Questions regarding H1 Keep on the Shadowfell (Spoiler Alert)

[Shin Okada]

Hi. Sorry if those are silly questions. But I am not sure how this adventure is meant to be run.

1: Regarding Quests (Hooks)

There are 3 rather big quests shown in this adventure. Non of them seem to be minor quest. As a DM, how am I meant to handle those 3 quests?

A: Use only 1 of them and let all the PCs involved with that one quest. Then give the same amount of XPs if they achieve it.

B: Use 1 or more quests, even all of them, and let all the PCs eventually involved with those quests. Then give the same amount of XPs if they achieve it.

C: Use 1 or more quests, even all of them, but let each of PCs involved with only one of them. Then give XPs of each quests only to the PCs involved to that particular one. So at the end of this adventure, some of the PCs may have different amount of XPs from the others.

I thought 4e is trying to avoid letting PCs level up at different timing. So I guess 3 should not be the answer but not sure.

2: Regarding "Burial Site"

It seems that unless I use "Hook: Missing Mentor", PCs can't find any reason to go there. Am I missing something?

The adventure says

If the adventurers decide to investigate the disappearance of Douven Staul and the mystery of the dragon burial site (either because they found out about this matter in Winterhaven, or because you used the “Missing Mentor” hook)....

But if I don't use the Missing Mentor hook, how are the PCs meant to know about the disappearance of Douven Staul?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

They could learn about the disappearance simply by interacting with NPCs in Winterhaven. Alternately they could simply stumble upon the site in the course of tracking down kobolds or something like that. If the PCs don't specifically go looking for this encounter it might show up as a sort of fill in. For instance if the party goes wandering randomly around the countryside and seems to lake direction at some point they could run into the burial site (it might require moving the site, but there's no special reason it has to be in any one exact location).

I think the idea was that the party would tie into one of the quests. Its possible to use more than one, but if you do that I would use ones that don't overlap, and maybe present them sequentially to the party if possible. This might require a bit of modifying how the quests are obtained, but it should work OK.

The later part of this adventure in particular can be a bit of a slog, so its probably not a bad idea to have a defined goal at that point and using a quest can help with that. I'd play up the various RP hooks as much as you can because there aren't really a lot of them and it definitely helps break up the later part of the module where things can devolve down to a long sequence of fights that gets tedious if you aren't careful.

Lost Soul had a pretty good narrative of his group going through H1 somewhere on here. It shouldn't be too hard to find. You might get some ideas from that.

 

[Rechan]

Actually a few of the hooks are minor - considering Douven can be found just with a slight venture, it's fairly easy.

Even Minor Quests give XP to all PCs. DMG, pg 103, under Minor quests, says "These quests still matter to the party overall. This is a cooperative game, and everyone shares the rewards for completing a quest". So yes, you can use 3 at once.

I used the Mentor quest for two PCs, created two other quests to facilitate other PCs backgrounds, and gave them more incentive to work together and made the module feel more personal.

If the PCs don't have Douven as a quest, there's an easy way to steer them towards it. Place Douven in one of the cells in the Hobgoblin Torturer's room (#2 on the first level of the Keep's dungeon). He is badly beaten and he tells the PCs that they are digging up an artifact he believes is tied to Orcus, that will aid in some foul ritual. This gives the PCs incentive to leave the Keep, so that it's less of a constant drag. In fact, even if finding him was their quest, I'd place Douven in the cell; not finding him at the burial site, but instead an amulet that belongs to him on the body of the gnome, would ratchet up the tension.

Additionally, I know you didn't ask for advice on running the adventure, but I can't help it. Here is a huge re-writing of the module so it is just more solid and engaging. It's very good. Also, the module has been released for free download from WotC's site with some updates/adjustments, and the burial site received a minor adjustment; a different monster, Kalarel's apparition, replaces the halfling and it allows you to foreshadow and introduce the villain. I could go on for hours on how I'd adjust this module, but you didn't ask for that.

 

[Taed]

I'm currently DMing KotS and the motivation for going to the Dragon Burial Site is one of the problems with the module. I made a bunch of changes throughout the module to give motivations to NPCs and reasons for things being the way they were.

I took a fair amount of it from someone's "rewriting" of it (at TheAlexandrian.net, as I recall). The key from that is that at the Dragon Burial Site, they are digging up a small idol of Orcus, which will be used later in the final ritual. So, drop that silly mirror. The same idol is also what the goblins are REALLY digging for (though they don't know it) in the room on level 1 of the keep. Additionally, Kalarel's Apparition (see the online version of KotS) keeps watch over both dig sites, so that helps expose the party to Kalarel before the final battle.

So, why did my party go to the Dragon Burial Site? When they defeated Irontooth, they discovered the note. In the written module, it's written in Common. But since Kalarel knows Goblin, it makes more sense for it to have been written in Goblin. "Unfortunately" no one in the party read Goblin.

So, they go back to town. First, they meet Ninaran, who is surprised to see them back alive (she sent them to the Kobold / Goblin lair intending them to die), and stupidly asks if they killed all the kobolds and goblins. One of the party realized that she could not have known about the goblins as they had never been seen by anyone else. So, that's their first clue that Ninaran is not what she seems. Then she "helpfully" provides them with an incorrect translation of the note (basically saying that the goblin stronghold is to the South), and she tries to keep the note.

The party wisely seeks another opinion on the note and eventually chat up Valthrun the Prescient (who they nicknamed "bathroom depressant") who told them that his apprentice, Douven, knows Goblin, and he's out on an achaelogical dig. Valthrun also gives them a book to deliver that Douven wanted to borrow.

So, the adventurers go there and meet up with the Gnome, who happily admits to being Douven. He's very friendly and calls them all down to see what he's dug up. Everyone gathers around the dragon's skull, and they pounce the party, taking them completely by surprise. Someone even said, "What?!?! Why is Douven attacking us?" So, once that's done (and they get their first taste of Kalarel's Apparition), they can chat up Douven. Douven provides a correct translation of the note. Also, the story of the Keep is mentioned, and the book that Douven wanted to borrow just happens to be a local history of the area. That gives me an excuse to read the big section of the history behind Shadowfell Keep.

The idols of Orcus are important to the ritual and they provide a reason for Kalarel's Apparition to be around. Furthermore, if Splug (who the party rescued from the jail cell and he assists them in trade for his life) learns that the party has one or more of them, he will attempt to steal the idol(s) and give it to Kalarel (who he has heard of but never seen), providing a way for Splug to show his true colors.

Some other changes I made was Ninaran's motivations. She's clearly not the lush that she pretends to be. She's in league with Kalarel for her own reasons. She believes that her Elven mother was raped by Lord Padrig resulting in her conception (in reality, they had a brief romance when he was a young soldier, and Lord Padrig did not know of the child), and she seeks revenge on him.

The first time that the party sleeps outside or heads back to town, Douven will come riding up to come get the party as Ninaran has raised the dead, killed the town guards (which explains why they aren't dealing with the problem), and has given the town until midnight to produce Lord Padrig for execution or she will kill everyone.

The adventurers will hopefully (they haven't gotten this far yet) ride to the rescue to find that Lord Padrig has offered himself up to save the town. The party might be able to stop his execution at range, but most likely, she'll kill him. The battle ensues, and I assume she'll be defeated, perhaps able to explain herself.

That sets up some long-term issues with the town becoming a farming co-op with Douven organizing things, as I suspect the party will visit the town occassionally in future adventures.

I also made a bunch of changes to the magic items. I kept most of them but customized them for my party, and moved some of them to give them some reason for being (the +1 magic wand in the goblin room really bugged me). One nice change was to make Sir Keegan's boring +1 sword into a Sunblade (does radiant damage) of Bahamut, which helps to explain why Sir Keegan still "lives" and wasn't fully corrupted by the Shadowfell, but he also explains that he used it to fight the evil when the keep was in service. Furthermore, I really thought that Kalarel's Horned Helm was silly as he's not a martial character and converted it into a Gem of Colloquy that allows the wearer to understand Abyssal (the language of Orcus), which only makes sense given the rite that he's performing. Another tailored change, which will hopefully become a touching moment for my Warforged Warden, was to remove the Shield of Protection from the water room and instead have a strange glowing from the bottom of the water, where they discover a Warforged with a dimly glowing Delver's Light who is all-but-dead, having been at the bottom of the water for over a year, and asks the other Warforged to end his suffering.

Well, that's a long answer to a simple question...

 

[Jhaelen]

B: Use 1 or more quests, even all of them, and let all the PCs eventually involved with those quests. Then give the same amount of XPs if they achieve it.

This. I'm a big fan of quests and would even recommend making up a few additional ones that are tied to the pcs' backgrounds.

Having more quests will allow you to eliminate a couple of the more boring combat encounters without having to adjust anything else.

Alternatively, get rid of xp and let the party level up when it makes sense for the story.

 

[Nebulous]

I'm a big fan of quests and would even recommend making up a few additional ones that are tied to the pcs' backgrounds.

Having more quests will allow you to eliminate a couple of the more boring combat encounters without having to adjust anything else.

Alternatively, get rid of xp and let the party level up when it makes sense for the story.

Unless you and the players really enjoy tabulating XP, i also highly recommend just DUMPING it and going with the story and leveling by DM fiat. The numbers are just that...numbers. Arbitrary really, but some people like the sense of satisfaction that they're actually "doing" something calcuable. I haven't used XP since early in 3rd edition. The only way i would go back to using XP is it was used to buy skills like in Warhammer.

When i ran KotS i used the burial site and three interconnected adventures as a sidequest separate from the main story. The kobolds were digging up a magic mirror that had the soul of a shadow dragon trapped in it. Kalarel intended to use the power of the mirror to open the gate easier down in the bowels of the keep, but the PCs managed to wrangle it away and ship it off to another city. But this was a separate party of 3rd level characters, not the core party of 1st level characters.