Cracks in the Crimson Cage

[NexH]

Disclaimer: the following may contain spoilers for the Living Forgotten Realms adventure EPIC 3-2 "Cracks in the Crimson Cage".







Just finished reading the second Living Forgotten Realms epic adventure, found here Living Forgotten Realms
I'm very impressed with its quality, and I'm looking forward to EPIC 3-3 and beyond. Although I do not use Forgotten Realms, the adventure was, as EPIC 3-1, a great source of inspiration for adventure and encounter building.

Some interesting mechanics:

*Fatigue points. So far I have been improvising resource loss for uninteresting battles and arduous (but not central) journeys, but I think I will implement this system from now on.
*Various kinds of "Dual skill checks", where success depends on the sum of two skill checks.
*Group checks were those who failed may face individual consequences.
*Great terrain effects and hazards.
*The hybrid skill challenge-abstract combat.

The environmental descriptions and dangers of Carceri are very useful for future reference, and I hope to find similar things for the Demonweb.
The design notes on some of the monsters also prove interesting to read, and the monsters themselves were very good.


So, given this positive appraisal, I wanted to raise awareness of this adventure to all DMs; I think it would be a pity to miss the chance to at least flip through it for inspiration.

 

[Riastlin]

Thanks for the link! I would XP you but I have to spread the love first, hopefully somebody can cover for me. I will definitely check this out first chance I get as we certainly need all the epic resources we can get at this point.

 

[keterys]

Extremely happy to hear you liked it! If anyone has any questions, I'll be happy to answer them.

It was a surprising amount of work (at least surprising to me), but I was extraordinarily glad that Dave Kay let me do so many "new" mechanics on the stuff I worked on. That's pretty much my favorite part of working on D&D - tinkering around

That and I hoped that anyone interested in Carceri, or epic D&D in general, might find it useful, and not just people playing LFR at epic.

 

[Aegeri]

If anything demands new mechanics, it's an epic tier adventure and you did a fantastic job given what limitations you probably had. I do note that some of my comments are routinely justified in these adventures: Variable resistance on demons being replaced is just common sense by epic tier IMO.

Then again, the wendigo (demons) in my own heroic campaign have yet to have a single use out of variable resistance (but soon it will be replaced!).

In any event, you did an absolutely fantastic job. Out of curiosity, did you write the other epic tier adventure?

 

[Prism]

Variable resistance on demons being replaced is just common sense by epic tier IMO.

I'm interested to know how effective variable resistance is at epic? Does it become less useful? Our party is about to go epic and i can see demons being a fairly standard opponent

 

[Aegeri]

I'm interested to know how effective variable resistance is at epic? Does it become less useful? Our party is about to go epic and i can see demons being a fairly standard opponent

It's useless for three reasons:

1) It's applied after the damage that triggered it, meaning it can't be used on the damage type that hit it in the first place.

2) Most PCs who are specialists just ignore resistance anyway.

3) Many PCs use energy types that it can't cover, such as radiant and so it won't bother them very much.

However thanks to the wonderful Demonomicon - which you should buy if you like demons - you can replace it for an astounding number of really good flavorful replacements. These pretty much make all demons more effective at various roles and removes a pretty useless power overall.

 

[Prism]

It's useless for three reasons:

1) It's applied after the damage that triggered it, meaning it can't be used on the damage type that hit it in the first place.

2) Most PCs who are specialists just ignore resistance anyway.

3) Many PCs use energy types that it can't cover, such as radiant and so it won't bother them very much.

However thanks to the wonderful Demonomicon - which you should buy if you like demons - you can replace it for an astounding number of really good flavorful replacements. These pretty much make all demons more effective at various roles and removes a pretty useless power overall.

Cheers for that. We have recently discussed 1) and decided to allow variable resistance to act as a free interupt rather than reaction. The rules seem pretty loose here so we went with a stronger option. I didnt know about the alternate options in the Demonomicon....great stuff

 

[Aegeri]

Yeah, I am personally going to change variable resistance to apply immediately and reduce damage, then provide damage resistance equal to the amount of damage reduced. This means that those features that ignore damage resistance fail to function (because the initial DR is not resistance, it's a function of the power). They will ignore the resistance on subsequent attacks, but now the "resistance" will actually make a difference. It means that demons are appropriately harder to hurt with energy attacks and gives them some use out of multiple uses of it.

Right now all variable resistance does is encourage a fighter with a flaming weapon to turn it off.

 

[keterys]

If anything demands new mechanics, it's an epic tier adventure and you did a fantastic job given what limitations you probably had.

Heh, yeah - I definitely do a much greater level of customization in my own games than I was allowed here. All for good reasons, though, I suppose - and they really gave us a lot more leeway than they do for their normal adventures I think.

I do note that some of my comments are routinely justified in these adventures: Variable resistance on demons being replaced is just common sense by epic tier IMO.

Honestly, I never liked the power - it's a boring defensive ability that slows the fight. I love the more chaotic and carnage options available since Demonomicon.

In any event, you did an absolutely fantastic job. Out of curiosity, did you write the other epic tier adventure?

I did not, though I'm good friends with both of the authors, as well as one of the authors for EPIC3-3. I'll likely be working on EPIC4-1, though less than I did for EPIC3-2.

 

[Herschel]

Great thread topic.

Alas, I will not be reading it at least for a while in case I have a chance to play it first. I don't like reading modules before I play them, if possible. It spoils the surprise and excitement for me.