The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh - your experiences?

[Sholari]

The first two of the series are really well designed modules. They have an interesting story line and plot twists without railroading PCs. I'm even more impressed, however, by all the little details that really give these modules texture (e.g. descriptions of items, logic behind the room layout, etc.)

One memory.. after exhausting all of his spells in combat, I had the smuggler illusionist, Sanbalet, make a hasty escape out of the caves and toward the beach. The party mage, who was also out of spells, broke off from combat to chase down Sanbalet. It ended up turning into a fist fight between two mages on a sandbar. The party mage ended up with just 1 hp left, but returned dragging Sanbalet's onto the beach.

 

[diaglo]

The last two kinda blew

say what?

blew only if your group was a bunch of kick in the door hack n' slashers.

and the referee couldn't keep track of things.

i ran this series many times for all n00bs, all veterans, and various combinations of the two types of players.

the key is to know your audience.

 

[schporto]

Ohh boy. Yes we played that about a year ago. I DM'd it. The party only got through the first 1/2 of U1 and didn't give a damn about the pirate ship. Or the town. Took the smuggled goods in the mansion and left after clearing it out. But the single absolute best part was Ned. Poor Ned has become a joke in our group. I tried to make him a chalenge when he finally 'turned' bad. But well, 1 critical with a battleaxe later, there was only 1 dead Ned. OK it may have taken 1 prep hit, and then the critical, but still was definately not the challenge I was looking for. Very funny though.

 

[spectre72]

I am about to start running the series in my PBEM.

And something that you have to remember is that in 1st Edition assassins were deadly, in fact much more so than any other version.

We had a group of 6 2nd level characters and a bunch of 1st level guards all slaughtered by 2 1st level assasins in a 1st Edition game we played many years ago.

Built a healthy respect for assasins in those days.

I plan on altering the Assasin in the 3E convert that I have to make things tougher.

 

[Connorsrpg]

Again

Gotta say it I just love these threads.

I too loved the details in these modules, inc good room descriptions.

Again, what a variety of environments for the combats: I forgot to mention; up to waists in mud, surrounded by lizardman 'eggs', in flooded rooms (with seaweed beds, the list goes on...

Have to agree big time with Merric. May need something b/w U1,U2 & then U3. If played as intelligent beings (which the module has ideas on) sahuagin would wipe the floor, or 'dirty the whole room actually - what, with body parts and blood and guts floating everywhere...hey there is another cool combat environment, blood/mist filled water-filled room...oh where was I)???

Yeah, yeah, will need another adventure between U2 & U3 in order for the PCs be an appropriate level. I would want a standard-sized (small) group to be 4-th lvl before taking on U3. easier to bump up some of the suahuagin villains (and there is a couple of rippers), than to scale down standard sahuagin in their own watery environment.

Another cool memory; the detailed and 'different' sahuagin leaders/personalities, not just stats for the different rooms.

Another option is to be generous on the XP for a party that takes the diplomacy approach for U2. I am sure most of you do this, but would you award the full XP that the party would have gotten by beating every lizardman to a pulp...I don't think I would go that far, but about half that would do nicely.

Batterly low..gotta go.

Connors

 

[Rel]

Love, Love, LOVE this module!

I've owned it for longer than any other module in my collection with the exception of Keep on the Borderlands. I trot it out any time I get a group of new players because it is fun, varied and teaches good habits in my opinion.

The Haunted House has a few small combats (mostly with vermin as I recall) but also shows how painful and deadly the simple things like rotted floors can be. Then there's Ned who, if used effectively, teaches you not to trust everybody you meet.

The sea caves are a great scene for some combat, a few traps and with Gnolls, Skeletons, Rot-Grubs and Sanbalet there's plenty of variety. I also don't recall another 1E adventure featuring an Illusionist as the BBEG. The fight aboard the ship is yet another interesting tactical situation and follows up the "Ned situation" with Oceanus by way of contrast. Add in the Lizard Men, the weapons being smuggled and it is a nice mystery.

U2 is a cool continuation of the first module and teaches the value of diplomacy in lieu of brute force. And there's a lot more mystery elements to continue the theme of the first module.

I never played U3 and from having read it, I'm not terribly sure that it would live up to the first two. I think that a big limitation to the enjoyment would be that almost all of it takes place underwater.

Anyhow, as other posters have aluded to, I have used the maps from U1 much more frequently than I've played the module. One module with maps of a mansion, some sea caves and a ship deck plan is something that you just have to keep handy.

 

[Joshua Randall]

In my opinion, the U-series (Saltmarsh, Dunwater, Final Enemy) is the finest module series of its era, bar none. It's got varied types of challenges, great writing, and enemies who are both evil and smart - the best kind.

I agree that U3 can be deadly for careless or underpowered parties. And I agree with Rel that the fact that two-thirds of U3 takes place underwater is a major bummer. If I were to run the adventure these days, I would say that the sahuagin haven't yet flooded their fortress; but I'd leave plenty of clues that that is their intention, and that once they complete the floodling they will unleash a wave of terror upon.

Even without flooded levels, the PCs will have their hands full with the masses of sahuagin. But if you emphasize the information that the town council needs (which is explained in the module), you can hopefully steer the PCs towards a stealthy info-gathering mission, rather than a kill-everything-and-loot-the-bodies style of game.

Although come to think of it, an assassinate-the-sahuagin-leader mission would also be sweet. Hmm... rushes off to jot down some notes...

Anyway. I adore this series. It is well worth acquiring via eBay or SVGames if you don't already have it. Even if you never run a single adventure in Saltmarsh, you will learn a lot from reading them.

 

[Vindicator]

I played Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh (not the follow-ups, though). To be honest, as soon as I found out that the house wasn't haunted but that the hauntings were faked, I was immensely disappointed. My buddies and I called it the Scooby-Do adventure--I still resent it to this day.

 

[Connorsrpg]

Sooby doo mishap

Yeah, I can see where you are coming from Vindicator.

My advice for DMs is NOT to play up on the haunted approach. PCs automatically think that it is NOT haunted so go along with that and they may begin to feel 'maybe it is'..but don't push that it IS.

They may get sucked in, but are more likely to recognise the spells in place anyway. Like the 'See we knew it wasn't haunted' when they meet the antagonists too..just as good as the intended surprise...which as Vindicator said isn't really there anyway.

Connors

 

[Emirikol]

I had a neat experience while playing U1 the 2nd time. I was a well-known, GUEST player. I got to play Ned Shakeshifter as an NPC. The other players though i was joining the campaign.

Oh, man, I got them good about the time that the green slime hit them, as well as some skeletons. I was also deliberately making sure that I was 'missing' my find trap rolls.

It was almost a TPK.

jh