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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 9590173" data-attributes="member: 6750502">Over on RPGnet, a reader of this Let’s Read asked how the iron golem mecha works, and I figured others might be interested as well. It uses the stats as per the monster, but multiple PCs can climb inside. It still absorbs fire damage, but those inside take half the amount of said damage due to the golem internally heating. Should the mecha be destroyed, it explodes as per the Shatter spell. Finally, there’s a gap inside the golem that PCs can fire through in order to do their own ranged attacks. The Suggested Story sidebar says that a roll must be made each turn in order to properly operate the golem and use one of its actions. There’s no sample skill/tool check or DC given, which is the sole oversight of this one-shot.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/8kZZBMT.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="width: 445px" /> Chapter 6: Down UndergroundThe iconic environment for dungeon delves, the vast majority of campaigns will see the PCs going six feet under, and not necessarily once they drop to 0 hit points. Our first adventure, Ashes to Ashes, is a clever subversion of a haunted graveyard where the PCs investigate the family crypt of ghostly activity. In reality a magical fire ring interred with one of the deceased is malfunctioning, summoning creatures of elemental fire into the tomb such as magmins and steam mephits. The first of our two map-based adventures is Forging a Future, where the PCs are hired by a duergar artisan to relit a long-abandoned forge now inhabited by subterranean monsters. The other is Spectator Sport, which is a demented carnival secretly run by a spectator (beholderkin) whose dungeon rooms are a series of dangerous games, such as a Wheel of Fortune which can trigger poison dart traps on bad results and a maze with Mirrors of Life Trapping inhabited by Doppelgangers. Web Search has the PCs venture into the city sewers to rescue kidnapped people from a dangerous colony of ettercaps, with additional quest rewards from various NPCs: the sewer company pays the party for killing the ettercaps, the clerk who hired them gives additional gold if they rescue her brother, and the rare peaceful drider who was being harassed by the ettercaps will gift Slippers of Spider Climbing. State of the Art has a noble hire the PCs to retrieve priceless works of art from a gang of bandits, but the bandits were in turn waylaid by a stone giant. The giant is known to be an art critic with nigh-impossible standards who lives in a nearby cave, and will destroy the art by feeding it to his ooze pets if not retrieved in time. The PCs can nonviolently resolve the encounter with the giant by trading for objects of sufficient value, or finding ways to appeal to his aesthetic sensibilities.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/Y92Ehmi.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="width: 211px" /> Chapter 7: Around TownThese adventures take place entirely in urban population centers. Our introductory low-level adventures are light on violence: Hidden Gems is a mystery where the PCs must track down a group of invisible thieves stealing sewing equipment and gems from a local business. The thieves are actually a group of sprites living in the building, and can be peacefully resolved where the fey are allowed to live on the premises if they return the gems. Making a Scene has no combat encounters by default, where the PCs take part in a last-minute talent show at a theater when the original performers all come down with food poisoning. There’s also a baboon that gets loose in the auditorium as an encounter, and is at risk of breaking things. It’s one of the two adventures with a map, with the other one being The Baker’s Dozen. That one-shot involves the PCs rescuing a noblewoman’s son from an underground fighting pit which uses a bakery as its front. School Spirit employs the PCs as unconventional exorcists at a magical academy, when a student’s prank goes out of control and summons the ghosts of dead teachers. The spirits can be put to rest via a variety of tasks in addition to combat, such as polishing the trophy of a dueling instructor or reading aloud from a ghost librarian’s novel. The Last Resort is a spa run by succubi and incubi, who will steal the party’s equipment while they relax, and PCs can pick up clues by looking around the spa. The fiends will attack the PCs once they locate the room holding their equipment, and should the battle turn against the monsters they will beg the party to spare their lives and offer a percentage cut of profits from the spa to sweeten the deal. Not Your Vault is a heist adventure where the PCs need to break into a bank vault to find some vital evidence to expose political corruption. It’s a rather straightforward series of traps and encounters, such as an arcane laser grid (no stats are given), an Arcane Lock on the Vault Door, and a final fight against a stone golem in the lobby as toxic gas that functions as Cloudkill floods the area. There’s no map for this final adventure, which I feel is a bit of a downer for a heist-based mission.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/ctB96K7.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="width: 488px" /> Chapter 8: Legendary AdventuresThe one-shots in the prior chapters take place solidly within the first two Tiers of play, from 1st to 9th level. Not tied to any particular environment, this chapter specializes in challenges beyond these tiers. Given the relative dearth of high-level monsters in the 5th Edition SRD, there’s only 9 one-shots detailed here, with 3 of those being vague hooks.About half of the full adventures are similar in being overtly war-themed, where the PCs are helping conventional humanoid armies against monstrous forces. Contract Terminated has the PCs racing against time to defend a city from an ongoing devil invasion, where they must retrieve a Scroll of Earthquake from the palace vaults to cast during tonight’s meteor shower. As part of an infernal deal, the devils would invade the city “until the earth rises, and the stars fall” if the inhabitants didn’t give up one of their own to Hell every 40 years, with the current would-be offering being a child. Cosmic Crossfire sees the party in a war zone, helping soldiers fight against an extraplanar invasion of aberrations, such as nothics manning eldritch cannons that shoot Fireball spells. The monsters are led by an androsphinx on the other side of the portal, who offers to stop the invasion in exchange for the PC’s souls. If they fight the sphinx, the portal will begin closing upon his death, and the PCs must escape or be trapped forever. Lastly, Creatures of the Deep involves an arcane sea wall battered by aquatic creatures such as giant sharks and storms, with a kraken as the climactic fight. The sea wall has AC and hit points to track, so its destruction is also a loss condition.As for the non-war one-shots, The Dragon’s Cage is our only mapped module in this chapter. It’s a prison break taking place in a trapped maze, and the overlord is an adult blue dragon with a variety of draconic-themed minions such as wyverns and a half-red dragon veteran serving as warden. Teacher’s Pet has a necromancer archmage as the main villain, who turned the villagers of her former hometown into undead. Games of the Gods is a multiversal tournament where the PCs take part in a variety of games, such as searching for a star ruby that triggers a Divine Word trap hidden in thick jungle underbrush, a rapidly-shrinking battlefield where Walls of Force push fighters closer and closer, and ascending a wall of ice to plant a flag up top as a pair of rocs harass climbers.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/aVSy26u.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="width: 419px" /> Chapter 9: Running Your GameThe final chapter of One-Shot Wonders contains a variety of tips and resources for running and customizing the adventures within the book. The Realm of Mirabilis introduces a hexcrawl map and sample mini-setting connecting all of the one-shots together. Plotting a Campaign and Connecting Stories shows how one might turn the one-shots into a larger full campaign, with suggestions of linked adventures grouped by environment, theme, and related villains/enemies. Making a Character, Playing a Session, and Running Combat are more generic advice which are actually beginner-level tips for 5th Edition, like what steps to take during character creation or when a GM should conceal rolls vs rolling out in the open. The remainder of articles are for more situational things, like tables of treasure for Rewarding the Party and sample Riddles and Puzzles (really just Riddles) talking about the most common types of puzzles. Our book ends with a pair of Indexes that group all of the adventures by Theme and Objective.Thoughts So Far: I’d have to say that the adventures in Down Underground are my favorite of the latter chapters here, although several of them don’t feel specific to subterranean travel so much as being vaguely “indoor dungeons.” Spectator Sport stands out in particular, as technically speaking the concept of a dangerous carnival isn’t really locked into any specific region or climate. Around Town was more of a mixed bag: having a full-page theater map might be appreciated by some, but as the default adventure is the kind where initiative isn’t going to be rolled and most likely will be pure improv, I would’ve preferred if another adventure in that chapter had a map. Like Not Your Vault.I have no problem with the Legendary Adventures chapter being lighter on content given the rarity of high-level challenges in the system, but having half of the one-shots involve active wars/invasions felt too monotonous. Additionally, these adventures rely a bit too much on hordes of low-level monsters that will be effortlessly taken care of by adventurers at this tier. This can be an acquired taste, as for some groups it can let the PCs revel in being powerful champions while still keeping the high-level threats as genuine challenges. But on the other hand, some groups may find the idea of their Tier 3-4 PCs taking on a bunch of zombies, kobolds, and giant sharks to be unexciting roadblocks.As for Chapter 9, my favorite part was the Realm of Mirabilis in that it helps tie together the one-shots into a more cohesive whole. Having a distinctly artistic yet still usable hex map helps as well. The other articles are a bit too simplistic for my tastes.Final Thoughts: One-Shot Wonders is an invaluable product for DMs on the go, and its scenarios can be incorporated easily enough into longer-running campaigns. It’s also a great example for writers in how to design a visually appealing and easily readable sourcebook, and the fact that there aren’t many products in its league is a shame. There are a few cases where the one-shots cannot be run right out of the box due to lacking certain things, but overall they require minimal prep and are very easy to understand and digest from a quick read.For these reasons, I cannot recommend One-Shot Wonders enough!</blockquote>

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