H3 Pyramid of Shadows - I Have It!
- Thread starter Shroomy
- Start date
frankthedm
First Post
I too am curious about them.
Plant Humanoid
Rose Dryad for the speaker, four eyed green biped for the Watcher and a spikey girl faced clawed thing shaded green for the reaper
BTW, any more detail available for the
"Far Realm Abomination"
, but that name sounds very 'placeholder'.Counter sheet 3!
img212.imageshack.us/img212/5789/shawdowedpyre3wx1.png
[sblock=Video game counter sheet 3]
suggested revisions welcome.[/sblock]
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frankthedm
First Post
Thanks again. [sblock=question & boss Counters]Can the players tell them apart at all, or is it Mirror Image with a vengeance? Same Gear, outfits, etc? Multi-K has notable differences in his early forms, though with a dozen duplicates it sounds like it might be a 13 Card Monty / shell game.
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/excerpt_H3_2.jpg
img384.imageshack.us/img384/6291/teifwizrq5.png
copypasta as needed, though new Karavakos counters may be on the way.
edit; Well here are a few other abominations in case the DM wants something other than the one on counter sheet 3.
img210.imageshack.us/img210/2608/abominationtn7.png
[/sblock]
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legiondevil
First Post
Well..
[sblock]All of the shards are minions, and vanish when successfully struck. It shouldn't take too long for the PC's to whittle them down. Though Kari can teleport between them as a minor action. Teleporting to take the place of one, attacking, and then teleporting to the location of another.[/sblock]
frankthedm
First Post
Thanks [sblock]so what is Karivakos armed with at the end? The staff with the axe like head in the Excerpt? Some thing else? [/sblock]
frankthedm
First Post
[sblock=Revised BBEG Counter sheet]I think it is an improvement.
img521.imageshack.us/img521/1710/shawdowedpyrebbegxk4.png
[/sblock]
img521.imageshack.us/img521/1710/shawdowedpyrebbegxk4.png
[/sblock]
legiondevil
First Post
[sblock]He comes equipped with dagger, staff, robes, and ritual book. None magical save the ritual book, with location specific rituals and one each of levels 10, 12, and 15.[/sblock]
Bolongo
Herr Doktor
For the most part, my first impression is that I love this module. More than H2, in fact. Why? Because it's such a blast from the past, but at the same time also perfectly modern.
Allow me to expand on that. Have you ever played 1st ed modules like White Plume Mountain, Ghost Tower of Inverness, or the like? Are you nostalgic for that sort of thing? Well, your dream just came true. The Pyramid of Shadows is a series of rooms that each have a certain theme, trap or trick to them, designed to test the player's puzzle-solving skills and not just the way they flick their dice-hand wrists. Every single encounter has some funky feature that sets it apart - there is not a bare dungeon room with 5 orcs in it as far as the eye can see. (OK, the bandit's lair comes close, but even that has the you-know-what locked in the you-know-where) Heck, getting to the final level involves solving a bunch of silly riddles! Man, that takes me back...
What's modern about it there's an explanation for why all these wildly different beings and environments rub shoulders with each other. Granted, it's an explanation that only makes sense in a D&D universe, but that should be good enough. More to the point, every area is an object lesson in 4th ed encounter design. All the creatures interact with the environment and use it to their advantage. And there's none of this H1 "room with 3 traps that can all be destroyed safely from range, with no monsters to back them up" crap either. In fact, there's quite a few nasty surprises in store for the players, mwahahaha!
(Digression: if you hadn't guessed, I am the kind of DM who feels that a good, fun encounter is one where I manage to knock at least one PC into the Dying condition.)
So, overall a great job from the designers. I have a few niggling points of criticism, though.
There's an encounter that feels recycled from the DMG adventure. I guess I can justify it as "revisiting the same basic idea to show the players what difference a few levels make."
The art you're supposed to show the players is in many cases very dark and muddy. It's hard to make out what it depicts unless the light in the room is very bright and you show it at exactly the right angle. Also, the "folding the page in half" thing would have been easier if the pics were actually in a separate little booklet of their own (like in the old classics).
The number of magic items handed out is way below par. I only count 9, as opposed to the 16 there should be. Now, it's possible this is balanced by a higher gold allotment, I haven't been bothered to count all the cash, but if the designers pull a switch like that I expect to be told about it up front. Anyhoo, it's not a huge deal, as the exact items given out always have to be modified in any published adventure anyway, and I can easily add a few more while I'm at it.
Allow me to expand on that. Have you ever played 1st ed modules like White Plume Mountain, Ghost Tower of Inverness, or the like? Are you nostalgic for that sort of thing? Well, your dream just came true. The Pyramid of Shadows is a series of rooms that each have a certain theme, trap or trick to them, designed to test the player's puzzle-solving skills and not just the way they flick their dice-hand wrists. Every single encounter has some funky feature that sets it apart - there is not a bare dungeon room with 5 orcs in it as far as the eye can see. (OK, the bandit's lair comes close, but even that has the you-know-what locked in the you-know-where) Heck, getting to the final level involves solving a bunch of silly riddles! Man, that takes me back...
What's modern about it there's an explanation for why all these wildly different beings and environments rub shoulders with each other. Granted, it's an explanation that only makes sense in a D&D universe, but that should be good enough. More to the point, every area is an object lesson in 4th ed encounter design. All the creatures interact with the environment and use it to their advantage. And there's none of this H1 "room with 3 traps that can all be destroyed safely from range, with no monsters to back them up" crap either. In fact, there's quite a few nasty surprises in store for the players, mwahahaha!
(Digression: if you hadn't guessed, I am the kind of DM who feels that a good, fun encounter is one where I manage to knock at least one PC into the Dying condition.)
So, overall a great job from the designers. I have a few niggling points of criticism, though.
There's an encounter that feels recycled from the DMG adventure. I guess I can justify it as "revisiting the same basic idea to show the players what difference a few levels make."
The art you're supposed to show the players is in many cases very dark and muddy. It's hard to make out what it depicts unless the light in the room is very bright and you show it at exactly the right angle. Also, the "folding the page in half" thing would have been easier if the pics were actually in a separate little booklet of their own (like in the old classics).
The number of magic items handed out is way below par. I only count 9, as opposed to the 16 there should be. Now, it's possible this is balanced by a higher gold allotment, I haven't been bothered to count all the cash, but if the designers pull a switch like that I expect to be told about it up front. Anyhoo, it's not a huge deal, as the exact items given out always have to be modified in any published adventure anyway, and I can easily add a few more while I'm at it.
There is a review of the module here which makes very similar points.
This may be the first D&D module I have bought in over 10 years.
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