Let's Write a Bad Module

[Ulrick]

Encounter XX

The PCs are on a ship sailing to find treasure on an island somewhere and suddenly they she a ship and its burning and a they see a green lizard thing jump into the lake and when get go on the ship (the burning one, not the one the PCs are on) they find nothing except way down in the bilge a lizard man attacks them.

Lizard man
AC: 5
HD: 1+1 hp 3 (wounded)
Damage: 2d10 (two-handed greatsword)
Treasure: The lizard man has a bunch of stuff from the burning ship that's worth 10,000gp. Also, if the PCs save the ship from burning (which they can't its too far gone) the ship is worth 30,000gp.

Encounter XX

The PCs are still on their ship after the fight with the lizard man and they are sailing. Suddenly there is a cave and statues come out of the cave to attack them.

Living Statues
AC 0 (Stone)
HD 4, hp 30 can only be hit by +1 or better weapons)
Damage: 1d40 (fists)
------

These encounters actually happened in a campaign I was in way back in high school.
Seriously. The cave just "appeared." The DM said, "Ok, so your sailing away from the burning ship and suddenly there's a cave..."

All the players: What??? We didn't land on the island.

DM: huh? Oh...

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Ba-da-bump.

So, who's up for a 4E conversion PDF?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

No need to do a conversion. Make this thing truly, EPIC bad and just use whatever stats from whatever game you want.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

This adventure needs a few more encounters ... like:

Interlude

As the players are resting after their recent exertions, read the following text aloud:

The air suddenly hums with electricity and you are thrown from your bunks by the shaking of the earth. The light in the night sky suddenly turns a bright blue -- not a soothing, calming cerulean blue with just a touch of green, but instead a frightening, menacing shade of royal blue that is visually indistinguishable from black.

There is a sudden flash of light, and standing before you is a stooped man in red robes and a pointed hat, leaning on a staff. His face is lined and wrinkled, with long white mustaches and a lengthy white beard. An intricately carved pipe hangs from his mouth with just a wisp of smoke curling up.

The wizard smirks and rolls up his sleeves revealing a tattoo of nymphs doing unspeakable things to each other in baths, and a heart with an arrow through it and the name "Mystra". You suddenly find yourselves paralyzed with awe and unable to speak.

"I am Eliminster," he says, "34th level wizard/archmage and the most powerful being on nine planes. I see you are having difficulty rescuing the prince of Hant and princess of Tucem, so I will grant you a boon. Follow the Paths of Fire to the land of the people of Ixt. There you must find the idol of Nonesuch, which when touched to the snout of the Great Flumph King Abraxus the Meek will transport you to the inn on the corner of Ingot Street in Cormyr in which the prince of Hant is hiding."

He motions to his right, and a dark cloaked figure appears and steps forward. "I send with you Tzzird to serve as a guide and steadfast companion in your quest. Listen to him, follow, him, and do exactly as he tells you, and you will succeed in your quest. Stray but a little from this quest and you will fail to the doom of all."

He waves his hands theatrically and teleports away in a flash of light and puff of smoke.

The cloaked figure is Tzzird, a neutral good 12th level drow fighter/barbarian/rogue/ranger who wields two silver scimitars (see NPC stats at the end of the module). Tzzird does not speak or otherwise communicate with the party, but knows the route to the Paths of Fire and the people of Ixt as well as the resting place of the idol of Nonesuch and its guardians. He will lead the party there but stops daily to mope and recite internal monologues.

If attacked Tzzird cannot be defeated, nor can he be captured, tied up, ditched, or otherwise separated from the party, as he will always return with unerring accuracy within four hours.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Thread, you are dead. Attempting resurrection ... resurrection successful!

You are standing in a clearing. You are neither tarrying nor running. Nor are you eating an apple pie, because an orc stole it from you. A winter wolf eyes you suspiciously, as it suspects you stole his apples to make pies.

You suddenly realize that you are in the middle of a tavern. A wizened, cloaked man approaches you and offers you 100 gp plus the AXE OF MORGOSH if you will travel to the city of Sigil and save the multiverse.

Before you can answer, a gnome runs through the common room carrying a small gold idol, pursued by 2d20 kobold warriors armed with hand crossbows and wearing armbands with crooked black symbols on them, shouting "MINE LIEBEN, MINE LIEBEN." The gnome give you a "thumbs up" as he tucks and rolls out the front door.

The wizard has no response, but only gapes politely as he awaits your answer.

 

[evilbob]

So let's see: started in 2005, necro'd in 2006, 2010, 2011, and now 2013? Still, the first page is so awesome, you can't help but be a part of this legacy...

Encouter 203

DM read:

Fade to black. Then back to the players. You are standing with Tzzird in a perfectly circular stone room, 40 feet on a side. Around the room are several mirrors, each of which shows you in slightly different angles. There is a young man sitting at the table, reading a book from the bookshelf. Behind him are two orcs. They are also playing cards. Finally, under the bed, there appear to be 14 different and perfectly unique spoons of various models and craftsmanship, made from several dozen types of materials, intricately carved with fine details covering their every surface.

The spoons and mirrors have no value and are not magical. The young man (level 5, 3 HP, AC 10, attacks include greatsword, 2d6+3, +15 to hit, but the greatsword is currently in another part of the tower) is under a spell placed by the king of the orcs, who cursed him to forever sit there and read a book until someone comes up to him and asks him a question or otherwise distracts him in any way. Do not encourage the players to speak to him. The orcs are uninterested in the players and try to ignore them, unless they are spoken to, in which case they will attack. The orcs have +9 to hiding and will attack from the shadows in the corner of the room. (Orcs: level 9, 13 HP, wearing leather armor, with daggers that are poisoned, 2d4, they both have a deck of cards and thirty three thousand copper pieces.) There are six pieces of art around the room (vases, painting, stencils, etc.) worth exactly 6 gold pieces each. If the young man tells the players about his bookshelf, they must roll (DC 8, 45% chance of failure, spell resistance 10) to disbelieve or be sentenced to the same spell that holds the young man, or a sleep spell (10% chance, rolled on a percentage die only). The young man was placed in this tower by the same wizard that the players met earlier, and unbeknownst to the wizard or the players or the young man, the orcs have also been placed here by the same wizard. He was angry at the young man for following him into the tower in which he currently sits. If the players haven't met the wizard yet, see encounter 68 for more information.

Assuming the players leave the room through the only door without interacting with the man or the orcs, the king of the orcs will appear and force them back into the room with his orcen army, made entirely of kobolds. Two of the kobolds have spears. When they return to the room, the door will be magically locked and unbreakable until the players speak to the young man. After telling them his name, he will leave and then the players will be trapped until they can correctly bargain with the orcs in a game of cards (use real poker cards if you can for effect). The door on the opposite side of the room will open and lead to secret passage J. It is also trapped.

 

[MJS]

I guess its too late for this, but what the hell:

MODULAR ENCOUNTER #47: HOT DOG STAND

You see a shining, metallic cart with an umbrella over the top of it. A portly, somewhat unkempt man in greasy clothes and a paper hat appears to be selling sausages for two coppers apiece.

The hotdog vendor is actually a trickster demi-god. Detect alignment type spells will mirror the caster's alignment. The entire cart radiates magic. Adventurers so bold as to try his wares must roll on the following table:

d6
1: Save vs. Poison or die
2: Save vs. Poison or experience persistent flatulence for 2d10 hours
3: Save vs. Spell or be Geased into becoming a hot dog franchisee
4: Gain 2d4 hitpoints to your base permanently
5: Gain 1 point of Constitution
6: Save vs. Paralysis or choke on hot dog; a companion must perform the Heimlich maneuver or the character dies. The vendor laughs hysterically in either case.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Since we lost the compilation somewhere along the way ... here for the first (second?) time is the entire compilation pdf, fully illustrated in full color, offered for free only to EN World members:

Adventure Module WSD 1: The Axe of Morgosh

Subsequent encounters posted here will populate the sequel ...WSD 2!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I guess its too late for this, but what the hell:

MODULAR ENCOUNTER #47: HOT DOG STAND

You see a shining, metallic cart with an umbrella over the top of it. A portly, somewhat unkempt man in greasy clothes and a paper hat appears to be selling sausages for two coppers apiece.

The hotdog vendor is actually a trickster demi-god. Detect alignment type spells will mirror the caster's alignment. The entire cart radiates magic. Adventurers so bold as to try his wares must roll on the following table:

d6
1: Save vs. Poison or die
2: Save vs. Poison or experience persistent flatulence for 2d10 hours
3: Save vs. Spell or be Geased into becoming a hot dog franchisee
4: Gain 2d4 hitpoints to your base permanently
5: Gain 1 point of Constitution
6: Save vs. Paralysis or choke on hot dog; a companion must perform the Heimlich maneuver or the character dies. The vendor laughs hysterically in either case.

I rolled a 2...

 

[evilbob]

It's just too much fun to not keep going! (This is based on something I read recently...)

Encounter 205b

While exploring the hallway, the PCs happen upon the second room on the left with a giant web. Once they enter the room, a huge spider pounces on them and stings 1d6 of the PCs (at least one PC gets stung). It's a special type of magical spider that cannot be detected or defended against before the first sting, nor can they resist the poison, or avoid it. The poison is impervious to magic or healing and even works on dwarves, constructs, undead, and other creatures normally immune to poison. It does not work on Tzzird, although he falls into a coma for 1d4 months. The poison is slow-acting, and once stung, any PCs affected have exactly two weeks before they will die. Once the spider has finished stinging (hopefully most) of the PCs, it disappears and cannot be followed, traced, scried upon, or otherwise detected ever again, as it has phased into another dimension of which the PCs are forever unaware.

PLEASE NOTE: this is NOT railroading. If you think it is, you're wrong. This is how to instill dramatic purpose in your players. It's an exciting race against time that creates dramatic tension. It's called GOOD ROLE PLAYING, you should look it up. If you think about it as railroading then you're robbing your players of this amazing experience and you're bad at what you're doing.

The rest of the doors in this room are locked and trapped, and covered in more of the same web. There is also a hidden door (level 21, DC 35, resists magical detection, 5% chance to detect) which is also trapped with a dimensional teleport spell that teleports the first 5 people through the hidden door to outside the castle. Behind this room is an invisible wall that cannot be detected with magic, and then above this room is a special extra-dimensional space that can only be accessed from the room below through 8 feet of solid stone that cannot be magically changed or altered. In this room is an old woman sitting in a stool with three legs. She tells the PCs she can give them the antidote to the poison, since she is an old spellcaster. However, first they must collect the following items for her spell:

• 3 tears from a magical owlbear that lives on top of a mountain 150 miles due east
• twelve pieces of a fungus that only grows at the bottom of a special cave 400 miles west of here
• 17 dead orc ears
• the left shoe of the lord of all dragons, Henry MacGuffen, who sleeps at the top of Whispy Mountain (see Map AA)

See encounters 306, 128, and 167 for more information about these locations. Note that the PCs are not allowed any magical transportation since all of these locations are warded against them. Also they can't be scried or flown to, or use horses. Teleporting is right out.

Additionally, after 1d3 days, each infected PC starts to lose 1 point of Strength, permanently. After that they lose 1 point of Dex, and so forth. If the PCs die from the poison, their bodies disintegrate and then their ashes turn into another one of those spiders and they infect 1d6 more PCs before phasing away again, just like before.

Additionally, the wizard at the end of the tower has two doses of antivenom that can protect a PC from being infected in the first place.