Emirikol
Adventurer
Review: The Seventh Arm
by Tito Leati
Artwork and Cartography by Stephen Daniele
pages 75-107
For levels 3-11 (7th)
All spoilers:
This scenario has a cool bit of artwork with a demon, bugbear, wizard, and lamia on it. It has two handouts, a picture of a nude demon with 6 arms and a "historical tale" set to the age of Greyhawk (but could have been better written as "sometime 60 years ago). The cartography is the most useful I've ever seen, including sight distance in the forest.
Adventure hook: The pc's save an aristocrat from being beat up and robbed of a demon medalion. He's thrown out a window..which is cool. The aristocrat of course hires the PC's.
Adventure background: incredibly long and unrelated to making the scenario any better for the DM. "A dumb wizard who killed himself" would have sufficed.
Synopsis: After saving the aristocrat, they probably chase the attacker..which might be interesting and motivate PC's to get lighter armor. There's a VERY NICE chart for events that occur during the chase scene. The pc's can then ask about town for rumors and then travel to the tower in the forest. There are some random forest encounters, which can be interesting, but I much prefer "difficulty" encounters for the DM to use, rather than random encounters. At the tower and in the dungeon They fight a bunch of monsters, including a lamia and some bugbears. There's a puzzle in the medalion that's just about right for even tired players. The 'caretaker' of the tower, is a half-demon old man who seems more like "the wierd old guy at the dump with one lazy eye" than an actual opponent. A wizard in the dungeon will ally with the PC's if they're looking for him. The traps in the dungeon are AWESOME. One pit-type trap is pretty deadly and will be a fun one for the PC's to deal with. The encounters in the dungeon, including the Kyton are pretty interesting and difficult.
Scaling the adventure: About right.
The scenario, as all of this age of Dungeon has one thing that I really wish was still available: The Encounter Level Chart. When it comes to calculating an adventure, these things are great for DM's. I think they took them out to save space for the combination with POLY, but it would be a simple thing to welcome back.
Overall, the scenario is good, although it is about 10 pages too much text. The editor, then, should have told Tito to thin it out a lot. DM's are pressed for time, so the extra reading is not welcome and makes conversion more difficult. There could have been one more scenario in this issue! Really, I liked the variance in monsters and traps, as well as the twist of having a possible ally. We converted it for our Conan campaign and I actually had to make the monsters tougher for our APL 8 party.
Grade: B
jh
What did you all grade this scenario as?
..
by Tito Leati
Artwork and Cartography by Stephen Daniele
pages 75-107
For levels 3-11 (7th)
All spoilers:
This scenario has a cool bit of artwork with a demon, bugbear, wizard, and lamia on it. It has two handouts, a picture of a nude demon with 6 arms and a "historical tale" set to the age of Greyhawk (but could have been better written as "sometime 60 years ago). The cartography is the most useful I've ever seen, including sight distance in the forest.
Adventure hook: The pc's save an aristocrat from being beat up and robbed of a demon medalion. He's thrown out a window..which is cool. The aristocrat of course hires the PC's.
Adventure background: incredibly long and unrelated to making the scenario any better for the DM. "A dumb wizard who killed himself" would have sufficed.
Synopsis: After saving the aristocrat, they probably chase the attacker..which might be interesting and motivate PC's to get lighter armor. There's a VERY NICE chart for events that occur during the chase scene. The pc's can then ask about town for rumors and then travel to the tower in the forest. There are some random forest encounters, which can be interesting, but I much prefer "difficulty" encounters for the DM to use, rather than random encounters. At the tower and in the dungeon They fight a bunch of monsters, including a lamia and some bugbears. There's a puzzle in the medalion that's just about right for even tired players. The 'caretaker' of the tower, is a half-demon old man who seems more like "the wierd old guy at the dump with one lazy eye" than an actual opponent. A wizard in the dungeon will ally with the PC's if they're looking for him. The traps in the dungeon are AWESOME. One pit-type trap is pretty deadly and will be a fun one for the PC's to deal with. The encounters in the dungeon, including the Kyton are pretty interesting and difficult.
Scaling the adventure: About right.
The scenario, as all of this age of Dungeon has one thing that I really wish was still available: The Encounter Level Chart. When it comes to calculating an adventure, these things are great for DM's. I think they took them out to save space for the combination with POLY, but it would be a simple thing to welcome back.
Overall, the scenario is good, although it is about 10 pages too much text. The editor, then, should have told Tito to thin it out a lot. DM's are pressed for time, so the extra reading is not welcome and makes conversion more difficult. There could have been one more scenario in this issue! Really, I liked the variance in monsters and traps, as well as the twist of having a possible ally. We converted it for our Conan campaign and I actually had to make the monsters tougher for our APL 8 party.
Grade: B
jh
What did you all grade this scenario as?
..
