Starting an Eberron Campaign - The Forgotten Forge

[ReignMan]

I ran this a couple of months ago and my players had a good plan and breezed through the forge and actually took out most of the Emerald Claw guys with a bit of night time hit and run (mind you there was a monk, ranger and rouge with good H & MS).

The adventure itself is not very freeform and is written very liniarly, if you want to be prepared for players taking alternate decisions to the ones prescribed (or trying to steal doors which would probably break any cart you can find!) then a lot of work is required to give them alternate routes to the same ending. i.e. What do you do if the players let Falin get a good kicking and the first bugbear rolls 3 natural 20's!

 

[fuindordm]

Just finished it easily, and it was pretty good. The party was 6 second level characters, and the encounter that gave them the most trouble was the horrid rats (very high damage output, and high AC) which managed to take down two of them.

However--there's one important error in the adventure. In the encounter where Rapier (the warforged rogue)
is waiting to ambush the party, the map places him at the corner landing inside the stairway down to the sewers--so if a party member spots him there he's trapped. Keith Baker has said on the Wizards boards that he should be hiding in the sewer back against the grating, not in the stairway itself, which makes a lot more sense.

I had him in the stairway, and he got trapped between a warforged and a very paranoid artificer. It was OK, as it led to some good RP moments as the party decided what to do with him, and he could return later with Cutlass to make the final battle a bit tougher. But still, probably better to have him hide elsewhere.

Ben

 

[cmanos]

I haven't run it yet, but I do know the adamtine doors would be a big temptation. My suggestion is if you don't want to make them not adamatine, that you make them too big to lug out of the cavern. As I recall there is a 'well' the characters come in from. Make it 3' in diameter and make each door 6' wide and 10' tall. Also, weight. Lets assume the doors are 6" thick. Doors of that dimension would be approximately 30 cubic feet of metal. Assuming adamantine has the same density as, oh, titanium, each door would weigh roughly #8500. Thats more than a Hummer weighs with 2 #180 adult passengers.

I may let them get creative and try and come up with a way to get them out. But then they're going to have to find someone who has the ability to work it who has enough money (about 2.8 million per door) who is shady enough to buy something obviously stolen from House Canith. Or they will have to gain enough skill to work it themselves, and then take the downtime to work it. In my experience, characters won't want to deal with A) taking the craft skill and B) taking the downtime.

Personally, I think having them struggle with trying to get the doors out will be fun enough.

Also, looking at the adventure, the last encounter could be a little rough for 4 1st level characters. Going through all the encounters up to that one easily gives the characters enough to make 2nd level. You may consider giving them the level in the forge when they recover the schema.

 

[Storminator]

When I ran it

Spoiler

the PCs didn't kill Cutter in the first scene, and she returned for the finale.

I was one good roll from a TPK for 3 rounds before the last PC downed the last foe. And that was with 2 hired warriors.

But over all I thought it was a pretty decent intro adventure to the setting. I'm all set to run scene two of Shadows of the Last War tomorrow night. This adventure will need some mods, as the PCs are already 3rd (I ran an adventure in between), and there are 7 of them.

PS

 

[jaults]

Thanks for all your suggestions, guys. I am going to play the adamantine door thing by ear. My players are... creative, but also usually willing to allow a little hand-waving.

I'll let you know tomorrow how things go.

Jason

 

[jaults]

We played last night, and to my amazement, got all the way through The Forgotten Forge (this group is not known for moving things along).

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It went pretty well. Per some suggestions, I took out the sunrod in Rat's Market (they didn't really search anyway), and the swarm (I really hate swarms - both as a player and as a GM) - which of course, means the sunrod would have been fine.

The fight with Cutter went quickly, and while the theives were ready to run (in fact, ready to jump off the bridge to a lower one - which would have been cool, if probably fatal) when the guard showed up, the cleric convinced them to stay; they made good Diplomacy checks, and should have a long and ongoing relationship with Sgt. Dolom.

Rapier and his shifter minions slowed the party down, and nearly killed the Warforged (dropped to -5 HP). But no one would venture into the area between the valves... I so wanted to see someone get hit with the sewage... *grin* Oh well.

They opened the hatch without incident (their first thought was to use the journal as a key), but did not have any climbing gear. So two of them went back to get some from Skankan (who I am really going to have to use as a recurring NPC - good character). This meant that their spells/infusions that they used during the fight with Rapier expired.

The horrid rats took a while... because we were all rolling crap. The PCs never got bitten, but the rats just kept dodging. As I said, I dropped the swarm.

They found the temple, but left it for later when they also found the foundry.

I had previously described the holes in the ceiling, and how chunks of stone had fallen down into and through the roofs of the other buildings. And yet... they decided to bash a hole in the wall of the foundry instead of looking on the roof. I said, OK, but it will take forever... and then we did the math. The WF, with average rolls, could get through it in just over 12 minutes. So that's what they did.

Of course, the Iron Defenders got a few free attacks, but they ended up not mattering. The IDs did some damage, but the artificer had one infusion left to heal the WF.

They tried the correct combination of rods the first time, and collected the stuff from the vault. After they checked out the font in the temple, and collected some of the juice for later study, Sabre ambushed them outside the temple.

He took the rogue down to -1 HP with his second shot, but things went downhill for him right after. The WF got up in his face, and did 15 points of damage on his first attack. Sabre did some good damage to the WF, but the cleric healed the rogue, and the rest of the party was able to pin Sabre into a corner and beat the crap out of him.

All in all, it was a good time. I liked the adventure for what it was (a quick intro to the world and atmosphere).

Thanks again for your help...

Jason

 

[PK]

One thing about the doors, a suggestion that I heard that I like.

Raw adamantium is not that valuable, it is because it is so difficult to work with that goods which contain finished adamantium are valuable. Therefore, and adamantium dagger is very valuable, but the adam. you pry off of a dead warforged or from these doors is no more valuable than steel.

Just a thought.

 

[Dr. Confoundo]

Now that you are done with 'Forgotten Forge', you said you are going to try 'Queen with the Burning Eyes' next... I did the exact same thing. My players and I found a few things kind of odd about this one:

1) Monsters - It's like a Daelkyr petting zoo down in those caves. (The dolgaunts are in this pen, the chokers are in this one. Oh look! A Grimlock... don't feed it, dear.) I prefer a smaller mix of critters in such a small place.

2) Kobolds - The only things that weren't aberrations. I gave them a makeover into gibberlings, and it seemed to fit better.

3) Ambush - My team had no problem at all taking out the thugs sent to take them out; then they went and killed the Queen with ease.

4) The main villain - Rule #1 of Gaming: Never trust the guy who hired you; Odds are he's trying to kill you. I made ir'Simul a patsy, and the real villain was actually his butler. I also put a mask on him for extra Scooby-Doo goodness ("You mean the Crimson Hood is actually... Barnabas the butler!" "And I would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for you pesky adventurers and that dumb warforged of yours!")

Actually, I even had the butler go so far as to frame the party for the faked murder of ir'Simul - then his charmed minions in the guard could deliver the party into his waiting hands for a sacrifice to summon a new boss monster. Which made it possible for ir'Simul to be the one who untied them in the final combat, rather than some random cultist.

And of course, for a crowning touch... the dying villain had to topple into the pit. If you don't see his body, he probably isn't dead.

EDIT: I thought of one more thing.
5) Redundant endings -
How does 'Forgotten Forge' end?
You get the widget, and someone ambushes you demanding it.
How does 'Queen with the Burning Eyes' end?
You get the amulet, and someone ambushes you demanding it.
How does 'Shadows of the Last War' end?
You get the second widget, and someone ambushes you demanding it.

See a pattern?
I just dumped the whole amulet subplot, and cut out the Necromancer woman. You could leave in the amulet if you want it to be a plot hook for later, but I didn't... I know my players, and they'd instantly run off with it looking for loot.