Dungeon #100: Beast of Burden

[d12]

Hi. I'll soon be running the mod "Beast of Burden" from Dungeon #100.
For those of you who have read it or run it - please offer any advice you can or any problems you saw with the mod.

Also, I'm thinking of building a crude 3-D model of the Katadnatch so players and DM alike can keep track of where all the PC's are [we'll have 8-11 PCs total]. Any thoughts on this?

 

[AuraSeer]

I only read through the adventure, but it seems to me that a few common situations could lead to easy PC deaths.

If the party gets spotted on the ground, whether through a scout's botched Hide check or a faulty plan, they're in for a world of hurt. Cue a ton of arrows, some spells, the webs, and the stoning attack. (That last can be very nasty, even though they'll know about it ahead of time, because there's no easy way to defend.)

The "smears" should have a much higher CR, because in their placement they're nearly save-or-die. A couple of low rolls will lead to a long fall, and it'll be extremely hard to recover the body for a raise.

Smart defenders will make use of the Bull Rush maneuver in appropriate areas. It'd be a good tactic for PCs too, but the defenders are more numerous, and thus have more opportunity to come up with that lucky roll. Wheeeee thud.

[Edited to add]
Mind you, I'm not saying that you should try for PC deaths. I'm saying that you should impress upon them the danger of the situation, and the precariousness of their position. One or two stupid player decisions could precipitate a TPK.

 

[d12]

That's good advice. Since we'll have such a large party I'm going to add 1 level of fighter to all the gnolls.

 

[Blasphemonkey]

Hi all, this is my first post, so be nice to the monkey!

S P O I L E R S - - B E W A R E ! ! !

I've read through the adventure very thoroughly and am just now
doing prep work on it (I do a lot of prep). Yes, the smear traps
are way nasty, and I would either lower the DC, or give them at
least an extra climb check or two to grab onto something on the
way down. The alarm and Evard's Black Tentacle traps (which
also sound an alarm) can bring many arrows from nearby gnolls
raining on their heads also. That's one thing to keep in mind,
where are all the nearby gnolls? If they trip one of those alarms
(and they probably will), you'll have to determine where all the
range attacks will come from, and how many? And will they
sound an alarm also, alerting other gnolls? If the party is not
careful, they could have the entire fortress breathing down
their neck!

One thing I found missing from the module: Area 5, Gnu-Dalcom's
Pod is not on any of the maps. Gotta add that in somewhere, I
suppose off of Area 3, the higher deck?

I'm bringing in the "dual wyvern option" for scaling the
adventure. I have a party of 7 six-level characters, and one is
a tiefling with bat wings. So he flies up to scout the fortress.
"Oh hello, a wyvern, I'll kill it. Oops, another one. Hellllp!"

I'm going to add a lot of cool rp scenarios to start things off,
mainly with the survivors from Szaphdra's Rest. My favorite is
that once they see my cleric heal somebody, they're all going to
pile on him, scratching and clawing, dragging him down. "Heal
me! Help me next!" Add in some mostly meaningless subdual
damage for effect and I'll have one perplexed cleric. Heheh!!!

I'm still doing my prep, so I'll let you know what else comes to
mind. Please, d12, when you run this mod, give us a rundown
of how it goes. I'll so the same.

Cheers!

 

[Tabarnak Smokeblower]

Don't know if this is appropriate but

I’ll never be your beast of burden
My back is broad but it’s a hurting
All I want is for you to make love to me
I’ll never be your beast of burden
I’ve walked for miles my feet are hurting
All I want is for you to make love to me

Am I hard enough
Am I rough enough
Am I rich enough
I’m not too blind to see

I’ll never be your beast of burden
So let’s go home and draw the curtains
Music on the radio
Come on baby make sweet love to me

Am I hard enough
Am I rough enough
Am I rich enough
I’m not too blind to see

Oh little sister
Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, girl
You’re a pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty girl
Pretty, pretty
Such a pretty, pretty, pretty girl
Come on baby please, please, please

I’ll tell ya
You can put me out
On the street
Put me out
With no shoes on my feet
But, put me out, put me out
Put me out of misery

Yeah, all your sickness
I can suck it up
Throw it all at me
I can shrug it off
There’s one thing baby
That I don’t understand
You keep on telling me
I ain’t your kind of man

Ain’t I rough enough, ooh baby
Ain’t I tough enough
Ain’t I rich enough, in love enough
Ooh! ooh! please

I’ll never be your beast of burden
I’ll never be your beast of burden
Never, never, never, never, never, never, never be

I don’t need no beast of burden
I need no fussing
I need no nursing
Never, never, never, never, never, never, never be

 

[d12]

Nice monkey! Welcome to the boards. That's all good advice. I'll post a run-down for certain.

 

[d12]

Oh , I plan to play that Stones tune at the end of the session

 

[Blasphemonkey]

Thanks for the welcome, d12!

As far as the Stones tune, sounds like a nifty idea...as long as you don't have the Kadtanach sing it. Heh!

- Monkey of Burden

 

[Silver Moon]

I read the adventure, and it looked cool. In fact, I had prepared a list of 8 module descriptions for my player's to choose from, and changed it to 9 after seeing that module. (It will also give me an opportunity to use several gnoll minituares I recently purchased in the Chainmail 99cent sale). I'm a very visual oriented guy, and the only drawback I saw was that some of the mapped areas are not shown in detail, with you having to guess at where they are on the back of the creature. I think your scale model is an excellent idea.

 

[d12]

Well, it went well.

What I feared most happened: The PC's assualted different points at once. At one point, I had PC's in 5 different areas and in different combats. In fact, the "adventure" ended up being one long combat - but it was a very cool, long combat.

Fortuantely I had a co-DM. He ran the beasties that were already on the board and I kept track of listen checks and events off screen.

The hillarious thing is that the H'Jyord got involved almost immediatly and took over 30 points of damage in a round! Check off one celestial!

In short, my thumb is waaaaay up but if you run this with a big party (we had 7) then get some help DMing or it will be a disaster.