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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8305222" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dungeon Issue 28: Mar/Apr 1991part 2/5The Pipes of Doom: Ooh, a Battlesystem mass combat scenario! Like adventures set in non-generic worlds, that's a thing that they don't do nearly enough of. An army from Hellgate Keep have been devastating everything in their path with the aid of evil Bagpipes (a tautology, surely) that summon stormclouds, destroy buildings, and drive listeners to insanity when various tunes are played upon them. If you can get hold of them, Loudwater's armies have a chance against the foul fiends. If not, doom seems inevitable and they'll continue their rampage across Faerun until they manage to irritate Elminster or something. Fortunately, you get a break as a group of Korred decide to steal the pipes when they're travelling through the forest. Now you just have to find them before the enemy does and get them to stop being annoying tricksters long enough to realise the larger ramifications of what's going on. So there's several different phases to this adventure, each quite different. The mass combat bits where you take on the role of the town defenders. The forest exploration bit where you're dealing with various tricksy encounters and environmental hazards. And the fight with the main enemies without their army in the forest, which is designed as a rival team of PC's with every character having detailed individual stats, items and powers that they'll use tactically together in the same way that the players should. It's both considerably more varied and more ambitious than the average adventure, with plenty of possibilities for follow-ups if you leave any loose ends. (you'll want to destroy the evil bagpipes once you get your hands on them, which as usual for an artifact is a whole other quest in itself) You could even send them off to attack the source, as Hellgate Keep is now a full module. (although it wouldn't be for another 7 years at the time of this adventure's writing) Like many of the more specific adventures, this might require a bit of effort to adapt to your campaign, or not fit at all if it's particularly divergent, but it's a good one, so it's probably worth it. Side Treks - Manden's Meathooks: The first official side trek follows pretty much the same formula as last issue, only it manages to stick within page count. A group of brigands get their hands on a single cool magical item, this time a hurricane lamp, and decide to use it cleverly to aid in their highway robberies. While the PC's are disoriented from the abrupt hurricane out of nowhere, they swoop in, grab everything that's unsecured and run for it. If the PC's give chase, it leads them into a trap, which gives the brigands a chance to take the rest of your stuff as well. They're not that dangerous in a straight fight, so this is an encounter where keeping your cool and using your own magical tricks to even the playing field will work much better than getting angry and charging after them like a dumbass. Like the many kobold encounters over the years, this is a reminder that even basic tactics make an enemy much more dangerous than just charging in and attacking, and also that the enemies you're facing are people too, and most people want to get out of encounters alive and make a profit rather than kill just for the fun of it. Even a little bit of backstory and characterisation go a long way to making the game less mindlessly hack & slashy. Decent enough, but nothing groundbreaking, and yeah, you can very much see the formulas at work despite this being a new feature. Let's hope they can mix it up a bit more in future instalments.</blockquote>

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