Dungeon Adventure: Heathen

[theria]

Haven't they announced a fully fledged Adventure Path for Dungeon? When will that one start?

According to the Preview section on the site, Dungeon #156, July 2008. First adventure titled, “Rescue at Rivenroar”.

 

[Vanuslux]

Boy, I wish I could get this in print. Are magazines really that unprofitable?

As far as I know, Paizo wasn't having much trouble keeping the mags afloat until WotC yanked them away from them.

 

[thundershot]

This. I don't care for the delve format at all.

That gives me hope for Necromancer's modules, at least.




Chris

 

[Random Axe]

Forgive my ignorance, I'm NOT new, but I have skipped over all of the edition wars discussions so that's where I may be missing something from this discussion. There are a couple of terms used in this thread that I don't get the meaning of.

I've only just surmised that "KotS" stands for Keep on the Shadowfell... but I don't know what that means in terms of the adventure layout. Similarly, I don't know what you mean by a "delve" format.

Can someone fill me in on what the KotS format is vs. the delve format?

 

[Hawke]

The format has to do with where the encounter information is... the older (what I think people are calling delve) format is:

noncombat A1
noncombat A2
noncombat A3
noncombat A4
encounter A1
encounter A2
encounter A3
encounter A4

When you get to the encounter part in Area 1, it'll say "turn to page 34 to run the Lost Soldier encounter." It leads to lots of page flipping.

In Keep on the Shadowfell they shifted to a new format that makes more sense to me:

noncombat A1
encounter A1
noncombat A2
encounter A2
noncombat A3
encounter A3
noncombat A4
encounter A4

So you run through the adventure start to finish. Especially for very much linear adventures like KotS and Heathen I think most people prefer this method. I'm not sure what the benefits of the delve are. Hope that helped!

 

[Glyfair]

As far as I know, Paizo wasn't having much trouble keeping the mags afloat until WotC yanked them away from them.

And Erik has since said that he never wanted to do another magazine again (or similar words indicating a dislike for the hassles involved).

 

[Glyfair]

The delve format wastes space and breaks up the natural flow of the module, which leads to unnecessary page-flipping.

This is a very good point. I love the concept, though. I think it would have been a whole lot better back in the days when you had box sets.

Having the encounter pages on cardstock in a box set would be great. Sort of like the mini-adventures in the City of Greyhawk box set. Have the booklet open to the right page and the encounter card right there.

Of course, with a PDF adventure, that's workable if the PDF is designed right.

The format has to do with where the encounter information is... the older (what I think people are calling delve) format is:

The concept is also to have all the information necessary to run the encounter on one page. Map with starting locations for monsters. Statblocks for all monsters. Details on terrain, illumination and other battlefield conditions, including the effects they have on the encounter.

One thing that a lot of people hate is how it adds more pages to an adventure. For example, if the "kobold minion" is part of 20 encounters than you'll have 20 statblocks for the "kobold minion" in the adventure.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

One thing that a lot of people hate is how it adds more pages to an adventure. For example, if the "kobold minion" is part of 20 encounters than you'll have 20 statblocks for the "kobold minion" in the adventure.

Yes, that's a drawback. But honestly, I rank usability over space. Even if this means it's more expensive.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

One thing that a lot of people hate is how it adds more pages to an adventure. For example, if the "kobold minion" is part of 20 encounters than you'll have 20 statblocks for the "kobold minion" in the adventure.

Pffft.

Whatever happened to having ONE big sheet with ALL the monster stat blocks on it, and then the encounters can just list the which ones are present in any given place. When you print it out, or even just have it open in another window, it eliminates flipping entirely, and also eliminates wasted space.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Pffft.

Whatever happened to having ONE big sheet with ALL the monster stat blocks on it, and then the encounters can just list the which ones are present in any given place. When you print it out, or even just have it open in another window, it eliminates flipping entirely, and also eliminates wasted space.

It died when stat blocks became as large as half a page?
It wasn't revived because there are way more monster types in a single adventure...

That's my guess at the moment... But if you can put all monsters on one sheet (or a double page), and the encounter description (map, setup, tactics, traps) on another page (or double page), things might work out fine.