wow, this is just the fabulous feedback i was hoping for. thank you!
Stormrunner said:
Several spots in Jerzek's statblock refer to him as "she" - presumably an earlier version was female? Similarly Helgen and Jordan are listed as male in some spots, female in others.
Those are typos, the sneaky kind that duck past you after staring at the text for days on end. Helgen is female; Jordan and Jezrek are both supposed to be male.
This is a *REALLY* psionic-heavy adventure, it seems designed for an all-psionic party and supposes a very psionic-heavy background (e.g. Dark Sun). You've got a population of 1,600 blues living in town (about 40-50 goblin tribes' worth, apparently blues are much more common here than in the default settings), not to mention over 1,400 half-giants, and a scattering of dromites, xephs, and maenads. There isn't anything wrong with this, per se, but it sharply limits how adaptable the adventure will be to other settings (i.e., not very).
actually, i really don't see how to the population make-up of the city makes much of a difference for adaptability; they PCs don't have that much interaction with the townsfolk. but it's easy enough to change just to make it all the more easier for folks running a more traditional campaign.
In the maenad attack, the paragraph gives the leader as Barbarian 4, and her two lieutenants as Bbn 2, but then you give a statblock for Bbn 6. Was Paareke supposed to be level 6? The attack is listed as EL 13, but the 4 grey gluttons make an EL 11 and the maenads are so low-level compared to the PCs that they're little more than scenery. Furthermore, where are the town NPCs during the attack? The War11 Constable, at least, should be there leading the town guard (at least 10 of which should be half-giants), and I would expect the Adp12 priestess and Tel9 headmaster to appear as well if the fight lasts longer than a few rounds. This should more than make up for the sheer numbers of the maenads. I'd make it an EL 11, and give a bonus if the party comes up with a clever way to end the combat quickly.
orginally, there were two kinds of maenad barbarians, but that meant too many stat blocks for too little bang. four CR 6 creatures are actually a en EL 10, which isn't much of a threat to the PCs, but they'd certainly live a few rounds to be a nuisance while the gluttons deal out some pain.
however, you make a good point that the higher-level townsfolk would certainly take part in defending Drylake. hmm... i think i'll take your advice.
What is the purpose of the maenad attack? Why does Jerzek lend them his grey gluttons, especially since doing so is a clue that All Is Not As It Seems, which Jerzek is smart enough to foresee? I don't see how the attack furthers Jerzek's plans at all. Perhaps the PCs should encounter the spinosaurs as a "random encounter" on the way into town, and the maenad attack (rather than the spinosaur attack) is what Jerzek uses as "cover" for his excavation.
i thougt of that, too, after the draft was finished. the spinosaurs seem extraneous, really. very cool monsters, but in the end just another stat block that takes up word count. i'll probably eliminate them all together or take your advice and move them to a "random encounter" as the PCs arrive - maybe they'll just become a plot hook...
What splatbook are aleithians from? I don't recall seeing them before. And in fact, we don't see them here either - they're Jerzek's followers, but they're not in his lair. Maybe Jerzek should use the werewolves instead, since he seems to use them mainly as brute muscle. The missing gemcrafters are described as aleithians in the Crystal Crafters Guild section, but as dwarves in the dungeon section.
aleithians are from the Mind's Eye section of Wizard's site. any mention of them is just an oversight - they're far too campaign specific. right... time to use the "find and replace" function in Word.
If the masthead is any indication, it's likely that several other "components" of the super-psi-machine are powerful psionic items in their own right. What if the PCs decide to disassemble the machine? Maybe a sidebar is in order.
check out the Treasure entry for The Supellex encounter, at the bottom of page 29: "The clockwork mechanism which amplifies that crystal heart of the Supellex is comprised of six individual psionic items: crystal capacitor (5 pp), crystal mask of detection, psychoactive skin of nimbleness, third eye penetrate, third eye concentrate, torc of free will."
The mission of the Ebon Ring is to "find the Supplex". But the cerebreliths are also agents of the Illesine. Given the psi-demons' ability to greater teleport at will, the Illesine should already know the location and defenses of the Supplex. I'd suggest not tying the demons to the Illesine.
you're supposing that the right hand knows what the left hand is doing. but, again, that is campaign-specific flavor - the Ebon Ring is pretty powerful as it is.
If Kul'dur has a "hatred for all things associated with the Illesine", how did the other members of the Ebon Ring convince him to come along on a mission for the Illesine?
more campaign-specific information; the PCs in my campaign are former agents of the illesine. but for clarity's sake, it's best to remove that from Kul'dur's description.
Helgen has Int 20: the Ebon Ring should "fight smart". Probably their best course of action would be to psionically interrogate Ethyr, killing him only after sucking his mind dry of all information he knows about the complex. Then they hide nearby and wait for the PCs to show up, then follow the party at a discreet distance, letting the PCs trigger the traps and fight the guardians while the Ring stroll unopposed in their wake. If they wait until after the big fight with Jerzek, they can probably finish off the weakened survivors with ease (they are, after all, equal to the PCs in level, making them an EL 17 encounter even if the PCs were fresh and unwounded). If they follow this course, they probably should be reduced by 1 or 2 levels each, or the PCs will be toast.
well, that's certainly very smart, but it isn't very fun. i would think that though very intelligent, the Ebon Ring suffers from the achille's heel of all villains: hubris. they want to get this job done and done swiftly before those meddling kids of the PCs have a chance to get there. there should probably be a side bar for the PCs if they take too much time - they won't be facing Jezrek, but a very powerful Ebon Ring.
OTOH, if they follow the course described in the text, they'll have a hard time getting past the Porta. So they kill Ethyr and bar the door - it won't take a party of 13th-level PCs 2-5 hours to break down the door, so the Ring won't have time to figure out the Porta.
that's a very good point; a power stone of mind probe in Helge's hands should solve that easily enough. it still takes a minimum of five rounds to activate the porta (one character on each door, three checks = three rounds; then four characters each activate a rune in one round; 5th round, last two runes activated by two characters.) fighting off the PCs might as the Ebon Ring activates the Porta might make for a very interseting encounter by itself.
wow. thanks again for the feedback. it's very much appreciated.
- njm
