Rescue at Rivenroar

[functionciccio]

The first chapter of the new AP:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/duad/20080711

What do you think?

 

[ObsidianCrane]

I noticed the encoutners seem to be focussed on "cool" not necassarily following the implied rules. I also noticed that the Skill Challenges do not add 5 to the TNs again.

I take this later part to be more support for the idea that the +5 is only for skill checks that are to be done 1x and never repeated.

Other than that I haven't read it in enough detail to comment beyond the usual (why no clean maps?, why no maps at high res? etc)

 

[DanChops]

My first thought - if they put an adventure of this size in every month's dungeon, that's 2/3 the value of a monthly subscription right there.

 

[functionciccio]

I've just skimmed through it and, frankly, I'm not blown away.

 

[DanChops]

I've just skimmed through it and, frankly, I'm not blown away.

Oh, I'm not blown away either. It's a pretty straightforward adventure. Sure, there are some interesting bits thrown in (like trying to figure out where all the prisoners are held,) but it's basically a dungeon crawl.

However, it's an adventure that will last at least four sessions, which is just long enough for the next month's installment to come out.

In my mind, having an adventure ready for me to run is easily worth 2/3 of the $10/month that I would be spending on a DDI subscription. In other words, this adventure path is going a long way towards selling me on subscribing (assuming I can find a regular group that is...)

 

[zoroaster100]

One of the things that made Paizo's Dungeon adventure paths great, aside from the great adventures included as part of the paths, was the great support created by an online community of DM's running the adventures, who shared ideas and little extras created by each DM. Paizo's website was very friendly place for this, with the adventure authors and editors posting frequenlty to answer questions, offer explanations of adventure design choices and offer suggestions for modifying or expanding the adventures. I wonder if a similar online community will develop for this and future WOTC adventure paths. I wonder if WOTC will set up designated forum space for such an online community to develop on their website forums.

 

[keterys]

Well, there are 2 forums for discussing Dungeon material in general and they're not overflowing with traffic to the point where you'd need to break out another forum for traffic reasons. If it's a popular thing to discuss there, though, I suspect it'll make sense to break it out.

 

[bgardner]

What I liked the most about a Paizo Adventure Path is that they previewed what was coming so I knew, as the DM, in a very rough sense what the story arc was. With this adventure path they haven't previewed anything as far as I can tell so I don't know if I'm interested in the arc as a whole.

 

[zoroaster100]

I agree that giving the outline of the adventure at the beginning is something very useful which Paizo learned to do with paths. I'm surprised that WOTC hasn't learned from Paizo to do this better. I hope this doesn't mean they don't even have the overview yet. That is also a lesson learned by Paizo, that if you don't have the whole thing mapped out at least in outline, each author that comes along can put a different direction and you end up with too many loose ends and dead ends and disjointed adventures. Paizo had that happen with the first adventure path to some extent but did some fixing after the fact when they republished in a hard cover, and then they did a better job with their third and subsequent paths.

 

[Wormwood]

As a DM, you have better ways to spend your time than figuring out the exact details of NPC-on-NPC violence (after all, how many NPCs are sitting at your table?). It’s fine to just toss 1d20 when a hobgoblin attacks the bartender. A high roll means the bartender dies, a medium roll means he’s wounded, and a low roll means he’s unscathed. If you want a hobgoblin to put one of the serving wenches in a headlock and try to drag her out into the street, just do it—don’t keep your players waiting while you work out the details of the grab attack.

Good advice for new DMs, even better advice for for some older, entrenched DMs I could name.