The Ghost Tower of Inverness - your experiences?

[Quasqueton]

Seventh thread of a series on the old classic Dungeons & Dragons adventure modules. It is interesting to see how everyone's experiences compared and differed.

The Ghost Tower of Inverness

Did you Play or DM this adventure (or both, as some did)? What were your experiences? Did you complete it? What were the highlights for your group?

Quasqueton

 

[diaglo]

yes. i refereed this one. tournament style. many years ago.

biorph played the converted version of this one last year at Gen Con.

 

[jsaving]

"The air sizzles as a monster appears... and attacks!"

Our gaming group still laughs about that line, two decades after playing the module.

 

[the Jester]

This was actually the first dnd adventure I ever played! I ran four characters (of the pregens), had never read the rules, and really just winged it.

It was great! I hacked my way through to the Soul Gem and laid claim to it, then was promptly betrayed and killed by my employer.

 

[el-remmen]

I have actually worked the back story of this module in the history of Aquerra (with some name and detail changes, of course) and while I ran it many years ago in pre-Aquerra 1E days - I have it reserved for a special use in my current setting - and will not run it unless the circumstances develop that allow for it to be played.

It is one of my "set" site-based adventures that I awaits to be uncovered.

 

[diaglo]

also don't forget the lingering days of 2edADnD...

the lost tomb series set in 2edADnD Greyhack.9579 The Star Cairns; 9580 Crypt of Lyzandred; 9581 The Doomgrinder


they tried to tie them together... with C1 and C2

 

[BOZ]

we played this one in 3E with about 6 or 7 PCs... three survived, two of us were mute (poorly worded wish) and had our magic items permanently drained. the other guy who survived was the only player whose PC never died through the whole campaign. (bastard.)

 

[Kalendraf]

I ran this back in the 1e days. The group got started ok, found a few of the keys, but then they ran into a wandering encounter outside. IIRC, it was some kind of demon or devil which had a bunch of innate abilities. The monster tossed a huge fireball at the party and they all failed their saves and died. Turns out it was just an illusionary fireball, but they still died to it. Rather pathetic.

I considered running it again in the 2e days, but looking thru it, it seemed too cheesy for that campaign to use it. From what I can remember, the later stages of the adventure is heavy on the combat side with some rather bizarre traps and magic stuff mixed in. Might make for an interesting one-shot adventure if updated to 3.5 rules.

IIRC, the original was written as a tournament with premade characters who were former prisoners being asked to retrieve the Soul Gem...or am I confusing it with some other 1e adventure?

 

[Monte At Home]

I both played in and ran this module. I really have a fondness for it, because for me it represents all the silly but really fun (emphasis on fun) cliches of dungeon design:

Chessboard room? Check.
Rooms devoted to all four elements? Check.
Multi-part magical key that needs to be assembled? Check.
Plant-filled room that looks like it's outside when it's not? Check.
Monsters with no way of surviving in their room content to wait for PCs so they can fight? Check.
Magical puzzles created by an insane but powerful wizard? Check.

The room with the fire giant proved insanely tough both when I was a player and when I ran it. When I was a player, we totally didn't get the chessboard room and got zapped a bunch, but years later when I ran it, players had become more savvy (plus we were all older) and it proved to be a cinch.

 

[Mr. Kaze]

I played as a Dwarven Cleric + Fighter heavy into undead turning and was sorely disappointed by the lack of anything that was genuinely ghost-like. But I did put the smack-down on the fire giant, which almost made up for it (before landing in the ocean, in a freakin' fish, next to a balmy tropical island -- wtf?). We had 4 characters, 3 survivors (with the one dying to the annoyingly arbitrary soul gem -- really, what kind of idiot would leave their death trap sequence set to "Random"?)

My experience taught me this:
0) Not all characters are the same. Adjust the motivation accordingly. (Paladin retreiving a gem that sucks souls out at random? Not likely...)
1) Traps have saving throws, even if they didn't when the mod came out no matter how cool the failed-save effect is.
2) There is no untyped, no-save, no-miss energy damage. If you don't want to miss, don't want to offer saves, use Magic Missile (which is a force effect).
3) When you're going for a major environmental shift -- to like, dinosaurs or something? -- be sure to actually use, like, dinosaurs or something. Replacing pteradactyls with eagles and a pleisosaur or whatever with a giant shark just doesn't convey the sort of prehistoric mood the module is going for.
3.5) "Spellcraft: Chronomancy" is also a good thing to have people check for.
4) Describing visible gravity reversals is not the easiest task in the world. Be prepared to draw a diagram to save time and frustration.

Overall, as a matter of heaping abuse on lots of random creatures? Sure, it fills the bill.

But anybody who puts skills into Bluff/Diplomacy/Sense Motive/etc or feats into Improved/Extra Turning will be sorely disappointed.

That's my story.
::Kaze