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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 9218095" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dungeon/Polyhedron Issue 92/151: May/Jun 2002part 4/12The Razing of Redshore: A second big tie-in adventure in the same issue? That seems a little much. Still, this one is more likely to be bought by a significant fraction of the gaming population and get follow-ups not written by the official writers. It’s time for the release of the Epic Level Handbook, which means James Jacobs gets to really go to town with a threat that’ll be a significant challenge even for 20th level characters. An awakened sperm whale druid with a serious grudge that’s not too concerned about collateral damage? That’s an interesting test of the 3e advancement rules and how they work out when you apply them to already powerful monsters. He’s hunting the cabal of assassins that slew his circle and seized control of a magical pool that unlocks people’s epic level potential. Since he doesn’t really understand human society and venturing on land is a little tricky for him, this means storms, animal attacks and sinking any ships coming or going, eventually escalating to attacking in elemental form. If you aren’t too optimised and manage to kill him first encounter, (ruining the whole rest of the adventure’s plot) he’ll retreat after a while, having got a deus ex machina vision that the PC’s are the chosen ones who could solve his problem. He’ll then contact them in a more peaceful way wild-shaped into a small innocuous animal, tell them about the pool and assassins and ask them for help. Presuming they don’t feel all the death & destruction he’s caused already is unforgivable and blow him off (but what are the odds they’ve made it to 20th level without a few instances of mass destruction of their own) they then have to make their way 4 miles under the ocean (but that bit should be no problem by now as long as you have at least one generalist spellcaster in the party.) to reach the Shadar Caves. Once there, you have to deal with the Kraken Cleric and Mithral Golem guarding the pool, then placate the spirit of the pool itself and convince it you’re worthy of the responsibility of epic levels. Now equipped with your 21st level, the first epic feat that goes with it and a bunch of inherent bonuses on top, (so this still gives you a boost if you live in a world where epic levels aren’t gated and characters with them are relatively common) you can go and take on those assassins, each of which has a statblock that takes up nearly a full page, plus the various minions in their fortress, most of which would be the full-on big bad in their own right in a lower level adventure.So I’m unhappy to report that this turns out to be the bad kind of tie-in adventure, the annoyingly linear kind filled with overused high fantasy cliches they’d never let a freelancer’s submission get away with. To his credit, James is at least a better rules writer than Bill Slavicsek, so I have a little more faith that the math on the creatures adds up to make the numbers support the intended story, but there are still multiple points where one wrong decision on the part of the party will completely ruin the adventure, plus high level 3e parties can vary so much in competency that an optimised one focussing on spamming debuffs & save or die effects rather than HP damage will break it at the first encounter without even trying. At that level you should be designing adventures to be less linear, not more, because that’s the only way to keep them functional in the face of all the options high level spellcasters have. Not the very worst adventure they’ve ever done in here, but still a huge disappointment. Nodwick’s team find it a little hard to accept that a squirrel is really a shapeshifted whale. That’s what breaks your sense of immersion after all the other weird things you’ve encountered over the years?</blockquote>

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