D&D General (SPOILERS for Vecna: Eve of Ruin) Are My Standards Too High for Adventures?

[Cergorach]

This is a discussion, the best comments are ones that provoke further comments.

Are you sure? This seems like 12B...

 

[occam]

Ill say the dungeons in this book are pretty good. It's just the plot that is a little stupid. But the dungeons are really fun reading through them, with some exciting components and moving parts. I think my favorite is the Spelljammer that's crashed into the corpse and heart of a dying god of chaos and the screw is scattered and salaad are replacing people and its all kinds of cool stuff.

I was actually hoping for better with the Spelljammer adventure. For one, it's not really a Spelljammer adventure at all, it's an Astral Sea adventure that happens to contain a broken spelljamming ship. Which is fine, but I have some issues with the map. For one, the midsection of the ship is referred to as the Starboard Segment, which is not a meaning for "starboard" I've ever encountered before. And calling the entire forward section the Prow Segment also seems off to me; I think Forward, Beam and Aft Segments would've made more sense than Prow, Starboard, and Stern, but... whatever, it's names, and the PCs themselves don't encounter them.

But then there are discrepancies between the map and the text, particularly in the Prow Segment. The ship is described as crashing directly into Havock's Heart, but on the map, it appears that the bowsprit has broken off and is piercing the heart backwards, to the aft of Z14b/Z18, instead of to the fore of Z19 as the text clearly states. In fact, the map shows both an illustration of a massive heart to the aft of Z14b/Z18, and an arrow pointing to the Heart of Havock to the fore of Z19. I can't make any sense of it, other than thinking that serious confusion arose between design and mapping, and wasn't caught in editing.

OTOH, I love the map for the colossus in the following chapter, and the adventure is interesting as a small bite of Eberron, with a small multi-party conflict arising that could be resolved in several ways. And the update of Death House is fun, especially after the appearance of the Haunted Zones, which I adore.

 

[occam]

IF the PCs kill vecna the ritual is not stopped. Thats the issue. The ritual will finish thus the party has failed. Potentially the ritual isn't even delayed his soul very well could finish the ritual sans a body. Either way the adventure is clear on a single win condition.

The stat block is also clear in that Vecna becomes a disembodied spirit if dropped to 0 hp, with the strong implication that he's at least relatively harmless while in that state.

And I don't get how the ritual would continue without Vecna there. He's clearly expending a lot of effort to keep it going; how would it finish if he's gone?

 

[htap]

The stat block is also clear in that Vecna becomes a disembodied spirit if dropped to 0 hp, with the strong implication that he's at least relatively harmless while in that state.

And I don't get how the ritual would continue without Vecna there. He's clearly expending a lot of effort to keep it going; how would it finish if he's gone?

Clearly some way otherwise it would have been mentioned in the book. The book states the only way to win is the chime. Therefore if he dies the ritual continues. I don't know how but if you drop him to zero it happens.

There isn't any vagueness, it clearly says you MUST use the chime, and the only things after that statement as a text block reading what happens when the chime goes off or that the party has lost.

I'm not saying I like it, but that's how it is.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Clearly some way otherwise it would have been mentioned in the book. The book states the only way to win is the chime. Therefore if he dies the ritual continues. I don't know how but if you drop him to zero it happens.

There isn't any vagueness, it clearly says you MUST use the chime, and the only things after that statement as a text block reading what happens when the chime goes off or that the party has lost.

I'm not saying I like it, but that's how it is.

There is certainly some poor writing here. The author simply hasn't considered what happens if the party destroy Vecna without using the chime*. But if the book said "if the players take things in a different direction the DM should rule on the outcome" every time that was the case there wouldn't be any room left for anything else. It's in the core rules, it doesn't need to be said in the adventure.

Overall, that is the pattern for this adventure. The arc story is quite poorly written (although fine in concept), the individual episodes are good to excellent. This is an issue with current adventure writing - WotC divide it up between different authors, so the finished product doesn't hang together well. I think the concept of the "adventure path" is fundamentally flawed, the adventure compilation books are all much better.


*I mean, it's easy done. It's happened to me. I've had a big Grande Finale planned out, and the players have come up with a completely different (and better) solution. You roll with it, it's part of the job of being a DM. No plan survives contact with the players.

 

[Mort]

Overall, that is the pattern for this adventure. The arc story is quite poorly written (although fine in concept), the individual episodes are good to excellent. This is an issue with current adventure writing - WotC divide it up between different authors, so the finished product doesn't hang together well. I think the concept of the "adventure path" is fundamentally flawed, the adventure compilation books are all much better.

That's a great point, and a big issue with multiple WoTC adventures. Dragon Heist, for example, has some very good parts, but the connective tissue between them is SO bad that the adventure is nearly unworkable without major fixing from the person running.

 

[htap]

There is certainly some poor writing here. The author simply hasn't considered what happens if the party destroy Vecna without using the chime*. But if the book said "if the players take things in a different direction the DM should rule on the outcome" every time that was the case there wouldn't be any room left for anything else. It's in the core rules, it doesn't need to be said in the adventure.

Overall, that is the pattern for this adventure. The arc story is quite poorly written (although fine in concept), the individual episodes are good to excellent. This is an issue with current adventure writing - WotC divide it up between different authors, so the finished product doesn't hang together well. I think the concept of the "adventure path" is fundamentally flawed, the adventure compilation books are all much better.


*I mean, it's easy done. It's happened to me. I've had a big Grande Finale planned out, and the players have come up with a completely different (and better) solution. You roll with it, it's part of the job of being a DM. No plan survives contact with the players.

Im sure the author considered other options. Several books have if the players do X or if the players do Y. They could have been more vague, or a whole host of other things. The book goes out of its way to say the chime is the only way to win in more then one spot. For example, it does not say: If the party defeats Vecna.... I think the players droping Vecna to Zero HP is probably the most obvious outcome, so i struggle to belive they just didnt think about it.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Im sure the author considered other options. Several books have if the players do X or if the players do Y. They could have been more vague, or a whole host of other things. The book goes out of its way to say the chime is the only way to win in more then one spot. For example, it does not say: If the party defeats Vecna.... I think the players droping Vecna to Zero HP is probably the most obvious outcome, so i struggle to belive they just didnt think about it.

I think it's pretty obvious they didn't think about it, because if they had they would have said what happens, rather than saying nothing at all. And any writer would know, had they given it any consideration at all, that "Vecna wins because you forgot about a minor plot point from way back" is not a satisfactory conclusion to an epic adventure. What they are doing is assuming the DM will railroad the players to the "correct" ending, reminding them to use the chime (you used to see a huge amount of this in 2nd edition adventures, 5e usually does better).

Personally, I hope a player steps in and attempts to take over the ritual for themselves. Then I can say "okay, next week you are the DM!"

 

[htap]

Unfortunately we don't get to know the authors intent just what's written

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Unfortunately we don't get to know the authors intent just what's written

If you see someone come up to another person with a knife and stab them it's pretty easy to deduce intent.

You don't need to be able to see inside someone's head to deduce what their intent was, you just need to observe the outcome.