DDEX3-10 Quelling the Horde *Spoilers*

pukunui

Legend
Has anyone run this yet? It *looks* like it would be fun.

Two dozen goblins isn't much of a horde, though, eh?


Also, Agrak's statblock is a mess.

AC: The little halfling guy describes Agrak as wearing metal armor, yet his statblock has him in studded leather. Disregarding that, his AC is still wrong. It should be 20 (12 [studded leather] + 3 Dex + 3 Cha +2 shield).

HP: I'm going to assume that he's meant to be small, not medium, since he has a d6 hit die. Either way, though, the average hit points he's given aren't correct. 11d6 + 18 averages out at 56. If you were to make him medium and up his hit die to a d8, you'd get an average of 67. Where did the 60 come from?

Ability Scores: What's up with his Strength score? I'm assuming that's just a typo and it's meant to be +2.

Proficiency Bonus: It appears they forgot to drop various bonuses by 1 when they reduced his CR from 5 to 4, thus reducing his proficiency bonus from +3 to +2.

  • His skills should be: Deception +5, Intimidation +5, Perception +3, Stealth +5
  • His passive Perception score should be 13
  • The save DC for his spells and Fiendish Charm should be 13
  • His saving throws should be: Str +4, Con +4, Int +3, Cha +5

Anyone else notice how his Redirect Attack reaction has been reworded to work with any ally rather than just another goblin? That's a nice touch, especially since he hasn't got any other goblins with him. He can swap places with his carrion crawler buddy instead!
 
Last edited:

log in or register to remove this ad



Steve_MND

First Post
Has anyone run this yet? It *looks* like it would be fun.

It was fun to run, but I'll be perfectly honest -- I can't realistically agree that this mod is "optimized for a party of five 1st-level characters." At the end of it, all my players agreed that it was a "draining slog" that was more exhausting than fun, and afterward two of them actually asked me about if there is a way to volunteer to help playtest mods before they get released.

Now, I'll admit, they didn't help themselves any with a tactical blunder right near the beginning, but even run as direct from the text without the almost-inevitable alerting of the entire complex along the way, I don't see this as a particularly good mod for 1st level PCs (altho I personally liked the idea and setup).
 

pukunui

Legend
I can't realistically agree that this mod is "optimized for a party of five 1st-level characters."
I think that's a typo. On page 2, in the introduction, it says it's optimized for a party of five 3rd level PCs. There are a few others with this problem as well, like DDEX 3-2 Shackles of Blood.
 

I've found that the easiest way to tell the intended APL is by looking at the min/max xp gained. I discovered it when putting together a spreadsheet of every Expedition and its rewards. 900/1200 seems to be the current going rate for an APL 3 adventure, which is worlds better than the Season 1 model of 450/600 for the same adventure level.

Edit: Also, APL 1 adventures have a much shorter APL Difficulty chart. If the chart has only six lines, then it's an APL 1 adventure. All other adventures have nine lines in their charts.
 
Last edited:

Tyranthraxus

Explorer
THe issue being that a lot of dms wont check for that exp, they will just see the typo and consider it correct. It needs to be corrected in the pdf.
 

Steve_MND

First Post
Fair enough. It was still an exhausting slog, but I'm glad it was just a typo in the APL bit. That should probably be noted in an addendum or something online.
 


Steve_MND

First Post
Did it run in 4 hours? It seems to have a LOT of combat encounters? More than normal.

It ran maybe 4.5 to 5 hours, so I'd say it was around the normal time frame for an AL mod, and the way our group tends to play. That said, once the gang got in the caverns, it was literally a round-by-round slugfest, as they never dropped out of initiative once, due to the close quarters of the cavern system and the unfortunate (but almost inevitable) escape of one guy at the very beginning to alert the rest. Well, I take that back; they did pull back once for a short rest after the got the main objectives out (and even that was deemed risky), but that obviously gave the rest of the bad guys time to shore up defenses in the meantime.

I had created and printed out a full-scale map of the caverns (because I love doing that for mods I run), and despite it being a large complex, it was laid out such that it was nearly more of a tactical scenario assaulting it. Which was fun, and I like that idea, but it really was an exhausting slog from start to finish due for the players, due to there being so much combat in such a restrained space. None of them expressed an interest in running through it a second time with other PCs of theirs, tho, which is a bit of a shame. On the other hand, it is extremely linear in that sense, and is not well-suited to being a 'replay' mod by it's design.
 

Remove ads

Top