Good detective adventure...

[Eristophenes]

The problem is that adventures from "Four from Cormyr" are a little bit too high for my gamers (average level 4 but some high powered)...

And Assassin's Knot - sure it's great, but it works nice with The Secret of the Bone Hill" which they did few months earlier and then run from Rastenford (made some enemies) so I would like to spare Assassin's Knot for later adventures...

This Curse of Xanathon seems to be interesting one... I'll have to examine it closer...

I don't know these two form WotC (Speaker in Dreams and Standing Stones)... Are they worth the money?

I just bought Monte's Banewarrens and I'd like to do it in the near future - but PCs should be at about 6 level...

But you guys are great... Keep some other ideas coming...

Regards

 

[Drawmack]

Drawmack -> I plan to convert to D&D "The Hound of the Baskervilles" - it's a classic, but I find it quite difficult... My world is a world of medium magic, so all detective stories should take in concern spelle, magic items etc. And what about the HOUND? What type of beast should it be? Hell hound? Shadow Mastiff? Maybe some kind of Fiendish Dire Wolf? I have a lot of problems which I don't know how to resolve...

Regards

I regret to say that I am unfamiliar with the Hound of the Baskervilles. Although I would recommend starting with something that is either based in reality (Jack the Ripper stands out), or is from a short story as the model will be easier and save the large scale mega adventure for later. Murders in the Rue Morgue might be a good start. The bad guy is an ape, just a standard ape.

 

[Frostmarrow]

I see major problems with the Hound of Baskerville and Murders in the Rue Morgue in D&D.

***Spoilers:

A fire breathing dog is killing people seemingly wantonly on the moor. It turns out it's just a big old mastiff with chemicals on it's snout so it looks like it's breathing fire. The bad guy sics this disguised dog on various people, killing them. Now, if this was D&D why not use a regular hell hound instead? And if so, where's the mystery?

The Rue morgue was the first novel to feature a murder in a locked room. It's a regular whodunnit apart from the fact it seems impossible for any man to be the murderer. It turns out it's an ape who can access the room from the chimey or some such. If this is D&D a murder in a locked room is not such a big mystery. It's too easy to enter a room, kill a guy and leave whilst the door is being locked.***

I'm just being a big spoil-sport. Now I feel the need to be a bit more constructive. This is how I would make a mystery. I would invent the villain and his goal. It could be as simple as trying to kill off a number of heirs in order to secure a rich legacy for himself. Then I would remove all obvious clues of his goal and crimes. For example if I used the character mentioned above I'd change his last name to make it less obvious that he is in fact a living relative of the victims.

When I was done with the villain I'd steel myself to create as vivid other characters as possible, some with obvious motives and others without. I'd see to it that most of the character's have the power to kill a person in the way the victims have been killed. That is I would sooner use a blunt object to the head than immolation in acid admixed fire. I'd go for the blunt object to the head even if the mystery is set whithin a arcane academy.

With this I would consider the mystery complete. The rest of the story I'd leave to my players. I'd set the stage in a arcane academy or a mansion and then let the PCs interview all the NPCs and take action surveilling the suspects.

I don't think I would have an elaboate mystery. In fact I would try to make the plot as simple as possible. I'd leave the mystery making to the players. As my captain in the army once said (tongue in cheek): "You don't need to prepare exercises for rookie soldiers in the field. Just let them out there and they will create their own."

But this is D&D. How can we deal with divinations? Any suggestions?

 

[Wicht]

I just finished running a 1 session mystery adventure for my group (level 4 at the time). If you follow the second link in my sig and go to the last post I made in the thread you will find the "module" for the adventure so to speak. I also have a mystery adventure for level 13 characters (when you get that high) called "Points of Possession." and you can link to it from the ENworld free adventure archive.

About Divination spells - the thing to remember is that the spells do not always provide clear answers - that is - the spells provide logical answers but that does not mean the answers are immediately understandable. Done right, the answers fromt he spells can make the mystery that much more mysterious.

For instance, lets say someone has trained a small spotted dog to steal valuable jewels. The PCs are baffled as to who is doing the crimes and how they are being committed. They cast Divination and back comes the answer. "The thief is spotted, small and swift. Trained to steal, without conscience." This is a perfectly legitimate answer, but unless the PCs put together other clues, they may never figure out its a dog and they will never figure out who the trainer of the dog is.

 

[Ashy]

Check this out...

It's written for slightly lower levels (2-4), but there is an excellent "Scaling the Adventure" section - it should provide plenty of mystery for your characters!

http://www.bastionpress.com/Products/PDF_Adventures.htm#Danger%20in%20Deadwood

Let me know what you think!

 

[Eristophenes]

Sounds good (Deadwood I mean...) but there is one "BUT"

I'd rather have a city adventure... It's quite cruicial to my current campany...

Regards

 

[Frostmarrow]

About Divination spells - the thing to remember is that the spells do not always provide clear answers - that is - the spells provide logical answers but that does not mean the answers are immediately understandable. Done right, the answers fromt he spells can make the mystery that much more mysterious.

For instance, lets say someone has trained a small spotted dog to steal valuable jewels. The PCs are baffled as to who is doing the crimes and how they are being committed. They cast Divination and back comes the answer. "The thief is spotted, small and swift. Trained to steal, without conscience." This is a perfectly legitimate answer, but unless the PCs put together other clues, they may never figure out its a dog and they will never figure out who the trainer of the dog is.

Yes, Wicht you are right. I just went through all the divination spells in the SRD and I don't think any of them are game breaking (except maybe Detect Evil). Perhaps the recent outcry against divination spells is a tad exaggerated? Of course they can be game breaking if the DM lacks judgement but I'm not worried.

 

[Dinkeldog]

*cough*Scry*Clairvoyance/Clairaudience*cough*

*hack*Commune*hack*

His players are only 4th level, though.

I'd recommend Speaker in Dreams. Just tame a couple of the encounters a bit. Probably my second favorite of the Adventure Path series (after Bastion of Broken Souls).

 

[Wicht]

*cough*Scry*Clairvoyance/Clairaudience*cough*

*hack*Commune*hack*

Commune only provides yes or no answers in general and thus for it to be that useful in a mystery, the players need to have already done some leg-work to know what to ask. If the players can enter a crime scene, ask 9 yes or no questions, the DM set the mystery up wrong. Then again, if the players are prone to using this spell, a great idea would be setting up a seemingly baffling mystery easily solved by the players in 5 minutes through the use of commune, giving them a reputation as mystery solvers and then set them up with a seemingly easy mystery which is not so easily solved through use of the spell (because the PCs do not know the proper questions) and keep them guessing for 5 hours.

In order for a scry spell to work, the PCs must have some idea of who they are trying to scry. If the PCs have no knowledge of who is responsible for a mystery or a crime, scry would hardly be useful. Again for Scry to work, the PCs must do some leg-work to get an idea on who to scry. This IMO would be a great spell for setting up red-herrings. let the PCs scry the wrong person, get the wrong idea and make a wrong arrest/attack. And of course the same holds true with clairvoyance or clairaudance. With these last two, it is even easier to mess with the PCs because they are lacking one of their senses. Thus if they listen, it is easy to create a conversation that gives entirely the wrong impression or if they are watching, they have no way of knowing what the two gentlemen sitting at the table (for hours) are discussing.

 

[BV210]

There are several awesome ones to be found in the pages of Dungeon magazine. Some that come to mind are:

Of Nests and Nations
The Murder of Maury Miller
The Wererats of Relfren
9/10 of the Law
Tinderbox (came on CD-Rom with an issue of the magazine)

I can't tell you what issue each of these are in, but the index on the Dungeon page at Wizards.com can help.