[RttToEE]Does anyone ever wonder...

[Ssendam69]

It seems your DM didn't make this clear to you. In that case it's partially his fault. I don't think this makes the module bad, or the clerics with the Madness domain bad, or the crazy templates bad. It means your party went into RttToEE with different expectations than your DM was planning on providing. That is a communication problem plain and simple and I suggest you work it out.

OMG! Now it's the DM's fault! Someone get a rope! The DM made an error in judgement thinking his players could easily crush RttToEE! Or maybe, MAYBE the DM is a player killer and it was by design that he put his players through so much torment! Oh, the humanity!

Puhleeze, dude.

I remember looking the module over when I first got it, thinking that it looked very challenging. I think that the first thing that really hit me was the fact that his module was not designed for 'standard' characters, and that the reccomended '4 characters' just wasn't going to cut it. I think it's up to the DM to reveal this fact to the players and make sure that the characters are appropriate for the adventure, but to say that a DM should discourage his players from taking on a challenging module like RttToEE is just silly.

 

[Victim]

Hmm, our group lost 9 characters in Nightfang Spire, and that's nowhere near as long as RttToE.

Also, for better or worse, high level encounters are designed to take into account the resources of powerful characters. Since groups are usually assumed to have a cleric, those resources include access to raise dead and ressurection. Therefore, encounters are designed with possible raising or ressurection in mind.

A +11 will save isn't all that great. With his Will save reinforced by multiclassing to Divine Disciple and high Wisdom, my cleric still failed Will saves. At around 12th level, good fighter types should be approaching +10 and +11 Will saves, so cleric with that save is going to be rather weak. Even simple Hold Person spells would have around a 50-50 shot.

 

[Roland Delacroix]

OMG! Now it's the DM's fault! Someone get a rope! The DM made an error in judgement thinking his players could easily crush RttToEE! Or maybe, MAYBE the DM is a player killer and it was by design that he put his players through so much torment! Oh, the humanity!

Puhleeze, dude.

I remember looking the module over when I first got it, thinking that it looked very challenging. I think that first that really hit me was the fact that his module was not designed for 'standard' characters, and that the reccomended '4 characters' just wasn't going to cut it. I think it's up to the DM to reveal this fact to the players and make sure that the characters are appropriate for the adventure, but to say that a DM should discourage his players from taking on a challenging module like RttToEE is just silly.

First you wanna kill me, then you wanna kiss me You basically said the exact same thing I did "dude". I said:

I tried to make sure they knew what they were getting into. It seems your DM didn't make this clear to you

and never mentioned discouraging his group from playing it. How is that different from what you said?

I also never mentioned persecuting the DM since I don't know the whole story. A communication lack is evident however. The DM is running a different game than what his players want. This should NEVER happen. When it does you get problems like this one, the game loses fun and probably disintergrates.

Feel free to read the whole post before jumping down someone throat, dude.

EDIT: I wanted to add that in my RttToEE campaign I AM trying to kill all the PC's I can. The difference is my group knew this and were willing to take up the challenge. It SEEMS that in the posted case the players didn't know to expect this (though why after playing the first is beyond me). That was the DM's mistake IMO.

 

[ced1106]

Three words: Greater Magic Weapon

Two more words: Energy damage

One word: Banewarrens.

Okay, it's actually called "The Banewarrens", and it's also by Monte Cook. But it's one of the best adventures (it bills itself as a "mega-adventure") I've read in a **long** time. Wrap up your copy of Return, give it away to the cousin you've always cared less about, and play The Banewarrens.


Cedric.
aka. Washu! ^O^

 

[maddman75]

I'm a killer DM too. My party doesn't like it any other way. If you fudge rolls to save a character, they feel cheated. Roll everything in the open. Instakill rule. Kill em all, let the gods sort em out.

So, with this kind of group, RttToEE seemed like the perfect module. We just started and are having a blast. Only killed on PC so far, but he dies every game so it doesn't really count .

Though I'm not as bad as the old 1e DM I played with a few times. If he didn't kill at least one a game he felt like he was falling down on the job .

 

[Ssendam69]

A +11 will save isn't all that great. With his Will save reinforced by multiclassing to Divine Disciple and high Wisdom, my cleric still failed Will saves. At around 12th level, good fighter types should be approaching +10 and +11 Will saves, so cleric with that save is going to be rather weak. Even simple Hold Person spells would have around a 50-50 shot.

No, a +11 will save isn't that great, but it's enough to shrug off a standard hold person with relative ease, unless perhaps that Hold Person spell is cast by someone with Greater Spell Focus: Enchantment. In the campaign I run, Hedrack was indeed defeated as a result of a hold spell, but it was Hold Monster from a sorcerer with a high charisma.

 

[Ssendam69]

A communication lack is evident however. The DM is running a different game than what his players want. This should NEVER happen.

Lack of communication...so I guess the DM should just reveal every intimate detail of the module before hand so that the players can get an idea of what they are REALLY up against? Would this be proper use of communication?

And what is the DM to do when the die rolls are not going the players way or they are going favorably for the bad guys? Should he then start rolling behind his DM screen in private so that he can fudge bad rolls?

Feel free to read the whole post before jumping down someone throat, dude.

Well, when you start talking about pointing the finger at the DM without really knowing the whole story, I get a little hot under the collar. If you haven't guessed it already, I am Celtavian's DM. Yes, that is right! I am the evil one! Fear my wrath!

I wanted to add that in my RttToEE campaign I AM trying to kill all the PC's I can. The difference is my group knew this and were willing to take up the challenge. It SEEMS that in the posted case the players didn't know to expect this (though why after playing the first is beyond me). That was the DM's mistake IMO.

Well, I can't say that I specifically set my mind to kill the PC's, but I surely do not play the NPC's below the best of their abilities, most of the time.

There is no "failure to communicate" here.

No, I did not tell my players every single detail of the module or about every NPC they went up against, but I gave several warnings and hints as to the sort of dangers they would encounter.

Honestly, I think Celtavian's biggest gripe is about the Madness domain. He rants about it here just as he complains about it at the table when we are gaming. He just wants to see if anyone besides himself feels that it's unbalanced. So what is to be done? How is that the DM's fault? Should I alter the domains of all cleric NPC's in RttToEE so that none of them have the Madness domain?

Truth be told, rolls have made and broken the characters of my campaign. There's also been some silly deaths, where either the character just got unlucky or the player made the wrong decision. How does the DM control this? But almost all of the bad rolls that have resulted in a character's death have been the result of a very low roll, like a '1'. Very rarely have I seen a crucial roll that needed to be made that missed only by inches. Again, I ask you, how am I supposed to control this?

 

[satori01]

Banewarrens is a much better module than rttoee.
The story for rttoee feels very jerky to me, and doesnt capture the flavor of the original.

However, the original was I believe in many ways just as much, if not more of a meat grinder than rttoe. Fear glyphs everywhere, earth elementals on the first floor, Iuz wandering around the hallways, when a demi god isnt the most powerful monster in a dungeon things are going to get ugly.

 

[maddman75]

Just thought I'd put in a plug for Monte's boards over at http://www.montecook.com. There's an entire forum just for this module. There's a faq and unofficial errata the posters have put together, along with occasional input from Monte.

Amoung the better ideas I've gotten from there

POSSIBLE SPOILERS



















- Replacing all the summon monsters with pseudonatural rather than fiendish. A much more "big T" feel IMHO

- Flavor text specific for Big T in the deck of many things

- Integrating more of greyhawk's history into the module

- Having the dwarves in Rastor be the original miners of the CRM.

- Guide for adding content from the BoVD into the module. I'm working on adding BoEM myself.

- Dealing with players, the difficulty of the module, etc. Like I said, my group gets off on this kind of stuff, but others have issues.

- Links to people with handouts, holy symbols, etc. for ready use.

Its spoiling me - I want every module to have its own message board!

 

[ced1106]

However, the original was I believe in many ways just as much, if not more of a meat grinder than rttoe. Fear glyphs everywhere, earth elementals on the first floor, Iuz wandering around the hallways, when a demi god isnt the most powerful monster in a dungeon things are going to get ugly.

That would be an improvement over the original. Here's how it worked:

1. Enter room full of gnolls or other cannon fodder.
2. One of the gnolls runs away and alerts the rest of the level.
3. Repeat step 2 until entire dungeon has been alerted.
4. After the entire contents of the dungeon has emptied itself into the room the PCs are in, PCs proceed into the second room.

Okay, it's not that bad, but that's the first several levels of the dungeon to a tee. It's designed as a stronghold, with one room of hacking right next to the other. Since, IIRC, most of the monsters are CE, why they haven't already killed each other is beyond me. The adventure mentions two factions in the stronghold, but no suggestions on how to play the factions off each other, nor why they're living in such cramped quarters in the first place. To know which faction the monsters you've encoutered are, you have to read the room text.

Easier to roll on the DMG random monster encounter chart and say, "Okay, you'll be encountering this monster for the next ten rooms, until you get to the caverns, where I'll pick my favorite monster each time."


Cedric.
aka. Washu! ^O^