Playtesting: The Isle of Dread

Phoenix8008 · Apr 3, 2013

Getting ready to start playtesting the newest packet. Just finished Caves of Chaos and all PC's got to 4th level. Reseting characters to new playtest packet rules (3/20/2013).

For anyone that has already run this adventure recently, do you have any advice on the adventure?

Also a question pertaining to the plans I'm making so far. If the PC's are interested in buying a sailing vessel, what would be an appropriate cost for such a vessel? 500 GP? 1,000 gp? 2,000 GP? What do you think?

jadrax · Apr 3, 2013

I would look at page 7 for the rules and price for a small sailing vessel, and extrapolate from there if you want something larger.

Phoenix8008 · Apr 3, 2013

jadrax said:
I would look at page 7 for the rules and price for a small sailing vessel, and extrapolate from there if you want something larger.

Oops, missed that section. That's a good baseline to start from, thanks.

I'm working in some plot points from the Caves of Chaos to tie these together. Some of the prisoners in the Caves were merchants whose caravan got raided. Amongst the treasure they found in the caves was a book with the journal/map for the Isle of Dread adventure. They are going to escort the merchant down to Specularum (I'm using OD&D world - Kingdom of Karameikos for my setting). From there they can get on a boat to go down to the Isle itself for a share of the profits or whatever. May be able to deal with the pirates who bother commerce around the area since their base is there by the Isle as well. May even be able to bring back some Griffon eggs to let the Order of the Griffon have flying mounts again. One or more of the party members will be under consideration for membership to that group.

I have to get a handle on the exploration rules so I can let them explore and get lost and such.

jamesmanhattan · Apr 3, 2013

I suggest giving them "all" the possible quest hooks and let the players decide what they want to do. Tell them several wealthy sponsors/wizards/nobles from their hometown sent them on this voyage. That also covers the cost of their ship.

While the shipwreck thing, is an absolute classic trope. I wouldn't start with a total uninformed shipwreck and a mission simply to "survive". That gets old quickly. You could still have their ship get wrecked, just with all those missions on top of it.

Kinak · Apr 3, 2013

I think the trick with the Isle of Dread is that it's not actually an adventure, it's really a mini campaign setting.

It definitely sounds like you're on the right track with giving them plenty of hooks.

Depending on your group "open up a trade route" might actually be a far better plothook than the old ship wreck. Some players absolutely love that stuff. And if you want to abandon them, they can actually be left on the island to establish relations with the islanders or explore while the ship goes back with its first load.

You could also have the PCs flat-out paid to map the island (possibly including cataloging its natural resources). That fits very nicely with the new survival rules and easily justifies a thorough hex crawl.

If you go with the island as a plane-hopping location, scholars might be interested in that (both its causes and whatever species its picked up along the way). If you have another adventure lined up for after the Isle, that might be a good way to hook in any sort of planar threat.

Cheers!
Kinak

jadrax · Apr 3, 2013

Kinak said:
You could also have the PCs flat-out paid to map the island (possibly including cataloging its natural resources). That fits very nicely with the new survival rules and easily justifies a thorough hex crawl.

I pretty much did this, with the PCs being paid to map the island as a possible staging post against the forces of Iuz*, only to discover the forces of Iuz had already set up the pirate camp. They also picked up a lot of side quests from various factions on the island.

Overall, it was the the adventure we most enjoyed so far from the playtests.

*we sketched out a kind of Greyhawk world but with different geography as I did not have a map to hand.

Phoenix8008 · Apr 3, 2013

Kinak said:
I think the trick with the Isle of Dread is that it's not actually an adventure, it's really a mini campaign setting.

It definitely sounds like you're on the right track with giving them plenty of hooks.

Depending on your group "open up a trade route" might actually be a far better plothook than the old ship wreck. Some players absolutely love that stuff. And if you want to abandon them, they can actually be left on the island to establish relations with the islanders or explore while the ship goes back with its first load.

You could also have the PCs flat-out paid to map the island (possibly including cataloging its natural resources). That fits very nicely with the new survival rules and easily justifies a thorough hex crawl.

I'm already planning on using these two hooks along with the 'Clear the Pirates' and maybe the 'Hunting Big Game' a little. I had alot of fun tying this back into the Mystara world that I still have some old books for. Since the rules were so old school, the flavor of that world seemed to fit well. Everyone's enjoying the playtest so far at our table.

the Jester · Apr 3, 2013

If you have access to the Savage Tide adventures from the last year or so of Dungeon Magazine's print run, a bunch of them take place on the IoD and would be fairly easy to adapt, if you want to expand the thing.

I have no idea whether there is any sort of compilation of the Savage Tide AP or anything, though. I like to hope so.

Zardnaar · Apr 4, 2013

A sailboat in the expert boxed set cost 2000 gold pieces.

Phoenix8008 · Apr 4, 2013

I've worked up the following for bigger vessels (based on the smaller vessels listed on page 7 of the Isle of Dread module) for the ride from the mainland to the islands:

Medium Sailboat-
Cost 500 gp, can carry up to 25 medium sized passengers plus 2,500 pounds of cargo. Has AC10 and 250 HP, and requires a crew of 5 to sail. Can move 1 hex (6 miles per the Isle of Dread map) of open water in 25 mins and has a tactical speed of 75 ft per round.

Large Sailboat-
Cost 1,000 GP, can carry up to 50 medium sized passengers plus 5,000 pounds of cargo. Has AC10 and 500 HP, and requires a crew of 10 to sail. Can move 1 hex (6 miles per the Isle of Dread map) of open water in 20 mins and has a tactical speed of 100 ft per round.

Playtesting: The Isle of Dread

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