Dungeon 190 - Force of Nature - Pretty good!

[Aegeri]

Force of Nature and the recent article on Kalidnay for Dark Sun just remind me why I actually like (liked?) Wizards and want to keep playing 4E. This adventure though is really neat and while I haven't read over it, my cursory glance through got me more and more excited. The adventure is nice and long for a start: Not a 3 encounter dungeon tile delve (and has both an actual area map and a map of the encounters).

It's basic thing is that there is this huge feywild colossus rampaging around. Neatly, the creature has a mechanic that basically makes it a terrain hazard - you can't really hope to kill it or easily stop it (as it regenerates to full HP if it has 1 HP). So the PCs have to find a more creative way to stop it (I haven't read the whole adventure yet, so I'm not sure how that holds up). It looks like it has plenty of room for non-linear exploration and adding your own encounters as well. Plus it has a rather neat assault on the town featuring the creature above being commanded by some mischievous Yuan-ti.

Overall I am a pretty happy fellow to have seen this. I really want more adventures like this from Dungeon. 1 a month would be awesome. Plus I love the art of the Elk and a solo Troll later on (who is also pretty good).

 

[Mummolus]

Seems pretty interesting, though to be totally honest it seems like it would "fit" better as a paragon adventure rather than late heroic. Yuan-ti and archfey just don't strike me as ideal opponents for level 9-11, and other tiers need the support more to begin with.

Yeah.

Totally agree that the Kalidnay article was awesome, too.

 

[Aegeri]

The adventure is designed well enough that upping some levels and damage by 2-3 will make it suitable for lower paragon easily. I do agree with you it could have done a bit better as a paragon tier adventure, but it doesn't dampen my enthusiasm for it in the least.

Edit: All the monsters are designed well enough, in fact the adventure is designed well enough, that you can make it lower paragon without feeling like anything will be out of whack. That's the good thing with solid monsters, they take changes to levels much more easily than poorly designed ones. I wouldn't make it more than lower paragon though, you'd have to do quite a bit of fiddling after that point.

 

[Zaran]

I'm just happy that it's a full length adventure. I was a bit worried when they said it was for Levels 9-11. And it isn't done in Delve format!

 

[KidSnide]

Agreed, on quick review of the module, it appears profoundly more interesting than the vanilla delves we've seen so much of. It has two critical elements that every good adventure needs:

1) What's going on is interesting, involving at least some NPC motivations other than "I want to do evil, bwah hah hah!" and "Save us, please!"

2) It provides the opportunity for the PCs to do something interesting and different from standard combats and skill challenges.

Plus, I like the whole Princess Mononoke feeling of the faewild.

-KS

 

[Mentat55]

The "skill challenges" are not labeled as such (instead called Skill-based Encounters or something) and fit much more seamlessly into the encounter and the overall story. There seems to be a lot going on in this adventure, and the fact that it links to one or two previous adventure is a nice touch.

 

[Aegeri]

You know, I liked the adventure and its structure as well. I loved the creativity with how to stop the beast on its rampage - noting that some groups may be able to kill it (hitting consistently with Rotting Doom for example).

If the adventure has a flaw, it's that it's very hard (impossible?) for the Yuan-ti to break their own obelisks. They don't do enough damage to reach the 20 damage threshold. On thinking about it, I suppose this is something that is just DM fiat at that point, but it would be nice if by RAW they could destroy it themselves.

 

[KidSnide]

The "skill challenges" are not labeled as such (instead called Skill-based Encounters or something) and fit much more seamlessly into the encounter and the overall story. There seems to be a lot going on in this adventure, and the fact that it links to one or two previous adventure is a nice touch.

Good catch.

Skill based encounters are exactly the right direction for skill challenges. I hope we're seeing the evolution of the concept in the minds of the designers.

-KS