The Standing Stone

[IronWolf]

The world of "The Standing Stone" adventure feels real somehow.
Literary talent of Mr. Rateliff (easily comparable, within context of gaming material, to that of Carl Sargent or Hickman/Weis), his believable NPC's and evocative sense of history create a lifelike setting that is sadly rare in the published adventures.
What makes this adventure wickedly funny from the DM point of view is that the PC's are expected to make asses of themselves by interacting with this setting with all the legendary subtlety of the dungeneering crew.
Assuming the cliches, failing to pay the attention to details and fighting before thinking are true dangers in this adventure and demise (or an ignoble failure) for the party are almost guaranteed for those groops who play on autopilot (or on BG script)
The sole fact that PC's are required to think and be actively engaged if they are to avoid being duped and/or killed alone makes the adventure a pleasure to DM and (or at least it should) source of real pride to have finished succesfully. Moreover, contrary to the most "cerebral" modules this adventure is fast paced, perhaps even more so then the regular dungeon romp, and is laced with some of the best tactical combat I have ever seen in DnD, utilising the 3ed rules to their fullest.
The adventure depicts the conflict between two powerfull NPCs with PCs in a position to be decisive factor one way or the other.
On one side the Villian is a Tiefling Sorcerer with some diabolical aid and on the other is a Paladin allied with local elves and forest creatures.
The catch is that Paladin has been killed (by Sorcerer) and now continues his struggle from beyond the grave and that Elves have been thoghuraly antagonized by Sorcerer and his crew (whome they believe to be human) including the slaughter of their elders who came for the parlay.
This all mean that sorcerer will in a fact be hireing the PC's to help him save the village from the Undead Horseman and the genocidal elves and if DM plays his cards right it is likely that PC's will not discover his deception till much later in scenario and only then with effort (it is very much possible that the PCs will go through the entire adventure without noticing the subtle hints as to who the real villian is - that is the autopilot I was talking about) and end up fighting the fey and the paladin in one of the DnD's better (if tragic) combat setups.
The adventure involves (possibly but not necessarily) another dungeon with an interesting non-evil undead NPC that PCs have just enough hints to avoid fighting and that can make their lives either somewhat easier if they are respectfull or realy miserable if they attack.
Final combat with the Sorcerer is another very well designed combat but not as hard as the final showdown with the fey.
There is another subplot explaining original motivation of the sorcerer which is interesting but easily interchangable to fit the campaign as well as some realy good history of the place where adventure take place (a village built completly within the inner ring of the ancient druidic stone circle) providing both the in-game reason for such location and one of the plot elements (paladin as an undead can not enter hallowed grund of the Druid Sanctuary).

 

[Simon Collins]

Beware! This review contains major spoilers.

The Standing Stone is the 4th core adventure for D&D3e by WotC. It is designed for four 7th-level characters (EL's range from 3 to 13 with several EL 10's). It costs $9.95.

Production and Presentation: The front and back (soft)cover are standard WotC cover art – nothing spectacular here. The internal art is black & white, of mediocre quality. The page count is 32. 9/10 of the page is text, the rest a runic border. The text is clear and readable. The internal covers contain maps – a standard map of the surrounding area at the front, on the back a mediocre map of the inside of the warlord’s barrow and a small but very nice 3D map/drawing of the village of Ossington.

The Story: An evil tiefling sorcerer discovers a spell that transforms animals into humans. Together with his allies – a vrock bard, an evil insane druidess and his transformed cat familiar he plans to pave the way for a demonic invasion. He takes over the village of Ossington, which is built within a double druidic stone circle on which the spell is inscribed. The transformed animals become the inhabitants of the village. The tiefling has killed the original villagers and a paladin who came to investigate – the paladin’s ghost now seeks vengeance. The local elves kicked up a fuss after all the local animals disappeared (transformed by the tiefling) - the tiefling lured the elven leaders into a trap and massacred them. The remaining elves now wage war on the village. The tiefling seeks a band of adventurers to defeat the ‘evil’ ghost and elves, thereby saving the ‘innocent’ village.

The High Points: I loved the setting of this adventure – it has a very Celtic feel to it, with stone circles, dolmens, barrows, a hill figure and a pagan temple. This is accentuated by the surrounding mysterious forest and the presence of several fey creatures. The twist in the plotline of the PCs protecting a village run by demons from elves and a (ghostly) paladin is a great idea, and the author offers plenty of scope for the PCs to take the plot in various directions from this central premise. There are several mysteries to unravel and a sub-plot involving a lawful neutral undead gravewight (a new monster) in a nearby trapped burial mound.

The Low Points: As seems to be the case with all WotC products, with the focus on stats, combat, traps and plot, not enough attention has been paid to depth of character for roleplaying purposes (though this is better than the previous core adventures). In the stats for the tiefling sorcerer at the end of the module, a section reads:
‘Roleplaying Notes: Dyson has a thin tail, but he keeps it well hidden when not relaxing among his allies.’
Oh, boy, that gives me a real insight in how to roleplay this NPC as a DM!!! That hidden tail has real personality.
Granted, there are hints on the kind of things Dyson might say elsewhere in the module and there are good basic ideas for each NPC, but I would have liked to see more detailed roleplaying hints and tips. For me, tactics should be no more important than personality, as I find roleplaying NPCs _believably_ the hardest and the most rewarding aspect of DMing.

Conclusion: The best of the WotC core adventures so far, with a creative plotline and a mysterious setting, even though the NPC characterisation and the artwork could have been better.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

This review is a playtest review from a DMs perspective. It contains detailed information about the adventure, so read no further if you are a player. I enjoy adventures that have a healthy mix of roleplaying and melee, and have a strong, developing plot. This adventure provides all of that and then some. However, depending on the preferences of your group, this adventure may not be for everybody. Overall, I really liked this module and think that it can help combat oriented groups break out into new styles of game play and develop deeper personalities for their PCs.

The character hooks for the Standing Stone are quite good, as they mesh well with previous adventures in the series and play into the interests of several character classes if more than one is used. To help get the players in a roleplaying mood I recommend utilizing all of the suggested hooks, dropping one on each of the PCs and allowing them to talk among themselves.

Several pages are dedicated to adventure preparation, the summary, hooks, and the monuments, and it is well worth the effort of the DM to memorize this information. Because this adventure is so non-linear and the PCs meet the NPCs who comprise the finale almost right from the start, you'll need to have these pages on the tip of your tongue to maintain a poker face and pull off realistic NPC bluffs without having to roll the dice. Otherwise, this adventure has the potential to flop only a few pages into the game. Furthermore, I found the underlying tension between roleplaying the NPCs as the secret nemesis, and being an arbiter of the game a very enjoyable challenge in DM discipline. If all goes well, your players probably won't utilize Sense Motive vs Bluff checks until later in the game, and even then there may be a mix of party opinion as to Dyson's intentions.

Scene 1 is fabulous with the Horseman attacking what appear to be innocents and then disappearing just as the PCs enter the engagement. This really sets the stage, providing great suspense, mystery, and plot tension!

Scene 2 adds to the dire mood of Ossington's environs, but probably should not be emphasized heavily. The farmer and daughter, while having the potential to be a cliche trap, can provide some good roleplaying opportunities if you don't fall into the stereotypes.

Scene 3, however, doubles up the tension as the babbling Henwen prays continuously to each of the gods for their mercy. This provides some great ambiance and will probably establish an empathetic link with PCs who interpret her behavior as the result of tragedy, rather than being repulsed by her insane behavior.

The icing on the cake though, arrives as the PCs stride into Ossington in Scene 4. Play up the desperate cries for heroes from the starving people, growing into a near mob-like mentality, and the climatic calm that the Cuckoo instills with his humming and bizarre appearance will be even more effective. Furthermore, Ossington is a strange town, constructed in the middle of megaliths that act almost like prison bars, corralling the faux humans. I thought it was a great, unique setting that really adds to the adventure.

The information Murdows provides in Scene 5 is long and rambling as presented, but necessary for the adventure. Instead, I recommend presenting it as a casual and interactive conversation with the PCs, allowing them to ask questions and having Murdows expand upon their inquiries where needed so that all of the boxed text is presented. By now the players should be in the full swing of roleplaying and probably won't appreciate you reading continuously. Interaction will also create a personal connection that makes Murdows assassination in Scene 6 all the more poignant.

Scene 6 is a tactically well planned assassination. The PCs will likely chase after the silent image and when they realize how they've been fooled, they will be even more determined to strike out into Ossington's surroundings and get to the bottom of this mystery. Also, after this much roleplaying into the thickening plot everyone wants to roll some heads. This was a great segue for getting the PCs away from Dyson's gang so that they can begin to reveal the real truth.

While Dyson offers up Tully or the Cuckoo as an adventuring companion, in order to keep and eye on the PCs, I do not believe this is necessary for all of the excursions. They can, however, offer subtle clues if the Horseman attacks them first in his daily tirades. If anything, I recommend taking Tully on trips into Scene 8, serving as a guide into the area surrounding the Silence Keepers. An excuse for not bringing her everywhere could be the protection of the townsfolk while the PCs are away. Furthermore, if the PCs explore areas on their own, they are more likely to take a step back, put the pieces together, and see the forest from the trees.

In our game sessions, the PCs immediately went to the Barrow, where the maze, combat, and roleplaying with Saithnar were well balanced and provided great variation. Afterwards they explored the Silence Keepers and Empty Woods to the southeast with Tully, where they became somewhat frustrated with the strange and confusing signs of trouble and pestering by the horseman. The PCs then found the massacre site without Tully, but did not step back to put the pieces together. Thus, perhaps from frustration more than anything, they plunged headlong into combat in the Fey's Last Stand, killing everyone except one elf who they questioned until they came to realize that things may not be as they seem. Still not quite sure on what was really going on, but suspicious of Dyson, they left for the Tarn before returning to Ossington. Only there, upon discovering the dead paladin, did they realize the hoodwink and angrily prepared to take out Dyson's gang.

Scene 14 is a good finale that provides a hard fight with the extra challenge of 30 mobbing villagers. You'll need lots of miniatures and a large battlemat to pull this off well, but its worth the effort.

Overall I thought this was a great adventure, with a rich, complex, and twisting plot that keeps a DM on their toes. The plot development in the first part of the adventure is well worth the effort and one of the best laid out I've seen since the Rod of Seven Parts. Make sure you have ample time in your first session to set the stage and let the adventuring gang begin exploring the area. I firmly believe that you need to get beyond Scene 7 in the first session if you want to squeeze this adventure for all its worth. The artwork, maps, and layout are good, but its the unique storyline that really sets this adventure apart. I applaud Wizards for presenting something other than the linear dungeon crawl and hope they will provide more alternatives such as this to their "return to the dungeon." I considered giving this adventure a 4 rather than a 5, however, because the players did not have as much fun as I did. They were upset that they had killed good NPCs and that took some of the fun out of the game. However, if your group enjoys keeping the roleplaying in RPGs, this adventure provides great new territory to explore.

 

[Kalendraf]

I recently finished up running this adventure for my group. It turned out to be a very successful adventure for everyone. Of all the WotC published adventures to date (I own each put out so far), this is by far the best of those they've published.

The entire module is based on some fundamental and pervasive misdirection. If you have a group that is easily mislead, then they will likely follow the assumed order of events presented in this adventure. Personally, this is something that I absolutely love to do as a DM, and Standing Stone does a very solid job of setting up the PCs. The standard plot angle of "save the poor villagers" is turned completely on its head, setting things up for a brilliant finale. If the group is wise enough to see thru the lies being told to them, they can be rewarded with a much faster jump to the conclusion of the adventure. But I'm sure that most groups will likely follow the typical expected paths here, as my group was.

Standing Stone is written as an event-based module, rather than the more typical site-based adventures most DM's are familiar with. As a DM, you really need to read the entire adventure and be fluent in how to handle things that the party may decide to do. I always recommend that for any adventure a DM plans to run, but here it is absolutely mandatory. Fortunately, it's highly probable that the group you're running will follow the standard path as presented in the module, and if they do happen to do something out of the ordinary, it's not hard to adjust things for that.

There aren't a lot of details given for some of the more important NPCs. So it will probably require some experienced DM skills to turn them into believeable characters. Information about their motives is scattered around in the adventure. One thing I would have appreciated is a background for each of the key NPCs explaining some of the motives and history. On the other hand, leaving this undefined allows the DM to tailor that background to fit his campaign. I consider this a minor flaw in this adventure.

Besides the lack of detail on the NPCs, there is also a lack of detail for most of the key locations. One example is the main tower in the village. A brief description mentions the basic rooms on each floor, but has no real detail of what items can be found in any of those rooms. It's highly likely that the party will visit the tower either as guests or at some point later in the adventure, so it would have been helpful to have a more detailed entry for this location. Again, this is a rather minor issue in the overall flow of the adventure.

The ghostly horsemen are wild elves are "enemies" very likely to be encountered throughout the course of this adventure. Their inclusion here is part of the misdirection, but they are handled fairly well. My group never engaged the horseman and was rewarded for that to gain a small insight in the fact he had a symbol of Pelor. The elves provided an elusive enemy in the woods, seemingly just out of sight, but hounding them with a trap or arrow when they moved to investigate. Both provided a great mystery for the party to investigate.

The other major location is the Tomb of the Warlord. I decided before running this part to completely redraw the map. The included Maze is a confusing circular mess which is easily corrected with a few minutes of making your own map. I included the same types of traps and inhabitants, and still had the tomb in a far off location, but it was much easier to draw on my battlemap. The traps and monsters provided a perfect mix of threats for my group, and they were quite frustrated by the time they finally reached the main tomb. And the shock that the main "monster" was honorable made it all the more interesting.

The roleplaying potential in this adventure is almost off-the-scale compared to most other adventures produced. Between the inhabitants in the village, the leaders there, all the way to the possible encounters with the elves, horseman and undead warlord, it's a plethora of RP opportunity. As a big advocate of RP-style, I found that to be one of the most enduring aspects of this adventure.

The final battle, should the party uncover the real villains, makes for lenghty encounter. Be prepared to get out tons of figures and use the entire battlemap to draw out the city and key buildings. This encounter took about 90 minutes for my group to resolve, and they were fortunate in being able to knock out two enemy spellcasters very quickly. One of the enemies seems out of place and is almost guaranteed to escape. As a DM, I like having recurring bad guys, so this gave me yet another to toss at the party in a future adventure. This was an exciting climax to the adventure for everone.

The downside of the battle is that the party is likely left with many townsfolk and some possible loose ends (like the elves or maybe the horsemen). I wound up DM'ing the group thru the aftermath and it took about 2 hours of roleplaying with the villagers, elves and wandering druid I tossed in to get some of the loose ends tied up. The adventure doesn't really give much info on how to handle this, so it's largely up to the DM to come up with the ending here.

Finally, the treasure earned from this adventure is relatively low for something of this level. There are some magic items to be found, but some of those are nearly worthless to the party (rings of mind shielding, non-detection wands and a staff of undead creation). It makes sense that there is little gold to be found. However, you may find that you want to toss a chest into the tower with some extra funds to reward the party.

Given all the good aspects of this adventure I was tempted to give it a 5, but the fact that there are some flaws here, and that I did a fair amount of work to make it fly this well, I'm giving it a 4. It's well worth running. Hope WotC makes a few more like this one.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

This is the 4th adventure in the WoTC Adventure Path series which is designed to bring your characters along from 7th level to an ending point of about 9th to 10th, depending on your party size.

Let me get down to the meat and potatoes of the adventure and why I gave it a great rating of "4". The adventure takes a group of players to a small starving cursed thorp called Ossington. The village is small and filled with peasents who are hungry, distraught, and being lead or protected by a noble group of older retired adventurers. The town seems to be plagued two fold from an undead spirit rider (kind of the headless horseman type) and a reckless blood thirsty would be cult of elves bent on death, murder, and assassination through guerilla warfare. Evil elves and undead riders, wow, what an adventure and oh how the party will dig right into battle defending the poor helpless town and its aging retired heroes.

Zing (the line goes out), Splash (hook in mouth), Yank (the fish in caught)!

Thats right, the story is a set up to play evil against good and have the good guys (your party) be tricked into fighting the good fight for the wrong side. It is done very easily and very well. The idea, story plot itself, NPC's, and the great twists / misdirections are worth a rating of "5" alone as an adventure! But, the adventure as you bought it has all kinds of drags, un-fleshed out storylines / NPC's, and holes that need more filler than a condemned building. I rate the adventure beyond the storyline / plot as a "3". Hence the overall rating I gave this adventure was a "4".

The things I liked about this adventure, beyond the story, was that it had a little bit of everyting for everyone. You want some melee well then you will have plenty of that in the encounters with the Horseman, the forect encounters with the fey, the barrow of the undead warlord, and at the climactic ending encounter with the villains (you could be battling an entire village if all went wrong)! If you want roleplaying encounters then you have come to the right adventure for sure. Decpetion runs rampant with the multiple encounters with the horseman, the fey, and the villains themselves. Tully, Dyson, Henwen, and the Cukoo make for strange and very interesting NPC's and later on, dynamic and sinister villain types. The encounter with the undead warlord in his barrow could be again, very interesting for roleplaying purposes. If your lucky like I was, half your party will be elves and how will they feel in character trying to hunt down their own and believe that the elves are going around murdering people in broad daylight? If you are looking for a dungeon crawl, look no further into the delves of the warlords tomb. That place was a maze like barrow filled with undead, traps, confusing corridors, and a boss type undead knight who really can cause the party some problems in the end. This adventure even had some interesting morality pleas in that the party must admit they screwed up at some point and then figure out what is the best thing to do in the end to make things right. I really liked the flexability and the variety of encounters and twists to this entire adventure.

The things I disliked about the adventure is the true hollowness of the meat of the premade adventure. Maps . . . there were a couple of small ones that didnt really help or inspire at all. Art . . . what art, you mean the cover, oh that art? NPC's . . . when they flush out an old farmer (Tarbee) and his make believe daughter (Tanasha Lu) as much as the four main villains, you know there is some thing lacking in the developers attention to detail, enough said on that. The encouters themselves were the most unsatisfying. I found myself having weekly (we play once a wekk for about 8 hours a session) having to add encounters, create new areas, and spice up the battles here and there. I added a wandering and hungry Owlbear to farmer Tarbee's barn. I added an encounter with a small pack of orcs, fleeing from the horseman before the players even encountered the horseman. I added a small pack of Dire Wolves that had also become unsettled from lack of food in the woods to the forest encounters. Etc. Overall, the adventure gives you a neat story, some interesting characters, a few cool ideas for encounters and an outlide or time frame to run them in until the players figure out what is really going on. But 3 random forest encounter tables with encounters like a pixie harassing the party and an encounter where the party comes across a skeleton is hardly satisfying to a group of 7 people trying to figure out a mystery over a session of DnD. The warlords tomb is very well thought out but is really just one large encounter. If the adventure would have been prepacked with a half dozen such large encounters instead of repeated themes (forest encounter tables and several horseman encounters) then it would have been much more filling and less work for the DM. Im not lazy mind you, but when I pay for premade stories, I am paying for more of my time running the game, not creating and filling the game with encounters.

Overall this was a very fun, but very short, adventure my players enjoyed. The mystery and roleplaying were well thought out and showcased in this adventure. It was more work for me than I first thought when I bought the adventure (same as the SPeaker in Dreams was) and this was a little bit of a let down. I wish some of the developers looked at Monte Cook's Return of the Temple of Elemental Evil to see what a DM wants to buy when he pays for a premade adventure (story, tons of encounters, villains, NPC's, art, magic, etC), who cares what the price is. Time is money! I am looking forward to the next adventure, the Heart of Night Fang Spire, and I will review this once my party finishes that product as well! Hope this review helped, thanks as always for reading!

Arreon, Lord of the Dragon Slayers
Sean McDaniel