Gaxmoor Feedback

[King_Stannis]

hi luke! i am a longtime dm who has been running a scarred lands campaign for about 7 months with my current group. i was able to easily drop your city into the world.

so far, my players are having a pretty good time. they've wiped out durn and his group, come to an understanding with jobu-one-eye, encountered fairclaw, and drawn the wrath of panchmo for rescuing colonel tiberion.

the module is a delight to run. a few rules hiccups, but that in no way has interfered with the running of the module – they’re mistakes any good dm can work through seamlessly. I love the playing off of the factions against one another, I love the black feather band and their beer. I love Grond and his honeymead. my players have experienced all of these things, and are ready to tackle Harecules – no easy task. I’ll try to let you know how they do.

all in all, well done. i look forward to similar products in the future.

 

[JohnRTroy]

For the most part, I enjoyed it. It reminded me a lot of the original Temple of Elemental Evil, in that we had various factions with their own agendas.

Only two things irritated me about it. The first being the fact that there wasn't a "ending summary"...the scenario was introduced very well, but no details were given on how to handle the ultimate results of the adventure, or any guides to awarding end of adventure XP, future scenario hooks, or the like. (So we got the @*#@(# staff, now what?!)

Secondly--spells in 3e are not REVERSABLE, so some of the new spells referenced don't make sense--even the spells descriptions are vague. If you were going to do an "optional variant" it should have been detailed.

I think if you can adapt to 3e concepts a bit more (might want to indicate encounter levels as found in the WoTC 3e modules), and improve a little more of the module background details, you'll have a nice future.

 

[Col_Pladoh]

BUMP

...awaiting Luke's or Ernie's input

 

[Grazzt]

BUMP

...awaiting Luke's or Ernie's input

And Gygax bumps one for his son.

 

[Col_Pladoh]

And Gygax bumps one for his son.

Make that sons, plural.

I do want to read what response or responses they have, actually. Parental comments, lauds, and criticisms are, of course, generally ignored, right?



Gary

 

[Grazzt]

Make that sons, plural.

I do want to read what response or responses they have, actually. Parental comments, lauds, and criticisms are, of course, generally ignored, right?



Gary

Sorry Gary. Sons. Parental comments ignored? I dont think so. Course I don't remember my parents saying anything. Then again- perhaps I was ignoring them.

But- I too am curious to hear what the Gygax boys have to say about Gaxmoor.

 

[Luscious Mageris]

Impression so far - it's hard to imagine that any 1st level party could hope to survive the introductory encounters, which are all around EL 5-7. I'd put minimum level for a four-PC party at about 4th, assuming skilled players and a balanced party. My current party is very deficient in clerical healing (2 monk types, a sorcerer, a fighter, and a dwarf fighter-cleric with WIS 11) so I reckon it should be playable with them even up to around 8th-9th level, if necessary.

I have noted that many people believe that the early encounters are too tough. At 1st level a single die-roll either way can make or break an encounter- especially with crits. The encounters need to be thought about- not just attcked head-on. The higher CR encounters like the Ogre-Ghoul and Goblin Bear are not meant to be a wake-up call to the group. I ran the adventure for an average size group of 12 players. That may have impacted the overall difficulty of the encounters. Although I did halve most of the humanoid groups for the module. I think that a little observation, planning and diplomacy/intimidation can go a long way to further the PCs cause in Gaxmoor. My players had great success with gathering intel and pitting one group against the other.

 

[Luscious Mageris]

Thanks for all the input guys! I am glad to see that most have enjoyed The Lost City of Gaxmoor. I admit that there are some very noticeable 3e rules errors that pop up in the campaign setting. It was originally started as a 1e scenario for the open gaming group at The Game Guild in Lake Geneva. So I learned the 3e rules and converted Ernie's and my ideas into 3e. Apparently I need to study them a little more closely

 

[Luscious Mageris]

The cover art was great... Not to be too harsh, but the rest of it (plot, etc.) did nothing for me, unfortunately.

It seemed too "old school," which is a bit funny coming from me (your dad got me hooked on D&D back in the day, LOL, and I look back fondly on most 1e modules). What I mean is that Gaxmoor seemed to be one big, mindless dungeon crawl with little in the way of rhyme or reason, and I really don't like "epic" modules like that (Ruins of Undermountain being the greatest offender in my mind). Additionally, Gaxmoor seemed much too deadly for starting characters and there were way too many mistakes in the d20 stats as others have said. I don't think the project was hopeless, but it should have gone through several more drafts before going to press, to clear out the rules bugs and clarify how to scale it for beginning characters, if not to flesh out a more catchy plot and NPCs/intrigue.

I was very excited by the cover art, but after flipping through the book, all my enthusiasm went out the window and it went right back on the shelf...

Sorry to hear that you didn't like Gaxmoor at first glance. I think that if you have the chance to look at it a little more closely you will not be wholly disappointed. It is meant to be an open-ended outdoor "dungeon crawl" type setting. But within that are many different threads for the PCs to investigate. As a DM you are provided with a wealth of characters and groups to customize to your style of play. If you want to wade through the encounters with your +12 Hackmaster and stain the city red in a wash of blood and gore, Great! However I intenede for the campaign to be a little more than that. The players should be investigating the cemetary and what is going on there. Using guile to pit the humanoid groups against one another, etc. The rules SNAFUs I grant are annoying and any future effort will be much improved in that regard. I hope that you have the opportunity to play and enjoy Gaxmoor at some point. Thanks for giving me your honest opinion and criticism.

 

[S'mon]

Hey Luke! Interesting to hear about the 12-PC party - that makes the 'suitable for starting characters' bit more understandable!
Best to bear in mind that 3e explicitly assumes a four-character party as standard, though. It also assumes that character death should be fairly rare when setting the Encounter Levels.
I've now complained to Amazon.com about the lack of Gaxmoor on my doormat, and continue to wait in hope...