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Advice for Caves of Chaos/B2
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<blockquote data-quote="Man in the Funny Hat" data-source="post: 7287076" data-attributes="member: 32740"><p>As suggested - it is boring, repetitious, even tedious. That really needs to be taken as a challenge to both the DM and the PC's. For starters, it's a good module for TEACHING the game. It's small combats, one after another after another. The players cannot help but learn how combat works, what dice to roll, when, and why. They start learning the tactics their PC's will need. Almost certainly they will learn that the game will chew up and spit out lots of PC's until the players get smart and the PC's get lucky with rolls.</p><p></p><p>The NPC's they find and free along the way will provide roleplay interactions both in the caves themselves where the DM will need to provide details and background for those PC's, as well as tag-alongs for the party to equip and use in their explorations and rewards and more NPC contacts back at the keep.</p><p></p><p>For players who already know the mechanics of the game they should NOT find it boring in simply slogging through one room at a time ad nauseum but opportunity to try new tactics and strategies ("Let's <em>burn</em> them out!" or "Is it possible to flood the caves?" or "We should just go in there with all the henchmen we can scrounge and take it on all at once," or "Let's just wait til group X goes raiding, sneak in and STEAL the loot, then trap the bejeebers out of the the place to thin them out when they come back... and THEN go in and clear the rest," or whatever plans they come up with.</p><p></p><p>It's a good module for the DM to connect to other, later adventures where some individual or group was bribing, threatening, and/or tricking all the occupants to establish bases in the caves and start raiding the area. It can connect to slavers, simple bandit bands, drow, giants, or a new evil cult of your own devising.</p><p></p><p>Another idea is to spread the caves out across a much larger area. Don't have them all stuffed in one box canyon. Make it a string of different caves along the hills. Still another idea is to connect the caves together so section A leads into section B leads into section C and so on, with new routes to the surface also being discovered as they penetrate deeper underground. Either way, the PC's need not SLOG through the module but can come back and delve a bit further down or farther from the keep, take out the next set of higher HD monsters, and then <em>do something else</em> for a bit rather than just keep going back again and again and again until everything's dead. That's where those rescued NPC's can come in handy - in providing hooks to other quests and adventures. If the PC's rescued a merchant and get him back to the keep have him hire the PC's to escort his next shipment of goods to/from the keep and then use the NEXT group of humanoids from the module as raiders who attack the caravan. PC's score the same xp, gather the same loot either from what the humanoids brought with them or when the PC's return to the caves and loot the now-empty/depleted section of cave.</p><p></p><p>You can move the PC's faster through the adventure as written by having the various humanoids LEAVE occasionally to go raiding leaving fewer of their group behind for the PC's to fight. When they return to find their fellow orcs/hobgoblins/kobolds slaughtered and treasure looted they pull up stakes and leave. PC's might not get the XP for killing and looting everything but progress through the adventure would be faster.</p><p></p><p>The module AS WRITTEN is indeed dull, but that is almost the thing that makes it attractive - you can do a LOT of things with it that Gygax never thought of beyond just bullheadedly charge into it until it's empty or the PC's TPK.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Man in the Funny Hat, post: 7287076, member: 32740"] As suggested - it is boring, repetitious, even tedious. That really needs to be taken as a challenge to both the DM and the PC's. For starters, it's a good module for TEACHING the game. It's small combats, one after another after another. The players cannot help but learn how combat works, what dice to roll, when, and why. They start learning the tactics their PC's will need. Almost certainly they will learn that the game will chew up and spit out lots of PC's until the players get smart and the PC's get lucky with rolls. The NPC's they find and free along the way will provide roleplay interactions both in the caves themselves where the DM will need to provide details and background for those PC's, as well as tag-alongs for the party to equip and use in their explorations and rewards and more NPC contacts back at the keep. For players who already know the mechanics of the game they should NOT find it boring in simply slogging through one room at a time ad nauseum but opportunity to try new tactics and strategies ("Let's [I]burn[/I] them out!" or "Is it possible to flood the caves?" or "We should just go in there with all the henchmen we can scrounge and take it on all at once," or "Let's just wait til group X goes raiding, sneak in and STEAL the loot, then trap the bejeebers out of the the place to thin them out when they come back... and THEN go in and clear the rest," or whatever plans they come up with. It's a good module for the DM to connect to other, later adventures where some individual or group was bribing, threatening, and/or tricking all the occupants to establish bases in the caves and start raiding the area. It can connect to slavers, simple bandit bands, drow, giants, or a new evil cult of your own devising. Another idea is to spread the caves out across a much larger area. Don't have them all stuffed in one box canyon. Make it a string of different caves along the hills. Still another idea is to connect the caves together so section A leads into section B leads into section C and so on, with new routes to the surface also being discovered as they penetrate deeper underground. Either way, the PC's need not SLOG through the module but can come back and delve a bit further down or farther from the keep, take out the next set of higher HD monsters, and then [I]do something else[/I] for a bit rather than just keep going back again and again and again until everything's dead. That's where those rescued NPC's can come in handy - in providing hooks to other quests and adventures. If the PC's rescued a merchant and get him back to the keep have him hire the PC's to escort his next shipment of goods to/from the keep and then use the NEXT group of humanoids from the module as raiders who attack the caravan. PC's score the same xp, gather the same loot either from what the humanoids brought with them or when the PC's return to the caves and loot the now-empty/depleted section of cave. You can move the PC's faster through the adventure as written by having the various humanoids LEAVE occasionally to go raiding leaving fewer of their group behind for the PC's to fight. When they return to find their fellow orcs/hobgoblins/kobolds slaughtered and treasure looted they pull up stakes and leave. PC's might not get the XP for killing and looting everything but progress through the adventure would be faster. The module AS WRITTEN is indeed dull, but that is almost the thing that makes it attractive - you can do a LOT of things with it that Gygax never thought of beyond just bullheadedly charge into it until it's empty or the PC's TPK. [/QUOTE]
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