Dragonlance Chronicle Adventure Trilogy 3E
- Thread starter Sitara
- Start date
We've just started. We made our own characters, but we haven't played any of Autumn yet, we've been doing preludes. You have to answer a lot of questions to yourself. For instance our sage isn't about to become the master of past and present, so I have to keep Raistlin around for that role, he just won't be in the heroes. The Heroes of the Lance are still around in the game, but tonight I'm killing Flint a little early and giving Tanis a crises of faith which sends him spiralling into depression and breaks up the Heroes of the Lance. That allows my Heroes to step in.
Even then, I suggest working out the characters for Winter and Spring in advance. We haven't talked to everyone in our group, so we don't have a final yet, but the lady who's offered to play the shepard in Winter doesn't want to play a male character. So we need to make elistan female. She prefers to use the pregen otherwise, so that's the only real difference we made.
Also, you party might not split as well. Our leader is our Solomnic knight. It would kill him to send him off into the east and have him miss all of solomnia in winter, so he's going to evolve from leader to idealist. This means that one of the other characters needs to evolve into the leader in the second party.
Same for the Hawk. He REALLY needs to go to Sylvanesti so he'll probably evolve into either leader or noble in Spring and one of our other players has offered to play Gilthanas in his intended role for Winter (yet another player needs Gilthanas and Laurana around to play out the conclusion of her back story).
Wow. That's a lot. Feel free to ask more questions. There's a lot more to talk about like preludes and the wizard's Test, etc.
Even then, I suggest working out the characters for Winter and Spring in advance. We haven't talked to everyone in our group, so we don't have a final yet, but the lady who's offered to play the shepard in Winter doesn't want to play a male character. So we need to make elistan female. She prefers to use the pregen otherwise, so that's the only real difference we made.
Also, you party might not split as well. Our leader is our Solomnic knight. It would kill him to send him off into the east and have him miss all of solomnia in winter, so he's going to evolve from leader to idealist. This means that one of the other characters needs to evolve into the leader in the second party.
Same for the Hawk. He REALLY needs to go to Sylvanesti so he'll probably evolve into either leader or noble in Spring and one of our other players has offered to play Gilthanas in his intended role for Winter (yet another player needs Gilthanas and Laurana around to play out the conclusion of her back story).
Wow. That's a lot. Feel free to ask more questions. There's a lot more to talk about like preludes and the wizard's Test, etc.
Dragonhelm
Knight of Solamnia
hong said:
It means that you can either play the Heroes of the Lance or your own character. The key thing is to play certain roles (i.e. the sage), which the adventures identify. So long as those are covered, you're good.
Well, all the original characters are new. However dragonlance adds a lot of people in as NPCs, especially starting in Flame, and then converts them to PCs later (Gilthanas, Elistan, Larauna, for instance). So if you want to have those roles filled by original characters, you have to rip those NPCs out and fill them with the PCs your players are going to want to play later. Especially Gilthanas and Elistan, who are major archetypes, and have to be filled by the rules of Winter.
I basically took the stance that after the initial characters, we'd handle it on a case by case basis. Someone has to play the shepard in Winter, and all the votes aren't in yet, but one lady has volunteered. She doesn't like playing men, so she's converting Elistan to a woman. The player who's playing the hawk when Gilthanas becomes a PC has decided she's happy playing Gilthanas.
All these problems crop up just because they are introduced as world-changing NPCs and then converted to PCs, and those we're handling case by case.
I basically took the stance that after the initial characters, we'd handle it on a case by case basis. Someone has to play the shepard in Winter, and all the votes aren't in yet, but one lady has volunteered. She doesn't like playing men, so she's converting Elistan to a woman. The player who's playing the hawk when Gilthanas becomes a PC has decided she's happy playing Gilthanas.
All these problems crop up just because they are introduced as world-changing NPCs and then converted to PCs, and those we're handling case by case.
Sweet stuff. But how does this verison of the modules compare to the old modules from tsr? Are they better, worse, different?
Anyhow, please keep us updated with your characters. For instance, what about the party wizard? What robe is he, and what magic item did he get form the towers (I assume youa re using the wizard ofhigh sorc prc)
Anyhow, please keep us updated with your characters. For instance, what about the party wizard? What robe is he, and what magic item did he get form the towers (I assume youa re using the wizard ofhigh sorc prc)
I've only read the first one. The changes were minor, but I think they were all good. They now have three encounters for people entering Solace, for instance, so they don't all just happen to meet outside of town for Toade. They brought the story of the restoration of faith a little more into the fore, not enough, I think, but I can do that. All the authors seem to want to pull away from that storyline. They did set up a great scene to roleplay with Elistan, where the prophet tries to convince him that he's worthy of turning to the gods.
The major storytelling problems in two and four are still there. They draw attention to them in two, but didn't try to fix them. Four they still just plop you on the railroads for the climax, but I feel I'm a good enough of a GM to not be bound by that.
I've SKIMMED dragons of winter and looked at the PDF of Spring. In War, they refer to you using your favorite mass combat system for the high clerists tower, but they don't give you any of the tools to do that. The units aren't stated and at least some are different from War of the Lance sourcebook. They don't have unit commitments or victory conditions, but they have three battles, so you know they aren't committing everything and fighting to the death. I'll fix the stats by making them up and the engagement details by stealing them from the original adventure. This is the only complaint I've had so far, and it's only relevant if you want to do mass combat.
Our party:
Leader: A solomnic knight wanna be.
Sage: A white robed wizard who's just passed her test better than Raistlin. I decided par salian had tried on three different people to make the sword the gods demnaded, and our wizard did best. Raistlin is laid up for many months in this version, as is the mage's cousin. Our mage got the staff and dagger of magius.
Rogue: A Kender
Prophet: Male heathen cleric and battlefield medic. I've been giving him visions of the lost citadel and he's looking for the gods.
Protector: Female fighter. Has a little thing going on with Kitiara.
Ranger: Female half-elf ranger. Bastard daughter of Porthios, though he doesn't know it yet. He mother is a bad lady and has damaged her opinion of elvers.
Hawk: Silvanesti elf noble, trying to get other people to fight the dragonarmies to rescue Silvanesti (they say to have elves be qualinesti, but I thought this added drama.)
In winter it will be:
Rogue: Same
Shepard: A female version of Elistan. We're calling her Elista at the moment. She'll be among the slave in Flame.
Hawk: Gilthanas, as presented in the adventure. He's the Ranger's uncle, so she asked is anyone was willing.
Idealist: The leader from the first four will evolve into this archtype. (he needs to meet the knights)
Gallant: The Ranger from the first adventure will evolve into this one (she needs to meet her father again.)
Mentor: Assigned, but not designed. (I killed flint last night and Tanis lost his faith.)
Last one: Barbarian, don't remember the archetype. Assigned but not designed.
NPC: Larauna (Gallant's aunt.)
In Spring they will be:
Leader: The former protector will step into this role.
Conscience: Assigned, but not designed yet.
Sage: Same
Prophet: Same
Noble: Assigned, but not designed (probably not Alhanna Starbreeze).
Rebel: Maybe Kronin, but almost certainly another kender.
One more assigned but not designed, and the former hawk, who is evolving into one of these archetypes, I don't remember which.
The major storytelling problems in two and four are still there. They draw attention to them in two, but didn't try to fix them. Four they still just plop you on the railroads for the climax, but I feel I'm a good enough of a GM to not be bound by that.
I've SKIMMED dragons of winter and looked at the PDF of Spring. In War, they refer to you using your favorite mass combat system for the high clerists tower, but they don't give you any of the tools to do that. The units aren't stated and at least some are different from War of the Lance sourcebook. They don't have unit commitments or victory conditions, but they have three battles, so you know they aren't committing everything and fighting to the death. I'll fix the stats by making them up and the engagement details by stealing them from the original adventure. This is the only complaint I've had so far, and it's only relevant if you want to do mass combat.
Our party:
Leader: A solomnic knight wanna be.
Sage: A white robed wizard who's just passed her test better than Raistlin. I decided par salian had tried on three different people to make the sword the gods demnaded, and our wizard did best. Raistlin is laid up for many months in this version, as is the mage's cousin. Our mage got the staff and dagger of magius.
Rogue: A Kender
Prophet: Male heathen cleric and battlefield medic. I've been giving him visions of the lost citadel and he's looking for the gods.
Protector: Female fighter. Has a little thing going on with Kitiara.
Ranger: Female half-elf ranger. Bastard daughter of Porthios, though he doesn't know it yet. He mother is a bad lady and has damaged her opinion of elvers.
Hawk: Silvanesti elf noble, trying to get other people to fight the dragonarmies to rescue Silvanesti (they say to have elves be qualinesti, but I thought this added drama.)
In winter it will be:
Rogue: Same
Shepard: A female version of Elistan. We're calling her Elista at the moment. She'll be among the slave in Flame.
Hawk: Gilthanas, as presented in the adventure. He's the Ranger's uncle, so she asked is anyone was willing.
Idealist: The leader from the first four will evolve into this archtype. (he needs to meet the knights)
Gallant: The Ranger from the first adventure will evolve into this one (she needs to meet her father again.)
Mentor: Assigned, but not designed. (I killed flint last night and Tanis lost his faith.)
Last one: Barbarian, don't remember the archetype. Assigned but not designed.
NPC: Larauna (Gallant's aunt.)
In Spring they will be:
Leader: The former protector will step into this role.
Conscience: Assigned, but not designed yet.
Sage: Same
Prophet: Same
Noble: Assigned, but not designed (probably not Alhanna Starbreeze).
Rebel: Maybe Kronin, but almost certainly another kender.
One more assigned but not designed, and the former hawk, who is evolving into one of these archetypes, I don't remember which.
Ogrork the Mighty
Explorer
Re: Dragons of Winter
For those interested, Heroes of Battle has some great rules and info for how to run major battles and have the PCs' actions actually impact the results (Victory Points).
For those interested, Heroes of Battle has some great rules and info for how to run major battles and have the PCs' actions actually impact the results (Victory Points).
