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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2010450" data-attributes="member: 18387">SIEGE OF DURGAM'S FOLLYCAVEATSThis is a playtest review-I ran a group of players through this adventure several months ago. There are fairly extensive spoilers within this review.OVERVIEWThis is a 32-page adventure for four to six characters level 5-8, published fairly early in the history of Necromancer Games. The adventure comprises only 26 pages of the book, with the remaining pages devoted to new monsters and items, and the OGL. The adventure begins when the PCs join a caravan bringing goods to Durgam's Folly, an outpost located at the edge of civilization. While the caravan was away on its supply run, the keep has been overrun by ogres led by an ogre mage named Grimulak, and the PCs will need to invade the keep, eliminate or drive off the ogres, and investigate the dungeon beneath the keep, where the true threat lurks. Thus the adventure is divided into three parts: traveling to the keep, the battle for the fortress, and underground exploration.Formatting and font are fairly standard for Necromancer Games, with the usual skull-filled sidebars, and overall good use of space and font. The maps for Durgam's Folly and the dungeon beneath are located on the inside cover; they are crude and some of the weaker maps I have seen from Necromancer Games. POSITIVES1. The highlight of this book for me was the battle to reclaim Durgam's Folly from the ogres. Information on the ogres and their habits in the keep is clearly and simply provided, and the PCs are left to their own devices to explore the keep and defeat them. While a large group of ogres would normally wipe the floors with PCs level 6-8, especially attacking en masse and led by an ogre mage, players with a decent grasp of tactics should be able to come up with a plan to take them on and prevail. For example, the characters may try to poison the ogre ale supply, or free the surviving residents that are being held captive in a tower, and have them help in the battle. They might locate and attempt to assassinate Grimulak, or take over one of the towers in the fortress wall and use it as a bastion against the ogres in the rest of the complex.2.  Another nice surprise is the dungeon beneath the keep, which is crawling-often literally-with bizarre constructs built by a wizard stationed here who was researching cheap, effective devices to replace common soldiers on the walls of fortresses like this one. These constructs have gone rogue, and represent the true cause of the ogre presence. It provides an interesting change in tone from the straightforward ogre battle with its creepy feeling. Players probably won't see it coming.3. There is an excellent web supplement for Siege of Durgam's Folly as well, which provides additional options for assaulting the keep, such as a hidden underground tunnel that leads into the fortress-but it is undead-haunted, and subject to flooding.NEGATIVES1. The maps are a bit of an issue for this book, as they are not always clearly labeled or sensible; for example, the trapdoor to the dungeon is marked in the wrong area, and there is no door connecting the kitchen with the common room where the soldiers would eat. An alert DM should be able to recognize this, however, and compensate for it with relatively little difficulty.2. At one point in the dungeon, the PCs come across a bound demon, and guess what? If they free him, he will betray them! I can't imagine any PCs in their right mind freeing this demon, so I'm not sure why it was included as-is. A sympathetic human NPC possessed by a demon would have been far more interesting. PLAYTESTINGI ran my group through this adventure in about five sessions-for a $10 product, that comes to $2/session, which is a good value in my book. The players had little trouble with the journey to the fortress. There is a dangerous battle when a roc attacks the caravan at night, but as long as characters keep out of melee with it and use ranged attacks, they should be okay. An assault by ogres on the caravan was a more difficult challenge, and I toned it down a little to avoid slaughtering the entirety of the caravan NPCs. The players best liked the attack on the fortress itself, taking on the ogres. They came to fear Grimulak, who would fly overhead and blast them with his cone of cold from invisibility, and this part of the adventure did result in more NPC deaths and several PCs dead or on death's door. They ended up retreating, regrouping, and then leading a second assault-and the ogre mage was able to escape into the dungeon.The final part of the adventure turned out to be the most difficult for them, and perhaps their least favorite section. They were slightly frustrated by the dungeon maze (none of my players were fans of maze mapping), and some of the constructs down there were excellent at pasting adventurers. I believe I had a PC death or three during the course of this dungeon exploration. Then, once they made it about halfway through, the final confrontation with the mastermind construct was almost an anticlimax due to sound player thinking. Still, I think they enjoyed it to some extent, and the parts they didn't care for were in my opinion more due to dubious player tactics and decisionmaking than any inherent fault of the adventure itself.RECOMMENDATIONSThis is a short but sweet adventure that is easy to read through and run on short notice. I have a particular fondness for "base assault" type adventures where PCs are given an objective and then given free reign as to how to accomplish it, since it provides both a structure for the adventure and scope for the players to achieve it as best suits them. Some parts of the adventure are a bit rough, notably the maps and some of the stuff in the dungeon, but a thoughtful DM should be able to adjust this with minimal effort. There is also excellent web support for the adventure. All in all, I definitely recommend this to any group not afraid of some serious combat. In addition, the constructs have significant longevity, and I can see exporting them to another adventure, such as Rappan Athuk. These creatures are detailed in the Tome of Horrors by Necromancer Games as well as here, so you won't need to keep this product handy if you wish to do so.</blockquote>

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