Vault of the Dragon Kings and Stuff

[phoenixgod2000]

So The RHoD was an absolute bloodbath and the two surviving characters have retreated to Waterdeep, leaving Brindol to a rather horrible fate. So I need an adventure to introduce four new characters.

I would like to run the Vault of the Dragon Kings DCC #30 but it is a tournament module. Is it appropriate for a campagin or more suited to a one off adventure? I also wonder if it will have an appropriate level of Treausure for a long term game or if it is short of loot because of its status as a tournament module. Any advice from someone who as run it would be very appreciated.

Secondly, the new adventure starts in Waterdeep where the various characters are invited to a Ball at the behest of Laeral Silverhand, the Blackstaff's widow. I'd like to run a little mini adventure set at the ball, something socially oriented with lots of chances to roleplay. I want the group heavily unified before they start because I think that was part of the problem with the RHoD. the group wasn't unified enough. So any idea's for an interaction Heavy adventure would be much appreciated. I normally run pregened games and I am not used to making something up whole cloth, especially a interaction heavy game.

The Characters:

Elan Beguiler/Psion

Halfling Arcane Hierophant

Human Paladin of Jergal

Human Cloistered Cleric/Paladin of an unknown god (undecided)

Asmiaar Cleric of Selune/Half Celestial Transition Class

(Unknown)

any advice would be helpful

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It has a reputation as an absolute meatgrinder. Unless the characters are significantly higher than level 10, I think it may have the opposite of the intended effect.

 

[kaomera]

IMO all of the DCC Tournament modules are meat-grinders. Very, very excellent meat-grinders, but nonetheless... You could probably scale it back a bit, however.

 

[BLACKDIRGE]

Heh, I'm responsible for most of the monsters in that one, so yeah, it's a meatgrinder.

Although it's written for 10th level characters, I think it's probably more appropriate for 11th or 12th. If your players are 10th level or below, I would definitely consider scaling back some of the encounters, especially in the puzzle rooms. A lot of the monsters are advanced or have templates, so it's pretty easy to scale thing down by removing the extras and using standard versions of the monsters.

BD

 

[Crothian]

Great module, but as you might have heard: It's a meat grinder!!

 

[The Cardinal]

...and don't forget the great battlemaps for this DCC (and others) here:
http://www.goodmangames.com/presters.php

 

[Fathead]

It can most definitely be fit into a campaign. There is a ton of background info that can intergrated.

Vault was definitely tough. You can probably find the tournament recap somewhere, along with the percentage of PC kills per round. If memory serves me, the percentage was around 30%. Obviously, it depends on the group...some groups didn't have a single PC fall, while other groups didn't fare as well.

One idea that might work to unify the group is to write in some environmental hazard encounters. The beginning of Vault assumes that the PCs have travelled a long distance over the frozen wastes...perhaps weathering a violent snowstorm, traversing a frozen river (and thin patches of ice), etc. Throw in a behir encounter as well, and you have the makings of a good pre-adventure.

The text at the beginning of Vault even suggests that the trip to reach it had been a trial in itself...

 

[phoenixgod2000]

I appreciate the heads up that it is considered a meatgrinder. I like that it has not only monsters, but puzzles as well. And the fact that it is Dragon Centered is a bonus considering how Dragon heavy the previous adventure was. it will fit right in.

The group is pretty powerful for their level and the two survivors of RHoD have a whole lotta resouces to draw on so I'm not too worried about the adveture being too hard.

Thanks for the information. The maps from goodman games were really cool.

Jon

 

[DrNilesCrane]

From a player's experience (both Gen Con and as a mini-campaign at home), it's fun and tough for 10th level characters--really tough. The puzzles aren't bad (more player thinking than character thinking), but many of the encounters are of the "one really big, bad, tough opponent" type (meaning that they can kill a PC in a round or two with average dice rolling). 12th -14th level characters wouldn't be a problem I suspect: however, the adventure assumes that the pre-gen characters will be used naturally, and they lack some standard options which a regular party will have (Dimension Door and scrying immediately come to mind) that can mess up the adventure (particularly the first part). If you're running it as a part of a campaign, you might want to review what higher level spells the party is capable and adjust the adventure to take them into account.

There's also quite a bit of background information that can be used and the module is fairly easy to tweak / customize in order to make it less staright up dungeon crawl and more dynamic, depending on the needs of your players.