The Slaying Stone - A Level 2 Adventure using the Hammerfast town map?

[martincwday]

Hello everyone.

Longtime reader, occasional poster here, so go easy on me! After almost thirty years of playing and DM'ing D&D, off and on (more off, sadly), I've finally got a regular group of players who are very keen to play every week with me as a DM! Exciting stuff.

We've run through The Twisting Halls from the red box, to introduce the couple of players who've never played D&D before, which of course is a fairly bland dungeon crawl, but I've dropped plenty of unanaswered questions and links to the adventure I want to play next, namely The Slaying Stone (I then hope to move onto Orcs of Stonefang Pass, and then Reavers of Harkenwold). Everyone's keen to continue (versions of) the basic characters they started out with - or, in one or two cases, swap to someone entirely new-but-second level, which I can deal with in a session that will bridge the two adventures.

Anyway, you'll instantly see the first problem I face - as written, Slaying Stone is for the first level characters. I don't think it'll be too hard to bump up the monsters and skill challenges and so on a bit, but I was just wondering if anyone out there - for whatever reason - has already done this, and if so, they have any tips to impart?

The other idea I have (probably the first sign of madness) is to completely remodel Kiris Dahn/Gorizbadd so that I can use the big town map in Hammerfast. I like the idea of using a little token, to represent the entire party, as they explore the place - and, as soon as they're discovered by a patrol, or they chose to investigate one of the key buildings/areas, I can whip out some dungeon tiles and minis and 'zoom down' to the ensuing encounter.

The problem is the map doesn't really fit the picture of Gorizbadd as described (though, to be fair, I'm not entirely sure it works for Hammerfast either!) so, again, I'm just wondering if anyone has any thoughts (even if they be 'Don't bother!'). Or are there any other large scale town maps that might be more suitable?

Many thanks!

 

[Goonalan]

Check my sig, HS1 Slaying Stone, it was a VTT campaign via Maptools with a few extra bits added in- basically sessions 1-11 (I think), anything you like/want to know etc. then give me a shout.

Cheers Goonalan

 

[fba827]

Longtime reader, occasional poster here, so go easy on me! After almost thirty years of playing and DM'ing D&D, off and on (more off, sadly), I've finally got a regular group of players who are very keen to play every week with me as a DM! Exciting stuff.

Yea!
Dusty off the books and getting to play, especially after a period of not playing, can be very fun, exciting, and yet a little (or a lot) intimidating...

Rule 1: Have fun with it and everything else will fall in to place

Anyway, you'll instantly see the first problem I face - as written, Slaying Stone is for the first level characters. I don't think it'll be too hard to bump up the monsters and skill challenges and so on a bit, but I was just wondering if anyone out there - for whatever reason - has already done this, and if so, they have any tips to impart?

Level bumps by 1 is fairly easy in 4e. Any defense, attack modifier do +1 (yes, if the level goes up from an odd to an even level, also add +1 to skill and initiative.. but, really, the players won't notice if you don't so don't make extra work for youself).

If the monster is a Skirmisher, Soldier, or Controller, +8 hp. If the monster is a Brute +10hp. If the monster is artillery or Lurker +6 hp. HOWEVER, hp is one of those things that won't be noticed if it's a little off. So if you want, just average it out to +8hp to any non-minion creature (or +16 if an Elite).

And, to round it out, +2 to damage rolls. Partially cause of the level bump. But also because I think Slaying Stone was written with old(er) monster damage thresholds.

I like the idea of using a little token, to represent the entire party, as they explore the place - and, as soon as they're discovered by a patrol, or they chose to investigate one of the key buildings/areas, I can whip out some dungeon tiles and minis and 'zoom down' to the ensuing encounter.

That's an awesome idea/concept!

But, as you pointed out, if you don't have a good city-wide map to use, it will entirely lose the effect that you're hoping to create.

That said, I don't have any alt-map ideas that you could use.

But you may want to use the Kiris Dahn map (without the DM mark-up that was made available online here at:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_raAzi3oUJ...0/P2myjFKqYjg/s1600/KirisDahnMap-FullSize.jpg which is linked from the original source here: Logan Bonner: Slaying Stone Kiris Dahn Map )

and then print it out and just use a pointer/pencil to just tap along the map as the PCs make their way through it (basically, instead of using a token to represent the party, you'll be using a pencil tip)


Anyway, good luck and have fun!

 

[martincwday]

Yea!

Dusty off the books and getting to play, especially after a period of not playing, can be very fun, exciting, and yet a little (or a lot) intimidating...

Rule 1: Have fun with it and everything else will fall in to place

Oh, absolutely. Thankfully I've been DM'ing a bit more in recent years - currently working through Ashen Crown with my daughter, as well as a campaign of sorts that stretches back about five years with my brother-in-law and his family (though we only play about once every two or three months, which slows us down somewhat!). But I don't think I've played played a weekly game before - I'm sure it's going to eat up a lot more material than I've ever used before, but I have ambitious plans and everyone's enjoying themselves so I'm sure it'll be fine! And four committed players to boot - I couldn't be happier!

Level bumps by 1 is fairly easy in 4e. Any defense, attack modifier do +1 (yes, if the level goes up from an odd to an even level, also add +1 to skill and initiative.. but, really, the players won't notice if you don't so don't make extra work for youself).

If the monster is a Skirmisher, Soldier, or Controller, +8 hp. If the monster is a Brute +10hp. If the monster is artillery or Lurker +6 hp. HOWEVER, hp is one of those things that won't be noticed if it's a little off. So if you want, just average it out to +8hp to any non-minion creature (or +16 if an Elite).

And, to round it out, +2 to damage rolls. Partially cause of the level bump. But also because I think Slaying Stone was written with old(er) monster damage thresholds.

That's exactly the sort of thing I was looking for; thanks. (I'll check the damage rolls as I think Slaying Stone might use the newer stats.)

That's an awesome idea/concept!

But, as you pointed out, if you don't have a good city-wide map to use, it will entirely lose the effect that you're hoping to create.

That said, I don't have any alt-map ideas that you could use.

But you may want to use the Kiris Dahn map (without the DM mark-up that was made available online here at:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_raAzi3oUJ...0/P2myjFKqYjg/s1600/KirisDahnMap-FullSize.jpg which is linked from the original source here: Logan Bonner: Slaying Stone Kiris Dahn Map )

and then print it out and just use a pointer/pencil to just tap along the map as the PCs make their way through it (basically, instead of using a token to represent the party, you'll be using a pencil tip)

Yeah, I found that map and will use it as a backup if I can't find anything more suitable. I will keep searching...!

Thanks again!

 

[fba827]

(I'll check the damage rolls as I think Slaying Stone might use the newer stats.)

Even if it does use the newer damage stats, still, bump the damage up by +2 (at least for any elites and brutes if you aren't going to do it for everyone) for going up the level.

 

[S'mon]

I've been looking at levelling up Slaying Stone also. Instead of levelling up monsters, in some cases you might want to add more of them: +25% for 1 level, +50% for 2. Lots of squishy goblins to kill can be fun for the players, especially if they fought goblins at 1st level, they'll get a much better feeling of advancement than if the goblins level up alongside the PCs. Typically levelling up named/special NPCs and increasing numbers of mook NPCs works best.

Edit: You can also leave some fights unadjusted and have them be easy battles where the PCs can show off a bit. Not all fights should be a slog.

 

[martincwday]

Thanks to both fba827 and S'mon for their replies. I'll probably try a number of different things in the various encounters (and swap the wolves in the first encounter for stray iron defenders, as suggested, er, somewhere) and see what works, and also what the players seem to be enjoying most.

I'm still pondering a possible large scale Gorizbadd and will report back here (if anyone's interested!) when I've decided. I may try making my own, I may borrow something from the Cartographers' Guild (Cartographers' Guild - The Front Page), or I may just go with the original and be done with it...! We shall see.

Thanks again,

Martin