HELP! I just volunteered to write a tourney module!

Hi,

I think I might have done something foolish and I need any help I can get. There's a local convention coming up and I (foolishly) agreed to write an adventure for it. I've got a week and a half to put it together and I think I have a good concept. Here's the premise:

"The ancient seer, Illian Kn'dar was renowned for investigating the concept of the First Thought, a theoretical event that gave birth to existence. He disappeared eons ago but the location of his Vault of Contemplation has recently been discovered by a contemporary who has assembled a band of adventurers to travel there and bring back any knowledge contained within."

The vault will contain a combination of encounters and puzzles that players should be able to overcome within the four hour period. The PC races will be drawn from the EPH and a number will have psychic character classes. I think it will make for a very different experience because the EPH isn't in wide play.

What I need help with is how many encounters would make for a good four hour game for four to six 9th level characters?

Also if you have some great psychic encounters or ideas please feel free to throw them my way.

Jack

Jack of Shadows said:

What I need help with is how many encounters would make for a good four hour game for four to six 9th level characters?

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Depending on the level of experience of the players and the size of the encounters, anywhere from one to four fights.

It depends on the number of non hack and slash elements as well. Searching for traps, riddles, etc.

The more monsters you have, the longer the fights. The best way is to plan for four fights of 2 to 6 monsters (EL of the character's level), and then playtest. You'll see how much time you have for other fluff.

EDIT: If the tournament rates RP, then you have even less time for fights.

Andargor

Are you the only one running this, or do you have to give a copy to other people and have them run it as well? If the former, you're probably okay. If the latter, you're screwed and will have a lot of trouble being ready on time.

Why? Because if you're running it yourself, all you REALLY need to have ready are character sheets (which take me about one hour per PC to write properly, when I'm including character background and PC interactions) and several pages of notes for your own use. If you have other people running it too, you have to still have the characters ready, but you have to detail and enumerate the whole plot and all of the monster statistics. That tends to take a long time.

I've done a bunch of these. If you think it'd be useful, we can all use this thread to brainstorm out encounters and plot structure. Then folks can insert stat blocks, and you'll be relatively far along.

Piratecat said:

Are you the only one running this, or do you have to give a copy to other people and have them run it as well? If the former, you're probably okay. If the latter, you're screwed and will have a lot of trouble being ready on time.

Why? Because if you're running it yourself, all you REALLY need to have ready are character sheets (which take me about one hour per PC to write properly, when I'm including character background and PC interactions) and several pages of notes for your own use. If you have other people running it too, you have to still have the characters ready, but you have to detail and enumerate the whole plot and all of the monster statistics. That tends to take a long time.

I've done a bunch of these. If you think it'd be useful, we can all use this thread to brainstorm out encounters and plot structure. Then folks can insert stat blocks, and you'll be relatively far along.

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Regretably,

There will be a number of GM's running the adventure. This the outline as I've got it so far:

- Introduction and narative on Illian Kn'Dar and the Vault of Contemplation.
- Patron transports the party to the Vault where it exists in a pocket dimension of the Astral plane.
- encounter Githyanki raiding group who has just recently discovered the vault but have been unable to breach it.
- "Test of Intellect" - tangram puzzle on the door that grants entry
- encounter large group of Crysmals in a large audience chamber beyond
- an elevator to the next level which is actually a pillar of growing crystal
- an array of meditational chambers with various specimens for contemplation
- encounter Advanced Intellect Devourer (not really sure as I may change it for something else)
- "Test of Insight" - Haven't come up with an idea for this yet. Needs to be something that would test Wisdom in some fashion and not necessarially through game mechanics.
- encounter Psion Killer. Very tough encounter for 9th Lvl party but I'm going to make sure there are at least one or two adamantine weapons in the group.
- "Test of Character" - Final chamber contains the kneeling crystalized form of Illian Kn'Dar behind which stands his massive 6' tall psi crystal. The crystal will congratulate them on reaching this final reliquary and then begin to ask philosphical questions ("Who are you", "Why do you exist", "Why would you know the First Thought", etc...). The test is a basic diplomacy check against the psi crystal's sense motive. The GM will be encouraged to give bonuses for interesting and insightful answers to the questions posed. Characters will be able to continue until they're successful or give up.
- If successful the psi crystal will splinter off a small shard for each character. When grasped the shards give a mindblowing vision of the first act of creation and grant a +2 inherent bonus to the primary stat of their highest character class.

That's what I've got so far. Any help fleshing it out would be greatly appreciated.

Jack

Almost forgot,

Here is the list of pregen'd PC's that I'm considering:

Half Giant Psychic Warrior
Dromite Nomad
Xeph Soulknife
Thrikreen Ranger
Elan Cleric (Mind/Healing Domains)
Maenad Rogue

Jack

My experience writing for Living Greyhawk:

1. You can fit 3 combats in a mid-level mod like this and still have enough time for some non-combat roleplaying and decision-making without too much difficulty. (Note that foes using darkness or blink, battles with large numbers of opponents, etc all reduce the number of combats you can fit into the mod). If you cram and are efficient at keeping the game moving, you can have four combats (as long as a couple are easy (EL=party level) or even five but you will sacrifice non-combat activity to do so.

2. Factor in some time for players to figure out their character sheets if you're using pregens or to evaluate the characters they bring in if you aren't doing that.

3. You can speed things up by offering preprinted initiative cards similar to the ones that come with the Dungeons and Dragons miniatures with the mod. That gives the DM a way to keep track of all the NPCs' abilities at a glance which is very helpful for keeping things moving.

From your outline, I would guess that you'll fill up the whole 4 hour slot and maybe run a little overtime if you're not careful or if you pick a defensive mix of classes for the Githyanki raiding party. An offensive mix of classes will inflict more damage but die sooner and leave more time for the rest of the game.

Do you need to determine a "winner" for each game? If so, be sure to make it very clear how each DM is to do this.

I've ran a few of these and am in the process of writing another. Thankfully, I have until next May to finish (see link in sig)

The main thing I've seen in the "other" local convention that is a problem is the scoring. Try to make the scoring as subjective as possible, with little to no wiggle room for DM caveat. I would suggest objective-based scoring where the team gets points for completing an objective, and no points if they don't complete it. I've found that if you have little "catch-phrases" or similar idiosyncrasies of characters noted either in their background or right on the character sheet, you can award small point rewards (within reason) for each time they act on that idiosyncrasy. This keeps some margin between teams so that if two finish, they won't necessarily have identical scores. (Very important if you are giving out prizes - the tied team that "comes in second" may have some words for you.) I can email you the scoresheet I used for the last tournament, if you like.

Week and a half, eh? Good luck.

WtS

A lot of modules don't require scoring; hopefully, this is one of them.

I agree that three combat encounters is about the right amount, but be aware that a puzzle can dramatically skew the balance; groups tend to either solve such things quickly, or it takes them freakin' forever. I tend to prefer to have two combat encounters and then make a third one optional at the whim of the DM, depending on how quickly the group is progressing.

I've also found that it's a lot of fun to make the combat opponents be role playable as well. Even something as simple as the intellect devourer mentally admiring the juciness of a PC's brain goes a long way towards making the fight memorable.

You may want to reconsider your final scene, as the exciting climax comes with the psion-killer. While gaining an item that adds to a stat is really cool in a continuing game, it really doesn't matter in a convention tournament. (In that same sense, enumerating treasure isn't usually necessary; it never becomes relevant unless you can immediately use it in the game.) Can you create drama or tension with the final crystal entity?

No judging for this one. Just for fun.

I think I will make the Crysmal attack as optional. They're low enough that the party would smash through them fairly quickly.

PCat what if we combined the Psion-Killer battle with the final test. Might add a greater sense of climax if they have to have a philosophical discussion while fighting the thing. Maybe have the walls close in slowly the longer they debate with the thing?

Anyone have any ideas for a Test of Wisdom?

Jack