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The Crypt of St. Bethesda
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<blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2008567" data-attributes="member: 18387"><p>Okay, goggles on, because this is going to get ugly.</p><p></p><p>This module turned me off to the whole AEG line of products. Now, I'm given to understand that there are some good ones out there. Unfortunately, I still have a bad taste in my mouth. All this after I had bought 6 of their short adventures before running one.</p><p></p><p>The initial plot hook of the module sets the tone for the rest of it. The PCs witness a murder (or hear one in an alley) and rush over to apprehend the villain. The villain has escaped, leaving a trail of purplish worms. Why does it leave worm spores everywhere? I'm not sure, because none are present once it gets to its hideout. Maybe the murdering creature decided to cover his tracks AFTER he got to the disused crypt. Except there is dust and signs of no use everywhere...did he fly or levitate to his room at the back of the dungeon? Again, not sure. Whatever.</p><p></p><p>Anyway, the PCs are FORCED to go in after him, because the city guard shows up and accuses them of the murder. What happens if they try to use reason with the city guard? The guard says the only way they'll believe they didn't do it is if they go after the purplish worm trail. So the players, sensing they are "destined" to go on this quest, begrudgingly trudge into the basement of the abandoned St. Bethesda church. Which, by the way, is remarkably easy to get into. You'd figure that in a busy sector of the town, some kids would've gotten into the place earlier and disturbed all the rotten furniture and dust, but I guess not?</p><p></p><p>Anyway, the PCs get in, and have to go through anywhere from 4 to 9 rooms to get to the bad guy's lair. Each room has some different villain. For example, there are a few very large spiders holed up in one room. I guess the Ghouls in the next room share their pickins from the graveyard with the spiders? Oh yeah, and the disused church above apparently serves as a garbage dump, because there's a room where garbage has been constantly dumped from above to form kind of a miniature "city dump" where a Carrion Crawler is apparently shacked up. Yep, the big church upstairs is the city dump, or maybe some homeless (and messy) dwarves and halflings have set up a little shanty town inside the building?</p><p></p><p>Finally, they get to the back room, where said baddy is "regenerating" in this large coffin. Okay, so the magical restoring coffin is a pretty cool magic item and a great idea. But this bad guy is worthless! The party is to be 2nd level, and this guy ought to have a threat rating of 1, because he is so weak. To compensate, I gave him a few extra feats (and changed others that didn't make sense for him to have) and added an acidic damage to his attacks (+1d8 acid damage per hit). However, there's one of him, dealing out two attacks per round, with an AC of somewhere around 13 or so? (I don't have the module with me) and about 20 or so hit points (which I boosted to 35 to make it a little harder). So the 5 party members gather around him, because he doesn't come out of his coffin until the PCs get close, and beat the living hell out of him. End of module.</p><p></p><p>Maybe I'm being too harsh, but I was pissed at the end of the module. I shouldn't have run it, but I thought I could pull it off. Maybe a more experienced, creative DM than me could get it to work (I've been DMing for 13 years off and on, but I am probably not the most creative DM). One of the players actually said after the module that if she went through any more like that, she was going to retire her character in protest. All in good fun of course, but her point was made.</p><p></p><p>Feel free to shred me for my bad taste and negative review. I'll keep the goggles on just in case.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Messageboard Golem, post: 2008567, member: 18387"] Okay, goggles on, because this is going to get ugly. This module turned me off to the whole AEG line of products. Now, I'm given to understand that there are some good ones out there. Unfortunately, I still have a bad taste in my mouth. All this after I had bought 6 of their short adventures before running one. The initial plot hook of the module sets the tone for the rest of it. The PCs witness a murder (or hear one in an alley) and rush over to apprehend the villain. The villain has escaped, leaving a trail of purplish worms. Why does it leave worm spores everywhere? I'm not sure, because none are present once it gets to its hideout. Maybe the murdering creature decided to cover his tracks AFTER he got to the disused crypt. Except there is dust and signs of no use everywhere...did he fly or levitate to his room at the back of the dungeon? Again, not sure. Whatever. Anyway, the PCs are FORCED to go in after him, because the city guard shows up and accuses them of the murder. What happens if they try to use reason with the city guard? The guard says the only way they'll believe they didn't do it is if they go after the purplish worm trail. So the players, sensing they are "destined" to go on this quest, begrudgingly trudge into the basement of the abandoned St. Bethesda church. Which, by the way, is remarkably easy to get into. You'd figure that in a busy sector of the town, some kids would've gotten into the place earlier and disturbed all the rotten furniture and dust, but I guess not? Anyway, the PCs get in, and have to go through anywhere from 4 to 9 rooms to get to the bad guy's lair. Each room has some different villain. For example, there are a few very large spiders holed up in one room. I guess the Ghouls in the next room share their pickins from the graveyard with the spiders? Oh yeah, and the disused church above apparently serves as a garbage dump, because there's a room where garbage has been constantly dumped from above to form kind of a miniature "city dump" where a Carrion Crawler is apparently shacked up. Yep, the big church upstairs is the city dump, or maybe some homeless (and messy) dwarves and halflings have set up a little shanty town inside the building? Finally, they get to the back room, where said baddy is "regenerating" in this large coffin. Okay, so the magical restoring coffin is a pretty cool magic item and a great idea. But this bad guy is worthless! The party is to be 2nd level, and this guy ought to have a threat rating of 1, because he is so weak. To compensate, I gave him a few extra feats (and changed others that didn't make sense for him to have) and added an acidic damage to his attacks (+1d8 acid damage per hit). However, there's one of him, dealing out two attacks per round, with an AC of somewhere around 13 or so? (I don't have the module with me) and about 20 or so hit points (which I boosted to 35 to make it a little harder). So the 5 party members gather around him, because he doesn't come out of his coffin until the PCs get close, and beat the living hell out of him. End of module. Maybe I'm being too harsh, but I was pissed at the end of the module. I shouldn't have run it, but I thought I could pull it off. Maybe a more experienced, creative DM than me could get it to work (I've been DMing for 13 years off and on, but I am probably not the most creative DM). One of the players actually said after the module that if she went through any more like that, she was going to retire her character in protest. All in good fun of course, but her point was made. Feel free to shred me for my bad taste and negative review. I'll keep the goggles on just in case. [/QUOTE]
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