Necropolis suggested levels?

[StalkingBlue]

Dunno how viable a water-elemental templated character will be in a protracted desert scenario btw, but I'm sure you have considered that already anyway.

 

[Voadam]

It sounds like your intended starting level will be appropriate - if your players don't care whether a scenario is plausible and don't mind frequent character deaths to inescapable, over-the-top ECL encounters.

I have to agree with S'mon - I bought Necropolis and considered running it for my old group, but then I got to play in it in S'mon's game, and that taught me not to go near it as DM. S'mon is a brilliant DM, but even he didn't get the scenario to fly. Thanee sounds like she's had a similar experience playing in it.
ECLs range from ridiculously easy to ridiculously difficult, with no clues to PCs or players which is going to be which. Almost worse, it's impossible in some cases for the DM to make sense of how things are meant to work, the scenario is that badly written. If you mean to run it, never mind at which levels, you've got your work cut out for you.

The plot working is the most important part for me. I have a ton of monster books for redoing encounters to my taste but if the story outline is poor then it is not worth the work for me and maybe I should look at Demon God's Fane instead, which is designed for the same levels and is available as a pdf (a bonus when we game by e-mail).

 

[StalkingBlue]

The plot working is the most important part for me. I have a ton of monster books for redoing encounters to my taste but if the story outline is poor then it is not worth the work for me and maybe I should look at Demon God's Fane instead, which is designed for the same levels and is available as a pdf (a bonus when we game by e-mail).

Hm. I've no more than skimmed Demon God's Fane, but it seemed a pretty solid scenario, certainly one that made sense plot-wise.

Re Necropolis, S'mon will be able to tell you more than I could. From what I read of it and gathered from playing in it, there's way too much stuff in it that is just muddled and unclear - not so much rules-wise, but as to Plot context, NPCs' mindsets etc. (Some of the desert monsters S'mon used out of it are pretty cool.) Also the overall plot depends on PCs doing some pretty implausible stuff.

Example: One of the nine items you have to assemble to succeed in the main quest is in the belly of a demon crocodile that turns up in a village pond for no good reason - a seeming random encounter the way it's set up, but unless you fight it and cut it open to see whether there's any interesting loot in its entrails, you're just not going to find the item. Not much brains involved in that, just weird assumptions on what the players will have their PCs do. /Example

Worse, NPCs tend to act on the same kind of irrational 'logic' expected from PCs. I'm not sure that the scenario's irredeemably bad - if you are willing to rewrite much of it (and not only encounters and rules!), you might get use out of it.

So if you don't have the book yet I'd recommend borrowing a copy somewhere and having a good long read before you buy it - as you can tell I haven't been impressed with it. If you were anywhere near me I'd give you my copy: I'd have sold it already, it but I feel it's so bad that I can't in good conscience inflict it on anyone for a price.

 

[S'mon]

I agree with SB of course. Things like many important items being located in the bellies of monsters is really a minor flaw if anything - maybe the players are supposed to work out that in an ancient Egyptian setting, everything important is in the stomach?

The real killer for me was when the PCs got to the Temple of Osiris. I _could not make sense of it_ no matter how hard I tried, and I spent many painful hours trying. I feel a bit ill just thinking back on it now. Seriously, it left me traumatised (one poor player I'd hinged the scenario on saying "We _thought_ you'd prepared it!" didn't help) and unsure of my GMing abilities - and really, I'm a pretty good GM. I just couldn't work out what was going on or what was supposed to happen. None of it seemed to make sense. The NPCs would lure PCs into a 'trap' that, the way it was written, avoided the hostile monsters, led the PCs straight to a major goal past the guardians, and resulted in an easy victory for the PCs! Mind you, it took hours of puzzlement before I worked that out. A small change in NPC actions turned the trap back into a trap - and killed 2 PCs (one of them Stalkingblue's), w no chance of survival that I could see. Of course the survivors could then win the easy victory the 'trap' led to.

I'm pretty tolerant of iffy writing and rules-violations - I don't care if the NPC has 2 more or fewer Skill ranks than they 'ought' to - but a scenario HAS TO MAKE SENSE. It might need a lot of effort to make sense of it - I'm about to run 'The Awakening'; an old AD&D magazine scenario that it's taken me 13 years to decipher & get familiar enough with to be confident of running - but if it doesn't at heart make sense, it's no good.

In essence: if you want a scenario that makes sense, don't get Necropolis.

 

[S'mon]

Another (minor) annoyance was the mandated XP awards and penalties(!) for 'role-playing' - not for achievement, but stuff like: if the PCs walk boldly & fearlessly down the avenue, they get XP. If they skulk & hide as they move down the avenue (y'know, like Rogues tend to do) they _lose_ XP! Why? Because in Khemit it's apparently improper behaviour!
There's lots more like that.

Necropolis is kinda the polar opposite of a dryasdust WoTC scenario like Bastion of Broken Souls, where everything is carefully justified, makes sense, is rules compliant, yet kinda soul-less. Necropolis certainly has loads of flavour. Its esoteric Gygaxian style looks like it would be highly entertaining. However in practice it is a confused mess and IMO effectively unplayable.

It's cheap enough to be perhaps worth purchasing just as a magical-ancient-Eqypt sourcebook, though.

Anyone want a copy?

 

[Wycen]

You may consider everything I'm going to say as spoiler, just so we are all clear.

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The demoncroc mentioned above, where you slit his belly open is connected to a spy within the starting village. He's isn't quite a random encounter making no sense.

Certainly you should not consider Necropolis as "just an adventure". The book has a ton of info, mostly related to the tombs, dungeons, traps and monsters associated with saving the world from Rahotep, but also alot of flavor. It is EPIC.

The Temple of Osiris was difficult. If you do not railroad you players into the encounter that leads to going into the Osirum Underworld, then you have to deal with a whole bunch of stuff that only has static information. Let me expand...

Once you are in the temple you walk down a corridor with a heavy illusion that should leave the party incapacitated and thus the evil priests put them in a boat which leads into the temple's "dimensional basement". They HAVE to go here if they want to collect all the EVIL OBJECTS. However, it is within this basement that the party is possibly going to make a mistake and force them to fight a CR23 monster or if they are lucky, multiple lesser CR's. In the chapter dedicated to "Ending the adventure" you have various options on how successful the party is. If they don't have all the evil objects, they can still win, but after another century or so maybe the menace will resurface. If they fail and walk away it was those consequences as well, but you probably aren't going to care at that point.

When I ran this, I gave the party the chance to wake up before the boat trip started and parley with the priests. This then turned into a highly dynamic situation with battles, retreating, coming back, killing the high priest, civil war between the lesser priests trying to figure out who's in charge, etc. That was all ME, that isn't addressed in the book.

It was at this point my Necropolis swerves into a different direction and so the book became a source book rather than adventure.

 

[Wycen]

Oh yeah, when reading through it, the DM is given background regarding objects, traps and encounters as to how they represent mythology or what symbolism they represent. Unfortunately, most of this will only ever be known by the DM.

 

[S'mon]

(Spoiler)



Once you are in the temple you walk down a corridor with a heavy illusion that should leave the party incapacitated and thus the evil priests put them in a boat which leads into the temple's "dimensional basement". .

I can't say I gathered that from the scenario - AIR the illusions are only harmful if the PCs are cautious or hostile, if they approach in friendly manner (as mine did) there's no problem. I don't recall anything about putting incapacitated PCs in boat. I expect it's in there, although it doesn't make much sense that the baddies would put a bunch of high-level heroes (with their gear?!) on a trip to a major goal of those heroes!
Why not just slit their throats? Or is that because Rahotep _wants_ them to reach him... *sigh*

IMC the High Priest accompanied the PCs on the boat into the osirium, as stated in the scenario. Unfortunately per the text that would mean that the Hippodilemons, the only real chance to stop the PCs before they reached the Statue of Set, the heart of the evil temple they were now heading straight towards, _would not attack_!!! So a had the priest cackle & word of recall away. Hippodilemons (EL 18) attacked, ate two perfectly good PCs.

After that the way was clear to the statue, apart from some pathetic CR 8 sphinxes, and it was duly smashed. Shortly after the PCs blundered into one of those certain-doom dimensional gates where you have to guess (w no clues) the right one of 16 possible combinations, etc etc. In a literal deus exs machina had Isis herself intervene and put a whole stop to the mess, instead of going to Set's realm or whatever the PCs were returned home. The players were annoyed by the cheesy resolution but glad to get it over with.

 

[Wycen]

I can't say I gathered that from the scenario - AIR the illusions are only harmful if the PCs are cautious or hostile, if they approach in friendly manner (as mine did) there's no problem. I don't recall anything about putting incapacitated PCs in boat. I expect it's in there, although it doesn't make much sense that the baddies would put a bunch of high-level heroes (with their gear?!) on a trip to a major goal of those heroes!
Why not just slit their throats? Or is that because Rahotep _wants_ them to reach him... *sigh*

I was breaking it down to what I considered a this or that situation, but you are right. But when you get down to it, how are the players not going to be suspicious of everything when they have to first pass thru the Pylon of the Duat and deal with the crazy man, were-creatures and shadow fiends?

If they don't trigger the illusion, like you said, why don't they get poisoned, etc? Hell, just run around the main temple area and touch the pillars that summon the boar demons.

 

[Thanee]

What I really would like to know is what all those important 'quest items' are good for, anyways... we never figured that out and never will, since we won't finish the adventure!

Bye
Thanee