Cooperative Dungeon IV: Update

[Conaill]

It is a tomb though, kind of hard to escape the natural gravitation toward undead. There are other ways to do this NPC, but they're all pretty weird.

Yeah, I know. Any sort of "sealed" dungeon is going to have the same problem.

Next Cooperative Dungeon, I vote we make an "open" design with all live critters. How about a mine of factory where a bunch of lower-level critters are toiling for their master? With lots of heavy machinery to drown out sounds of combat in room N for the opponents in room N+1.

We could have ongoing traffic between one room and another, slaves that need to be rescued, a 24-hr schedule with shift changes, helpful and/or devious NPCs, machinery to sabotage, and of course the final combat with the master himself...

 

[Trainz]

About undead:

I think we could substitute them for demons or devils if you don't want to overdo the undead thing. There's plenty of low level evil outsiders in the SRD. They might not need to eat (one might be summoned and held to a certain location via ritual).

About the next adventure:

Not being a sealed dungeon is good input, but I intend to make it a level 10 or more adventure. We've dabbled in low level dungeons enough for now (3, 5, and 7).

Giants are fun, for one.

 

[tarchon]

If you guys post a link to a Word template, I would imagine a lot of the individual room authors could do the Word conversion themselves.

 

[ikazuchi]

Room Template

If you guys post a link to a Word template, I would imagine a lot of the individual room authors could do the Word conversion themselves.

Here's a Room Template in MS Word .doc format, and my room (#12) as an example.

I went with putting all text you's actually read to the PCs in italics.

Feel free to use it if you'd like.

I can also convert the template to OpenOffice.org, KOffice, RTF, HTML, XML, text, Abiword, or pretty much anything but Mac specific variations.

Though it's not like it would be hard to convert it yourself. Its just text.

 

[Shallown]

Doing Rooms in word would help a ton. I spend an inordinate amount of time dealing with format issues between the boards and word which is what we use to eidt in before the PDF. Thanks again everyone.


These are a few questions I have and suggestions to help the room fit the proper format. Things in Parenthesis are suggestions based on base/standard for the object in question.
I apologize if I missed it if the information is there and I overlooked it.

Room 8 Phineas Crow
Need stats on door (Hardness 8, HP 45 or 60)
Demon Idol’s aura (Enchantment based on spell cast from it)
The caskets may need to be numbered just doing it clockwise from the door. Not sure if this matters.
What are the value of the rods?
Maybe Eregash’s Moonstone could have some symbol/rune or whatever on the back to indicate its use behind the door panel. Depends on how easy you want to make it.

Room 9 ConnorSB
DC 10 What on the door. I assume Spot.

Room 7 Wycen
Door stats need to be put in (hardness 5; HP 10)
Did you think/decide to downpowering Nazgra?

Room 14 Tallfellow

Separate description out of you text. You can see examples in the other rooms. It should be boxed text that the Gm can read to the players on what they first see.
Also leave out classes in descriptions… let the players guess. You can note what class they are in the gm’s notes.
Likewise don’t ID the tracks maybe set a track DC.
What’s the Search DC for the copper pieces.
What is the spike damage if you fall on one.
How hurt is the dire badger. I assume his HP listed are his normal max.
Please add Conaill’s idea below if its okay with you
“Another way to get them into the hidden section... the tunnels dug by the dire badger in #14 come awfully close to rooms #16 and #19. Let's say that on a successful Search check (DC 15 or so?) in the partially collapsed western badger tunnel they find traces of solid, worked stone - the outside of the wall of #16.

Let's call it Hewn stone: 3 ft. thick, break DC 50, hardness 8, 540 hp. Far from easy to get through, but it would at least tell them *something* is there. Maybe they'll decide to go straight through the wall, especially if they have some adamantine tools.”

Room 5 Slife
Door stats Needed (Hardness 5; HP 15)
Value of books to a collector (20gp each )

Room 16 John Q
How much more is the jewelry worth to a collector (double)
Add ghoul to the stat block it wasn’t immediately obvious what type of undead she is.

Room 3 Thullgrim
Stat out prisoners
This may be too much for the party so early on. Maybe delay reinforcements arriving.
I assume reinforcements come from Rm 4
Maybe set conditions on when the Quasit will run away assuming he is cowardly,as I would imagine him to be. Also why is he here? IS he the guide sent by the Gnoll’s God?
Conaill has some points on the npcs in his post. What did you decide to do with them, if anything.


Room 2 Thullgrim
Go ahead and fill in the Npc gear , if a Gm wants to change it then they can.
The gnolls would know there are 24 or so gnolls in the place.. Easier to spell out what they know and save gm time of hunting down the info.

Room 13 - Ferret
Door stats needed (Stone hardness 8; HP 45)

What does the doppelganger know about this place and how has it survived this long?
Perhaps it wasn’t always a doppelganger but instead has transformed into one by the chaos taint. Just an idea.

Room 17 Forsaken one
Still need to switch out the Elhoriand for something.

Room 19 Adrienne
Need door stats (Break dc 25; Hardness 8; HP 50 Matches other copper door)

Room 21 Phineas Crow
Can you edit back in where each of the keys are now. Thanks.

Room 12 ikazuchi
Need door stats (Hardness5, HP 20 Break DC 23)




OVERALL

Would someone like to write a short history for the tomb and such?


Are we adding in some books/scrolls to help decipher glyphs

Conaill’s ideas

Regarding the "Rosetta Stone"... let's *not* make it a stone, they'd be expecting that . There's no reason we couldn't have multiple aids for reading the inscriptions. For example, I would make the +2 bonus in #15 a non-stackable insight bonus (seems to fit better). Then we could also have a translating dictionary between hieratic and hieroglypics in the library, giving a circumstance bonus (for being able to consult the dictionary) that reduces the hieroglyphic DC to the hieratic DC +5. And perhaps a set of notes by one of the gnoll clerics that gives another +2 circumstance bonus to both DC's. Combining all three, hieratic DC would drop to 16, and hieroglyphic to 21 (or 19, depending on how the last two stack).


I didn’t catch all the good ideas people offered about changing and improving the interaction of the dungeon so if contributors could check like pages 10 on where most of it comes up that would help.

Please post and let me know if you have made changes to you

 

[ikazuchi]

Updates!

Updated Room 12 with Door stats and added the Novitiate Primer, a minor 'Rosetta Stone' for helping decipher the hieroglyphs in the tomb. More such items could be useful, as per Conaill's post.

I also updated the .doc version of my room above.

 

[Conaill]

Updated Room 12 with Door stats and added the Novitiate Primer, a minor 'Rosetta Stone' for helping decipher the hieroglyphs in the tomb.

Cool!

You may want to make the primer a bit easier to find. After all, if everything else is written in hieroglypics, this one should stand out easily. Maybe a DC 15 on a generic Search check to notice the book, then a Decipher Script check to figure out what it is. (How would a "10% + 1% per book chance" on a random Search work anyway? Would the players need to specify how many books they check randomly?)

The bit about "hundreds of ghostly scorpions climb about its body" is very flavorful, but does it have any in-game effects? It sounds like a cursed Robe of Vermin to me, and it might confuse the players likewise.

 

[Phineas Crow]

I've updated Room 8, mostly I rewrote the room desc. and compressed the casket data.

I've upped the heiroglyphics decipher to DC 30, since its vital to the puzzle, I'm counting on there being multiple tools available in other rooms to decipher them.

I'll probably have room 21 done on fri or sat.

 

[Conaill]

I've upped the heiroglyphics decipher to DC 30, since its vital to the puzzle, I'm counting on there being multiple tools available in other rooms to decipher them.

On the other hand, since these are hieroglyphics, it may be feasible to simply match up the "pictures" on the cartouches, rods, and keys without translating any of it.

On a DC 30 Decipher Script check, you should probably also give the translation of the inscription in #8, i.e. "Red Hippo" instead of "Tesher Nehes". Perhaps on a lower roll (DC 25?) they only get the latter translation.

 

[Phineas Crow]

I'm debating whether to remove the mummy from rm#21 or not. I'd like to hear from the others, is the room/dungeon/module better with or without the mummy?