Dragora's Dungeon--thoughts?

[sabrinathecat]

I can't believe I'm the first one to look at this, but I cannot find a previous review. Please redirect if I'm just being thick or blind, or whatever.

OK.
Thoughts on the mod. Some side-view maps would be very helpful in a couple of places.
Zain-kin throw rocks for 10 rounds? what combat lasts 10 rounds? Only time that has ever happened to me was when the party triggered a double-encounter, or there was just a high-level brute bag of HP.
Lvl 1 party is up against a lot of LVL 5 monsters.
In the swamp area, which square are the monsters in? The markers are at intersections.
Monsters go to investigate any activity within 5? Um, that means on island 2, the snake (lvl5 elite soldier) and plant (lvl 5 controller) are both going to show up. Against a lvl1 party. That seems a bit much.

Then in the middle of the mod we get advice on how to be a good DM, including reading the whole mod before running. Thanks. Doesn't everyone do that? That's been a standard since 1st ed.

I suppose this is OK, but I don't know that I would ever run this one without some reworking.

 

[sabrinathecat]

Having started this, I should probably put a few more thoughts down so that this might approach an actual review.
My first thought is to rework this into a lvl 8-10 mod. The party is taking on an entire city/civilization. Only about 1/4 of the map is explored/explained. The rest???
A couple of side view would greatly help the maps, especially the first one of the crevasse and the temple/thane.
Zain-kin... Might as well be another sub-group of orcs or goblins, though I do like their group support powers.
The story is good, but the mechanics need some tweeking.
Alternates between 4e and demi 4e terms. "Bruised"? You mean "Bloodied". "Holy Damage" great, that will never come up. Oh, you mean "Radiant." Why not just say that and be done with it. It isn't like it is a copyright infringement or anything.

 

[S'mon]

Slight necro as I'm currently running this!
There are several reviews from 2008/9 eg http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?241268-Dragora-s-Dungeon
The reviews tend to agree that the city/faction section is underdevloped, I'm a bit worried by it but I guess I'll improvise.

"on island 2, the snake (lvl5 elite soldier) and plant (lvl 5 controller) are both going to show up. Against a lvl1 party. That seems a bit much"

Yeah, I'm running it with 3rd level PCs, and we had that twofer fight last night. The snake ate a PC and escaped with the body, while most of the group were focusing on the Vine Horror. I'm not planning to have any more snake/vine attacks unless the PCs decide to camp out in the swamp.

 

[S'mon]

Here's another review: http://www.flamesrising.com/dragoras-dungeon-rpg-review/

 

[sabrinathecat]

Thanks.
Those were interesting to read. I was sure someone had said something before.
Have to disagree with a few of those points. There's the descent into the crevasse encounter: the visuals do nothing to help me imagine what is going on. And there are Zain-kin pitching rocks down from above for 10 rounds. I don't know what your experience is, but for me, very, very, very few battles last 10 rounds.
What about... looking for those rock pitchers and dealing with them before descending? That option was not presented in the mod. It seems to me rather likely that players would look to see if there are such likely vantage points before descending. Not covered.
How did that work in your game?

 

[S'mon]

How did that work in your game?

I ended up taking huge swathes of Stroh's GM advice with a big pinch of salt - one reason this is a 'Master Dungeon' is that it needs a lot of GM discretion.
For the crevasse, I reduced depth from 500' to 200'. There's a big issue that in one line it's full of opaque mist, then the Zain-Kin have no trouble seeing the PCs to pitch rocks. I had the Zain-Kin appear when the PCs were near the bottom (there are no suggestions on handling the descent - I had the last PC in line roll DC 10 Athletics), just one rock from each. Given the low chance of hitting there was no point making a big deal of it.

 

[sabrinathecat]

That section seemed kinda pointless.
Still, I understand this was the first one they made.
And I've seen worse. Much worse. Painfully worse.

 

[Lwaxy]

I'm running this with one of my groups since last night, made some adaptions but we are just through the swamp (which was cool although the PCs missed most of the ugly plants and stuff and we are playing with slightly stronger PCs (level-less game, equivalent of 4-5th level). Also, they almost missed the first key.

No idea when we'll manage to get another session in as the players are all in different time zones. But it was fun until now.