Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
Playing the Game
Story Hour
Wing Three
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 6049005" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 29 - THE MENAGERIE</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Chalkan, half-elf ranger/cleric of Corellon Larethian</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Delphyne Babelberi, human witch (wizard)</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Mercutio Midas, human cleric of Pelor/rogue</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Rale Bodkin, human rogue</p><p></p><p>"The Menagerie" was a short adventure from the pages of <em>Dungeon</em>, this one from issue #126. It was written by B. Matthew Conklin III, and was the winner of an adventure-writing contest. It dealt with the weird occurrences inside a magic shop, and I wanted to use it because I really liked the architectural design of the magic shop. (Plus, I reasoned that I'd be able to reuse the map on several occasions if I made this a shop that the adventurers would frequent. I considered remaking it into Dundernoggin's shop, but at the last minute decided against it, as I had other thoughts as to how his shop would be laid out and at the time thought I might actually set an adventure there. To date, this still hasn't happened, but in the meantime I left <strong>Gwendolyn Fine</strong> as the shop's proprietor, as written.)</p><p></p><p>"The Menagerie," as published, was written for a group of 6th-level adventurers but included scaling suggestions for bringing it all the way up to 12th level. At the time they went through this, Chalkan was a Rgr4/Clr2; Delphyne was a Wiz9, Mercutio was a Clr9/Rog1; and Rale was a Rog9, so I scaled it up to 9th level and figured that Chalkan would probably be okay.</p><p></p><p>Behind the scenes, Jacob had just discovered that prestige classes existed. This had come about at the very end of the previous adventure session, with Logan's declaration that his plan for Telgrane was to have him continue as a conjurer until he had fulfilled the requirements to become an archmage, and then to take archmage levels from that point on. In explaining the concept of prestige classes, Jacob wanted to immediately find one that he could take. I showed him the section in the <em>Dungeon Master's Guide</em> (the one core rulebook he hadn't purchased on his own), and he fell in love with the concept of the arcane archer, so that was his newest goal. I pointed out that his XP total pretty much guaranteed his leveling up Chalkan at the end of this adventure, and that if he wanted to be an arcane archer he'd need to take a level of an arcane spellcasting class. We convinced him that at this point he'd do better taking sorcerer levels rather than wizard (or bard) levels, so that became Chalkan's desired career path from that point on.</p><p></p><p>Anyway, I don't want to give too much away about the adventure (I hate spoiling it for those who might be sending their own players through it some day), but I got to use some fairly appropriate miniatures for this session (two chickens from a farm set stood in for cockatrices; various small dinosaurs were put to use as shocker lizards; I actually had an official D&D Miniature of a darkmantle), and part of my "beefing the adventure up to 9th-level" included the addition of a vrock that was imprisoned (and who would be released as part of the effect that was wreaking havoc in the magic shop) in an <em>iron flask</em> because I had just purchased a cool-looking vrock mini (not the original one, with one taloned foot sticking out, but the much cooler-looking vrock in a crouched position that was released in a later set). I printed out dretch tokens for the demons the vrock might summon when he had the chance.</p><p></p><p>That <em>iron flask</em> turned out to be a bit of a mistake, because Dan zeroed in on it with his prior-edition metagaming knowledge and knew that this was valuable beyond any treasure the group had discovered thus far. After the PCs had saved Gwendolyn's shop from the effect that was setting free a bunch of creatures (and warping some of their abilities), he had Rale demand the <em>iron flask</em> as payment for their services. A quick peek into the <em>Dungeon Master's Guide</em> and its 170,000 gp value had me - through Gwendolyn - give an emphatic "No!" to his demands. In retrospect, I should have agreed and found some way to "weaken" the item's effectiveness (because I didn't want them to have something that powerful, or that valuable, at this stage of their adventuring careers), but in the end I had Gwendolyn stick to her guns as refuse to turn over the <em>iron flask</em>, reasoning that she would be well aware of its intrinsic value and would not be willing to part with something so valuable. They were rewarded with less valuable items, and while I think they got a fair deal, in Dan's case at least it was soured by the prospects of being able to have an <em>iron flask</em>. (Dan even considered having Rale attempt to break into the shop at a later date and steal the <em>iron flask</em>, and was only deterred once he realized the other PCs wouldn't support such anti-heroic thievery, and he didn't want me to waste a viable game session in the future running a solo-adventure for Rale. Plus, he didn't like the possibility of running out of healing potions during a solo game and not having a way to be healed. I suppose Rale's recent death via fiendish kraken had made him touchy on such subjects.)</p><p></p><p>I did later write an adventure that started out in Gwen's Relics, but events conspired in that one to ensure it was the last time they ever visited Gwen's Relics, so in retrospect it was a good thing I didn't make that Dundernoggin's shop. But at least I got to reuse the map.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 6049005, member: 508"] [b]ADVENTURE 29 - THE MENAGERIE[/b] PC Roster: [INDENT]Chalkan, half-elf ranger/cleric of Corellon Larethian Delphyne Babelberi, human witch (wizard) Mercutio Midas, human cleric of Pelor/rogue Rale Bodkin, human rogue[/INDENT] "The Menagerie" was a short adventure from the pages of [i]Dungeon[/i], this one from issue #126. It was written by B. Matthew Conklin III, and was the winner of an adventure-writing contest. It dealt with the weird occurrences inside a magic shop, and I wanted to use it because I really liked the architectural design of the magic shop. (Plus, I reasoned that I'd be able to reuse the map on several occasions if I made this a shop that the adventurers would frequent. I considered remaking it into Dundernoggin's shop, but at the last minute decided against it, as I had other thoughts as to how his shop would be laid out and at the time thought I might actually set an adventure there. To date, this still hasn't happened, but in the meantime I left [b]Gwendolyn Fine[/b] as the shop's proprietor, as written.) "The Menagerie," as published, was written for a group of 6th-level adventurers but included scaling suggestions for bringing it all the way up to 12th level. At the time they went through this, Chalkan was a Rgr4/Clr2; Delphyne was a Wiz9, Mercutio was a Clr9/Rog1; and Rale was a Rog9, so I scaled it up to 9th level and figured that Chalkan would probably be okay. Behind the scenes, Jacob had just discovered that prestige classes existed. This had come about at the very end of the previous adventure session, with Logan's declaration that his plan for Telgrane was to have him continue as a conjurer until he had fulfilled the requirements to become an archmage, and then to take archmage levels from that point on. In explaining the concept of prestige classes, Jacob wanted to immediately find one that he could take. I showed him the section in the [i]Dungeon Master's Guide[/i] (the one core rulebook he hadn't purchased on his own), and he fell in love with the concept of the arcane archer, so that was his newest goal. I pointed out that his XP total pretty much guaranteed his leveling up Chalkan at the end of this adventure, and that if he wanted to be an arcane archer he'd need to take a level of an arcane spellcasting class. We convinced him that at this point he'd do better taking sorcerer levels rather than wizard (or bard) levels, so that became Chalkan's desired career path from that point on. Anyway, I don't want to give too much away about the adventure (I hate spoiling it for those who might be sending their own players through it some day), but I got to use some fairly appropriate miniatures for this session (two chickens from a farm set stood in for cockatrices; various small dinosaurs were put to use as shocker lizards; I actually had an official D&D Miniature of a darkmantle), and part of my "beefing the adventure up to 9th-level" included the addition of a vrock that was imprisoned (and who would be released as part of the effect that was wreaking havoc in the magic shop) in an [i]iron flask[/i] because I had just purchased a cool-looking vrock mini (not the original one, with one taloned foot sticking out, but the much cooler-looking vrock in a crouched position that was released in a later set). I printed out dretch tokens for the demons the vrock might summon when he had the chance. That [i]iron flask[/i] turned out to be a bit of a mistake, because Dan zeroed in on it with his prior-edition metagaming knowledge and knew that this was valuable beyond any treasure the group had discovered thus far. After the PCs had saved Gwendolyn's shop from the effect that was setting free a bunch of creatures (and warping some of their abilities), he had Rale demand the [i]iron flask[/i] as payment for their services. A quick peek into the [i]Dungeon Master's Guide[/i] and its 170,000 gp value had me - through Gwendolyn - give an emphatic "No!" to his demands. In retrospect, I should have agreed and found some way to "weaken" the item's effectiveness (because I didn't want them to have something that powerful, or that valuable, at this stage of their adventuring careers), but in the end I had Gwendolyn stick to her guns as refuse to turn over the [i]iron flask[/i], reasoning that she would be well aware of its intrinsic value and would not be willing to part with something so valuable. They were rewarded with less valuable items, and while I think they got a fair deal, in Dan's case at least it was soured by the prospects of being able to have an [i]iron flask[/i]. (Dan even considered having Rale attempt to break into the shop at a later date and steal the [i]iron flask[/i], and was only deterred once he realized the other PCs wouldn't support such anti-heroic thievery, and he didn't want me to waste a viable game session in the future running a solo-adventure for Rale. Plus, he didn't like the possibility of running out of healing potions during a solo game and not having a way to be healed. I suppose Rale's recent death via fiendish kraken had made him touchy on such subjects.) I did later write an adventure that started out in Gwen's Relics, but events conspired in that one to ensure it was the last time they ever visited Gwen's Relics, so in retrospect it was a good thing I didn't make that Dundernoggin's shop. But at least I got to reuse the map. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
Playing the Game
Story Hour
Wing Three
Top