D&D 4E Raiders of Oakhurst Reloaded -- Free 4E Adventure (Ennie Nominated!)

[VBMEW-01]

Its very nice, makes me want to get a good mapping program, cause I like maps.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

Link incoming for first map.

I'll try to shell out one per day, at least.

EDIT - Map up:
Stone Table, Level 1 As you can see, I added some lighting effects. If the color or strength is off, I can adjust it easily.

More to come!

I love these, but I don't know how to print them out so that they are "life size" (that is, one square is actually one inch). Are they even supposed to be printed that way?

 

[Xorn]

Its very nice, makes me want to get a good mapping program, cause I like maps.

I do the map itself in Dundjinni, then I added post-export lighting effects in PaintShop.

I've been really happy with Dundjinni--it's just really simple to use, and powerful enough for the maps I'm doing. I just want something that looks good--it doesn't have to be OMFG. (Though some of the DJ veterans kick out some UNBELIEVABLE stuff.)

re: Jonathan
Doh! I'm sorry, ordinarily when I export these, I set them to print at 50 dpi by default. I'll fix this image and repost it. Most image programs have the ability to resize the print resolution of an image to whatever you like. My maps are primarily designed for virtual tabletops, which have an unofficial community standard of 50 pixels/square. These will print a little grainy at 50 dpi, but I don't think it would look any worse than my hand drawings on the table.

If you are going to print them, I recommend cropping a section that will fit on a single page when possible. Okay, I redid the image. It will print 1 in/sq by default now. Mind you that's an image 31"x35", so I would print "pieces" of it. The image has been reposted now at 50 dpi. If you want to chop it into pieces, just use any paint program (GiMP is powerful and free) to select an area 400x500 (or a multiple, like 800x500, etc) and that's an 8x10 image. Select 500x400 for landscape, etc. If you want four landscape pages, crop it to 1000x800. That will print landscape onto 4 pages if the print margins are set to 0.5 top and bottom, and 0.25 left and right.

I might kick out some pre-cropped pages down the road, but at the moment, I'm in the middle of working on that Fing dragons lair. (Working up to the landscape map last.) Hopefully the lichen glow will turn out like I'm hoping for.)

 

[Nahat Anoj]

Okay, I redid the image. It will print 1 in/sq by default now.

*profuse expressions of thanks and gratitude*

 

[hojas]

Thanks for making these adventures My group ran part one last week and it was a great way to get a feel for the new game. We aren't sure if we will be switching over, but we still had a fun time. I agree with other posters that your PR for 4th has been so much better than wotc. I know that this has been the big "flame" argument on the web, but my players didn't think that 4th had the "feel" of D&D. I am waiting to get the books in my hands and look at the system as a whole before I pass judgement. Thanks again for helping my group get a taste of 4th!

 

[drjones]

I ran part of the 'E' section of the reloaded adventure with some guys last night and we had a great time.

Due to intoxication and people running more than one character it took a little while for them to get into the swing of things but once they did the encounters seemed pretty balanced.

Luck was not on their side for the most part. At one point I rolled 3 crits in a row on the pally and he went from fully healed to near dead in one round. Later in the choker room the ranger used his daily to hit each of the chokers and rolled a crit. unfortunately both of the chokers had a victim at the time so it seemed like I should have had them use the human shield but seeing as how it would have killed their victims outright I fudged it rather than have the ranger kill the other two characters he was playing because of a great roll.

I had a good deal of trouble when they took meepo down as they could tell he was trying to surrender but could not figure out the subtleties of the situation from a few words and drawings. They took his stuff and left him tied up so I guess he could reappear later.

Not knowing how rituals would work I told them they could 'detect magic' any time they were not in an encounter and a full 6 hour rest was enough to find out what the items did.

Can anyone give me an idea how I should be using the skills as far as the traps go? 'Passive Perception' seems very high on the chars if the DC is 20 and even with normal perception most of them spotted the pit trap easily and disarmed it easily. Should I have only let them check if they were actively searching?

All in all we had a great time and it has gone a long way to get us excited about 4th WOTC owes you a piece of the action!

 

[Xorn]

Nice! Meepo was speaking Common, right? He took some language classes to get ready for Reloaded, and he speaks Common now, too.

I had the wizard rolling on his Arcana too, when I did the Return of the Burning Plague run. No idea on identifying the magic item.

From what has been shown, Passive Perception & Insight checks are just the "always on" check. So if they fighter at the back of the room nodding off while the warlock tampers with a trap doesn't mention, "I'll be actively watching the two corridors for enemies," then the approaching kobolds check their Stealth vs his passive Perception. But if he said he's going to be watching, then you have him roll a Perception (whether anything is coming or not).

I think the ranger has +8 Perception, so anything over DC 18, the party will have to be actively looking for.

BTW Olgar, got a chance to sit down and read the whole adventure--superb. Really anxious to run this one, full adventure style. I'm going to post the second stone table map next (so the playtest maps are ready, then I'll try to get the Crag map up, too. Doesn't look like it will be TOO bad. Basically I'm going to do the places with the most fighting first, and work my way out to the world map.

 

[drjones]

Nice! Meepo was speaking Common, right? He took some language classes to get ready for Reloaded, and he speaks Common now, too.

Dang I missed that part!

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Thanks for making these adventures

Glad you enjoyed it! Feedback from the folks here at EN World is the only reason I do it.

BTW Olgar, got a chance to sit down and read the whole adventure--superb. Really anxious to run this one, full adventure style. I'm going to post the second stone table map next (so the playtest maps are ready, then I'll try to get the Crag map up, too. Doesn't look like it will be TOO bad. Basically I'm going to do the places with the most fighting first, and work my way out to the world map.

Thanks. Good work on the first map -- up to your usual standards. Now if we can just convince someone to format the final versions into a nice pdf ...

I've made a few minor tweaks to the text so far, cleaned up a bunch of typos and grammatical errors, and renamed a kobold (Tucker the Dragon Shield will hopefully survive to become infamous), but still have the NPC section to do, which may wait until the end of the week. Though I don't plan on providing NPC stats, I want to get the relationships between the NPCs established, so that, for example, the party can investigate what is going on between Olvar and Sybil.

And I may decide to expand another area or two beyond F. We'll see.

 

[Cam Banks]

From what has been shown, Passive Perception & Insight checks are just the "always on" check. So if they fighter at the back of the room nodding off while the warlock tampers with a trap doesn't mention, "I'll be actively watching the two corridors for enemies," then the approaching kobolds check their Stealth vs his passive Perception. But if he said he's going to be watching, then you have him roll a Perception (whether anything is coming or not).

Hmm. I had thought those two passive skill entries are there as DCs for the DM to roll Hide or Bluff checks against without telling the players.

Cheers,
Cam