P1 King of the Trollhaunt Warrens - Fantastic!

[Shroomy]

I did find one flaw with the module:
[sblock]You fight Skalmad 4 times. You also fight him twice in a row at the end. That's just ridiculous.[/sblock]

I don't have the adventure in front of me, but:

[sblock]I only remember two combats with Skalmad in the adventure, once with his retinue in the corridor, and the second in his throne room, where he escapes into the Feywild. The final combat at the end was with Vard (who possessed Skalmad). And while both of the encounters with Skalmad occurred in the Great Warren (and are presented in that part of the adventure), I thought the adventure intended for the PCs to leave the Great Warrens after the first battle and return to Moonstair to help repulse the invasion.[/sblock]

Am I totally misremembering the adventure?

 

[Rechan]

I'm curious as to why you'd think that fighting the main villain multiple times is a bad thing. I can understand why you'd think fighting himis a bad thing, but I can't see why the first is bad.

I don't have the adventure in front of me, but:

[sblock]I only remember two combats with Skalmad in the adventure, once with his retinue in the corridor, and the second in his throne room, where he escapes into the Feywild. The final combat at the end was with Vard (who possessed Skalmad). And while both of the encounters with Skalmad occurred in the Great Warren (and are presented in that part of the adventure), I thought the adventure intended for the PCs to leave the Great Warrens after the first battle and return to Moonstair to help repulse the invasion.[/sblock]

Am I totally misremembering the adventure?

[sblock]You are remembering correctly. Although 1) The PCs might not go help the invasion. (Hey, it could happen.) 2) I was counting Vard as "Fight with Skalmad #3".

To answer you, Little Raven, it didn't sit right with me. My main objection is the "Fight Vard twice, one right after another", which I find lame. I just am suspicious some groups would get more irritated than enthusiastic about battling Skalmad/Vard on multiple occasions. Especially if they manage to kill him twice. It might come across as Dues Ex Machina.[/sblock]

 

[MerricB]

[sblock]To answer you, Little Raven, it didn't sit right with me. My main objection is the "Fight Vard twice, one right after another", which I find lame. I just am suspicious some groups would get more irritated than enthusiastic about battling Skalmad/Vard on multiple occasions. Especially if they manage to kill him twice. It might come across as Dues Ex Machina.[/sblock]

Doesn't bother me at all: it is really all part of the mythic feel of the adventure, especially driving home the threat you're facing.

It's a very good example of "show, don't tell".

It's not "there's this terrible threat out there you have to stop", it's actually making the PCs experience the terrible threat. And the PCs should get the explanation when they return to town.

Cheers!

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I think it's an easy convert, but that's mainly because I just throw out the monster stats and put in the stats from the older editions. (I do exactly the same thing with Castle Zagyg for C&C/1e->4e conversion). Conceptually the encounters can be run as written. Balance-wise, may give more problems. Just pay attention and you should be fine.

Cheers!

Thanks for that mate. Think I'll give it a look see, might fit into my current campaign.

 

[legiondevil]

The only thing that surprised me as I was flipping through Booklet #1 was the inclusion of a 19th Level Solo Creature. And, he's nowhere in the module. I suppose I just was giddy at the thought of the group running into him at one point (or the new displacer beast that's on the page facing him).

Then I thought to myself..."what the heck? That'd be 5 levels above them...they could take it...probably...I'm sure I could fit it in at the end..."

...so now, I'm going to have to carefully read the second book and see if/where I can put him.

 

[Shazman]

That place, for me, is occupied by Red Hand of Doom. But I'm eager to see what P1 is like. Didn't quite like H2 and H3.

I agree. Red Hand of Doom was awesome with the exception of the final encounter. It pretty much screamed grudge monster to me.

 

[Joshua Randall]

One thing I really, really, really like about 4e adventure design is when the designers put in interludes back in town to break up the adventuring flow and give the appearance of the monsters reacting to the PCs actions. (In fact, Speaker in Dreams also had the PCs being ambushed after they got annoying - it's a strong storytelling tactic).

You think so?

I think ambushes are annoying and usually unfair to the players.

They're annoying (especially in 3e where pre-buffing is critical) because the PCs don't have time to prepare for them.

They're unfair because the PCs seldom have the opportunity to ambush the monsters, at least in published adventures. (Obviously, in homebrews, all bets are off; your PCs might be running around ambushing monsters all the time.)

I think ambushes are an adequate storytelling tactic because they convey to the players that hey, the bad guys see you as a serious threat. But there are so many other ways that could be conveyed that don't involve ambushes. Such as:

* bad guy attempts to bribe PCs to stop attacking him or to go elsewhere
* bad guy tries to get the PCs to work for him
* bad guy uses some other person/group as a cat's paw to fight against the PCs
* bad guy packs up his things and abandons his lair, leaving a taunting note for the PCs
* bad guy is so scared that he surrenders rather than face death (not every bad guy has to fight to the death or be an insane cultist)

 

[Klaus]

I agree. Red Hand of Doom was awesome with the exception of the final encounter. It pretty much screamed grudge monster to me.

What I'd change from that encounter would be to move it through a teleport portal (teleportal?) down into the middle of Brindol. A fight that awesome is meant to be fought in front of a crowd.

 

[Tikigod]

It just takes a little work to link the 3 H's together.

Here is my rough sketch of tying them together: H1 as is (with an extra quest from Valthran to find the Minotaur Crystal in Shadowfell Keep)

H2: Salvanna Wrafton and the son of Lord Padraig are ambushed by Ninaran and the Bloodreaver hobbies and taken to Thunderspire. The Pcs follow. After defeating Paldemar, the Mages of Saruun reveal themselves to be agents working for an archmage. They present the PCs with the Minotaur Crystal. It is a key to the ruins of the Palace of Zaamdul. Zaamdul was a tiefling wizard-king of the minotaur empire. Civil war broke out and minotaur wizards captured the despot in a magical prison known as the Black Pyramid.

The controlling device to the Black Pyramid is called the Inverted Pyramid and it is located in the Palace of Zaamdul. I will design a small dungeon for the Palace.

The PCs will be asked to take the Inverted Pyramid into the Black Pyramid, kill Zaamdul (Karavakos) and gain control of an extra-dimensional prison (for some future Big Evil Dude...possibly the thing that Kalarel was trying to summon through Shadowfell Keep.

 

[Stormtower]

I agree. Red Hand of Doom was awesome with the exception of the final encounter. It pretty much screamed grudge monster to me.

Off-topic here, but: I fixed the issue with the final encounter (not Azarr Kul & co., but the battle afterward) by having Bahamut grant a divine battle blessing that essentially restored the PCs to fully rested status in preparation for the fight. That negated the grudge monster factor and made it a great, memorable battle.

P1 looks great, but for me it will have to work long and hard to supplant RHoD as the best adventure for D&D across editions. I agree with MerricB that it certainly has its share of strong mythic themes and memorable battles. I look forward to running it sometime after the 1st of the year.