Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2010521" data-attributes="member: 18387">The Basics:  Lord of the Iron Fortress is a high-level adventure set on the plane of Acheron, realm of eternal war and clashing iron cubes.  Special rules are provided for adventuring on this plane of cruel and rigid law, although they aren't really all that complex or limiting (a good thing).  Because the nature of the threat is secret when the scenario begins, I can't even reveal the adventure's premise without giving far too much away, so be warned that the spoilers begin here.  Deep in the bowels of Acheron, the forge in the Iron Fortress is ringing.  Imperagon, one of the dread Duergar's greatest smiths is toiling at his masterpiece.  Soon the very gods will shudder in their halls, as the thing on the forge takes shape.  For Imperagon has found the fragments of legendary Sword of Fiery Might lost blade of the Efriiti sultan, and with it he shall bring the order of the cosmos to its knees!That's Imperagon's plan, anyway, and whether or not he can actually topple the gods from their thrones he is going to be a powerful, world-crushing menace with that sword in his twisted little hand.  That's one bad dwarf!  And as if he weren't bad enough, his wife is with him and she's nearly as tough.  To make matters worse, some of the darkest powers in the universe are taking an insterst in his little enterprise and he has made some seriously mean allies. In addition to his clanking mechanical minions, Imperagon is guarded by a lady Pit Fiend and a fallen Archon.  And just finding the Iron Fortress is a difficult and dangerous enough task in itself.  The adventure begins in the grim martial city of Rigus, on the neutral Plane of Concordant Opposition.  Imperagon is busily severing all possible links to himself by sending out cybernetic assassins to kill people who know too much about his scheme.  This draws the characters into the scenario (although to be honest, while there are a lot of adventure hooks listed, there isn't a lot of attention given to what the Player Characters are doing on the Plane of Concordant Opposition in the first place).  After a chase or two through the streets of Rigus and a little detective work, the players find a forgotten gate to the Plane of Acheron and they're off to hunt the evil smith down in his lair. While there is an Efreet merchant who can give useful information to the players, the assumption is that characters this powerful will have access to divination spells so potent that they won't really need to do a lot of detective work.  There is even a section on how to keep really powerful divination magic from messing up high-level adventures.Once the PCs arrive in Acheron, things start to get really tough.  A drow riding a gigantic spider gives the PCs some crucial information as to how to reach the Iron Fortress, but it's on the far side of the plane, in a different cube entirely.  Getting there is going to be hazardous, particularly since Imperagon knows they're here, and will be sending his mechanical minions to harry them along the way.Fortunately the players are not the only intruders in Imperagon's domain.  A group of Formian colonists has arrived from the neighboring plane of Mechanus and are struggling to establish a foothold in this unforgiving realm.  The PCs have a chance to rescue one of their young Myrmarchs from Imperagon's minions and make allies out of the Formians.  This won't give the PCs an army of ant-men to go invade the Iron Fortress with (this is 3E, not Birthright) but it will give them a safe place to recover and to stage attacks on the fortress from, and that's going to be absolutely crucial to winning the scenario.  Acheron is a hostile plane, and the way it wears characters down is almost as dangerous as the opposition they will face once they arrive.The tower itself is formidable, and there isn't really any good way to stop Imperagon without storming it.  While it might be possible to sneak in and kill off its guardians one by one, it is much more likely that the PCs are headed to a major confrontation with Imperagon, his wife and his chums the Pit Fiend an the Fallen Archon in his Audience Chamber.  This climatic fight is especially harrowing, not just because of the strength of the opponents (although they are very strong) but because of the tactical skill with which they fight.  The DM is given very precise instructions as to how to get the most out of the opposition's tactics and if used correctly, they will positively stop the stuffing out of most parties unless they use uncommonly good strategy themselves.What I Liked:  Production values are high, the product is slickly produced and attractively packaged.  This is of course what we would expect from the guys who actually have the money.As you can tell from the synopsis, this is genuinely a challenge for even very experienced characters.  Players of less than 15th level will have a difficult time here, particularly in the scenario's devastating climactic encounter. It's surprisingly difficult to construct an adventure which does that.  It's not just that high level characters have a lot of hit points and can do a lot of damage-they tend to have access to items and spells which can badly derail even the most carefully constructed plot.  It's hard to have a mystery when the PCs can read peoples' minds, or to send them on a long perilous journey when they can reach their destination in the blink of an eye.  This scenario rigorously addresses all the things that high level PCs can do to derail a plotline and for this alone it's worth buying.It is great to have a section on how to keep high level divination spells from turning every plot you throw at the PCs into a shambles, although to be honest I wish Wizards of the Coast had put this section into the Dungeon masters Guide instead (perhaps several editions ago!)This is also, it should be mentioned, an extra-planar adventure that does not require you to buy a copy of the Manual of the Planes.  As eager as Wizards of the Coast sometimes seems to sell you core books, this is a feature worth appreciating.  We learns everything we need to know about Acheron and the I also loved the scenario's climax. The climactic encounter is devastating not because the PCs are met with overwhelming force, but because their opponents use such potent tactics. It takes real skill to set something like that up and I'm properly impressed.I should mention that Rigus is run by a harsh order of cosmic defenders called the Toll of Doom Brotherhood, and that this is both a cool name and a cool concept.  The Brotherhood is just scary and just threatening enough to be impressive, without getting them into some sort of serious conflict with the PCs (which would of course sidetrack the adventure).What I didn't Like:  Imperagon is a hokey name.  He's also half-dragon for no real reason apart from the fact that it makes him tough.  A half-dragon half-dwarf is a silly concept, which immediately raises all sorts of awful questions in the reader's mind, distracting from the story (think for a second about a dog who is half Great Dane and half Chihuahua and you'll see what I mean). In fact the whole idea of a dwarf as an arch-villain is kind of problematic, as the producers of the Austin Powers movies seem to understand. The writing style is surprisingly flat and uninspiring, particularly for a story of such epic scope.  The writing is workmanlike and professional, but colorless and dry.  The descriptive passage that you are supposed to read to the players are particularly brief and perfunctory, without a hint of wonder or magic.  This is not the right approach for an epic quest to the far ends of reality, with a diabolical foe to defeat, a universe to save, unfathomable perils to face, etc.  It's almost as though the writer couldn't really get into the material. It does seem odd that despite being the legendary lair of brooding evil, the Iron Fortress is only two stories tall (three I you count the basement). Sauron had a better architectural firm, I suppose.The Blade of Fiery Might "is a goofy, goofy name.  It sounds like something badly translated from Japanese for a Final Fantasy game.  This wouldn't be such a problem if so much of the scenario didn't revolve around this relic.  You will, I fear, have to say "the Sword of Fiery Might" with a straight face many times to run this adventure. In Conclusion:  It's hard to find good, solid high-level adventures.  High level characters have so many tricks up their sleeves, so  many techniques in their arsenal, that there's a real art to giving them a challenge.  There's more to it than making the monsters bigger and giving them more hit points.  This scenario, despite o few rough spots, delivers completely on giving you a high-level adventure which actually works.  For that alone it's worth it.  After all, it only takes a second to change a few hokey names.</blockquote>

Verification