Dungeon 185 - Bark at the Moon: Dungeons biggest adventure

[mattcolville]

Sabotaging Presence ✦ aura 5
Enemies within the aura take a –5 penalty to skill checks

They do? Why? What is there about a Gremlin that makes their mere presence suddenly cause everyone to become inept?

I mean...Acrobatics is pretty different from Diplomacy, why does standing next to a Gremlin make me both clumsy and offensive? All skills -5 covers a lot of ground...pretty much all ground except fighting.

That seems like a pretty big kick in the nuts to the players, especially in an encounter where you force them to make skill checks to overcome the penalties the monsters impose on them.

I mean, I get that Gremlins sabotage things but don't we imagine them *actually* sabotaging things? If that's what you want, seems like it'd be better to;

A: Put something in your adventure that can be sabotaged and then,
B: Have the Gremlin sabotage it.

 

[Aegeri]

Honest question for those who dislike DT based maps: is it difficult to just reimagine the maps that you dislike and free hand them for your game, or are you specifically looking for maps you can "print" that are not DT based

I am looking for anything that provides interesting cartography, that I can use in a wide variety of games (I run two VTT games and an IRL game). I am not looking for a map that is basically an afterthought done in five minutes. I could ask you though, why bother having a map at all? You could just say "Make X room out of Y dungeon tile set" and accomplish the same thing (IMO).

They could remove the maps and it would still be the same.

Has anyone actually looked through the adventure?

Yes. The most entertaining encounter by far is where I believe you can end up with like 3 different lycanthrope diseases on you at the same time. Actually how the PCs handle that is one of the most interesting parts of the adventure.

They do? Why? What is there about a Gremlin that makes their mere presence suddenly cause everyone to become inept?

See MM3, but they actually do impose a supernatural effect that causes everyone to perform far worse in their presence. It's their thing to say the least.

 

[UnknownAtThisTime]

why bother having a map at all? You could just say "Make X room out of Y dungeon tile set" and accomplish the same thing (IMO).

Because it allows those that have (and want to use) DTs to quickly use them, while allowing anyone else to contiunue doing what has been done for years: making their own with a guideline they can follow or discard.

I don't want to continue derailing the thread.

/commentary on DTs

 

[Aegeri]

Because it allows those that have (and want to use) DTs to quickly use them, while allowing anyone else to contiunue doing what has been done for years: making their own with a guideline they can follow or discard.

I still don't really see the difference. It would take me 5 minutes to cobble together a dungeon tile clearing before the game or during it. I have those tiles as well, so it's not as if I don't use DTs - but they are for specific purposes usually.

For me it's just how much of an afterthought it relegates the encounters to in these adventures.

It's not even that, but the lack of a map of the town and the surrounding area as well. Just anything I could have used in another adventure. I've for years used adventures for their town maps, their encounter maps and everything else. It's the one thing I said to myself "DDI gives me absolutely nothing, but at the barest minimum I'd like some maps I can use in my games".

They aren't even doing that anymore. This is me, expressing my final, absolute and complete disappointment. In what is, otherwise an excellent adventure. If they had pulled another Lord of the White Fields - an excellent adventure, excellent maps and really fun encounters - I would have been beyond pleased. In fact, I think part of this anger I have is because that adventure set an unreasonable expectation.

Can anyone here find a single person complaining about the cartography in Lord of the White Fields? Did anyone anywhere write "Oh damn, this was so disappointing not to see dungeon tiles"?

I don't want to continue derailing the thread.

It's not derailing to talk about DTs in the thread because it was an important part of the original topic in the first post. I know, because I wrote it

 

[Stoat]

Honest question for those who dislike DT based maps: is it difficult to just reimagine the maps that you dislike and free hand them for your game, or are you specifically looking for maps you can "print" that are not DT based?

I'm in a situation similar to Aegeri, I run my games on a VTT. As a result, I can use a WotC map in my game without printing it. Good looking maps are a resource that I can use in my game. I'd also say that having good maps is more important to my online game than when I played face-to-face using a battlemap.

If I don't like the maps WotC uses, I can create my own using CC3. But that takes extra time and raises the question: Is it worth paying for these adventures if I'm going to have to do a bunch of my own work to play them?

And note my other beef. WotC isn't publishing enough large scale area maps. They aren't publishing enough maps that show the whole dungeon. As a result, their adventures tend to be more linear and less flexible than I want them to be.

 

[Riley]

And note my other beef. WotC isn't publishing enough large scale area maps. They aren't publishing enough maps that show the whole dungeon. As a result, their adventures tend to be more linear and less flexible than I want them to be.

This is key. The whole point of a map is to show the big picture, and how the individual parts fit together as an organic whole. Otherwise, all you've got is a bunch of disjointed, independent encounters.

 

[Joshua Randall]

To my eye, only one of the maps in this adventure was clearly made with dungeon tiles -- the one with the fallen log in the upper left and a U-shape of trees.

One of the other maps looks like one of the maps from the DM's kit adventure (from memory). I'll have to check if it's exactly the same. But even if it is, the DM's kid adventure has pretty good maps that (AFAIK) weren't made out of dungeon tiles.

Also, do people really slavishly recreate routine combat maps exactly as they appear in the adventure? Whether dungeon tiles or not? I don't. I freehand something or, yes, use dungeon tiles to build something close.

Only if the terrain and layout of the map is critical to the encounter will I try to make it exact.

 

[Joshua Randall]

I'd also like to add that I don't understand the love for Lord of the White Fields.

First, I hope you like fighting the same three kinds of ghouls over and over. (Yes: there are boss monsters that a different. That is good.)

Second, most of the maps in that adventure are terrible. Way, way, way too cramped. I understand the author is trying to create a feeling of claustrophobia, but maps that small make for incredibly static and boring fights.

 

[Herschel]

If you like the Dungeon Tiles maps, use them, if you don't, use something else. It's a great way to stay within budget, pimp available tools, and not take up too much space. I don't use my that much, but I do like them on occasion and even when I do I often change bits of the "map".

Sometimes I see the extensive (excessive?) abbreviations, complaints, etc. and think gamers are the laziest bunch of malcontents who can't agree on what to be lazy and malcontent about. I mean really, is the adventure good or not? Like or hate the "maps", we pride ourselves on being creative yet get upset over easily changed aesthetics. After all, many WILL like them even if I or you don't.

 

[DEFCON 1]

To my eye, only one of the maps in this adventure was clearly made with dungeon tiles -- the one with the fallen log in the upper left and a U-shape of trees.

One of the other maps looks like one of the maps from the DM's kit adventure (from memory). I'll have to check if it's exactly the same. But even if it is, the DM's kid adventure has pretty good maps that (AFAIK) weren't made out of dungeon tiles.

The map in Encounter 3 is actually a part of the King's Road poster map you got with Keep on the Shadowfell and/or Gale Force 9.