Of Sound Mind

[Ziggy]

[spoiler warning]

Quick war stories:
My party actually negotiated with the trog priest. Not their style. I am proud...

The Dannanshee was a pushover for my party. She immediately managed to dominate half the party, but as soon as the fighter of the group figured out what was up, she slaughtered her in one round before any of her newfound toadies could intervene.

My party fought the trog priest and negotiated with the Dannanshee In my (scaled for a tough 4-5th level party) adventure the bonetangle was a skeletous (the template) umber hulk, and that nearly killed them.

I used leveled orcs for goblins, with the leader as a abnormally small orc. But he was killed by an invisible rogue long before he reached the dragon-corpse.

And I also had a second group (of baddies) attacking the orcs from outside at the same time as the PCs fought them from inside. The mayhem was unbelievable, with noone beeing really sure who was friend and foe

The best scene was probably by the belltower, with the PC's wading through hordes of villagers trying to grapple them. They managed to knock out (using non-lethal force) most of the important persons in the town, including the major and watch captain....

.Ziggy

 

[Psion]

Re: Livestock.

Is it some reason that they have to be cattle? I don't remember reading the players any rumors about cattle disappearing. You could make them captured montain goats.

 

[Ruined]

[Spoiler Stuff Below...]

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My party negotiated with Dananshee and the trog priest both. They truly feared the Bonetangle, which was good.

As far as moving the statue, my party came up with a good solution. The wizard was able to get up close to where the statue was wedged in and see into the tribute room. From there he was able to cast Unseen Servant, which he used to move the mirror. It may be bending things slightly, but it was innovative enough for me to let it slide.

 

[Ziggy]

Spoiler warning again

A 1st-level sorcerer or wizard with spider climb (possibly needing a day to recover spells) ought to be enough. I always assumed that, combined with a load of whipping, was how the goblins got those cows up there (since they have a blue who gets spider climb at will). That's how my party got down, though it cost them time they could ill afford to lose.

Spider climb is how the second (evil) party managed to climb the mountain [Apart from the fighter who got a big rock in the head (critical) and fell to his death]. But the sorcerer in my party don't have spiderclimb, so that was not an option.

.Ziggy

[Edit: Spelling errors]

 

[Piratecat]

SPOILERS

First:
I'm a bit worryed about the statue, it does'nt seem to easy to work out what you have to do, and my gruop is known for it's inability to think of anything like that. Has anybody else found they had problems with that?

Second:
I whas wondering what in other peoples opinion is the probability of the gruop getting to the hidden tresure, it seems a hell of a lot of stuff, and I whas wondering what the chanse of them getting it is.

The slivers of glass ought to give away the easy way of moving the statue, but the "pry off the eye and run like blazes" method seems to work, too. It's very Raiders of the Lost Arc. Just remember, that statue is big, slow, and only gets a partial action; if the PCs wedge it in the narrow tunnels, they'll probably be okay. Otherwise, yikes! Cause, y'know, who can resist those sparkly eyes...?

As for the hidden treasure room, remember that it's in copper pieces. It may be only worth 1100 gp, but it weights 2,200 lbs! If you're nicer than I am, change it to a mixture of copper and gold to make it more portable - but I think a nice treasure bath is fun, once in a while.

One last thought: if you have a monk in the group, don't forget to download the monk dream from Fiery Dragon's web site!

 

[Kal Torak]

knowing them they'll go for the "look at those great big gems lets have a go a prying them out!" side of things!

I must admit that the part of the tresure that eorryes me is the magic items (the +2 sword more that the others), if it's very hard to get (probably is) I don't mind giving them the chance to find something worth wile but if most grupos find it without big problems I'll be a bit more coor canny.
Also in tha room the copper minions throw themselves aginst the bell, you say that the goblins will not hear them if it does'nt happen more than a few times, what would be their reaction if they did hear the bell? Also if the copper minions get chucked down the waterfall they will continue to serch, track and try to kill the PC, how can they do that if they are:
a)stuk at the bottom of the waterfall
b)mindless
c)deactivate after 1 minute

Thanks for the help!

 

[Piratecat]

I must admit that the part of the tresure that eorryes me is the magic items (the +2 sword more that the others)....

You mean the +1 sword with the special ability? If it worries you, I give you official permission to change it. Seriously, you shouldn't take what I've written to be set in stone; change and adapt it so that it's as fun as possible for your group. I designed the sword so that it was cool and memorable but not too powerful; if you want to change it in any way, you should do so and not feel guilty. Making it a short sword or a dagger would be one way of quickly reducing its usefulness to most adventuring groups.

Also in tha room the copper minions throw themselves aginst the bell, you say that the goblins will not hear them if it does'nt happen more than a few times, what would be their reaction if they did hear the bell? Also if the copper minions get chucked down the waterfall they will continue to serch, track and try to kill the PC, how can they do that if they are:
a)stuk at the bottom of the waterfall
b)mindless
c)deactivate after 1 minute

If the goblins did hear the gong - and remember, listen checks suffer a -1 for every 10 feet - they would be confused. Is there a part of this area they didn't know about? Within half an hour, searching teams would have found the illusionary wall. Then a small team of five or six goblins would be sent on a scouting mission.

As for the copper minions, I for one would think it was hilarious if the small constructs didn't deactivate after a minute, but kept trying to kill the intruder. If they're tossed over the edge of the slitherramp, though, that's going to take a while! So maybe a week later, the PCs are relaxing in town and this small muddy copper monster comes trudging up the street at them....

And then the month after that. And two months later, in an entirely different dungeon. And three weeks after that, in a comfortable inn! This could become the running joke of your campaign if you aren't careful.

I'm being a little silly. If you want to play it as written, tossing them out of the room pretty much gets rid of them. They'll sit, deactivated, under the waterfall for the next adventurers to find and worry about.

 

[Teflon Billy]

]...I have full guidelines for converting the whole module from psionics to arcane magic. Making the changes should only take a few minutes, really, if that's what you decide to do.

No problem if the PCs don't have psionics, either. One puzzle is a little tougher to get back through, but there are allowances for circumventing it as well...

I ran the module for my group by way of reviewing it for the ENnie awards, and it was far and away their favorite adventure.

Mine as well. it had a lot of useful info in it about "how to run an adventure" that is, I think, useful even without the module attached (Particularly for newDM's).

We played the version without Psionics (too sci-fi in my opinion) and I think when Piratecat says it takes a few minutes to switch it up to Arcane Magic he's overstating the case. It is a very smooth and easy retrofit.

 

[Kal Torak]

You mean the +1 sword with the special ability? If it worries you, I give you official permission to change it.



If the goblins did hear the gong - and remember, listen checks suffer a -1 for every 10 feet - they would be confused. Is there a part of this area they didn't know about? Within half an hour, searching teams would have found the illusionary wall. Then a small team of five or six goblins would be sent on a scouting mission.

Sort of Spoiler (actually, no sort of about it!)








Yup, thats the one i mean, the problem is'nt the giving of it, the problem only arises when it becomes to easy to find the tresure, for if you are either lucky of forsightful (or paranoid) enough to find the dragon head and get the riddle right then I have no problems about giving the party stuff that i would not noramlly give them, what I'm worrye about is that it may be to easy to find/solve.

Doch! I had forgotten how far that room whas from the goblin's adobe.

Thanks again for the help (getting help directly from the adventures author is rare!)

P.S. Thank you also for your "official permission to change it"

 

[Uvenelei]

Spoiler Warning

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Warning Over

I just finished running OSM for my group, and almost all of the characters were killed. They are (were) a group of 3 3rd lvl characters, and two of them died, while one of the replacement characters was dropped to -9. The worst part was when one of the PC's slept in Othic's barn the night before his death. I felt so depressed having to tell him "your character is murdered in his sleep". The first death of the campaign occured before the first combat session...

Note that this is almost entirely their fault. The entireity of their healing powers consist of one heal check at +5 and the ability to lay on hands for 3 points per day. They have a history of this kind of problem; the last large campaign I ran for them they had no healers for over a year of game time, and it really hurt them at times. The only scaling I did was to add a level of cleric to the trog priest. Regardless, they failed completely; they managed to kill the trog priest, but both the horses escaped (they'll be back), and the Dragonstone completed his revenge hours after the last standing PC dragged the unconscious body of his friend out of town. Heck, the party never got close enough (800') for the Dragonstone to even sense their approach.

Anyone else have the PC's fail to stop Copperdeath? Any ideas as to what he'll do next, long term plans wise? I hadn't thought he'd achieve a complete success, so I'm still thinking over the possible rammifications.