Hall of Many Panes

[Faraer]

As you say, S'mon, but I would say 'vogue' rather than 'mainstream'.

I'm still not quite yet with HoMP!

 

[NojBad]

Why didn't you list appropriate NPC CRs yourself? You have a lot more time to think about it than does the harried GM who's just run the fight & needs to tot up XP.

Hi S'Mon

I did think of changing some of the CRs but in the end decided it might cause confusion and settled on the general advice to lower them by 1 where the DM felt it appropriate.

Cheers!
Jon

 

[NojBad]

There's some good advice in there AIR about giving NPCs more gear to toughen them up if you want to raise the Encounter Levels for the scenario.

Thanks S'Mon

I do think the stat block problem could have been avoided if you had set the scenario for a lower level (say 3-6th), or had used Castles & Crusades.

C&C was but a twinkle in a troll's eye back then We decided on 8th level to best capture the scope of the material, there are some tough challenges!! By "stat block problem" do you mean the relative lack of magical gear? I don't see that as a problem myself but ymmv.

Actually, you could run the adventure for lower level PCs but initially you'd have to be *very* careful about which panes floated into reach.

Cheers!
Jon

 

[NojBad]

Welcome to the boards, Noj (now STOP being bad! Look at all the trouble Michael got into)!

Hi Steve!

I'm a lurker here at ENworld rather than a poster most of the time, I delurked to chime in on this thread.

Thanks for the welcome. BTW Jolly Jack is getting into trouble in an adventure being run over on the lejendary.com boards.

Hope you're keeping well
Jon

 

[NojBad]

I want to get the maximum use out of it, and have the players be able to make decisions on their own, and actually let them use their character's racial and class abilities to their fullest. There are many parts where those abilities are completely irrelevant.
Chris

Hi Thundershot

There are some panes where the party are transformed into different things (animals, acorns, breezes, veshoges etc) but they represent only a handful of adventures out of a very large bunch of scenarios. Personally, they are amongst my favourites but of course everyone's tastes differ.

Even though they lose some of their characters' abilities in those adventures the players are still able to make all the decisions. There are other scenarios where the PCs *gain* extra abilities for the duration of a given adventure - knowledge that comes to them magically.

I hope that you and your group do enjoy HOMP.

Jon

 

[S'mon]

C&C was but a twinkle in a troll's eye back then We decided on 8th level to best capture the scope of the material, there are some tough challenges!! By "stat block problem" do you mean the relative lack of magical gear? I don't see that as a problem myself but ymmv.

Well like I said, you have some Panes with incredibly tough mooks (like War-8 Mongols listed as CR 7) who yet are so ill-equipped that they are practically invulnerable to each other. And where did they all get their XP from? If you'd made them War-4s, say, it wouldn't have harmed my credulity - as it is it looks to me like I'll probably have to modify most of the stat blocks if I want to run the scenario. OTOH the Panes seem to be constructed as arbitrary puzzles without regard for plausibility anyway, so maybe it's not a problem if I approach it from that angle. I'm not sure. This is the kind of thought process I'm struggling with as I look at how I might be able to use this scenario. In the meantime I've ordered a Necromancer Games module (Assault on Durgam's Folly) so at least I know I'll have something runnable when my PCs reach 8th level.

 

[Wycen]

Well like I said, you have some Panes with incredibly tough mooks (like War-8 Mongols listed as CR 7) who yet are so ill-equipped that they are practically invulnerable to each other. And where did they all get their XP from? If you'd made them War-4s, say, it wouldn't have harmed my credulity - as it is it looks to me like I'll probably have to modify most of the stat blocks if I want to run the scenario. OTOH the Panes seem to be constructed as arbitrary puzzles without regard for plausibility anyway, so maybe it's not a problem if I approach it from that angle. I'm not sure. This is the kind of thought process I'm struggling with as I look at how I might be able to use this scenario. In the meantime I've ordered a Necromancer Games module (Assault on Durgam's Folly) so at least I know I'll have something runnable when my PCs reach 8th level.

It seems to me that if you can't string the panes together for the long haul, you can instead find 51 different scenario ideas.

 

[S'mon]

It seems to me that if you can't string the panes together for the long haul, you can instead find 51 different scenario ideas.

There's a problem with this though in that the Panes are highly dependent on meddling from Mors/Zagyg; the PCs take on different characteristics & roles as they enter each Pane - eg becoming castle guards, or acorns - so they can't easily be run as regular plane-hopping scenarios. It's more like Quantum Leap, only the relevant divine power is CN instead of NG... ...instead of helping people (though a few Panes require this) the PCs must commonly solve arbitrary puzzles to 'win' the Pane and progress. There doesn't seem to be any way to progress without 'winning' each Pane, either, which could be incredibly frustrating if your group isn't puzzle-oriented.

 

[Mystery Man]

There's a problem with this though in that the Panes are highly dependent on meddling from Mors/Zagyg; the PCs take on different characteristics & roles as they enter each Pane - eg becoming castle guards, or acorns - so they can't easily be run as regular plane-hopping scenarios. It's more like Quantum Leap, only the relevant divine power is CN instead of NG... ...instead of helping people (though a few Panes require this) the PCs must commonly solve arbitrary puzzles to 'win' the Pane and progress. There doesn't seem to be any way to progress without 'winning' each Pane, either, which could be incredibly frustrating if your group isn't puzzle-oriented.

So, now that you have it and have looked it over knowing what you know would you recommend it?

 

[S'mon]

So, now that you have it and have looked it over knowing what you know would you recommend it?

We-ell... I have just ordered Necromancer Games scenarios (Durgam's Folly, Karin Larr) to take the place of HoMP in my GMing plans... so I guess that would be a no, at least not yet. I'm still looking at HoMP and I may have inklings of ways it might work - eg using LA, which it was written for, or C&C. But I haven't found a way to run it yet so I can't really recommend it at this juncture.