made running the adventure a lot easier if it was there ready to print out.

The last factor that made it difficult to run was that the adventure uses a bunch of obscure spells and items from 3.5. I had no idea that there were "Ring Gates" in the 3.5 DMG. That means you'll have to either know a bunch of obscure stuff from 3.5 or have the time to learn/memorize the information. I didn't know the stuff and I didn't take the time to learn it either. I know I should have studied it more but I spent the time playing video games instead. Hey, what can I say; I like video games :P. I'm not sure if I should blame myself for not doing the studying required or the adventure/system for requiring me to do the studying in the first place.

Running the adventure itself didn't turn out as well as I hoped. Not being prepared enough tends to make things tougher to run. If I prepared things well, I could have added some roleplaying in the form of mingling with other adventuring groups or have them interact more with all the proctors. I was too busy mentally with running the mechanics to think too much about that.

I don't think the players liked too much either. Two of them were more interested in fighting monsters then in solving puzzles. Another ended up browsing Magic cards. And yet another player (Ryan the DM whom I was substituting for that night) became frustrated by the interpretation of rules/wording. It became clear that this wasn't working out. For one, the group is too large for an adventure like this. There were six PCs and that's just too many. If it was a three or four player group, it would be a better fit for the adventure. The second factor was that some of them just wanted to kills some monsters. Everyone gets that feeling once and a while so I can understand it.

Since I'm at least a non-moronic DM, I threw in some combat encounters into the mix in order mix things up between puzzles and because I know that they would want at least one fight. The party consisted of Six level three PCs. There were 3 strikers, 2 defenders, 1 controller and no leaders. Not having a leader was not a big a problem as I thought it would be.

For the first battle, I threw 6 Terra Cotta Warriors at them. Well, really I threw 6 Iron Defenders form page 17 of the "Treasure of Talon Pass" adventure from Free RPG Day. I changed a few powers and described them as Terra Cotta Warriors by saying that they lost their shields when they became bloodied. The party won the battle without too much trouble. It would have been harder but Enrique Jrs' character has the ability to gain temp HP whenever he got hit. I'm gonna have to look up that combo myself in the future.

I was only planning that combat for the session but it became clear that a second combat would be needed. I quickly thumbed through the Monster Manual to create another combat. I turned to the back pages where they organized all the monsters by level and role. I turned to the Ooze page and it turns out that both the elite oozes together would be a level-appropriate encounter. The PCs also won that battle without too much trouble. I did manage to engulf 3 of them in one of the oozes and drop a PC via ongoing damage.

I thought the combats may have been too easy for them. However, the battles where just at their level and I wasn't running the monsters optimally (I figured oozes and summoned constructs wouldn't use advanced tactics anyway). I was also told that the Party used all of their powers so that another reason they did well.
When it comes to running 4th Edition encounter, I guess I would have to try out the system some more before I can really say if it's good or bad from a DM's standpoint. It can be a pain to keep track of all the different conditions flying around. This can be made easier by the use of status cards that you can give players when they receive different conditions. I wonder why no one made this type of product for 4th Edition yet? One bright point is that I managed to run both encounters without looking at the DMG or MM. I don't even own those books! I literally grabbed the MM and created the Ooze fight after less then a minute of looking through it. Would that be a good thing or a bad thing? I guess it depends on whom you ask.

I would also like to recommend you buy the 4th Edition Dungeon Master's Screen by Wizards of the Coast. It's full of useful information that makes running things easier! Buy it if you plan on DMing 4th Edition for the long term (or the short term even).

The session may not have turned out as well as I expected it would but I will get another chance in the future. I did learn some lessons and I plan to use them to be a better DM for my friends. The next time I'm DMing, I want to use the "Murder in Oakbridge" adventure from Dungeon #129. Then again, maybe I'm better off using a video game for inspiration. I think I'll sit the Party down and someone say this to them for an adventure: "Ninjas have kidnapped the President. Are you a Bad enough Dude to rescue the President?"

MichaelSomething