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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quickbeam" data-source="post: 662068" data-attributes="member: 635">Reply to the Judge's analysisLet me begin with the good:I was thrilled that you enjoyed the political intrigue around which much of this entry centered.  It's the first time I've ever really crafted a tale with this much politics and in-fighting, but I thought it turned out well.  I was also encouraged by the fact that Faroun the Jackalwere was so well received -- using archaic game elements is not guaranteed to please the Judge, especially when they aren't even theme ingredients!!I was marginally concerned about my use of The Dolphin King element as a boat's name, but it just seemed too plausible conceptually to ignore.  It's hard to say when use of a theme item in this fashion is good and when it's contrived.  I couldn't have been happier with my use of the All Around Vision as an ingredient, especially given it's comical tie in to the gaze sleep attack.  And finally, I'm genuinely pleased that the wealth of detail and NPC options were applauded.The not so good:Let me begin by saying that your suggestion of using the misperceived effects of all around vision for Faroun as the Obvious snafu, never even occured to me.  It seems incredibly logical now...but I just overlooked this possibility.  I thoroughly agree that the story's length was a concern, but I just didn't see many ways to shorten things without losing some of the flavor or necessary background text.  Even you suggest that the Expatriate Crattus Irvee needed more development, or could have been used further <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />.Certainly goblins could have been used in lieu of orcs, and perhaps they even make more sense.  As I mentioned in my exposition, there were two snafus provided, but I'd agree that neither is particularly compelling.  They both fit the story well IMO, but don't so much in an additive sense.The main area of disagreement with the assessment of my entry is with respect to the Iron Golem.  Since it wasn't a theme ingredient, I won't lose much sleep over this, but I did want to reply.  I'm firmly of the opinion, that every so often PC's need to find themselves in situations they cannot overcome by might.  I agree that this foe is entirely too powerful for the party to defeat directly, but it could be bypassed in other ways...one of which was provided.  The DM does not have to use the breath weapon on the party; could fudge the saving throw DC; or choose to attack someone with a high Fortitude save.  This isn't a big deal, but I really felt it was important to have a potent guardian for the tomb, even moreso in that he wielded the Blade of Jaern which is too powerful an item for 4th-6th level characters.Thanks for the very thorough and fair analysis Incognito.  And I promise to avoid ALL future edits to my entry posts going forward, even if they are not content related.  Sorry for this obvious snafu on my part <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />.</blockquote>

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