RTTOEE--What Insights Would You Suggest?
- Thread starter SHARK
- Start date
Hand of Vecna
First Post
Beware the feces! BEWARE!!!
your_mother
Explorer
Elemental Evil Philosophies
SPOILER
SHARK writes, "Now, are there any particular insights that you would recommend to me in integrating this module into my campaign? Any problems to be aware of, or any special additions that would work really well to improve and enhance the module?"
This is an exerpt from my e-mail to another player about the outcome of the adventure, should our characters just plain not go there. This is in a Forgotten Realms campaign:
My point is this: I think that this would be good. There are too many Gods--and even the player characters know this--good or evil. I think that our characters, if we found out about it, could make a good arguement to the rest of the Party to just let this slide and go on to a different adventure.
I mean really, what is the problem with the Forgotten Realms? Why do most people suffer? The answer is simple: there are too many Gods taking a direct hand in people's lives. I think they need to be given back their freedom, and the only way to do that is to allow the events at the Temple to take place. A few Evil Gods vying for Faerun is better than the plethora that have already proven that they can only mess things up; not accomplishing anything noteworthy in the Realms.
END SPOILER
Enjoy.
SPOILER
SHARK writes, "Now, are there any particular insights that you would recommend to me in integrating this module into my campaign? Any problems to be aware of, or any special additions that would work really well to improve and enhance the module?"
This is an exerpt from my e-mail to another player about the outcome of the adventure, should our characters just plain not go there. This is in a Forgotten Realms campaign:
My point is this: I think that this would be good. There are too many Gods--and even the player characters know this--good or evil. I think that our characters, if we found out about it, could make a good arguement to the rest of the Party to just let this slide and go on to a different adventure.
I mean really, what is the problem with the Forgotten Realms? Why do most people suffer? The answer is simple: there are too many Gods taking a direct hand in people's lives. I think they need to be given back their freedom, and the only way to do that is to allow the events at the Temple to take place. A few Evil Gods vying for Faerun is better than the plethora that have already proven that they can only mess things up; not accomplishing anything noteworthy in the Realms.
END SPOILER
Enjoy.
Renshai
First Post
Smart and Careful
Smart and careful players will do well in the adventure. Brash players will cause the body count to rise fast.
I've been running the adventrure since early September of last year. My players have cleared out the moathouse and 1/2 of the Crater Ridge Mines. They still have to tackle the Fire and Earth Temple before they head into the Inner Fane. I did run a couple of side adventures, so the players are probably one or two levels higher than they need to be. It doesn't seem to make a big difference though.
My biggest advice is this. Monte meant for Crater Ridge to be a dynamic and changing place. Play off that. Have the temples use the party against each other as often as possible. And once they have really become a serious threat don't allow the party to leave and come back to the same dungeon. Have Hedrack hire new guards (in my case I used a couple of Fiendish Hill Giants and the Green Dragon who is a native to the mines). Have him expand defenses and Scry on the party.
The module has proven to be very fun but it also gets tiresome. Sometimes I long for a campaign with a different focus but that usually goes away when we sit down to play.
Oh, and take the advice about the Demon God's Fane. It fits in perfect with the story.
Ren
Smart and careful players will do well in the adventure. Brash players will cause the body count to rise fast.
I've been running the adventrure since early September of last year. My players have cleared out the moathouse and 1/2 of the Crater Ridge Mines. They still have to tackle the Fire and Earth Temple before they head into the Inner Fane. I did run a couple of side adventures, so the players are probably one or two levels higher than they need to be. It doesn't seem to make a big difference though.
My biggest advice is this. Monte meant for Crater Ridge to be a dynamic and changing place. Play off that. Have the temples use the party against each other as often as possible. And once they have really become a serious threat don't allow the party to leave and come back to the same dungeon. Have Hedrack hire new guards (in my case I used a couple of Fiendish Hill Giants and the Green Dragon who is a native to the mines). Have him expand defenses and Scry on the party.
The module has proven to be very fun but it also gets tiresome. Sometimes I long for a campaign with a different focus but that usually goes away when we sit down to play.
Oh, and take the advice about the Demon God's Fane. It fits in perfect with the story.
Ren
Here's what I suggest.
1) Add more external campaign elements to the module. In my campaign, the clerics hired some re-occurring villains to ambush the PCs when they came back to the mines the second time. And, in fact, they had both the villains and some of their own clergy ambush the PCs, so that the PCs were left wondering whether the villains were always allied to the clergy or whether it is something else.
2) Have the Clerics actually do something other than sit around waiting for the PCs. In my campaign, each elemental temple was busy preparing to cast rituals at various times of the year. So, the Air Elemental temple was casting a ritual which would put a large hurricane level funnel of air around the entire mountain, making it nearly impossible for anyone to approach without magic. The rituals were scheduled for the Summer and Winter Solstices and Spring and Autumn Equinoxes respectively. This put a 3 month time table for the PCs to come in and stop each ritual (although the PCs were not aware of all of the rituals, just the "next one").
3) Have the PCs go off on other adventures sometimes. The Temple makes a great "Now that we are stronger, let's go take out the temple" type of adventure where the PCs can waltz through part of it until they find yet another "too tough to handle" situation which they can come back later when prepared.
The best thing to do is to make the Temple dynamic. As the PCs get further and further into it, have the Doomdreamers force the various temples to work together against this common foe.
One other thing I did in my campaign was to remove some of the cannon fodder. The orcs attacked the group, but when they were getting wiped out, the remaining orcs circled around the PCs and left the mountain the way the PCs came in. It does not make sense that all creatures would fight to the death. I had some of the wimpier creatures hide when they saw the PCs kicking butt on some of the tougher ones.
Good luck with your game.
1) Add more external campaign elements to the module. In my campaign, the clerics hired some re-occurring villains to ambush the PCs when they came back to the mines the second time. And, in fact, they had both the villains and some of their own clergy ambush the PCs, so that the PCs were left wondering whether the villains were always allied to the clergy or whether it is something else.
2) Have the Clerics actually do something other than sit around waiting for the PCs. In my campaign, each elemental temple was busy preparing to cast rituals at various times of the year. So, the Air Elemental temple was casting a ritual which would put a large hurricane level funnel of air around the entire mountain, making it nearly impossible for anyone to approach without magic. The rituals were scheduled for the Summer and Winter Solstices and Spring and Autumn Equinoxes respectively. This put a 3 month time table for the PCs to come in and stop each ritual (although the PCs were not aware of all of the rituals, just the "next one").
3) Have the PCs go off on other adventures sometimes. The Temple makes a great "Now that we are stronger, let's go take out the temple" type of adventure where the PCs can waltz through part of it until they find yet another "too tough to handle" situation which they can come back later when prepared.
The best thing to do is to make the Temple dynamic. As the PCs get further and further into it, have the Doomdreamers force the various temples to work together against this common foe.
One other thing I did in my campaign was to remove some of the cannon fodder. The orcs attacked the group, but when they were getting wiped out, the remaining orcs circled around the PCs and left the mountain the way the PCs came in. It does not make sense that all creatures would fight to the death. I had some of the wimpier creatures hide when they saw the PCs kicking butt on some of the tougher ones.
Good luck with your game.
