CM 1 Test of the Warlords and other Companion modules

[Cerebral Paladin]

I'm considering running a campaign based on the old Companion-set adventure CM 1 Test of the Warlords, with the PCs carving out new dominions and dealing with high-level threats and wars and such. I'll probably use a lot of the core material from Test of the Warlords, ported over to 3.x and with some modifications and adjustments and such.

I have Test of the Warlords, but I'm considering picking up some of the other adventures in that series as PDFs. But I don't really want random high-level adventures that aren't really connected to the Norwold setting-- I have a copy of CM 8 The Endless Stair, and while it might be a fun game, it won't help me run this campaign. Does anyone know which of the other Companion modules are tightly integrated into the Norwold setting and the "setting up new dominions" premise? Are any of them particularly good, so I should definitely get them, or alternately no good at all?

Does anyone have advice on running these modules from their experience?

 

[ScottS]

From what I recall, 2 and 3 are more "Norwoldian" than the others because they involve rescuing dominions from various bads. 4 takes place entirely within one "dungeon". 6 is a time travel adventure on another planet... I never ran any of them, but based on the reads I liked 3 and 6; 2 and 4 were OK. (I don't remember any of them being especially terrible, but then again it's been 10 years since I've looked at them.) I don't think any of them specifically involved using the War Machine rules, or anything of a "Norwold-shaking event" nature like the end of CM1. They may have had Norwold references sprinkled about, but overall they were somewhat setting-neutral, because you were supposed to be able to plop them down in/around a PC's dominion regardless of where that was.

I'm trying to stay non-spoilery, but if you want more detailed summaries I can do that.

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

Thanks, that's very helpful. I wouldn't mind spoilery things-- I've asked my players to stay out of this thread, and I suspect that most people reading it would be aware that they might hit spoilers (or you could spoiler tag it). It looks like for what I'm interested in, 2 and 3 are the real possibilities.

 

[Serendipity]

The first part of M1 (Into the Maelstrom) hits that note fairly spot on, but then kind of wanders (to say the least).

 

[S'mon]

CM3 seemed very Norwoldy to me.

In some ways I think CM1 might work better in 3e than in BECMI. A 45 hp BECMI Frost Giant doesn't look much of a threat to a 15th level BECMI PC to my mind; a 3.5e Frost Giant might well threaten an equivalent (ca 10th?) 3e PC.

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

Yeah, I'm thinking that I'll start the players at right around 9th or 10th. The frost giants should be scary, but also within the range of what the players can fight (at least if they are clever). I may tone down the numbers a little, or make sure they split up-- an army of thousands of giants may be too much of a threat in 3e. But hundreds should still work.

9th or 10th is also convenient because it means that Raise Dead and Revivify are available for the random deaths in combat sorts of things, but that assassinations that require a Resurrection can still take out (or at least require serious work to get a Res) a character.

It sounds like CM3 is the must-buy if I run this campaign.

Thanks Triskaidekaphobia for the M1 reference. I happen to have that one (for little apparent reason). It does have some useful stuff, but a lot of it is, as you say, a wee bit beyond the scope of a Norwold campaign. I read that as a deliberate transition from Companion to Master level play-- it starts off with Companion style, domain and mass combat stuff in the region of the PCs' dominions, but then it leaps into outer planar weirdness and focuses on conflicts among Immortals, which I think of as the core of Master-level gameplay as conceived of by TSR.

 

[ScottS]

Death's Ride:
[sblock]A nearby NPC dominion drops out of contact with the outside world. The PCs go to investigate; it turns out the entire place has been crushed by an undead army. The party roams around the dominion destroying the invaders. (I don't recall if there was a specific justification for the PCs not being able to just march their army over, other than the time pressure of trying to beat the bad guys before they eat more helpless townsfolk etc.)[/sblock]

Sabre River:
[sblock]A river running through one of the PCs' dominions was the site of an ancient Teutoburger Wald type battle (with I believe the Alphatians playing the part of the Romans). The defeated commander cursed the river and the land around it, which leads to an "environmental disaster" of sorts in the present day (anyone drinking the water randomly dies, goes crazy, etc.). The party has to figure out what's happening, recover the commander's sword, and stick it into a "tumor" at the source of the river (so at least two major dungeons as part of the quest plus assorted minor adventures).[/sblock]

Earthshaker:
[sblock]Gnomes bring a giant steam-powered robot to the PCs' lands as part of a travelling circus. The party gets a guided tour of the inside of the robot; while they're there, an evil party (+ minions) infiltrates the robot and tries to steal it. PCs have to figure out what's going on and stop the baddies (again, don't recall how much limitation there is to the party teleporting in/out, whether there's any time pressure due to the baddies possibly sending the robot on a rampage, etc.). This one is sort of problematic in that it's obviously somewhat more 'whimsical' than the others, e.g. the pregen characters are all sort of old-and-fat-yet-still-capable Watchmen types (the wizard in particular is so senile that he has to be continuously led around by a low-level apprentice).[/sblock]

Where Chaos Reigns:
[sblock]The PCs get "volunteered" by the Immortals to save another world. The far future of this world is somehow corrupted by a high-tech civilization, which uses time travel to intervene in their distant past and make the future world "less magical" (usually by strengthening human nations and eliminating non-human races in some fashion). The party gets taxied through the various historical eras when these interventions took place, defeating the baddies at each step and transforming the world into something more D&D-like the further they go.[/sblock]

 

[S'mon]

Yeah, I'm thinking that I'll start the players at right around 9th or 10th. The frost giants should be scary, but also within the range of what the players can fight (at least if they are clever). I may tone down the numbers a little, or make sure they split up-- an army of thousands of giants may be too much of a threat in 3e. But hundreds should still work.

I think hundreds is more plausible anyway. Given that frost giants are 15' tall and live on the frozen tundra, I wondered how thousands could sustain themselves in one place. Mastodon burgers, maybe.

I think CM1 should work very well with PCs starting at 9th or 10th under 3e rules. Their magical resources should be powerful but not overwhelming.

Edit: How about hundreds of frost giants commanding thousands of human barbarians (who are mentioned in CM1)? If the human minions are enslaved and ill-treated that raises the possibility of interesting politics as well as hack & slash, with smart PCs inciting a mutiny among the slave tribes.

 

[CleverNickName]

I'm considering running a campaign based on the old Companion-set adventure CM 1 Test of the Warlords, with the PCs carving out new dominions and dealing with high-level threats and wars and such. I'll probably use a lot of the core material from Test of the Warlords, ported over to 3.x and with some modifications and adjustments and such.

I'd love to see your notes when you are finished; this is one of my favorite adventure modules of all time.

For the mass combat, are you going to convert all of the forces over to the Chainmail rules, or crib together your own rules?

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

I think hundreds is more plausible anyway. Given that frost giants are 15' tall and live on the frozen tundra, I wondered how thousands could sustain themselves in one place. Mastodon burgers, maybe.

SNIP

Edit: How about hundreds of frost giants commanding thousands of human barbarians (who are mentioned in CM1)? If the human minions are enslaved and ill-treated that raises the possibility of interesting politics as well as hack & slash, with smart PCs inciting a mutiny among the slave tribes.

I agree on the plausibility point. CM1 (and lots of the subsequent Mystara stuff) has some unnecessary and silly big numbers. ("Alphatia is ruled by a council of 1,000 wizards, all of whom are MU36." Really? It had to be 1000? And they all had to be 36th level? A council of 200 wizards, all over 20th level wouldn't have been crazily bad-ass enough?) I plan on toning some of that down, trying to keep the cool and the feel but not have my players thinking, how is that imaginable?

Re enslaved human minions: that is an awesome suggestion. I'm very likely to crib that. Making Frosthaven a more complicated area with minions and internal structure and the possibility of revolts makes that much cooler, especially because my players won't want too much hack'n'slash.

Clever, I'm probably going to crib together my own mass combat system-- fairly abstract, with the players mostly A) doing strategic level movements and B) doing "special mission" type things to get a little extra edge, and the rest of the battles resolved with a quick set of dice rolls.

I'm happy to post my notes such as they are after I run it, assuming that I do run it, but I often have very cursory notes, so they may not help much-- I have a pretty good memory and rely on it a lot when GMing. I might also swing a storyhour, but no promises.