John Cooper
Explorer
Dungeon Crawl Classics #13: Crypt of the Devil Lich
By Chris Doyle, Lisa Doyle, Mike Ferguson, Joseph Goodman, Andrew Hind, Jason Little, Adrian M. Pommier, Jeffrey Quinn, F. Wesley Schneider, and Andrew N. Smith
Goodman Games product number GMG5012
96-page PDF, $14.99
[Disclaimer, Confession, and Spoiler Alert: While I intend to be my normal objective self, it's probably worth mentioning that I now have a professional working relationship with Goodman Games - specifically, I've been hired to do some 3.5 updating to certain of the earlier entries in their "Dungeon Crawl Classics" line. However, I had nothing at all to do with Crypt of the Devil Lich, and don't think that reviewing it will be a problem for me, objectivity-wise. (I've never had a problem with "biting the hand that feeds me" in the past, so to speak!) As for the "spoiler" part, this product is an adventure and while I'll do my best not to give away too many specific details about it, if you're a player and your DM intends to run your PC party through Crypt of the Devil Lich, be fair and stop reading this now. It'll only spoil your fun later.]
Okay, with that out of the way, I'll get on with the review. Overall impression: Crypt of the Devil Lich is a nice product that does exactly what it was written to do: provide an "old-school," trap-filled dungeon of PC-killing enjoyment. However, it's important that you know just what it is that you're getting when you purchase Crypt of the Devil Lich, because those more interested in the roleplaying experience are liable to be disappointed. As the Dungeon Crawl Classics description explains on the front cover of the PDF, "Dungeon Crawl Classics adventures don't waste your time with long-winded speeches, weird campaign settings, or NPCs who aren't meant to be killed. Each adventure is 100% good, solid dungeon crawl, with the monsters you know, the traps you remember, and the secret doors you know are there somewhere." (I get the feeling that these adventures would be perfect for the members of the Knights of the Dinner Table; Hackmaster players take note!)
The cover is perfect for this "old style feel," appropriately done by Erol Otus, he of so many of the D&D game's earliest pieces of cover art. It features the eponymous devil lich (an undead, winged female drow) blasting a party of 3 adventurers. There isn't a whole lot of detail given, but that's part of the charm - this cover fits in perfectly with the early adventures of the "good old days." (The only thing that throws me off is what's that squirting out of the devil-lich's ears? Or is that just supposed to represent "power?") The back cover features a piece by William McAusland, this one of a crazed-looking human hermit standing before the bone-strewn entrance to the devil lich's lair. Again, it perfectly captures the retro feel of D&D's earliest games, and is perfectly fitting for the adventure.
The interior art really blew me away, considering that this product is a PDF. It's been my experience that PDFs tend to be rather skimpy on the artwork; Crypt of the Devil Lich, on the other hand, has no less than 20 full-color illustrations, 51 black-and-white illustrations, plus 4 black-and-white maps and 14 color photographs! There are 20 artists listed, much more than you'd expect in a PDF. Following the Dungeon Crawl Classics' stated goal of a "retro feel," these illustrations are done in the same early (some might say "simplistic") style, but there are many details provided in the pictures. I was particularly impressed with the 22 player handouts provided - while a few of these are merely words (usually to a puzzle written on the wall of one of the trap-filled rooms in the crypt), most fall into the "this is what your characters see when they enter the room" camp, making this adventure one of the best I've seen as far as helping the DM get his players to correctly visualize their surroundings. The maps are fairly simple and straightforward; they're nothing special, but they get the job done and they're easy to read - again, making them a definite plus to the DM. I was also pleased to see that besides the three levels of the devil lich's crypt, we are also given detailed maps of some of the more intricate sections of the crypt, making it much easier for the DM to understand the layout of the particular traps.
As far as two of my favorite areas of emphasis - editing and proofreading - I'm happy to report that these areas are up to the normal Goodman Games standard: I've found that Goodman Games tends to do very well in these areas, and Crypt of the Devil Lich is no exception. There were a few minor errors I found (lack of a hyphen, "cloaker" instead of "choker," "the" instead of "there," a missing space between two words, closing parentheses in superscript (it followed a superscript letter), a "greater than" mathematical symbol used three times when the "less than" symbol was appropriate, a missing word, incorrect hyphenization between two lines, and one instance of "Hit Die" not being capitalized), but for a 96-page PDF, these were much less frequent than what seems to be the industry average, and significantly lower than the number of mistakes I've found in similar-sized books by larger RPG companies. Overall, I was rather impressed. There's no proofreader listed on the credits page, so I'll attribute this to editor Ken Hart - nicely done, Ken! (Oh, one final nitpick: that should be "ENnie," not "Ennie" - the "EN" is capitalized to mirror the name of the boards from which the award is derived.)
As far as the adventure itself, there are a few things worth pointing out. Crypt of the Devil Lich is definitely in the Tomb of Horrors mold, as it's quite obviously intended as a death-trap meant to kill off as many PCs as possible. It was designed as a tournament adventure for Gen Con Indy 2004, and as such it comes equipped not only with 6 ready-to-use PCs, but also has "tournament rules" throughout the entire adventure, so you can go through Crypt of the Devil Lich either as a tournament (where all of the random damage rolls have been predetermined), or as a regular adventure, where you let the dice determine you fate. There is also a section on tournament scoring, so you can see how well your PC party would have done had they been competing at Gen Con Indy 2004. (The 14 photos are pictures of the groups competing at Gen Con, and there are descriptions scattered throughout the PDF explaining how the various playtesters did things when running through Crypt of the Devil Lich, which I've always found to be fascinating, behind-the-scenes reading.) While the authors come right out and admit that Crypt of the Devil Lich was "designed by a committee" - they even break it down on page 90 and explain who designed which rooms - given the "entering arguments" about the whole thing, this slap-dash approach isn't really a problem. After all, the adventure starts out with the PCs already at the entrance to the crypt, with nothing but a 6-paragraph backstory synopsis to get them started. Does it really matter why they're there? The whole point is for them to enter the crypt and see if they can make it to the end. For meatgrinder adventures like these, the whole point is the bragging rights that you made it through intact (or else a cool story about your PC's gruesome death - there's even a "I got wasted by the Devil Lich" artwork on page 96 of the PDF, that was apparently made into T-shirts for the competitors at Gen Con whose PCs didn't make it intact!).
The various traps in Crypt of the Devil Lich struck me as being very imaginative. Even the monsters got a good tweaking, as the vast majority of them have either been given a template (or two!), or class levels, or otherwise modified so they're not used out-of-the-box. Since Crypt of the Devil Lich is intended for 15th-level PCs, and you've got to figure that by that time their players will have memorized quite a bit of "monster lore" about the various creatures they've encountered up to that point, this was an excellent approach.
However, these modified monsters are where Crypt of the Devil Lich hits its biggest snag. Sadly, there are quite a few problems with many of their game stats. In the interest in aiding the DM who's planning on running his players through Crypt of the Devil Lich, I recommend making the following changes:
However, despite the many stat block errors, I think Crypt of the Devil Lich does a great job in doing what it sets out to do: provide the DM with a "meatgrinder" PC-killer of an adventure that any PC would be proud to be able to boast that he survived. The numerous player handouts add greatly to the adventure's appeal, and the majority of the tricks and traps in the crypt are very well thought out, with rules accounting for most everything a PC might try. (Without giving anything away to those who might go through this adventure, I really liked the word-puzzle in room 3-3; congratulations to Mike Ferguson for a real brain teaser! And while I'm at it, I'm willing to bet that Mike's a fan of Piratecat's Story Hour on the EN World message boards, which also featured a "coin golem" in a treasure room in one of its recent adventures.) Crypt of the Devil Lich isn't going to be everybody's cup of tea, but as long as you know that it's intended to be a meatgrinder, you should be pleased with what you get.
I give Crypt of the Devil Lich a rating of "4 (Good)." I'll have to make it a point to head over to the Goodman Games booth the next time I make it to a Gen Con, to see if they're running something similar. It looks like it would be great fun.
By Chris Doyle, Lisa Doyle, Mike Ferguson, Joseph Goodman, Andrew Hind, Jason Little, Adrian M. Pommier, Jeffrey Quinn, F. Wesley Schneider, and Andrew N. Smith
Goodman Games product number GMG5012
96-page PDF, $14.99
[Disclaimer, Confession, and Spoiler Alert: While I intend to be my normal objective self, it's probably worth mentioning that I now have a professional working relationship with Goodman Games - specifically, I've been hired to do some 3.5 updating to certain of the earlier entries in their "Dungeon Crawl Classics" line. However, I had nothing at all to do with Crypt of the Devil Lich, and don't think that reviewing it will be a problem for me, objectivity-wise. (I've never had a problem with "biting the hand that feeds me" in the past, so to speak!) As for the "spoiler" part, this product is an adventure and while I'll do my best not to give away too many specific details about it, if you're a player and your DM intends to run your PC party through Crypt of the Devil Lich, be fair and stop reading this now. It'll only spoil your fun later.]
Okay, with that out of the way, I'll get on with the review. Overall impression: Crypt of the Devil Lich is a nice product that does exactly what it was written to do: provide an "old-school," trap-filled dungeon of PC-killing enjoyment. However, it's important that you know just what it is that you're getting when you purchase Crypt of the Devil Lich, because those more interested in the roleplaying experience are liable to be disappointed. As the Dungeon Crawl Classics description explains on the front cover of the PDF, "Dungeon Crawl Classics adventures don't waste your time with long-winded speeches, weird campaign settings, or NPCs who aren't meant to be killed. Each adventure is 100% good, solid dungeon crawl, with the monsters you know, the traps you remember, and the secret doors you know are there somewhere." (I get the feeling that these adventures would be perfect for the members of the Knights of the Dinner Table; Hackmaster players take note!)
The cover is perfect for this "old style feel," appropriately done by Erol Otus, he of so many of the D&D game's earliest pieces of cover art. It features the eponymous devil lich (an undead, winged female drow) blasting a party of 3 adventurers. There isn't a whole lot of detail given, but that's part of the charm - this cover fits in perfectly with the early adventures of the "good old days." (The only thing that throws me off is what's that squirting out of the devil-lich's ears? Or is that just supposed to represent "power?") The back cover features a piece by William McAusland, this one of a crazed-looking human hermit standing before the bone-strewn entrance to the devil lich's lair. Again, it perfectly captures the retro feel of D&D's earliest games, and is perfectly fitting for the adventure.
The interior art really blew me away, considering that this product is a PDF. It's been my experience that PDFs tend to be rather skimpy on the artwork; Crypt of the Devil Lich, on the other hand, has no less than 20 full-color illustrations, 51 black-and-white illustrations, plus 4 black-and-white maps and 14 color photographs! There are 20 artists listed, much more than you'd expect in a PDF. Following the Dungeon Crawl Classics' stated goal of a "retro feel," these illustrations are done in the same early (some might say "simplistic") style, but there are many details provided in the pictures. I was particularly impressed with the 22 player handouts provided - while a few of these are merely words (usually to a puzzle written on the wall of one of the trap-filled rooms in the crypt), most fall into the "this is what your characters see when they enter the room" camp, making this adventure one of the best I've seen as far as helping the DM get his players to correctly visualize their surroundings. The maps are fairly simple and straightforward; they're nothing special, but they get the job done and they're easy to read - again, making them a definite plus to the DM. I was also pleased to see that besides the three levels of the devil lich's crypt, we are also given detailed maps of some of the more intricate sections of the crypt, making it much easier for the DM to understand the layout of the particular traps.
As far as two of my favorite areas of emphasis - editing and proofreading - I'm happy to report that these areas are up to the normal Goodman Games standard: I've found that Goodman Games tends to do very well in these areas, and Crypt of the Devil Lich is no exception. There were a few minor errors I found (lack of a hyphen, "cloaker" instead of "choker," "the" instead of "there," a missing space between two words, closing parentheses in superscript (it followed a superscript letter), a "greater than" mathematical symbol used three times when the "less than" symbol was appropriate, a missing word, incorrect hyphenization between two lines, and one instance of "Hit Die" not being capitalized), but for a 96-page PDF, these were much less frequent than what seems to be the industry average, and significantly lower than the number of mistakes I've found in similar-sized books by larger RPG companies. Overall, I was rather impressed. There's no proofreader listed on the credits page, so I'll attribute this to editor Ken Hart - nicely done, Ken! (Oh, one final nitpick: that should be "ENnie," not "Ennie" - the "EN" is capitalized to mirror the name of the boards from which the award is derived.)
As far as the adventure itself, there are a few things worth pointing out. Crypt of the Devil Lich is definitely in the Tomb of Horrors mold, as it's quite obviously intended as a death-trap meant to kill off as many PCs as possible. It was designed as a tournament adventure for Gen Con Indy 2004, and as such it comes equipped not only with 6 ready-to-use PCs, but also has "tournament rules" throughout the entire adventure, so you can go through Crypt of the Devil Lich either as a tournament (where all of the random damage rolls have been predetermined), or as a regular adventure, where you let the dice determine you fate. There is also a section on tournament scoring, so you can see how well your PC party would have done had they been competing at Gen Con Indy 2004. (The 14 photos are pictures of the groups competing at Gen Con, and there are descriptions scattered throughout the PDF explaining how the various playtesters did things when running through Crypt of the Devil Lich, which I've always found to be fascinating, behind-the-scenes reading.) While the authors come right out and admit that Crypt of the Devil Lich was "designed by a committee" - they even break it down on page 90 and explain who designed which rooms - given the "entering arguments" about the whole thing, this slap-dash approach isn't really a problem. After all, the adventure starts out with the PCs already at the entrance to the crypt, with nothing but a 6-paragraph backstory synopsis to get them started. Does it really matter why they're there? The whole point is for them to enter the crypt and see if they can make it to the end. For meatgrinder adventures like these, the whole point is the bragging rights that you made it through intact (or else a cool story about your PC's gruesome death - there's even a "I got wasted by the Devil Lich" artwork on page 96 of the PDF, that was apparently made into T-shirts for the competitors at Gen Con whose PCs didn't make it intact!).
The various traps in Crypt of the Devil Lich struck me as being very imaginative. Even the monsters got a good tweaking, as the vast majority of them have either been given a template (or two!), or class levels, or otherwise modified so they're not used out-of-the-box. Since Crypt of the Devil Lich is intended for 15th-level PCs, and you've got to figure that by that time their players will have memorized quite a bit of "monster lore" about the various creatures they've encountered up to that point, this was an excellent approach.
However, these modified monsters are where Crypt of the Devil Lich hits its biggest snag. Sadly, there are quite a few problems with many of their game stats. In the interest in aiding the DM who's planning on running his players through Crypt of the Devil Lich, I recommend making the following changes:
- p. 15, Advanced Allips: Base Attack Bonus should be +6, not +7 (as 12-HD undead). There's no Grapple modifier indicated; it should be "-" since they're incorporeal creatures. The "Skills and Feats" section should have been listed before the "SA - Babble" section. Also, the Will save to avoid the "babble" effects should be DC 20, not DC 22 (10 + 1/2 Hit Dice + CHA modifier, or 10+6+4).
- p. 17, Advanced Flesh Golem with Choker Arms and Spider Legs: Why does this creature get 3 slam attacks with its Full Attack? It only has two arms. The creature in the illustration on page 17 seems to have a clubbed tail, but this isn't mentioned in the creature's description.
- p. 19, Unfinished Flesh Golem Containers: As these are constructs, Hit Dice should be 2d10+20, not 2d12+20.
- pp. 19-20, Hellwasp Swarms: Poison Fortitude save should be DC 20, not DC 18 (due to the Ability Focus (poison) feat).
- p. 21, Advanced Hybrid Oozes (Gelatinous Cubes with Black Pudding Properties): Hit Dice should be 24d10+240, not 24d10+140 (due to a +10 CON bonus). This means that their average hit points should be 372, not 272.
- p. 27, Flint Golem: Under Full Attack, 2 slams should be at +21 melee, not +19 (+13 BAB, -1 size, +9 STR).
- p. 29, Foegar, Male Human Lich Clr13: Grapple attacks should be at +11, not +12 (+9 BAB, +2 STR). Touch attacks should be at +11 melee, not +12 (+9 BAB, +2 STR). Likewise, under Full Attack, touch attacks should be at +11/+6 melee, not +12/+7.
- p. 33, Dire Shark Ghosts: Constitution should be "-" instead of 17. Hit Dice should be 18d12+12, not 18d12+66 (the 4 Toughness feats add 12 hp, but since the ghosts are undead they should not get bonus hit points from Constitution modifiers!). Average hit points should be 120, not 147. When manifested, AC should be 12, not 14 (+2 DEX, -2 size, +2 deflection); likewise with the touch AC. Flat-footed AC should be 10, not 14. Against corporeal creatures, ghostly bite attacks should be at +14 melee touch, not +13 (+13 BAB, -2 size, +2 DEX, +1 Weapon Focus (bite)). With 18 HD, these creatures should have 7 feats, not just 6 (although this also applies to the Dire Shark as printed in the Monster Manual).
- p. 37, Centipede Swarm: No touch or flat-footed AC values given; should be touch 18, flat-footed 14.
- p. 37, Animated Chains, Large animated +5 unholy spiked chains: Initiative should be +2, not +0 (+2 DEX modifier).
- p. 37, Rogroakbub the Trollfiend, Toadspawn Troll Clr6: Base Attack Bonus should be +8, not +7 (+4 as a troll, +4 as a Clr6). Bite attacks should be at +17 melee, not +18 (+8 BAB, -2 size, +11 STR). Claw attacks should be at +15 melee, not +16 (+8 BAB, -2 size, +11 STR, -2 for a secondary attack with Multiattack). Tongue attacks should be at +18 melee, not +19 (+8 BAB, -2 size, +11 STR, +1 Weapon Focus). With 12 HD, he should have 6 feats (Weapon Focus is a bonus feat from the Toadspawn template), not 7. Also, the feats aren't correctly alphabetized.
- p. 41, Oz and Zoë, male and female fiendish ooze mephits Sor6: Hit Dice should be 3d8+6d4+27, not 3d8+6d4+18 (+3 CON modifier due to the bear's endurance spells).
- p. 45, Lord Braxus, Male Drow Vampire Blackguard 7/Ftr6: AC should be 32, not 33 (+6 DEX, +6 natural, +8 +4 mithril chain shirt, +2 ring of protection).
- p. 48, Jengenritz, Male Svirfneblin Ghost Ftr11: AC should be 18, not 17 (+1 size, +3 DEX, +4 CHA-based defection). Likewise with touch AC. Flat-footed AC should be 15, not 13 (+1 size, +4 deflection). Base Attack Bonus should be +11, not +12 (as a 11th-level fighter). Scimitar attacks should be at +19 melee, not +17 (+11 BAB, +1 size, +3 DEX due to Weapon Finesse, +1 Weapon Focus (scimitar), +3 magic weapon bonus). Touch attacks should be at +15 melee touch, not +14 (+11 BAB, +1 size, +3 DEX). Scimitar damage should be 1d4+6/18-20 painful, not 1d6+5/18-20 painful (1d4 for being a Small weapon, +1 STR, +2 Weapon Specialization (scimitar), +3 magic weapon bonus). The Fortitude save for Horrific Appearance should be DC 19, not DC 15 (10 + 5 + 4).
- p. 48, Krklkkrkl, Huge Fire Elemental: "CR 7" is listed twice. Improved Initiative and Weapon Finesse should be annotated as bonus feats.
- p. 51, Coin Golem: Coin Volley Reflex save should be DC 17, not DC 18 (10 + 8 - 1, due to the creature's -1 DEX modifier).
- p. 53, Slate, intelligent chalkboard: Initiative should be -1, not "0" (-1 DEX modifier). Touch AC should be 8, not 9 (-1 size, -1 DEX).
- p. 56, Polluted Air Elemental: Improved Initaitive and Weapon Finesse should be annotated as bonus feats. With 30 HD, the creature should have an additional 2 feats.
- p. 58, Bone Swarms: Base Attack Bonus should be +6, not +3 (as a 12-HD undead).
- p. 63, Chalychia the Devil-Lich, Female Half-Drow/Half-Fiend Lich Wizard (Conjurer) 14: As a 14th-level wizard, she should have the Scribe Scroll feat, which means she has to drop one of the feats she currently has listed.
- p. 63, Large Air Elemental: Slam attacks should be at +12 melee, not +15 (+6 BAB, +7 DEX, -1 size). Improved Initaitive and Weapon Finesse should be annotated as bonus feats. Whirlwind Reflex save should be DC 18, not DC 16 (10 + 4 + 4).
- p. 64, Invisible Stalker: Grapple attacks should be at +16, not +14 (+6 BAB, +4 size, +6 STR).
- p. 64, Bone Devils: Bite attacks should be at +16 melee, not +17 (+10 BAB, -1 size, +7 STR). Claw attacks and sting attacks should be at +14 melee, not +15 (+10 BAB, -1 size, +7 STR, -2 for a secondary attack with the Multiattack feat). Bite damage should be 1d8+7, not 1d8+6 (+7 STR bonus). Poison Fortitude saves should be at DC 22, not DC 21 (10 + 5 + 7).
- p. 70, Agrij Agranni, Dwarf Clr12/Ftr3: +2 heavy shield of bashing attacks should be at +19 melee, not +14 (+12 BAB, +5 STR, +2 magic weapon bonus).
- p. 71, Jyncks, Human Wiz15 (Evoker): +2 dagger of speed attacks should be at +9/+9/+4 melee, not +10/+10/+5 (+7 BAB, +2 magic weapon bonus). Silver dagger attacks should be at +7/+2 melee, not +11/+6 (+7 BAB; the item doesn't state that the silver daggers are masterwork like the one in the Dungeon Master's Guide). Since three of her attacks are dagger-related, it might have been a good idea to break the attack rolls down as "melee" and "ranged" attacks - there's plenty of room on the character sheet to do so.
- p. 72, Mellyoun, Gnome Rog10/Brd5: Base melee bonus should be +16/+11, not +12/+7 (+10 BAB, +1 size, +5 DEX due to Weapon Finesse). +3 rapier of speed attacks should be at +19/+19/+14 melee, not +20/+20/+15 (+10 BAB, +1 size, +3 DEX, +3 magic weapon bonus).
- p. 74, Brother Jharko, Human Mnk15: With a DEX 16, the modifier should be +3, not +4.
- p. 75, Bone Swarm: With HD 12d12, average hit points should be 78, not 88. Base Attack Bonus should be +6, not +3 (as a 12-HD undead).
- p. 75, Coin Golem: Coin Volley Reflex save should be DC 17, not DC 18 (10 + 8 - 1, due to the creature's -1 DEX modifier).
However, despite the many stat block errors, I think Crypt of the Devil Lich does a great job in doing what it sets out to do: provide the DM with a "meatgrinder" PC-killer of an adventure that any PC would be proud to be able to boast that he survived. The numerous player handouts add greatly to the adventure's appeal, and the majority of the tricks and traps in the crypt are very well thought out, with rules accounting for most everything a PC might try. (Without giving anything away to those who might go through this adventure, I really liked the word-puzzle in room 3-3; congratulations to Mike Ferguson for a real brain teaser! And while I'm at it, I'm willing to bet that Mike's a fan of Piratecat's Story Hour on the EN World message boards, which also featured a "coin golem" in a treasure room in one of its recent adventures.) Crypt of the Devil Lich isn't going to be everybody's cup of tea, but as long as you know that it's intended to be a meatgrinder, you should be pleased with what you get.
I give Crypt of the Devil Lich a rating of "4 (Good)." I'll have to make it a point to head over to the Goodman Games booth the next time I make it to a Gen Con, to see if they're running something similar. It looks like it would be great fun.
