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<blockquote data-quote="jbear" data-source="post: 5687403" data-attributes="member: 75065">I'llhave to disagree&nbsp; that running a&nbsp; canine&nbsp; companion would break immersion. It&nbsp; might be nice for your leader to have&nbsp; an agressive attacking element to be&nbsp; able to&nbsp; play as well.&nbsp; As&nbsp; Rechan says, having an animal companion is a bit different than running a second companion character.You could even have a backstory competition; whoever writes the most&nbsp; creative&nbsp; backstory of how they came to own the dwarven trained mastiff gets to control it.It will go a veeeeery long way to balancing the dragon encounter in favour of the PCs.As for the adventure itself, I found my players&nbsp; enjoyed all the encounters. The first encounter the Wizard was able to&nbsp; get past the portcullis with Ghost Hand. The second (if i recall correctly) had lots of fun&nbsp; being&nbsp; knocked into a&nbsp; slime pit til the athletes could get up onto the ledge where the&nbsp; kobolds were throwing the knock-down balls at them. The third with the giant ball&nbsp; rolling around the entire combat kept PCs moving&nbsp; around the&nbsp; whole&nbsp; time, again the eladrin&nbsp; wizard shining with a teleport up and into safety. The dragon encounter was fun, run as is. It got the drop on the PCs and stunned all but the wise ranger who had seperated herself from the&nbsp; group. This was very tense. But they got through it, and boy did they feel good&nbsp; about&nbsp; beating a&nbsp; dragon! We had played 3.5 ed. previously and the PCs had struggled&nbsp; to&nbsp; splat a few infected rats. After this fight they were singing that now they felt like real heroes. It&nbsp; was great!I think for an intro-adventure, it does a real good job. Short, sweet and fun with the right&nbsp; touch of deadly and heroic.Adding in a&nbsp;&nbsp; fore-story sounds like a good idea, but I think if you are going to do skill challenges you need&nbsp;&nbsp; to work on them as much, if not a touch&nbsp; more, to make themintersting, exciting and challenging. A start to this&nbsp; is to make failure meaningful. What happens to the situation when a PC fails? I&nbsp; always use a fail as a chance to add&nbsp; a new, dangerous dynamic&nbsp;&nbsp; to&nbsp; the situation that the&nbsp; PCs have to&nbsp; resolve before they can&nbsp; proceed. Three fails means they have leapt from&nbsp; frying pan to&nbsp; fire. Having a series of events ready and prepared&nbsp; like a pick a path book will help you &quot;improvise&quot; and when&nbsp; and if your PCs put their foot in it you have an event to throw into the mix; these elements will&nbsp; send your challenge in the right direction, somewhere towards fun and memorable.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="jbear, post: 5687403, member: 75065"] I'llhave to disagree that running a canine companion would break immersion. It might be nice for your leader to have an agressive attacking element to be able to play as well. As Rechan says, having an animal companion is a bit different than running a second companion character. You could even have a backstory competition; whoever writes the most creative backstory of how they came to own the dwarven trained mastiff gets to control it.It will go a veeeeery long way to balancing the dragon encounter in favour of the PCs. As for the adventure itself, I found my players enjoyed all the encounters. The first encounter the Wizard was able to get past the portcullis with Ghost Hand. The second (if i recall correctly) had lots of fun being knocked into a slime pit til the athletes could get up onto the ledge where the kobolds were throwing the knock-down balls at them. The third with the giant ball rolling around the entire combat kept PCs moving around the whole time, again the eladrin wizard shining with a teleport up and into safety. The dragon encounter was fun, run as is. It got the drop on the PCs and stunned all but the wise ranger who had seperated herself from the group. This was very tense. But they got through it, and boy did they feel good about beating a dragon! We had played 3.5 ed. previously and the PCs had struggled to splat a few infected rats. After this fight they were singing that now they felt like real heroes. It was great! I think for an intro-adventure, it does a real good job. Short, sweet and fun with the right touch of deadly and heroic. Adding in a fore-story sounds like a good idea, but I think if you are going to do skill challenges you need to work on them as much, if not a touch more, to make themintersting, exciting and challenging. A start to this is to make failure meaningful. What happens to the situation when a PC fails? I always use a fail as a chance to add a new, dangerous dynamic to the situation that the PCs have to resolve before they can proceed. Three fails means they have leapt from frying pan to fire. Having a series of events ready and prepared like a pick a path book will help you "improvise" and when and if your PCs put their foot in it you have an event to throw into the mix; these elements will send your challenge in the right direction, somewhere towards fun and memorable. [/QUOTE]

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