Little Keep on the Borderlands - is it really a low-level adventure?

[Morlock]

I was scanning it to consider converting it to 5e (I want a low-level sandbox using the Keep on the Borderlands setup) when I saw there's a beholder in there. I don't want to bother reading it through, much less converting it, if it's just going to be some wonky kill-my-PCs thing.

 

[Libramarian]

Not familiar with the HackMaster version but it's hard for me to imagine a low-level sandbox that couldn't be fairly described as a wonky kill-the-PCs thing. That's just how they play. When you're on the bottom almost everything is higher level than you. That being said, it's not like "anything goes". I would look at the context of the encounter to determine its overall quality. Is it foreshadowed? Do the PCs have an opportunity to scout, avoid, retreat, negotiate etc.? What's it doing there?

 

[hatecraft]

Don't worry about putting things in a sandbox that are way higher level than the PCs, as long as they have an opportunity to avoid it. This usually means showing them the beholder and then letting them decide if they want to engage it or run away.

Besides, players sometimes surprise you with clever plans. I drowned a bunch of hill giants once when I was level 1 (but I'll admit that I got lucky).

The whole point of a sandbox is to let players choose their own level of risk/reward.

 

[Morlock]

You guys are rough customers. I mean, I get that a sandbox is a place where you just throw down the toys and let the kids play, but damn, man, a beholder? You throw gang-bangers into your kids' sandboxes too?

 

[Gilladian]

Just because there's a beholder there, doesn't mean the PCs have to fight it. They could get a chance to avoid it completely, not fight it and run away until they're more powerful. They could get captured, dragged before it and have to bargain their way out of being sold off as slaves. Or they could capture and question a creature that works for the beholder, long before they ever come directly in contact with it, and learn that it is there. Then they could research ways to defeat it. Or bargain with it, or not get near it.

In a true sandbox, there are many options.

 

[Libramarian]

You guys are rough customers. I mean, I get that a sandbox is a place where you just throw down the toys and let the kids play, but damn, man, a beholder? You throw gang-bangers into your kids' sandboxes too?

There's a Spectator (beholderkin) in the old module The Secret of Bone Hill. When I ran that I actually changed it to a full Beholder (I don't like beholderkin...except for Gas Spores, they're kind of funny). They were bound to guard a book, and couldn't mess with the PCs unless they messed with the book. One player reallllly wanted to put on their ring of invisibility and try grabbing the book, but decided not to. That was a good Beholder encounter in a low level module.

 

[Gilladian]

Oh, that reminds me of a beholder encounter in a megadungeon - Dungeon-a-day - It had a glass tube, impervious to magic, that it used to "visit" the upper levels of the dungeon to spy on events taking place there. So the first time or two the PCs spotted it, they could not get attacked, nor could they attack it. But later on, they got to the beholder's level, and had a confrontation that they were very excited to finally initiate. Sadly, it was rather anticlimactic as they got the initiative and took it out in one round.

 

[Morlock]

In a true sandbox, there are many options.

I see the question of whether something has high level monsters in it as irrelevant to the question of whether it's a "true" sandbox. I'm detecting a doctrinaire issue here; I agree that balancing all encounters is contrary to the definition of a sandbox, but on the other hand, that doesn't mean I have to put huge ancient red dragons into it.

 

[Libramarian]

I'm just saying that to me it's not even a red flag that this adventure has a Beholder in it.

Have you run the original KotB? If not I would consider it. It's only 32 pages so you might have time to read the whole thing rather than making a snap judgement based on one encounter.

I don't mean to be snarky--the HM re-write seems to be 144 pages. I wouldn't want to read that before I knew what I was getting into either. I can't imagine they were able to sustain the quality of the original over all of that extra material.

 

[Morlock]

I'm not all that fond of KotB, just the premise as encapsulated in the title. First thing I'd do is scrap or rewrite the Caves of Chaos and redesign the Keep. I've already started writing my outline of my sandbox version though, so no big.