Dark Sun DnD Game Day Adventure Review

[jimmifett]

Spoilers ahead, turn back now if you haven't played it...




So Tembo...
I know DS is supposed to be tough and all, but wow, definately setup for fail if you follow it by the letter. The pre-gens were absolutely horrible, except the barbarian. You have one character with any sort of healing, 2/enc. You get no other healing except 2nd wind unless you *FAIL* the skill challenge and fight the elves for their ears to add to your necklace.

The module specifically states that if you are doing too well, or a member of the party gets knocked down a pit, a lvl 6 solo (lvl 4 party) climbs up and joins the ongoing fight. The fight originally is not too bad, but if you don't get a chance to rest and your Ardent recharge his healing encounter before facing the solo, the party is going to have a REALLY hard time of it.

The Tembo itself is a really nasty solo. It has an at-will that, provided it can shift, can do 4d10+6. You have a very short amount of time to figure out this kitty needs to be trapped in a corner. Additionally, it can't be forcefully moved, so you can't push it into a corner, nor push it back down the pit.

This is clearly a place where AngryDM's boss fight mechanic would have been wonderful. Cornering is difficult, and if acheived, becomes a grind. If (when) the kitty decides to join the first fight, at 1/3 HP, it could have dived back down the hole and setup an ambush in it's layer, giving the PCs the chance to get back atleast a healing surge + encounter or 2 power points, then go down the hole and fight a theoretical final two forms for the last 2/3 of it's HP.

If you want to show that Dark Sun is a grinder for characters, this module does it. If you want to show players how fun DS can be, this is NOT the module you want to play first, at least how it is currently written.

I give it a 4/10 for access to healing items only during an optional fight that occurs if you FAIL a check, nearly unwinnable if no one plays the Ardent, and horrible solo encounter throw with a normal balanced encounter.

Not fun for players, not fun for DM.

 

[Mithreinmaethor]

I will just have to say that I disagree totally with your post. That is all

 

[jimmifett]

I will just have to say that I disagree totally with your post. That is all

No particular points or reasons of disagreement?

 

[Philosopher]

Played it earlier today.

The pre-gens were absolutely horrible

Yeah, I wasn't terribly thrilled with my mul fighter's build. It got the job done, though.

The module specifically states that if you are doing too well, or a member of the party gets knocked down a pit, a lvl 6 solo (lvl 4 party) climbs up and joins the ongoing fight.

Interesting. We didn't encounter that.

If you want to show that Dark Sun is a grinder for characters, this module does it. If you want to show players how fun DS can be, this is NOT the module you want to play first, at least how it is currently written.

Honestly, what I found to be a grinder was sitting through all of those skill challenge rolls as we trekked through the desert. I didn't get much of a feel for how my character must have felt. Maybe it was the fact that we never felt worried about water. Maybe it was something about having to make Stealth checks to get through the desert, or being able to use Bluff checks to undo a failed Stealth roll. Or maybe it's because I've never liked skill challenges to begin with.

One thing I found odd is that the treasure we found consisted of gold coins. Back when I ran DS, all metal was scarce.

 

[Larrin]

Played it earlier today.


Honestly, what I found to be a grinder was sitting through all of those skill challenge rolls as we trekked through the desert.

This part was a little dull. Our DM didn't really describe much he just said "do a this role, again, again, again."

The encounters did pretty okay (I had to leave before we met the death kitten) The monk was well enough made, I had fun playing it. They REALLY should have had more healers/healing. Three strikers (albeit our warlock didn't really live up to his potential, young player; not really criticism, just a fact.) helped put enemies down, but no one played the ardent, so it was kinda rough.


Final opinion: Characters weren't great, but weren't hobbled so much that we had no chance.

When we got to the cave after failing the skill challenge, we face a party of humans AND the giths in the cave at once. Yeesh. Fortunately the DM had them fight each other as much as us (which isn't the most fun for players when 5 turns in a row is the DM fighting himself) But we won in the end.

It was tough module, but fun enough. I would rate it 6.5/10, but for an introduction to D&D, pretty rough, maybe a 4.5 on that front.

 

[BlackTiger]

I came in ready to run and ended up playing. My experience may be different - We ran a 4-man table with Ardent, Fighter, Seeker, Warlock... And had very little trouble compared to my past 4E experiences. Down the line...

The Skill Challenge was boring, I didn't look at the write-up but experiencing it was droll. Not having to secure or worry about survival days bothered me as well.

Fighting both the elves and the top-room baddies were reasonable challenges. Got bloodied, spent some surges, moved on. The fighter and the ardent spent the most time in melee obviously, but there wasn't a single round the enemies weren't suffering some debuffs. In every fight the Ardent (me) was bloodied and every time at least one bad guy went down to the resulting combat advantage.

Fighting the Tembo was tough, especially when we first got scratched up... things were bad until we managed to lure it to one side of the water and just pound it with slowing effects. Stacking the Ardent's -4 defenses / Vuln 5 together helped offset lots of insubstantial damage eating - And then the Ardent daily pretty much murdered the thing single-handedly, considering how many attacks it was making in an average round, getting smacked back in the face almost every single time.

The fight back up top was rough, and we were down to our last legs by the end of it, out of surges and bloodied, but it seemed just about right. I have a few suspicions as to why this is, obviously colored by the character I played -

With four players, the Ardent is almost exactly the right amount of healing. The Mul's reactive second wind plus one other power in the party that grants a surge kept the party up in tough spots, and being very cautious about how we spent surges kept us with just enough left. I didn't think the Pregens were that bad - The Seeker could've used some Vs. Will attacks and there wasn't quite enough psychic damage for my taste (in our limited party) but that's fiddly, and the close burst mark + daily weapon power combo on the Ardent was not exactly highlighted, but not too hard to miss.

As an experienced player, I found a lot to recommend the party mix, even if some of the adventure's transitions were a bit bland. I liked the choice of endings, as it were, but any real complaints was more with the presentation at my table than the original material I think.

 

[Vael]

I ran the Dark Sun adventure and found the skill challenge onerous primarily for its length. Not a fan of high complexity challenges.

I also found the pregens pretty good. The themes added some versatility and the PCs (a custom ranger, the Warlock, Fighter and Barbarian) stomped the Elves pretty hard. Only the leader offered much damage to the party, and a crit from the warlock turned him to ash before he could surrender.

 

[Stormtalon]

The DMs where I played today were definitely worried that the Tembo was going to be a TPK, but most groups (including mine) handled it pretty well. The Ardent's daily is a HUGE advantage, especially if it moves up to a wall and then gets surrounded like it did for us. That plus the barbarian's rage brought it down very quickly (when the barbarian can effectively ignore the beast's aura it's a huge help).

Had fun as the seeker -- and don't discount its at-will Biting Swarm in that fight. -2 to the Tembo's attack rolls saved us more than a little pain.

The monk shone in a big way in the multi-enemy fights, from what I saw.

Honestly, the second topside fight (against the Urikites) wasn't too bad. The Ardent, Barbarian & Monk took on the grunts, while the Fighter tied up the gladiator (tied him up with the DEATH!) and then chased the templar around -- and my seeker went for whichever target seemed most in need of either a debuff or area damage (only time my daily came into play was in that fight, because all the others had people too spread out).

 

[Glyfair]

What slightly surprised me was the editing. My Eladrin Monk had a +9 perception, yet a 19 passive Insight and a 14 Passive Perception. The flavor text for the tembo describes his green eyes and then two lines later describes his red eyes (or visa versa).

We had a good time, and I suspect the DM took the soft route with the group (based on comments here).

 

[giant.robot]

My group was a little undermanned (only 4 people Tomas, Tak'Tha, Dai'Lo, and Kuori) so I think our DM went a little easy on us encounter-wise. We rolled well on the skill challenge through the desert (which our DM ran and described very well). When we got to the oasis with the Elf on the rock high Perception checks let us figure out from afar that it was a trap.

I played Tak'Tha and couldn't hit a damn thing with my attacks but everyone else did pretty well. The first major attack by the Elf on the rock the DM rolled a 1 so we got to skip out on a first round of big damage. The minions went down quickly thanks to Inevitable Shot from me and Hand of Blight from Tomas. The non-minions both went down from OAs when they tried to run once we bloodied the main Elf guy and he tried to run under cover of a sandstorm.

When we got to the cave our rogue Dai'Lo rolled a natural 20 on a Diplomacy check and the player did some good role play in addition so the Gith didn't fight us. Tomas was right next to the hole in the floor when the Tembo grabbed him and pulled him down the hole. He got hit hard and then was reduced to 0 HP from the Tembo's aura damage. The Tembo then jumped up to fight us on the top floor where Kuori and Dai'Lo kept it busy while I jumped down and revived Tomas. Thanks to Dai'Lo's Implanted Suggestion they bloodied the Tembo and it did it's shadow disappearing trick. I was helping Tomas up out of the hole when it appeared next to me. I threw Tomas up and got smacked by the Tembo.

Now that he had some HP back thanks to that awesome Amulet of Life he cursed the Tembo and hit it with Ashen Scourge for pretty hefty damage. I used Storm of Spirit Shards and added in my bow's poisoning effect and finally landed a good hit. Kuori jumped down and landed a good attack followed by Dai'Lo who got the Tembo with one attack and used an AP for a second attack but missed. Then it was the Tembo's turn and just when we thought we were in for another beating my 5 poison damage killed it.

It was an awesome fight and lasted a while because two of us were out of action and not dealing any damage for a few rounds. We ran late so we missed out on the last encounter but I think the adventure was pretty fun. If we had to fight the Gith in the cave I think the Tembo battle would have gone badly. The character's weren't great for the adventure but I don't think they were bad at all. You had to get a little creative with how you used powers but I think we all had a good time.