Sixten
First Post
Back when I was a wee lad, the cover of this module caught my eye at a cousin's house, and stuck. That was the same visit that I read the 1st edition Player's Handbook for the first time. Fast forward a couple of decades, and I tracked it down and picked up the PDF from Paizo or RPGnow or someplace. I was thinking of trying to convert it to 3E a couple of years ago, but that didn't happen.
Now that I'm considering 4E, and maybe running some games for my friends, I'm looking at it again. And, to be quite frank, I'm not sure whether I should bother. This module seems to have some regard amongst D&D players, but the more I read it, the more I'm unsure how much is salvageable.
There's an awful lot of railroading. Encounters that can't be avoided, NPCs that refuse to help the players, or die before they can reveal any information. A lot of save-or-die, and puzzles with a single obscure solution vs. awful death. And lots of the encounters are single monsters, which will be hard to convert to more 4E style encounters. (And the recent Dungeon module, "Heathen," touches on a number of its themes.)
The secret mission behind enemy lines, crossing the great Sind Desert to discover the leader of this great inhuman army, is just cool. The more Oriental flavor of the desert peoples and the Evil Abbey are a nice change from standard fantasy tropes. The juggernauts--giant animate siege pyramids--are still cool (though statting them as monsters doesn't make a huge amount of sense to me). And the Abbey itself (or, at least, the idea of it) is pretty cool.
Is it even worth bothering with a straightforward translation? Or do we really need more of a "re-imagining," stripping the thing down to its bones, and building up something new in its place?
Is there enough interest to bother doing either?
Thought I'd start by kind of breaking the existing module down, and discussing some of the stuff I like and don't like.
The premise is that the mysterious "Master" is gathering together a huge army of men and monsters across the desert, and preparing to invade. The PCs enlist in / hire themselves for / are drafted into the big army that their nation is putting together to beat back this invasion. They're a little late, and so are trying to catch up to the main body of the force.
The basic framework of the adventure is like this:
* Events open with the PCs at a village that's serving as a regional HQ, and where a battle against a force of the Master's army was recently won. A nearly-dead NPC cleric shows up one night, fighting a creature sent to kill him, and supernaturally compels a PC to undertake the adventure. He has enough information to get them on their way. To give them a motivational kick in the ass, a magic-user and some flunkies attack the next day.
* There's some travel down a river and across a swamp, accompanied by checking a really random encounter table. There's a set encounter with a largish patrol of the Master's army (around 50 assorted humanoids). Somewhere in the swamp is a haunted house that will eat the PCs brains until someone casts dispel evil on it.
* The next phase of the adventure finds the PCs traveling with a caravan through the desert. There's a big set-piece battle with bandits attacking the caravan. Then a little mini-dungeon that's the lair of one of the Master's agents. The PCs will then be kidnapped by dervishes who will try to convert them to fantasy-Islam and feed them some clues.
* After that is more desert wandering, with another set of very random encounter tables, some of which are patrols of the Master's army. There's a somewhat silly thing with a hydra. The major encounter of this section, though, is the PCs finding themselves in the middle of the Master's army as it camps for the night. Hilarity ensues.
* The last section (and a third of the page count) is the Evil Abbey. A monastery that once served as a way station on the pass through the mountains is now populated by evil, cannibalistic humanoids that will try to lure, capture, and eat the PCs.
My major objection to the whole business is the weird combination of situations with limited, very specific, solutions, and then the need to feed the PCs the clues that give them any chance of solving them. The haunted house in the swamp is kind of a cool setup, but the need for one specific spell to get the PCs out of there also means that there's an explicit dues ex machina to hand them the solution if they don't hit on it themselves. The mini-dungeon has an encounter with a snake that flees down a drain, just so curious PCs might try to discover where it went, and find the murals describing the single way to defeat a guardian monster they might awaken later on.
That said, I really like:
Not so fond of:
One opportunity I really thought was missed was that, while the module states that the main army of the PCs' nation has been wiped out, and some NPCs might be able to tell them that, the characters never see it. It seems like that would be a good opportunity to really drive home how important their mission is to the outcome of the war.
Another is that, in X5, it is implied that some of the Master's power and influence comes from bargaining with infernal powers. And yet, we don't see very much evidence of that through the adventures. I'd like to find a way to play that up somehow.
Now that I'm considering 4E, and maybe running some games for my friends, I'm looking at it again. And, to be quite frank, I'm not sure whether I should bother. This module seems to have some regard amongst D&D players, but the more I read it, the more I'm unsure how much is salvageable.
There's an awful lot of railroading. Encounters that can't be avoided, NPCs that refuse to help the players, or die before they can reveal any information. A lot of save-or-die, and puzzles with a single obscure solution vs. awful death. And lots of the encounters are single monsters, which will be hard to convert to more 4E style encounters. (And the recent Dungeon module, "Heathen," touches on a number of its themes.)
The secret mission behind enemy lines, crossing the great Sind Desert to discover the leader of this great inhuman army, is just cool. The more Oriental flavor of the desert peoples and the Evil Abbey are a nice change from standard fantasy tropes. The juggernauts--giant animate siege pyramids--are still cool (though statting them as monsters doesn't make a huge amount of sense to me). And the Abbey itself (or, at least, the idea of it) is pretty cool.
Is it even worth bothering with a straightforward translation? Or do we really need more of a "re-imagining," stripping the thing down to its bones, and building up something new in its place?
Is there enough interest to bother doing either?
Thought I'd start by kind of breaking the existing module down, and discussing some of the stuff I like and don't like.
The premise is that the mysterious "Master" is gathering together a huge army of men and monsters across the desert, and preparing to invade. The PCs enlist in / hire themselves for / are drafted into the big army that their nation is putting together to beat back this invasion. They're a little late, and so are trying to catch up to the main body of the force.
The basic framework of the adventure is like this:
* Events open with the PCs at a village that's serving as a regional HQ, and where a battle against a force of the Master's army was recently won. A nearly-dead NPC cleric shows up one night, fighting a creature sent to kill him, and supernaturally compels a PC to undertake the adventure. He has enough information to get them on their way. To give them a motivational kick in the ass, a magic-user and some flunkies attack the next day.
* There's some travel down a river and across a swamp, accompanied by checking a really random encounter table. There's a set encounter with a largish patrol of the Master's army (around 50 assorted humanoids). Somewhere in the swamp is a haunted house that will eat the PCs brains until someone casts dispel evil on it.
* The next phase of the adventure finds the PCs traveling with a caravan through the desert. There's a big set-piece battle with bandits attacking the caravan. Then a little mini-dungeon that's the lair of one of the Master's agents. The PCs will then be kidnapped by dervishes who will try to convert them to fantasy-Islam and feed them some clues.
* After that is more desert wandering, with another set of very random encounter tables, some of which are patrols of the Master's army. There's a somewhat silly thing with a hydra. The major encounter of this section, though, is the PCs finding themselves in the middle of the Master's army as it camps for the night. Hilarity ensues.
* The last section (and a third of the page count) is the Evil Abbey. A monastery that once served as a way station on the pass through the mountains is now populated by evil, cannibalistic humanoids that will try to lure, capture, and eat the PCs.
My major objection to the whole business is the weird combination of situations with limited, very specific, solutions, and then the need to feed the PCs the clues that give them any chance of solving them. The haunted house in the swamp is kind of a cool setup, but the need for one specific spell to get the PCs out of there also means that there's an explicit dues ex machina to hand them the solution if they don't hit on it themselves. The mini-dungeon has an encounter with a snake that flees down a drain, just so curious PCs might try to discover where it went, and find the murals describing the single way to defeat a guardian monster they might awaken later on.
That said, I really like:
- The basic setup with the PCs undertaking this long-term recon mission to discover the source of this evil army that's massing.
- The idea of the Malakaz (the swamp house), if not its solution.
- The caravan battle. Honestly, I'm not sure why this is a bandit attack, and not elements of the Master's army. But I'm also really not sure how I'd try to structure it in 4E terms.
- PCs stuck in the middle of the evil army's encampment. Sure, they can wait out the night in their cave, but for the more adventurous, it's a great opportunity to get out, gain some intelligence, and get a better idea of the scope of the threat. (Also a good way for the unwary to get themselves killed....)
- The evil abbey and its not-monks. I think it'd be worth trying to rearrange this section a bit so that the PCs have more time in the Abbey before the monks try to eat them. Maybe they have orders to simply hold them there, giving the PCs time to get uneasy and/or snoop where they're not wanted?
Not so fond of:
- The very heavy-handed way that the PCs are put onto their mission. That seems like it could be made more organic.
- The exceptionally eclectic encounter tables; it really feels like someone raided the Expert Set's monster list for everything of appropriate hit dice.
- That pretty much every major encounter is with a foe that's in direct contact with the Master.
- The business with the dervishes as a way to peel the PCs away from the caravan, and point them to the goal. It feels clumsy and heavy-handed. Especially the whole business about "the true faith."
One opportunity I really thought was missed was that, while the module states that the main army of the PCs' nation has been wiped out, and some NPCs might be able to tell them that, the characters never see it. It seems like that would be a good opportunity to really drive home how important their mission is to the outcome of the war.
Another is that, in X5, it is implied that some of the Master's power and influence comes from bargaining with infernal powers. And yet, we don't see very much evidence of that through the adventures. I'd like to find a way to play that up somehow.
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