Let's Write a Bad Module

[Mighty Veil]

Encounter #40 - The Groundhog's day trap

Read text aloud to the players:

"You go to bed so you can wake up early and complete your adventure."

DM's note:

The characters did not complete the first 39+ encounters correctly, so they are forced to re-live the day. Just like the movie!!

Read text aloud to the players:

"You wake up. A bard is singing "I've got you babe".

You are in a 12 foot by twelve foot square room. There is a desk in the middle of the room with an old wizard sitting behind it. He says his name is Gomezatron. He has tasked you with finding the prince of the Hant and the princess of the the goodpeople.

He tells you that there are two doors befor you and that you must choose which door to go through. One will bring you to the path to the prince the other to the path to the princess.

He wishes you good luck and disappears in a cloud of smoke."

 

[StupidSmurf]

Room 47: Time to Re-Equip!

Read to the players:
"You enter a brightly lit room that's 500' x 500'. At the door you are met by a zombie that used to be an elderly peasant. The zombie wears a blue vest, and, slack-jawed, pushes a cart towards you and goes 'mmm-BUH!' as you reach for the cart.

"Inside the room are aisles and aisles of things. Wow. So many things. A plethora of things. There's rations, there's armor, there's clothing, weapons, spell components. Anything you need. It's here. The staff of the establishment appears to be composed of blue vest-wearing slack-jawed zombies that shuffle by you with a glassy-eyed expression. Don't ask any of them where anything is. They do not know. Many of them do, however, congregate around a shrine that bears this symbol:

"The only thing disturbing about the place is the clientele. You've never seen so many peasants, mutants, dregs of society, inbred humanoids, and many more otherwise best left unidentifiable things."

Any equipment from any 3.5 DD book can be found here, so long as it's not magical and not offensive to good old fashioned values. There IS a Book of Vile Darkness here, but it's been edited and is now called the Book of Relatively Unpleasant Dimness.

 

[Muaythaidaddy]

THE BAD NOVICE DM ROOM.

Read to players:

"The door leads into a small, dimly lit room. The room is twenty feet by twenty feet and ten feet tall. A lone orc, wearing studded leather armor brandishes a falchion menacingly at the far end of the room, seemingly guarding the five foot tall wooden chest behind it. Behind both the orc and the chest, a single door stands closed, locked and barred from this side."

The orc is a typical orc, as found in the Monster Manual. He guards a chest that is both unlocked and untrapped. Inside the chest is a suit of platemail +5, a holy avenger longsword +5, a book of infinite spells, a staff of life and a bag of holding (type V) which contains 750,000 platinum coins.

If the words "Spankweezle Nimblenut" are not spoken aloud, three times in a silly voice, then all of the contents of the chest will disappear in a flash of smoke and bright lights, leaving behind only a small scrap of parchment which reads:

"It was all a dream."

 

[ssampier]

Man, I want this module. Only if it has the artwork to fit, though.

It's only missing one thing: an iconic character that has drinks with the PCs but is too busy to help them save the world.

 

[Truth Seeker]

It's only missing one thing: an iconic character that has drinks with the PCs but is too busy to help them save the world.

In the voice of Lee Marvin "Now se yer ya young adven-turds, therssse a plenty of booze...the fune stuff, worth tat much as...goolddd! Git me one" *HIC*

 

[Zander]

Only if it has the artwork to fit, though.

No! It should have art that doesn't fit. Like I6 Ravenloft, the cover art should be of somewhere that doesn't appear in the module.

 

[Turanil]

Encounter 49 - The Princess' Head

The PC enter a room with no door, meaning that the entrance is not closed by wood/iron/stone/whatever panels of any sort. So it's easy to enter the room. Now read this aloud:

This otherwise empty 15'x15' room has a cage hanging from the seiling 12 feet above your head (more if you're small size). You don't see what's in the cage.

Due to an Anti-Magic shell cast into the room up to the cage's bottom (but not over it), you cannot fly or what, unless having natural wings. Nonetheless, if the party reach the cage by conventional means, they discover this (read aloud):

Inside the cage is a crystal globe (obviously magical) in which is kept alive the princess' head (cut from the rest of her body nowhere to be seen here).

Use a pennagalan's stats for the head, although it is friendly and contained in the globe and otherwise doesn't do anything but speak and slowly move inside the strange liquid that fills the globe (around the head).

The problem to get the globe are several:
1) PCs hanging from the chain breaks it, suddenly bringing everything crashing down and killing the head.
2) Removing the globe is okay, but as soon as it reaches the anti-magic area below, it dissolves immediately killing the head.
3) It is impossible to hear what the head says because of the liquid and the globe itself. However, A Read Lips check could be useful, but only if you use 3.0 not 3.5, in which case all hope is lost (although a psionicist could contact her telepathically).

Anyway, an enterprising party can climb up the walls (DC 15), then walk upside down the ceiling (DC 55), and find the invisible exit (DC 35, unless having Detect Invisibility active from the third round onward). If they do they could drag up the chain with the cage and the globe (Strength check required).

Thereafter the party is going for much disappointment as the head is not from the princess but from an impostor impersonating her (Sense Motive check at DC 38). So the mystery remains total.

 

[Turanil]

Encounter 50 - The Princess' Body

Emerging from the ceiling, the PCs find a spiral staircase to the left, and a tunnel to the right. Going to the right are another set of inane encounters that don't make sense but get XP. Climbing the staircase to the left goes up the tower's level (huh? Which tower? Dunno...). So they reach a door entirely made of gold, weighing 1 ton and costing as much. In front of the door is a skeleton which attack on sight (although it has no eyes in the sockets).

Skeleton: Special: has a BAB and number of d12 hit-dice equal to the total party levels; AC 10; Immune to non-wood and non-good weapons; his attacks deal 1d20 of dmg and 1 point of Charisma drain per hit. Special weakness: a Command spell with the word "Die!" (but not "Dye!") destroys it instantly. It is otherwise a mundane skeleton.

Once the party open the door (requires a strength check for a one ton door on oiled hinges), read the following.

You enter a very nice chamber full of flowers and rich tapestries and other nice decorum. On the large bed is a coffin.

This is in fact a crystal coffin, just like that of a vampire but painted white. Inside you see (once you remove the paint), the headless body of the princess, in the same liquid as in the globe. The coffin is unbreakable by any mean.

 

[Paragon Kobold]

Note For the GM:

While the players are exploring the dungeon the heroic general Valor heroically leads an
attack on an outpost of the evil kingdom, out-flanking an army of mind-controlled storm giants.

HOWEVER! He is secretly allied with the evil princess, and this is all a ruse to gain him the
trust and admiration of the Gnomes of the South, for future manipulation. The mastermind
behind this is the Spider Queen, who is allied with the Red Wizards.

The characters have no way of knowing about, or affecting, these events.

 

[Turanil]

Encounter 51 - Things get difficult!

So, the coffin is unbreakable? So what?! Enterprising and cunning PCs should think about the obvious: bring back the coffin right back into the chamber where was the cage and globe (i.e.: encounter #49). It requires five Strength checks at DC 28 in a row otherwise the coffin slips from the PCs' hands and goes back rolling until it crashes into the room #49 far below. Since the coffin is unbreakable it doesn't break though, but could break through the floor instead (Hardness 12, hit-points 42) crashing below in a room full of angry kuo-toa (the kuo-toa have no treasure).

But lets say the PCs eventually bring the coffin into the anti-magic room: once the coffin is there, it dissolves in 2d4 rounds. Then, the PCs have 1d6 rounds to put a head (any head!!!) on the headless body:

1) True Princess' Head: The party has completed the quest and all return teleported into Gomazetron's room. Each PC is given a nobility title, real estate, and a magical item of his choice (but only one, whether it is a vorpal sword or potion of healing). UNFORTUNATELY the PCs have yet to come across the true princess' head, and have no clue where it is. As such, you still have another gaming session or two beforehand of this marvellous adventure to enliven your players, you lucky DM.

2) False Princess' Head: The one in the globe (room 49) fits indeed perfectly. Now the princess looks like it's the real one. However nobody is teleported (Sense Motive check DC32 to detect that something is wrong here), and the party will have to bring back the princess by conventional means (Teleport spells don't work). Note that the false princess is charming and also generous with her charms. Although she is not a succubus and thus doesn't radiate evil, her appearance will be a portent of disaster. The false princess will sow discord and unhappiness in the kingdom, and everyone will die unless a party of brave adventurers (PLOT DEVICE HERE!!!) do something about it.

3) Orc Head: Since there are plenty of orcs to kill around, the PCs could have kept one and want to try to put it on the headless corpse. The result is to obtain an extremely vulgar prostitute that you could sell for 50 gp to a slaver.

4) A Skull. Putting any skull on the headless corpse transforms it into a 25th level lich that attacks on sight (although it has no eyes in the sockets).

5) An Owl's Head. You obtain an owlbear's variant that attacks for 1d8 rounds then die. Use the owlbear's stats +2.

6) Any other head simply doesn't fit (especially insects' head which really don't fit - period).