Evard's shadow

[mneme]

The impression I get is that mod designers should minimize their use of new/tweaked monsters in favor of existing ones. I actually agree with the idea:

1. There are plenty of cool monsters -- why not use them?
2. If they're using stock monsters, you can reuse prep from other mods using the same monsters.
3. Since official mod monsters enter the compendium, etc, it doesn't make sense to make new monsters "just because"; that whole useless bulk thing applies to GM materials as well as player materials, after all.

Basically, I think they're saying to mod authors "Use stock monsters except for monsters that are special enough to be worth the load of designing new monsters", not "never design new monsters for mods". Just like mod treasure is usually going to be stock items, but mods will occasionally contain new items.

That said, I'm concerned about level scaling. Oldstyle, they'd scale up the low level monsters in order to accomodate a higher levelled group, but what do you do if the dictum is not to mod monsters if you can't avoid it? Use different, higher level monsters for the higher level version?

 

[Quickleaf]

So how does the new adventure format look?

Bruce Cordell had this to say in a recent Design & Development article:

The takeaway is that the tactical format boils adventures down to just key encounters, which tends to railroad adventure design. It also means that adventures tend to be fairly Spartan affairs, because too little space remains to include extra notes on exploration, or explanation of cool bits of lore, or character story.

Has this new format addressed any of these issues?

 

[Shroomy]

The impression I get is that mod designers should minimize their use of new/tweaked monsters in favor of existing ones. I actually agree with the idea:

1. There are plenty of cool monsters -- why not use them?
2. If they're using stock monsters, you can reuse prep from other mods using the same monsters.
3. Since official mod monsters enter the compendium, etc, it doesn't make sense to make new monsters "just because"; that whole useless bulk thing applies to GM materials as well as player materials, after all.

Basically, I think they're saying to mod authors "Use stock monsters except for monsters that are special enough to be worth the load of designing new monsters", not "never design new monsters for mods". Just like mod treasure is usually going to be stock items, but mods will occasionally contain new items.

That said, I'm concerned about level scaling. Oldstyle, they'd scale up the low level monsters in order to accomodate a higher levelled group, but what do you do if the dictum is not to mod monsters if you can't avoid it? Use different, higher level monsters for the higher level version?

This. When I wrote my adventures over two years ago, I was told to use stock monsters whenever possible too (it didn't always work that way since they were converted 3.5e adventures and there weren't a lot of monsters to choose from, especially given their theme).

 

[MerricB]

Has this new format addressed any of these issues?

Not in this adventure, but that's more the fault of the adventure design than the format. We really need someone to push the format before we can see what it can handle.

Cheers!

 

[Daern]

@Robtheman
I'm thinking redo it as a One Page Dungeon, full of weirdness. The mansion is totally abandoned until they figure out how to cross over to the reflected world be passing through a black mirror. Then there are monsters.
I agree that its too tight as is. It will just devolve into a giant encounter. Its kind of a weird adventure in the way that there's sort of nothing going on in it besides monsters. That design article was weird to because basically there is no design, just putting some monsters in a room and a couple of little skill challenges that most people gloss anyways. I thought the new format was supposed to allow for more exploration type play, but this doesn't have much of that.
anways, just riffing. I only even care a little because I've been running this season of Encounters.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Actually I like your idea... but instead of stepping into the complete shadowy reflection of the house, I would rather make a seperate shadowy reflection of each room, with locked doors in the shadow realm.

So whenever you enter a room, the world around you darkens and undead hang around in every corner...

 

[Daern]

or... you need to find the key to the reflection in each room: a mirror, a crystal ball, a painting, a Necronomicon, talk to a ghost etc. This would be especially good if there was a hidden object that needed to be found.
Ah!
I like these ideas. It makes it so much more than massed encounter!

 

[mneme]

Huh. Sounds a bit like Andrew "Zarf" Plotkin's Dual Transform