Do all high-level modules in 3E suck?

[Toj]

I have always had a problem with the teleport spells in D&D. When I used to play Ultima Online I found that I liked their way of teleporting.

Basically you can only teleport to places you have previously marked a rune for.

You would have to add a new spell called Mark Rune that creates a rune in a book or maybe even an item, like a staff.

Second you might take regular Teleport out, making it so you would need to use the other two teleport spells.

Teleport without error could become the basic teleport spell. You could make it only allowable to take yourself only.

Them make Teleportation Circle be the spell that allows for mass travel.

You cast the spell then have to physically touch the rune to the destination. This eliminates PC's teleporting anywhere they want to, especially to places they have never been. Also it makes teleport more difficult to just cast to escape.

 

[Frostmarrow]

***Spoiler***

We just finished playing Deep Horizon this weekend. All in all we had a good time during this adventure. We wrote it up as good roleplaying, though. We thought the adventure was ridiculous. So did the DM. He explained the plot for us when we were finished and we realised that there was no plot! Strange indeed. I got a spellbook from a defeated enemy. So I'm happy. Luckily Skip Williams didn't opt to have a sorcerer instead

I flipped through the adventure afterwards. The maps are very nice and the art and writing isn't bad. The new monster is quite interesting. There is some underwater action (complete with rules) that was interesting (however pointless).

 

[JacktheRabbit]

I don't think the adventures are broken. The problem is more of how open ended Teleport and most divination spells are.

Teleport lets you go places way too easily without knowing much about the place.

Divination too often seems to give you information without any real effort on the players part. I know people are going to say duh that is what divination is supposed to be but I disagree.

Scrying I think is the worst. The ability to scry on people you don't really know when you don't know where they are is a major problem. Either scrying needs to be changed so you can only look at locations you know or so that you can only see people you know.


The other problem is the lack of proper defenses. High level foes should have their lairs tweaked out with dimensional anchors that don't just not let you in but may also throw you somewhere very unpleasant. One or two sudden appearances on the plane of shadows and your characters will no longer think they can just telelport into the arch enemies broom closet.

 

[Psion]

Many people in this thread have pointed to threads by Monte about how you shouldn't frequently disallow high level PCs from using their abilities. This is nothing new; he has said this for some time. It says this in the DMG.

And its true.

Teleport has some built in limitations, but invoking teleport blocks at the drop of a hat is uncalled for. However, you should know the spells and know their limitations. Teleport is very hazardous to use teleporting places that you haven't been, and it has a built in clause about not being useful in strange magical energy fields. But you should allow players to get some use out of their high level spells.

You should have your NPCs plan intelligently and use their abilities. There are spells that guard against scrying and spells that safeguard against scrying and teleportation, and NPCs can use the Scry skill to detect scrying. As an example, the highest level character in my current campaign is a 14th level sorcerer. But they are mystified about the location of their kidnapped prince because he is safely tucked away under a sequester spell.

Unsurprisingly, two of the best high level adventures are under Monte Cook's imprint, Malhavoc. Demon God's Fane and If Thoughts Could Kill have explicit allowances on what divination spells can acheive. They give players the benefit of their abilities without making it a cakewalk. If you have difficulty designing high level adventures, definitely take a look at these.

WotC's latest adventure, Lord of the Iron Fortress, also has similar guidelines written in, and the bad guys are written to be run in an intelligent manner. The only real problem with the adventure has more to do with the fact that the author makes some pretty generous assumptions about the path the party will take.

Another good high level adventure is Beyond All Reason, though IIRC there is one vulnerability to scrying, teleporting characters.

 

[maddman75]

Spoiler - Heart of Nightfang Spire

If you are one of my players, go away
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
My group is just enetering the Heart of Nightfang Spire. First thing they tried to do - passwall inside with a staff they found a while back. The map wasn't really clear at that point, so I simply had had them appear between the levels - they were in basically empty space. And of course the Core was covered in iron, so no go there.

As far as teleporting, I allow things like Gorgon's blood and iron sheeting to make places proofed against teleportation, in addition to dimensional anchor type spells.

As far as plot wise - I don't WANT modules with plots. *I* design the plots, and use a module when I need a dungeon somewhere but don't want to have to design it. For instance, in my current game they characters are searching for an ancient artifact that will destroy a god that has resurfaced. I placed it in the Nightfang Spire. ta-da!

IMO - It is impossible to write a good high level module completely. The DM is in the least going to need to tweak it based on the abilities of his group to make sure that the entire adventure can't be bypassed in ten minutes.

 

[Psion]

As far as plot wise - I don't WANT modules with plots. *I* design the plots, and use a module when I need a dungeon somewhere but don't want to have to design it. For instance, in my current game they characters are searching for an ancient artifact that will destroy a god that has resurfaced. I placed it in the Nightfang Spire. ta-da!

Well, I think it would be a little silly to have adventures without premises. Certainly you shouldn't feel compelled to use the provided premise, but I think its pretty important to have one their for the people who will use it as a stand-alone.

But that said, I certainly understand what you are talking about. I am using the Machine adventure in the last Dungeon with a totally different premise for the PCs that works into my underlying plot rather than running it as a stand-alone. Necromancer's Demons & Devils where pretty much designed to be used this way; they have powerful items as the brass ring, and you are encouraged to use your own dingus if needed.

 

[Vuron]

Well let me for one defend the old standbys a little.

Antiteleportation screens- 1e Dungeoneer's survival screen talked about lead and gorgon's blood blocking translocation spells. The upcoming stronghold guide will no doubt list some of the same materials as well as largely defensive spells. What is the point of spending millions of GP on your uber fortress if the 1st hero with move earth, etc can wreck havok?

Anti-divination- As a high level wizard or spell caster I will seek to prevent my enemies from learning my plans, amulets of non-detection, spells that foil scrying for big areas would all be critical towards developing my plans for world domination in secret.

Ethereal Defenders- In theory a mage might bind a servitor monster or two in ethereal locations to prevent magical ingress from extraplanar spells.

Antimagic Zones and Spell traps- These allow my lesser servitors to encounter and deal with intruders without my needing to waste my precious time.

Pocket Planes- A small central sanctum sanctorum located in a demiplane would effectively mirror many of the above effects especially if it can only be accessed via a teleportation circle etc.

 

[Zelda Themelin]

High level adventures are much more challenging to make than low-level ones, both plot- and rules-wise.

I think more should be made, so there would be more choices than WotC story-path and having to wait for ages to get next adventure. My dm (when I am not one) has certain problem of too much roleplaying, not enough combat/treasure/exp without some hack and slash-adventure basis.

3rd edition modules are also plagued by 'avarage-stat-syndrome', as I call it. Now, what point is for all these stats, if all monsters use avarage value listed in monster book. Doh.

They also are fearful of giving power, as to say 'items found suck'. Now you have this place where evil dragon lord used to dwell, oh, and we found, ordenary sword +2. Ok, I like power, and not everybody does, but what I truly mean is lack of special. I'd exept module writers would invent something new for me, not something I can easily pick out of DMG for same trouble.

Many modules are plagued by small rule-slights, and they become more common with added power-level, because there is more information that has to be processed into rules. CR:s are more questionable, than in lower level modules.

It's easy to forgot what players can do, and sometimes mistakes are really bad. Like in Hell in Freeport many methods of divination are discussed, but they happen to forget the worst one, 'true sight', that is. So unless gm thinks that through him/herself, whole adventure is likely to never happen, if players happen to have that spell active. Otherwise module is actually very good, but in our case demanded altering anyhow, like they all do.

Ah, and I think they could just introduce new spell to block unwanted teleporting/scrying, or monster ability, or ancient magic casted in some place or whatever. Whichever works best. Though I hate 'no scrying or teleporting at all in this dungeon'-ideas. Now, specific areas, and of course accessing them might demand specific key element. This would stop 'scry->teleport in (or nearby)->face major baddie->kill major baddie or tpk->end of adenture'-rutine.

Epic elements are saddly lacking. And I don't mean epic rules. If you have simplified boring plot, you have simple-encounter boring dungeon to follow. No matter how little plot, it's basics affect 'dungeon' (or whatever adventure place is) appearance.

I actually liked Heart of Nightfang Spire, however, Lord of Iron Fortress was pretty pointless adventure IMO. Hell on Freeport was a good one (if you like such stuff), though power-kevel is pretty nerfed considering where most of adventure takes place. Demon God's Fane was pretty good one, and it did have interesting ideas.

 

[Tzarevitch]

I don't think the adventures are broken. The problem is more of how open ended Teleport and most divination spells are.

Teleport lets you go places way too easily without knowing much about the place.

Divination too often seems to give you information without any real effort on the players part. I know people are going to say duh that is what divination is supposed to be but I disagree.

Scrying I think is the worst. The ability to scry on people you don't really know when you don't know where they are is a major problem. Either scrying needs to be changed so you can only look at locations you know or so that you can only see people you know.


The other problem is the lack of proper defenses. High level foes should have their lairs tweaked out with dimensional anchors that don't just not let you in but may also throw you somewhere very unpleasant. One or two sudden appearances on the plane of shadows and your characters will no longer think they can just telelport into the arch enemies broom closet.

I have teleportation cause leaks with neighboring dimensions. Any time you teleport there is a 1 in 20 chance that something from a neighboring plane is dragged into the teleport with you. Addiitonally, I also allow a number of ways to block teleport ation including underground chambers and radiation zones. Teleportation wards are also available for purchase and installation from any of the accredited psionic academies. Teleport shunts are also available to deflect teleportation attempts to a place of the shunt-owner's choosing.

Since teleportation does not push solid objects aside, many NPCs in my campaign use low-magic solutions like weighted streamers hanging from the ceiling to the floor so that there is no safe arrival point in the area.

As for scrying, I allow any significant amount of radiation, thin lead, silver, gold, jade or obsidian sheeting or 1' or more of stone to block scrying. There are also a wide array of spells and psionic powers that will do the same. (My players have joked that they should just call the spell Scry Fighter because fighters are the only ones they can ever find with the spell.) Also, since the scry sensor is linked to the caster, in my campaign attacks on the scry sensor affect the scryor.

Lastly I decreed early on that in order to scry someone you had to have ACCURATE information about him. You have to either have something that he owns or have an ACCURATE description of what he looks like. If you only saw the guy in disguise and you try to scry him while he is not in that disguise, the scry attempt behaves as if no such person exists.

Tzarevitch

 

[bret]

Although the link to Monte Cook's article is nice, I really wish someone had put a spoiler warning on it.

It contains a number of spoilers for Demon God's Fane, since it uses that adventure as an example.