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Seekers of the Ashen Crown
- Thread starter happybandit
- Start date
Smoke Jaguar
First Post
I am interested in this campaign. Would you guys that played it recommend it or is there something else that would be better? We will be finishing Keep on Shadowfell here soon and I want to start preparing the next campaign a little. Amazon seemed to have some mixed reviews.
So we're still working our way through the adventure, figured I'd give another update because... well because I just wanted to.
I've cut out a fairly large number of the encounters, as things were starting to feel like a bit of a slog.
I cut out one or two of the encounters on the road, (the claw ambush for example) and just broke the skill challenge for it into a series of shorter smaller ones (get across a river etc.), which I ran pretty loosly, and just made everyone make an endurance check every day. Those that failed the endurance check lost a healing surge for the day.
The Amalokar (might not have the spelling of that right but don't have the adventure in front of me) went alright and was fairly fun, but quick (bullrushes to shove people out of the circle really sped things up, I might suggest having the two combatants meet further from the edge of the circle if you're running it).
Six Kings has been interesting and again I've cut out a fairly large number of the encounters, and replaced some with traps and such (I took two from a recent Dungeon adventure and scaled them up to the right level, the players had a great time with them and came up with some very novel solutions for getting through them, including using sarcophagus lids to give some protection from, and do a bit of damage to, blades coming from the ceiling). Six kings is interesting but it's fairly long, especially if your group is a bit slow with combat, and it can get a bit repetitive, so I would suggest looking into replacing a few of the encounters with traps or skill challenges, or something that isn't combat. And if your group is a bit ahead of the XP curve like mine is, you can even cut out whole encounters.
I also let my group try (and succeed!) in talking their way through the encounter with the Deep Goblins, which also was a nice change of pace from the all combat all the time feeling I was worried we'd have for this part of the adventure.
Currently they're in the final Moon Pool encounter, and I've done a bit to make it somewhat more interesting. Here's what I did:
At about the time they defeated all of the minions and when all of the enemies had made their way up to the middle section where the combat started, (this was fortuitously enough right around the time we had to pack up last week) I had six more minions run in from the other side of the map. Then right behind them I had the Goblin Seekers run in. I then gave each player one of the Goblins to run (printed them out from the Monster Builder), and I'm running Tikulti. The Goblins go right after the PC of the player that's controlling them. We had a bit of a shortened session last night so we're still mid combat with this but everyone seems to be enjoying the change of pace of running a "monster" along with their PC.
Anyway, that's where we are! I like the general plot of the adventure but I do think it's a bit combat heavy in sections. With some modification though I think it's a pretty good adventure. Hopefully my players feel the same way!
I've cut out a fairly large number of the encounters, as things were starting to feel like a bit of a slog.
I cut out one or two of the encounters on the road, (the claw ambush for example) and just broke the skill challenge for it into a series of shorter smaller ones (get across a river etc.), which I ran pretty loosly, and just made everyone make an endurance check every day. Those that failed the endurance check lost a healing surge for the day.
The Amalokar (might not have the spelling of that right but don't have the adventure in front of me) went alright and was fairly fun, but quick (bullrushes to shove people out of the circle really sped things up, I might suggest having the two combatants meet further from the edge of the circle if you're running it).
Six Kings has been interesting and again I've cut out a fairly large number of the encounters, and replaced some with traps and such (I took two from a recent Dungeon adventure and scaled them up to the right level, the players had a great time with them and came up with some very novel solutions for getting through them, including using sarcophagus lids to give some protection from, and do a bit of damage to, blades coming from the ceiling). Six kings is interesting but it's fairly long, especially if your group is a bit slow with combat, and it can get a bit repetitive, so I would suggest looking into replacing a few of the encounters with traps or skill challenges, or something that isn't combat. And if your group is a bit ahead of the XP curve like mine is, you can even cut out whole encounters.
I also let my group try (and succeed!) in talking their way through the encounter with the Deep Goblins, which also was a nice change of pace from the all combat all the time feeling I was worried we'd have for this part of the adventure.
Currently they're in the final Moon Pool encounter, and I've done a bit to make it somewhat more interesting. Here's what I did:
At about the time they defeated all of the minions and when all of the enemies had made their way up to the middle section where the combat started, (this was fortuitously enough right around the time we had to pack up last week) I had six more minions run in from the other side of the map. Then right behind them I had the Goblin Seekers run in. I then gave each player one of the Goblins to run (printed them out from the Monster Builder), and I'm running Tikulti. The Goblins go right after the PC of the player that's controlling them. We had a bit of a shortened session last night so we're still mid combat with this but everyone seems to be enjoying the change of pace of running a "monster" along with their PC.
Anyway, that's where we are! I like the general plot of the adventure but I do think it's a bit combat heavy in sections. With some modification though I think it's a pretty good adventure. Hopefully my players feel the same way!
We also continued playing the module and stopped when the party arrived in Graywall.
I didn't cut any encounters but also didn't use any optional ones. The travel skill challenge fell flat because my players didn't get that it was supposed to be a skill challenge (I don't ever announce them).
I also ruled that they could not recover healing surges until they reached their destination, which I feel is a good idea to make overland travel encounters more meaningful.
I had updated all monster stats and skill DCs and the effect was definitely felt. A lot of the encounters were quite exciting and 'felt' deadly.
The skill challenge to win the goblins as allies worked very well. One of my players commented that she appreciated that social encounters are more engaging and meaningful in 4e. The duel circle was an interesting change of pace and exciting because it was a very close call.
I had modified the Six Kings map a bit because I felt it was too linear. Basically, I joined up some of the dead ends to create alternative routes. In the end they skipped one encounter that way.
Several encounters were very hard. One pc almost died by being dropped to negative bloodied in the wraith encounter because of the Shadowfell hazard.
The dolgaunts were very annoying because of their long reach and in the encounter with the dolgarr I actually felt I had to intervene to avoid a tpk:
The party had withdrawn into a cul-de-sac since they believed it to be more defensible. But since the three dolgrims' dual initiatives were back to back, they basically shot down one pc every round (six crossbow bolts will do that!). So, I conveniently forgot about the dolgarr's encounter ability and had the dolgrims become overconfident and forget about clever tactics to instead charge in and engage in melee combat.
The moon pool encounter was surprisingly comparably easy. Still, after fleeing Six Kings they were initially very afraid since they couldn't rest before encountering the revived enemies they had encountered before. It took them a while to realize that the zombies weren't remotely as dangerous as when they were alive.
All in all I'm still quite pleased with the adventure so far.
I didn't cut any encounters but also didn't use any optional ones. The travel skill challenge fell flat because my players didn't get that it was supposed to be a skill challenge (I don't ever announce them).
I also ruled that they could not recover healing surges until they reached their destination, which I feel is a good idea to make overland travel encounters more meaningful.
I had updated all monster stats and skill DCs and the effect was definitely felt. A lot of the encounters were quite exciting and 'felt' deadly.
The skill challenge to win the goblins as allies worked very well. One of my players commented that she appreciated that social encounters are more engaging and meaningful in 4e. The duel circle was an interesting change of pace and exciting because it was a very close call.
I had modified the Six Kings map a bit because I felt it was too linear. Basically, I joined up some of the dead ends to create alternative routes. In the end they skipped one encounter that way.
Several encounters were very hard. One pc almost died by being dropped to negative bloodied in the wraith encounter because of the Shadowfell hazard.
The dolgaunts were very annoying because of their long reach and in the encounter with the dolgarr I actually felt I had to intervene to avoid a tpk:
The party had withdrawn into a cul-de-sac since they believed it to be more defensible. But since the three dolgrims' dual initiatives were back to back, they basically shot down one pc every round (six crossbow bolts will do that!). So, I conveniently forgot about the dolgarr's encounter ability and had the dolgrims become overconfident and forget about clever tactics to instead charge in and engage in melee combat.
The moon pool encounter was surprisingly comparably easy. Still, after fleeing Six Kings they were initially very afraid since they couldn't rest before encountering the revived enemies they had encountered before. It took them a while to realize that the zombies weren't remotely as dangerous as when they were alive.
All in all I'm still quite pleased with the adventure so far.
Last edited:
Rabbitbait
Grog-nerd
We've now completley finished this module. Since my update back in May, the party made their way back to Sharn where they found they were wanted criminals. They were attacked by mercenaries when one of the party wanted to check out how his tinkers shop was going (he is an artificer).
The party bypassed the second encounter in Ashturas tomb by the changling putting on Demise's Apprentice's clothing and changing his appearance. Unfortunately this did not stop the final battle, but did put him in a good position for a backstab. They also found that the needed to block the doors in, as once the battle started all of the creatures from the encounter they had avoided ran to join in. Tikulti escaped and will appear in a later adventure.
The players then took the completed crown to Kalaes, had their good names restored and volunteered to take the crown to the wordbearers.
They have now done this (with a few non-module encounters along the way, and difficulty getting in to give them the crown), been feted as heroes and joined a two week celebration involving lots of storytelling and gift giving.
They have now headed off across Darguun to take on the 'Forge of Fury', during which one of the party died in a particularly difficult encounter.
The next parts of the campaign will be:
Forge of Fury
Tomb of Horrors
Tears of Ioun series
In summary, Seekers of the Ashen Crown is a damned good module. It needs a personalisation done to make it great - particularly in the overland encounter and the 6 kings dungeon, and it gets stronger when you bring in all the underlying politics and character backgrounds.
The ending is not fleshed out very well (returning the crown to the Kech Volaar), but that is good as it enabled me to easily link it to the next adventure.
Definitely a module well worth buying, and one that is absolutely fantastic if you are playing it in Eberron.
The party bypassed the second encounter in Ashturas tomb by the changling putting on Demise's Apprentice's clothing and changing his appearance. Unfortunately this did not stop the final battle, but did put him in a good position for a backstab. They also found that the needed to block the doors in, as once the battle started all of the creatures from the encounter they had avoided ran to join in. Tikulti escaped and will appear in a later adventure.
The players then took the completed crown to Kalaes, had their good names restored and volunteered to take the crown to the wordbearers.
They have now done this (with a few non-module encounters along the way, and difficulty getting in to give them the crown), been feted as heroes and joined a two week celebration involving lots of storytelling and gift giving.
They have now headed off across Darguun to take on the 'Forge of Fury', during which one of the party died in a particularly difficult encounter.
The next parts of the campaign will be:
Forge of Fury
Tomb of Horrors
Tears of Ioun series
In summary, Seekers of the Ashen Crown is a damned good module. It needs a personalisation done to make it great - particularly in the overland encounter and the 6 kings dungeon, and it gets stronger when you bring in all the underlying politics and character backgrounds.
The ending is not fleshed out very well (returning the crown to the Kech Volaar), but that is good as it enabled me to easily link it to the next adventure.
Definitely a module well worth buying, and one that is absolutely fantastic if you are playing it in Eberron.
