Trainz, or anyone else know how progress on CD 3 is going?
- Thread starter jester47
- Start date
tarchon
First Post
Note - CD3 spoilers! (such as they are)
OK, CD3 contributors: Some rooms have undergone some changes beyond grammar and math, which I will now post so that if someone has a strong objection, it can be noted. If someone has a strong objection and a better suggestion, that may be acted upon. Do it soon though.
If I don't list it, there probably aren't any major changes, but don't be surprised if the formatting and language have been reworked extensively throughout.
Room 1 - the zombies are now listed by sex and species, with an eye to making them look like a typical adventuring party.
Room 3 - the zombies are now bugbear zombies, since they already had the stats of bugbear zombies and human zombies are too wimpy.
Room 4 - the smoke trap has been changed to a spot/listen encounter mechanic since the mephits actually activate it.
Room 5 - the Caretaker now has keys for various rooms and a sustaining spoon.
Room 6 - the Large spider is now an animated object, the exoskeletal corpse of a Medium spider - this is to explain away the ecology problem and to tweak the issue of a 10 ft wide monster in a 25 ft. room. The read-aloud also now describes what an ettercap looks like, in an OGL compatible way.
Room 7 - Cookie's skills changed to match his class, smokehole added to ceiling to make it more kitchen-like and to explain how he gets things in and out of the crypt. Also added a (slimy) cauldron and small open hearth under the smokehole.
Room 8 - Sir Merinol now definitely has 1 negative level from the sword.
Room 9 - big changes in the backstory, but the actual encounter is mostly the same.
"Encounter (EL 6): This room’s floor, unlike the rest of the crypt, has no paving stone laid over it. Four zombie gravediggers occupied this room until recently, when a pair of ferocious and invisible plant monsters crawled their way up from below through the loose dirt, perhaps following the tunnels of a giant badger or some other large burrowing creature. The cultists had ordered the zombies to dig graves here in the remote past, and, left by themselves, they labored on, digging grave after grave that inevitably filled with the dirt from the next excavation, until the recent arrival of the phantom fungi. These intruders quickly devoured the zombies in their entirety, save for the blood absorbed into the dirt. A Search check (DC 30) anywhere in the room reveals that there are traces of blood in the dirt and along the edges of the walls. There are also fragments of old bones and clothing from the zombies and bodies that the zombies had unwittingly exhumed and inhumed a thousand times over but little else. After eating the zombies, the first of the phantom fungi died of a necromantic disease, perhaps contracted from its recent meal of unholy animated flesh. This disease killed and raised the fungus as a ghostly parasite, the other barely staving off a similar fate. The sickly but still-living fungus waits impatiently for something to come to it, hoping to avoid slow and painful starvation."
The human workmen obviously didn't work so well in the current sealed form of the dungeon, and I wanted to make the burrowing fungi sound more plausible.
Room 11 - magic mouth is now permanent and has stats for detect/disable as a trap.
Several doors have been spiced up and detailed a bit, but you'll have to get the PDF for that.
OK, CD3 contributors: Some rooms have undergone some changes beyond grammar and math, which I will now post so that if someone has a strong objection, it can be noted. If someone has a strong objection and a better suggestion, that may be acted upon. Do it soon though.
If I don't list it, there probably aren't any major changes, but don't be surprised if the formatting and language have been reworked extensively throughout.
Room 1 - the zombies are now listed by sex and species, with an eye to making them look like a typical adventuring party.
Room 3 - the zombies are now bugbear zombies, since they already had the stats of bugbear zombies and human zombies are too wimpy.
Room 4 - the smoke trap has been changed to a spot/listen encounter mechanic since the mephits actually activate it.
Room 5 - the Caretaker now has keys for various rooms and a sustaining spoon.
Room 6 - the Large spider is now an animated object, the exoskeletal corpse of a Medium spider - this is to explain away the ecology problem and to tweak the issue of a 10 ft wide monster in a 25 ft. room. The read-aloud also now describes what an ettercap looks like, in an OGL compatible way.
Room 7 - Cookie's skills changed to match his class, smokehole added to ceiling to make it more kitchen-like and to explain how he gets things in and out of the crypt. Also added a (slimy) cauldron and small open hearth under the smokehole.
Room 8 - Sir Merinol now definitely has 1 negative level from the sword.
Room 9 - big changes in the backstory, but the actual encounter is mostly the same.
"Encounter (EL 6): This room’s floor, unlike the rest of the crypt, has no paving stone laid over it. Four zombie gravediggers occupied this room until recently, when a pair of ferocious and invisible plant monsters crawled their way up from below through the loose dirt, perhaps following the tunnels of a giant badger or some other large burrowing creature. The cultists had ordered the zombies to dig graves here in the remote past, and, left by themselves, they labored on, digging grave after grave that inevitably filled with the dirt from the next excavation, until the recent arrival of the phantom fungi. These intruders quickly devoured the zombies in their entirety, save for the blood absorbed into the dirt. A Search check (DC 30) anywhere in the room reveals that there are traces of blood in the dirt and along the edges of the walls. There are also fragments of old bones and clothing from the zombies and bodies that the zombies had unwittingly exhumed and inhumed a thousand times over but little else. After eating the zombies, the first of the phantom fungi died of a necromantic disease, perhaps contracted from its recent meal of unholy animated flesh. This disease killed and raised the fungus as a ghostly parasite, the other barely staving off a similar fate. The sickly but still-living fungus waits impatiently for something to come to it, hoping to avoid slow and painful starvation."
The human workmen obviously didn't work so well in the current sealed form of the dungeon, and I wanted to make the burrowing fungi sound more plausible.
Room 11 - magic mouth is now permanent and has stats for detect/disable as a trap.
Several doors have been spiced up and detailed a bit, but you'll have to get the PDF for that.
Sounds good overall. Two questions:
If the Caretaker has a sustaining spoon, he wouldn't need Cookie though. Note that I specifically tried to work in a link between the two here, as this interaction between Leopold and myself shows:tarchon said:
Conaill said:The Caretaker in #5 needs to eat. I made him alive just so Cookie would have a customer.Leopold said:And I made sure he has Purify Food and Drink in his list of prepared spells!
I think Room 9 was probably the one that was hardest to fit within the overall dungeon, and I do like the change in backstory. However... how would the party *ever* find out about that backstory? It's all well and good to satisfy the DM's curiosity, but it's the *players* we're trying to entertain here...tarchon said:
tarchon
First Post
I didn't know about that exchange, but the current dungeon chronology has Cookie arriving long after the Caretaker, so I gave him the spoon to fill in that gap. I had noticed the note linking the two, so I expanded it to explain that the Caretaker especially appreciated Cookie's arrival after centuries of sustaining-spoon gruel. If you would prefer I remove it, the logic gap is small enough that I can be happy letting it go.Conaill said:
Yes, I noticed that as well. I've mainly tinkered with backstory that was already there to make it more consistent. I didn't think most of it was terribly needed, although I have also elaborated the read-aloud to include empty open graves and make it clear that the earth is very thoroughly turned. It's enough detail that thinking players should at least find the whole thing very peculiar, even if they never know precisely how it got to be that way.Conaill said:
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