DCC 42 The Secret of the Stonearm
Luke Johnson
D&D 3.5 adventure for characters levels 2-3
A merchant's beautiful daughter is missing, and only the heroes can save her! The search leads to a band of assassin-thugs called teh Stonehands, whose magically enhanced stone hands give them great powers. To rescue the merchant's daughter, the heroes must best teeming jungles, deadly cults, a demigod's tomb, and a wizard with ancient magic at his fingertips.
THE BASICS:
The adventure is 32 pages long, cover price of $10.99 American.
Depending on how thoroughly your party explores or how mission oriented they are, some encounters will be bypassed. In my estimation, there are:
Overview:
In this adventure, the characters are hired by a wizard named Morriton to find a woman who has gone missing. She has been kidnapped by a bad guy named "The Stonearm Scourge" because she has done research on an ancient tomb of a prism-lord that the Scourge would like to loot.
After kidnapping the woman, the Stonarm Scourge has his toadies attack anyone who tries to investigate the kidnapping. After the attack, Morriton directs the party to investigate the Stonearm Scourge's workshop. At the workshop, the party finds a teleporting ley line that takes them to a jungle cave.
The jungle cave has 12 rooms of natural stone and dirt. Some of these are pretty interesting and creative. On its own, these 12 rooms are the best part of the adventure. Near the end of the cave, the party can fight the Stonearm Scourge, but the Scourge has a magic item that teleports him and all of his equipment somewhere further away and then resurrects him (with any cast spells regained). At the back of the jungle cave, the party finds a mechanical digging spider that can dig through a collapsed tunnel to reveal an ancient tomb of a fallen demigod.
The tomb level is well crafted with flagstones. It has a few interesting tricks, and a few tricks that just hinder the party. Eventually, the party can corner the Scourge again, but once again when they kill the Scourge he is teleported away with all of his hear and resurrected again (with any cast spells regained). The characters are rewarded with a vision of a new replacement demigod, and they get a headband of intellect+2. The Scourge is still at-large and presumably a recurring villain.
Strengths of the Adventure
A few encounters are interesting in the jungle cave. There are some cave-paintings that provide clues about how to operate magic items found in other parts of the caves. At the penultimate encounter, the stonearm scourge has dominated the woman the party is trying to rescue, and sensing the end he sends her to attack the party. The characters have to be careful not to kill the person they are trying to rescue.
Weaknesses of the adventure
The cover states that "Dungeon Crawl Classics adventures don't waste your time with long-winded speeches, weird campaign settings, or NPCs who aren't meant to be killed." In the case of this adventure, I disagree. This adventure has a huge amount of background--almost 15% of the text of the adventure. There are a number of speeches/visions/displays that include a rather large amount of exposition (encounters M-1, 2-2, and 2-9). As far as "weird campaign settings": the adventure includes a new branch of magic "viomancy" having to do with creating golems and bionic body parts; the adventure includes magic phenomena "ley lines" which allow distant travel; the adventure includes some ancient gods "prism lords" that saved the world from an evil. This is a LOT of baggage for a generic adventure and makes it far less easy to drop into a generic campaign world. In encounter 1-12, a fairly large section is devoted to naming and describing NPCs who are not part of the adventure and serve no purpose whatsoever except to flesh out the already overly long background.
The main opponent, the Stonearm Scourge has a few problems, including the outrageous magic items and coming-back-to-life (which feels like a cheat.)
THE SPECIFICS:
I don't give much weight to text density and cost per page... I'd rather pay a lot for a small clever mystery than pay a little for a huge repetitive monster bash. I don't give much weight to new monsters, magic items, or rules--they can add a little variety to an adventure, but to me they are minor decoration.
1. Interesting and varied encounters (I look for unique encounters, allowing for a variety of role and roll playing.): (2/5)
There are a few unique encounters, including a showpiece encounter on a fraying rope bridge, and a pair of encounters in which an enemy can be converted to an ally. There is also a fairly interesting encounter with a huge (10 ft. high) human skull. There are not a lot of encounters, but what there are show some interesting variety. This category is hurt by the brevity of the adventure and the linear nature of the encounters.
2. Motivations for monsters and NPCs (or some detail of how they interact with their environment or neighbors.): (3/5)
Other than one major NPC with his own goals, every creature seems to have the same desire: kill the party. The first encounter with the stonehand thugs early in the adventure had some interesting dialogue, but there could have been a much greater variety. Many of the opponents are undead, constructs, and vermin, which doesn't allow for much in the way of motivation.
3. Logical (the adventure should obey a sense of logic that players can use to their advantage): (2/5)
Some things appeared to be a bit tacked-on. Why would a primitive spider-worshipping cult set up shop outside the tomb of an ancient demigod? The two are so completely unrelated as to not appear to belong in the same adventure. There is a secret room in the middle of a pit trap for no apparent reason.
The bad guy is missing a major "key" because a thug stole it and it happens to fall into the party's hands early on. A reasonable party might simply unload the key on a local merchant and forget about it, since nothing about it indicates its importance later in the adventure.
4. Writing Quality (foreshadowing, mystery, and descriptions that bring locations and NPCs to life): (3/5)
I was annoyed by some of the naming. The bad guy is named the "Stonearm Scourge", he has a stone arm. His toadies are named the "Stonehands" and they have stone hands {groan}. For the most part the encounters are linear, clearly written, with a bit of descriptive text followed by the usual encounter and monster text. The monster stat blocks are in line with the encounters so there is very little page-flipping. The adventure will take a fairly large amount of work on the part of the DM to accommodate the odd magic and lengthy background into a generic campaign.
There are a number of runes and clues that point out where secrets are hidden in other portions of the adventure. I really appreciated these and I think that a lot of adventures could take some tips from this. Unfortunately, almost every trick or secret has a DC20 search check, and using the 3.5 rules, these secrets are all going to be automatic success for any group that takes the time to "take 20". I suppose that if a group is rushing to catch up with the Scourge, they might not stop to search around.
5. Ease of GMing (Clear maps, friendly stat blocks, skill check numbers, player handouts and illustrations): (2/5)
Most Dungeon Crawl Classics have at least a few player handouts or illustrations, but this adventure has none. The main villain is only a 3rd level NPC, but he has nearly 100,000 gp in magical gear. That is simply outrageous in the economics of D&D world. You don't have to worry about that magic falling into the hands of the party though, because part of the valuable gear prevents the PCs from acquiring it (the teleporting-resurrecting bit). This seemed to me like a very cheating way of making a boss encounter tougher than it should be (without killing the party), and also guaranteeing a recurring villain. The main villain with his 100,000gp of gear might be a little challenging to run, the most challenging part being the objections of the experienced players as the DM starts miraculously saving the villain and preventing any well-deserved rewards or closure for the players.
Some of the treasure seemed very random and inexplicable... a long lost but fully charged wand of lesser restoration? The adventure was very short and linear, having only one branch. There were suggestions for the DM to fudge some rolls to make an encounter turn out appropriately! My opinion is that a professional writer should design encounters that work fine on their own and not require fudging or railroading.
I really did not like the foray into odd new magic and the very heavy background required for this adventure... perhaps I've been spoiled by the many superior Dungeon Crawl Classics adventures I've been reading lately. I really would like to have seen an adventure with player handouts, less improbably expensive gear on the bad guy, and far more generic setting/background. It would have helped to have a bit of a flexible adventure with real choices for the players.
FINAL WORD:
The Secret of the Stonearm has nothing really compelling, and a fair number of problems. I did not feel that this was up to the standard of excellence set by most Dungeon Crawl Classics adventures. This adventure was mostly forgettable with a few exceptions. There is a minor artifact that the party might discover... a crystal hand that can be empowered to cast particular spells. This uses a mechanic similar to the "legendary weapons". This crystal hand looks like it would be a fun addition to some campaigns and the place in which the party finds it is a compelling encounter. The mechanical spider that assembles itself is also pretty interesting.
There is no chance that I would run this adventure. I have only read one other adventure by the author, Luke Johnson—it was another Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure "The Volcano Caves," and I rather enjoyed it. I am not sure what happened in this case.
You can see my other reviews on the forums at GrippingTales
Luke Johnson
D&D 3.5 adventure for characters levels 2-3
A merchant's beautiful daughter is missing, and only the heroes can save her! The search leads to a band of assassin-thugs called teh Stonehands, whose magically enhanced stone hands give them great powers. To rescue the merchant's daughter, the heroes must best teeming jungles, deadly cults, a demigod's tomb, and a wizard with ancient magic at his fingertips.
THE BASICS:
The adventure is 32 pages long, cover price of $10.99 American.
- 1.5 pages of credits/legal/advertising
- 5 page of introduction
- 4.5 pages of city adventure
- 14.5 pages of dungeon adventure
- 4 pages of new monsters
- 2.5 pages of new magic cover
Depending on how thoroughly your party explores or how mission oriented they are, some encounters will be bypassed. In my estimation, there are:
- Approximately 8 combat encounters
- Approximately 1 roleplay or avoidable combat encounters (the introduction)
- Approximately 5 trap/trick encounters
- Approximately 9 encounters with things to examine or discover
Overview:
In this adventure, the characters are hired by a wizard named Morriton to find a woman who has gone missing. She has been kidnapped by a bad guy named "The Stonearm Scourge" because she has done research on an ancient tomb of a prism-lord that the Scourge would like to loot.
After kidnapping the woman, the Stonarm Scourge has his toadies attack anyone who tries to investigate the kidnapping. After the attack, Morriton directs the party to investigate the Stonearm Scourge's workshop. At the workshop, the party finds a teleporting ley line that takes them to a jungle cave.
The jungle cave has 12 rooms of natural stone and dirt. Some of these are pretty interesting and creative. On its own, these 12 rooms are the best part of the adventure. Near the end of the cave, the party can fight the Stonearm Scourge, but the Scourge has a magic item that teleports him and all of his equipment somewhere further away and then resurrects him (with any cast spells regained). At the back of the jungle cave, the party finds a mechanical digging spider that can dig through a collapsed tunnel to reveal an ancient tomb of a fallen demigod.
The tomb level is well crafted with flagstones. It has a few interesting tricks, and a few tricks that just hinder the party. Eventually, the party can corner the Scourge again, but once again when they kill the Scourge he is teleported away with all of his hear and resurrected again (with any cast spells regained). The characters are rewarded with a vision of a new replacement demigod, and they get a headband of intellect+2. The Scourge is still at-large and presumably a recurring villain.
Strengths of the Adventure
A few encounters are interesting in the jungle cave. There are some cave-paintings that provide clues about how to operate magic items found in other parts of the caves. At the penultimate encounter, the stonearm scourge has dominated the woman the party is trying to rescue, and sensing the end he sends her to attack the party. The characters have to be careful not to kill the person they are trying to rescue.
Weaknesses of the adventure
The cover states that "Dungeon Crawl Classics adventures don't waste your time with long-winded speeches, weird campaign settings, or NPCs who aren't meant to be killed." In the case of this adventure, I disagree. This adventure has a huge amount of background--almost 15% of the text of the adventure. There are a number of speeches/visions/displays that include a rather large amount of exposition (encounters M-1, 2-2, and 2-9). As far as "weird campaign settings": the adventure includes a new branch of magic "viomancy" having to do with creating golems and bionic body parts; the adventure includes magic phenomena "ley lines" which allow distant travel; the adventure includes some ancient gods "prism lords" that saved the world from an evil. This is a LOT of baggage for a generic adventure and makes it far less easy to drop into a generic campaign world. In encounter 1-12, a fairly large section is devoted to naming and describing NPCs who are not part of the adventure and serve no purpose whatsoever except to flesh out the already overly long background.
The main opponent, the Stonearm Scourge has a few problems, including the outrageous magic items and coming-back-to-life (which feels like a cheat.)
THE SPECIFICS:
I don't give much weight to text density and cost per page... I'd rather pay a lot for a small clever mystery than pay a little for a huge repetitive monster bash. I don't give much weight to new monsters, magic items, or rules--they can add a little variety to an adventure, but to me they are minor decoration.
1. Interesting and varied encounters (I look for unique encounters, allowing for a variety of role and roll playing.): (2/5)
There are a few unique encounters, including a showpiece encounter on a fraying rope bridge, and a pair of encounters in which an enemy can be converted to an ally. There is also a fairly interesting encounter with a huge (10 ft. high) human skull. There are not a lot of encounters, but what there are show some interesting variety. This category is hurt by the brevity of the adventure and the linear nature of the encounters.
2. Motivations for monsters and NPCs (or some detail of how they interact with their environment or neighbors.): (3/5)
Other than one major NPC with his own goals, every creature seems to have the same desire: kill the party. The first encounter with the stonehand thugs early in the adventure had some interesting dialogue, but there could have been a much greater variety. Many of the opponents are undead, constructs, and vermin, which doesn't allow for much in the way of motivation.
3. Logical (the adventure should obey a sense of logic that players can use to their advantage): (2/5)
Some things appeared to be a bit tacked-on. Why would a primitive spider-worshipping cult set up shop outside the tomb of an ancient demigod? The two are so completely unrelated as to not appear to belong in the same adventure. There is a secret room in the middle of a pit trap for no apparent reason.
The bad guy is missing a major "key" because a thug stole it and it happens to fall into the party's hands early on. A reasonable party might simply unload the key on a local merchant and forget about it, since nothing about it indicates its importance later in the adventure.
4. Writing Quality (foreshadowing, mystery, and descriptions that bring locations and NPCs to life): (3/5)
I was annoyed by some of the naming. The bad guy is named the "Stonearm Scourge", he has a stone arm. His toadies are named the "Stonehands" and they have stone hands {groan}. For the most part the encounters are linear, clearly written, with a bit of descriptive text followed by the usual encounter and monster text. The monster stat blocks are in line with the encounters so there is very little page-flipping. The adventure will take a fairly large amount of work on the part of the DM to accommodate the odd magic and lengthy background into a generic campaign.
There are a number of runes and clues that point out where secrets are hidden in other portions of the adventure. I really appreciated these and I think that a lot of adventures could take some tips from this. Unfortunately, almost every trick or secret has a DC20 search check, and using the 3.5 rules, these secrets are all going to be automatic success for any group that takes the time to "take 20". I suppose that if a group is rushing to catch up with the Scourge, they might not stop to search around.
5. Ease of GMing (Clear maps, friendly stat blocks, skill check numbers, player handouts and illustrations): (2/5)
Most Dungeon Crawl Classics have at least a few player handouts or illustrations, but this adventure has none. The main villain is only a 3rd level NPC, but he has nearly 100,000 gp in magical gear. That is simply outrageous in the economics of D&D world. You don't have to worry about that magic falling into the hands of the party though, because part of the valuable gear prevents the PCs from acquiring it (the teleporting-resurrecting bit). This seemed to me like a very cheating way of making a boss encounter tougher than it should be (without killing the party), and also guaranteeing a recurring villain. The main villain with his 100,000gp of gear might be a little challenging to run, the most challenging part being the objections of the experienced players as the DM starts miraculously saving the villain and preventing any well-deserved rewards or closure for the players.
Some of the treasure seemed very random and inexplicable... a long lost but fully charged wand of lesser restoration? The adventure was very short and linear, having only one branch. There were suggestions for the DM to fudge some rolls to make an encounter turn out appropriately! My opinion is that a professional writer should design encounters that work fine on their own and not require fudging or railroading.
I really did not like the foray into odd new magic and the very heavy background required for this adventure... perhaps I've been spoiled by the many superior Dungeon Crawl Classics adventures I've been reading lately. I really would like to have seen an adventure with player handouts, less improbably expensive gear on the bad guy, and far more generic setting/background. It would have helped to have a bit of a flexible adventure with real choices for the players.
FINAL WORD:
The Secret of the Stonearm has nothing really compelling, and a fair number of problems. I did not feel that this was up to the standard of excellence set by most Dungeon Crawl Classics adventures. This adventure was mostly forgettable with a few exceptions. There is a minor artifact that the party might discover... a crystal hand that can be empowered to cast particular spells. This uses a mechanic similar to the "legendary weapons". This crystal hand looks like it would be a fun addition to some campaigns and the place in which the party finds it is a compelling encounter. The mechanical spider that assembles itself is also pretty interesting.
There is no chance that I would run this adventure. I have only read one other adventure by the author, Luke Johnson—it was another Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure "The Volcano Caves," and I rather enjoyed it. I am not sure what happened in this case.
You can see my other reviews on the forums at GrippingTales
