HS1 - The Slaying Stone - my poor reviewing skills review

I read through Cairn of the Winter King. While I think it's a serviceable adventure, it doesn't feel like a mini-sandbox like how The Slaying Stone or Reavers of Harkenwold feel. It gets points for some "ooooh! aaaah!" moments, for presenting the danger in media res, and for advocating for more roleplay, but in the final analysis it feels basically a linear adventure. Because the adventure seems fun, I hesitate to call it a "railroad" - I think "roller coaster" would be a better term (but, ultimately, they're both things that follow a predetermined track).

Looking over The Slaying Stone and Reavers of Harkenwold, I don't think they present a completely wide open sandbox. Indeed, for the most part I feel the strengths of these two adventures are at selling a living scenario. They do this by presenting some (honestly limited) choice and having lots of little maps. For some reason, these maps are just great at suggesting a living world and other angles of attack (even if those things aren't spell out explicitly in the adventure).

For example, Reavers basically has four parts. They only have two options for the first part. Whichever one they do, they attract the attention of a major NPC which leads to the next part. Then there's a battle to defend a town (frankly, these kinds of encounters need more work to feel like they are part of a larger battle, but at least the adventure gives some idea of strategies that PCs can do). Finally, there's an infiltration scenario. The point is, Reavers doesn't actually have a lot of branching choices. But it just feels more open, less obviously a rail-road.

I'm hoping to run this shortly, and I've been cooking up little adjustments:

- In the opening encounter, the wolves are replaced with iron defenders gone haywire (keep stats, but use the cover image). As it turns out, the Slaying Stones weren't the only magical weapon out of Kiris Dahn. The city had quite a few arcane weapons that went missing or were taken away by fleeing citizens, so the outskirts of Kiris Dahn is prowled by runaway constructs, or even a living spell. This also foreshadows the use of constructs by the kobolds.

- The kobolds are more arcane-minded than average. They take their trap-making to the level of tinkering, and often make arcane traps. I also made them stockier.

I'm running my players through HS1 at the mo, see sig.

I added a secret (sorta) magic item and ritual construction site beneath the Kiris library, this was home to Tyristys (the leader of the place- a half-elf), Treona and Dreus. I added a dungeon version of Stick in the Mud (see my sig for better explanation and nice maps et al) the Chaos Scar Adventure below. The PCs had a secondary quest to investigate the area from Treona.

I've tried to run the town as a dynamic environment, the Severed Eye Orcs arriving on the first evening while the PCs sat and shivered (after a dangerous river-crossing) in an abandoned farm house- keeping watch. Of course they only found out it was the Severed Eye a little later on, anyway take a look if you're interested.

I'm going to be using several of the NPCs from the town for most of the PCs Heroic tier action- I've got a massive city wide adventure for the PCs next- locating Dreus, with Treona as Patron again.

The PCs don't know anything about Tyristys, so please don't give the game away here (in this thread), unless you really have to.

Good luck.

Cheers Goonalan.

PS Read Cairn of the Winter King today, some nice points but mostly... middle of the road, slightly disappointing in fact, particularly in comparison to Reavers which I'm going to be using (Levelled up considerably) soon also.

Hey i'm running my first game as a DM with this adventure we have done two 3 hour game sessions they are all new to d&d but i've played 3.5, they are currently clearing out the kobold slums but i have some questions that i will put into the spoiler thing
[sblock] My players are a group of three so only three characters but at least one of them gets knocked out During an encounter sometimes two. They consist of an Avenger a Bard and a Fighter. I wanted to give them a new member and thought the iron defender in encounter 6: unearthed pets but i didn't know if you could re-imprint an active iron defender or if it is too much to give to them. Any advice? [/sblock]

Well... [sblock]
I gave them a skill challenge to figure out how to control the Iron Defender and put it into various modes (defend me, guard area, detection mode). They had limited control over the beast and repair was tricky to do as well. Minor action burned to instruct it with a control box if I am remembering right.[/sblock]

Are you scaling the encounters any for only 3 players?

yeah as best as i can, reducing damage a little and some hit points, we play this friday

I think you are going to need to remove a couple standard monster worth of critter from each encounter. Otherwise the PCs may be out of their league, moreso in in the tougher fights... See DMG 31.

Other options include allying the PCs with one or two NPCs or Companion Characters. DMG2 has some good advice on small groups.

alright i was thinking of giving them a 4th member but didn't know what to give them so i thought that maybe a monster turned ally would even it out

It probably would, depending on the level of the monster. I think things like this are fun in stories. I'd say try it and if it seems too unbalancing, have the monster have some problem that causes it to be less effective. What you don't want is the companion to outshine the party.

[sblock]The iron defenders are lvl 3 soldiers with 47 hp, 18ac, and do 1d8 +3 damage so i was thinking that after the fight they had damaged it so badly that it's hit points are reduced to 37 and maybe reduce the ac by 1, and i would only let the bard imprint it. i also wanted to know how you would scale back the Ankheg for a three man party? [/sblock]