SKR Adventure in Dungeon 126

I gotta say that I think Sean is one of the very best at putting adventures together.

Plot, details, mechanics and running advice are all quality and efficiently done.

I thought the same of the demogorgon adventure a few issues back. I almost never run 3rd party adventures straight. But I ran that one as a one-off when a player was missing for a few weeks.

Don't know if I'll ever run this one as is. But there are lots of ideas and pieces just begging for lifting.

BryonD said:

I gotta say that I think Sean is one of the very best at putting adventures together.

Plot, details, mechanics and running advice are all quality and efficiently done.

I thought the same of the demogorgon adventure a few issues back. I almost never run 3rd party adventures straight. But I ran that one as a one-off when a player was missing for a few weeks.

Don't know if I'll ever run this one as is. But there are lots of ideas and pieces just begging for lifting.

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I agree in almost every particular. The adventure is "held back" by being for low levels but SKR does an excellent job with the material.

In the same issue is The Clockwork Fortress by Wolfgang Baur. IMO, Baur is better than Reynolds and to have them both in one issue is a real treat.

Eric Boyd rounds out what must be accounted an all-star cast.

Dungeon 126 is a very good issue, IMO.

There are a couple of silly editing errors in the Assault on... adventure (SKR's), such as just how many Lizardfolk are involved. Also, I think the fact that the adventure depends upon the PCs *not* investigating the boarded up basement is extremely dangerous.

PCs: "Ooh, a scarcy boarded up basement door with a broken lock! We go in."
DM: (panicking) "Uh... these aren't the droids you're looking for. Go away!"

As for the Clockwork Fortress, it desperately needed a timetable of some sort, to keep track of which gear is lined up with which other gear. It'll be an nightmare to run in any case.

I haven't yet read the latest, but I was really impressed with the Demogorgon adventure. Sean did a great job of organizing and presenting the information to make it really easy to use. Plus, it was just pretty darn cool.

Joshua Randall said:

There are a couple of silly editing errors in the Assault on... adventure (SKR's), such as just how many Lizardfolk are involved. Also, I think the fact that the adventure depends upon the PCs *not* investigating the boarded up basement is extremely dangerous.

PCs: "Ooh, a scarcy boarded up basement door with a broken lock! We go in."
DM: (panicking) "Uh... these aren't the droids you're looking for. Go away!"

As for the Clockwork Fortress, it desperately needed a timetable of some sort, to keep track of which gear is lined up with which other gear. It'll be an nightmare to run in any case.

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Well... to be fair, the adventure isn't broken if the PCs investigate the locked door early. They just get to do Part 3 before Part 2. It still works out fine in the end, and in a way, doing Part 3 before Part 2 provides some really cool foreshadowing to the climax of Part 2.

And for Clockwork Fortress... had we the time and resources, it woulda been cool to do a hard cardboard stock punch-out map of the dungeon that you can assemble with pegs so you can actually rotate the gears... Ah well.

Spoiler below

SKR: "Encounter at Blackwall Keep," Installment two of the Age of Worms Adventure Path. I was uncertain whether I would bother with the adventure path at all. Now, I know that I'll be running at least one installment. I can already guess that the highlight will come when I describe the Kyuss Spawnling. My wife gets seriously freaked out with any kind of baby-monster. A maggot-infested kobold hatchling will have her swearing and throwing things. We'll see if that turns out to be a good or bad thing.

On another note, while SKR, Baur, and Boyd are all dependably terrific designers/adventure writers, and while all three adventures look really good, I think that I am really most looking forward to running Matthew Conklin's "The Menagerie." It's short. It's straightforward. It's initiative-rolling, round-by-round tactical, but not really combat-heavy. I think that it will go over much better than most published modules do with my current group.

Now, all I have to do is translate "Blood of Malar" from FR to generic, run "Raiders of the Black Ice" from issue 115, and decide whether to run the first installment of the Age of Worms Adventure path before I run "Encounter at Blackwall Keep."

Joshua Randall said:

There are a couple of silly editing errors in the Assault on... adventure (SKR's), such as just how many Lizardfolk are involved. Also, I think the fact that the adventure depends upon the PCs *not* investigating the boarded up basement is extremely dangerous.

PCs: "Ooh, a scarcy boarded up basement door with a broken lock! We go in."
DM: (panicking) "Uh... these aren't the droids you're looking for. Go away!"

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I doubt it'll be a problem with my group, as I don't see them sticking around to investigate the tower after the bad guys are routed. It's more likely they'll just die in the frontal assault that is their tradition, AKA "Plan: Spaz". We'll see though.

James Jacobs said:

And for Clockwork Fortress... had we the time and resources, it woulda been cool to do a hard cardboard stock punch-out map of the dungeon that you can assemble with pegs so you can actually rotate the gears... Ah well.

Click to expand...

Ooh, me likey! *drool*

It would also be cool to have a 3D computer representation of the Clockwork Fortress with play / pause / rewind buttons to show the gears in action. Mmm, technology.