Tomb of Horrors, Demonomicron, and more @ Premiere FLGS

[M.L. Martin]

Is it just me, or do the bad guys in the 4e mythos seem way more important to the universe then the good guys?

This is not a criticism per se, just an observation!

I'd call this a recurring element of D&D, and it's a problem in creative endeavors in general: making Evil interesting and attractive is often easier than doing the same with Goodness.

I do find the idea of 'evils older than the universe' compelling, and the idea that evil leads to self-destruction is nicely dramatized by the concept that it collapsed an entire plane.

 

[MacMathan]

Just a side note is there somewhere that Premiere FLGS are listed?

 

[ArcaneSpringboard]

I think it's any store that is running D&D Encounters.

 

[ArcaneSpringboard]

Some early observations from reading Tomb of Horrors.

It includes several options for making the adventure more 'deadly', though one of them, dropping the level of the PCs to 8th-9th instead of 10th, would just make the adventure longer without substantially increasing the lethality of the adventure.

The original Tomb's deadliness was from traps rather than monsters.

The adventure has a TON of new monsters (in fact, I'd say the vast majority of them are new), and as far as I could tell, the new ones use the MM3 monster damage.

However, there are some older monsters, including from MM1 and I'm fairly certain they use the original stats. I'm looking at you, Aspect of Orcus. ...

The first chapter appears to be fairly non-linear, at least judging from the map, and one of the first encounters involves a puzzle (with avoidance of an encounter if you succeed) that keys off of the poem given at the beginning of the dungeon.

 

[Shroomy]

I took a look at the Demonomicon today at our FLGS and it looks really cool, I can't wait to get it from Amazon (I did buy the two softcover releases from the game store though). From my cursory examination, there's more than just the obyriths brought back into 4e. For one, Malchanthet is listed as a demon lord, so the Demon Queen of Succubi is still around in some form (my guess, is that she was part of Graz'zt's invasion force and fled to found her own domain within the Abyss, though she'll need some new servitors and a new title). Second, is that there's a lot of old yugoloth lore incorporated into the Blood Rift section of the Abyss, which is ruled by a demon lord named Phraxas, who is pretty much Anthraxus in all but name (in one of the delves, there's even an archdegog, which was a high falutin' title in Anthraxus's cult).

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Some early observations from reading Tomb of Horrors.

Lots of insubstantial monsters, especially in the middle.

Which is, of course, thematic, but kind of irritating, especially since they tend to come in clumps.

That's my only complaint, it's pretty good, and I like how it links back to the original and Return modules.

Brad