Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="77IM" data-source="post: 7550272" data-attributes="member: 12377">Thanks for the feedback! I guess I will need a spell checker. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" />The XP awards are mostly based on creature XP values (e.g. the room with 6 kobolds is worth 150 XP because those guys are 25 XP a piece) with a few adjustments for circumstances. I put these in the adventure because a) it's a decent indicator to the DM of how difficult an encounter might be (for example, the workshop is 300 XP, triple that of any other encounter) and b) I hate doing XP math, especially right in the middle of game play, so I really wish all published adventures listed the XP with each encounter. In total the adventure is worth 1,200 XP, which, divided by 4 characters, should get them exactly to 2nd level, which seems in line with the DMG sessions-per-level guidelines. The quest XP rewards listed at the beginning are based on Hard and Easy encounters, respectively. (I don't necessarily agree with all of the DMG's guidelines on XP but in this case they produced results that feel "about right" to me.)The Steam Dragon is, by the numbers, CR 2, but it will absolutely devastate a 1st-level party UNLESS they take advantage of the Weak Points feature. Beheading the beast is almost an instant-win because it becomes blinded and deafened, can no longer bite or multiattack or use its breath weapon. Exposing the pilot (either by chipping away at the torso or by hopping up top and opening the hatch as described under Cockpit) is also a great move since he only has 11 hit points. Treating the dragon as a high-AC, low-HP creature drops its CR down to 1. My goal here is to make an encounter that is a) exciting, dramatic, and dynamic and b) encourage players to use creative tactics early-on so that they continue to try stuff like this at later levels. (I'm the kind of DM who rewards people for attempting "called shots" and similar maneuvers.)</blockquote>

Verification