DMFTodd's page

PC deaths 10 & 11:

Party tries to rest on the cleared second level. Yug, using the Locate Object to track the Chalice, finds the party. Party assasin sneaks up behind Yug invisisbly and begins concentrating for death attack. Unfortunately, Yug has True Seeing up. One Death Touch later and we have PC death 10 for Maure.

The battle with Kerzit was ended quickly with a very lucky Dismissal. That could have been a TPK.

Party stumbles onto Eli and his buddies. Paladin bravely rushes across room, grapples and pins Eli so he can't cast spells. Eli uses his Dimension Door (verbal only) and Paladin elects to go with him. Eli teleports to Kerzit's lair. Eli's pinned, can't get loose. Oh look, the DM says, "Suggestion only has a verbal component!" "Come now big Mr. strong paladin, let me go and finish me with your sword like a man!" Paladin fails will save. Paladin meekly beats on Eli to no effect due to Eli's stoneskin. Eli rips Paladin to shreds gloating all the while.

Meanwhile, rest of party is searching for where Eli could have gone. They stumble into the Green shield and the party's fighter becomes confused. Fighter manages to roll "7" 4 times in a row, attacking nearest party member.

So Paladin's down. Party is spell spent from having to subdue their own companion and heal the wounds he caused. Meanwhile, Eli is heading back to the Statuary...

Stayed tuned, should have deaths 12+ next session.

Holy Cr@P! I just read the latest ASEO post. Two whole paragraphs to say "I played D&D while in the military".

It's ironic that ASEO doesn't like Wil's tangential D&D columns but he doesn't mind doing it himself. Of course ASEO says Wil should be moved to the web which is were ASEO is doing it so myabe it's not overly ironic.

As for Wil's articles, I find them similar to a car wreck. I can't help but look at them.

There's E:Tools, PCGen, DM Genie, Roleplaying Master, assorted Excel spreadsheets, RedBlade, and others I'm probably forgetting.

I can't recommend any of them as I don't use them.

After getting the snot beat out of them by the golem in the gnome temple, party retreats to the cleared Tormorast's Hold to rest. Yug and what is left of her gnolls tracks them down by Locate Object on the Dryad Chalice. Party rogue invisibly sneaks behind Yug but she has true seeing up. One Slay Living later, the party rogue is dead.

That's only 1 death in 4 sessions or so. Plenty of very hard battles but no deaths lately. Players must be getting smarter.

Looks like they're headed for Kerzit's lair though. Should have more to report after that.

You could always allow the PCs to resurrect Sarcem. Sarcem's brush with death those has shaken his faith and he retires from the church thus leaving the Jenya story in place. That would make for some fun role-playing: Sarcem is in charge of the church but is too gun-shy to make any decisions. Anytime the PCs come to him he doesn't know what to do. PCs have to go to Jenya and get her to convince Sarcem. Sarcem eventually quits and let's Jenya take over, a broken shell of the man he used to be.

I have an online archive of adventures, not just Dungeon, at www.paladinpgm.com/wyrm. It has all of the Dungeons from the start of 3.0 on and is fully searchable. Anyone can add to the list of adventures there as well.

Found a snafu: The assasins in room 81 (or so) don't have any spells. They should.

Maure is definitely uber-deadly. That style of game won't fit for some groups. After the repeated slaughter of my players, I asked them if they wanted to continue and surprisingly they did. They've gone two sessions now with no deaths.

Care bear?

>> Human: Improved Unarmed Strike
1: Stunning Fist
3: Improved Familiar
6: Power attack
9: Improved sunder
12: forge ring
15: Quicken Spell

A wizard taking Improved Unarmed Strike at first level? That seems very, very unlikely. Eli didn't get his claws until much later in his career. Granted, it makes him more powerful but I think this is min-maxed too much.

Ditto Stunning Fist, Power Attack and Improved Sunder (assuming he didn't have the claws by 9th level).

(And the claws are natural weapons, so why does he even need IUS? Qualifying for something else?)

Maybe I'm blind, but I don't see anyway in the Maure Castle adventure to defeat the ID core. How do the PCs make the ID core go away?

Going through Maure Castle I had a player that died 2 sessions in a row. Party encounters evil, nasty statue and is deciding how they want to invesigate. Player that has died twice in a row asks: "Do we really need to know EXACTLY how this statue is going to kill us? Can't we just say that it's bad and leave it alone?"

Resurrection doesn't work either. From the 3.5 SRD: "Constructs, elementals, outsiders, and undead creatures can’t be resurrected."

True Resurrection does: "You can revive someone killed by a death effect or someone who has been turned into an undead creature and then destroyed. "

It already exists (I wrote it). You'll find it here: www.paladinpgm.com/wyrm

It's an online searchable database of adventures, not just Dungeon. Though you can search it for just Dungeon adventures. Anybody can enter adventures into it.

I guess that would seem reasonable for a 15th-level adventure,

Maure Castle is "an adventure for 4 12th level PCs", bottom of page 13. It's not a 15th level adventure.

Just replying to others:

3 saves for 3 symbols? Evil, evil, evil. I didn't think of that.

Iron Golem: My players saw the glowing red eyes and left it alone.

Crushing Magic Room: PCs detected magic and saw the strong compulsion. Decided not to go in.

PC deaths 8 and 9 last session.

Investigating Rel's chambers, Rel alerts Eli, Eli sends a message to Yag to go deal with these troublemakers once and for all.

Yag and 6 Claws jump the party. Wild battle ensues, Yag uses her Word of Recall to retreat once again. PCs, thinking that the wounded Yag might be nearby, charge down the stairs to try and find her. They run right into the two Claws of Yenghou chambers.

Already wounded and somewhat spellspent from the previous battle; the 12 Claws are too much for the party. Paladin and Wizard die (4th death for wiz, has died now 3 sessions in a row, player decides to retire this character). Party rogue knocked to -9 hit points twice.

Note to Other DMs: A starting level of 12th is probably too low for this advetnure. I'd consider 13th or maybe 14th.

5 PCs deaths (in 2 different combats) in one 4 hour session. A new record for me.

Party Monk finds the Black Hand and contacts Eli. Eli pretends to be a little elven girl and tells the Monk that he's trapped behind the tapestry. Monk "bolts" to the tapestry to free the elf. This triggers the death symbol, monk dies (#2 death for Maure).

Rest of the party catches up and finds the dead Monk (I ruled that the Symbol was no longer active since the tapestry was covering it again). The PCs don't know what happened. Wizard says "maybe it was something behind the tapestry?". Zap, Wizard dies (PC death #3 for Maure, 2nd of the night). Everyone else saves. They leave the castle to get the two PCs raised. This takes 5 days.

Yug, reanimates the Huge Tyrg and stations a Seeker guard downstairs as well. PCs return, thinking that this area has been cleared, and are alarmed to find the Tyrg back to life. Monk and Paladin are stunned by the howl. Seeker guard runs out next to tapestry, Wizard fireballs Seeker but does not drop him. Seeker rips down tapestry, screaming "For Kerzit!", triggering all 3 Symbols. Wizard dies (3rd death in two sessions for this PC), Tyrg dies, Monk dies (2nd death in one session), Cleric/Templar dies (only had 50 hit points due to Tyrg attack, 5th death this session, 6th death for Maure), Fighter survives due to high hit points, Cleric/Fighter survives only because he is out of range.

6 PC deaths so far in Maure.

Best quote from my players for Maure: PCs are discussing the statue of Malchthent, the Succubi goddess. The Wizard (who has died twice in 2 sessions at this point), says "Do we really need to know EXACTLY how this evil statue is going to kill us? Isn't it enough to know it's a BAD statue and just leave it at that?"

Lazy me, I'm not going to go look up the issue numbers:

Old Man Katan and the Mushroom Band: Wackiness

Song of the Fens: Greatest plot twist ever - the girl's true love turns out to be a troll.

Mud Sorceror's Tomb

Lots of others I can't think of right now.

Scratch the first PC.

Meeting up with Yug-Anarch, the PCs bunched up into a nice group so Yug dropped a Flamestrike on them. After a failed save, the low hit point Wizard was a crispy piece of charcoal. Adding insult to injury, Yug escaped with her Word of Recall via a good roll on a defensive casting concentration check.

The PCs had to leave for 2 days to get the wizard raised. With the castle alerted, Yug has retreated to Kerzit's Fane to wait with her Claws. Seeker guards set up a watch post on the second level waiting for the PCs to come back. The PCs did return and one of the guards managed to flee and warn the others. So the Seeker guard leader, a commander, and 6 seeker guards are looking for the PCs.

Yug has been warned as well so she and her Claws will come a-looking for the PCs as well. Since they have the chalice, they'll be easy to find.

If you're a weenie who's going to read the adventure before playing it, then sealed pages aren't really going to stop you so why should Dungeon bother?

I think Myaruk is screwed. I don't see a way out.

The articles in the back are a definite improvement for Dungeon. I now sit down and look forward to reading Dungeon. While Dungeon has greatly improved, I still have 2 big gripes:

#1: The missing Detect Evil, Detect Magic info

#2: The artwork. It's cartoonish. D&D is not a cartoonish game. Look at the intro picture for Raiders of the Black Ice. The sled made out of bones is a cool concept but the actual art makes it look like a McDonald's Happy Meal toy. Look at the picture of the Fortress of Ice. If I show that to my players I'm going to get a big "Oh, OK, we have to go investigate the generic, bluish blob of a building." It's not the least bit evocative.

Now go look at the cover of #100 (the Gith) or #101 (The Slaad Lord). That's good art. If you show those to your players they wet there pants - "Holy crap, we have to fight that?!" That's what Dungeon should be aiming for - art that makes the players say "holy crap".

I have web space and the desire to create a central repository for all the fan created material dealing with the adventure path. I'll try and get it up this weekend. I'll cruise through all the threads, grab what I can, and put it on the web.

If anybody has material to contribute, you can send it to me directly at paladin @ wispertel DOT net.

The Wyrm's Hoard (www.paladinpgm.com/wyrm) has a free, searchable database of adventures. It has all of the 3.x adventures from all Dungeons plus other stuff. Search their for the levels you are interested in.

It's a DM's dream

Exactly, a DM's dream. And this is a magazine for DMs.

If the old format took to much space, I'd rather see a format that took less space rather than dropping the whole thing. List only the 2 strongest magic auras per NPC, don't list redundant listen checks for every area. I like the idea of a detection section. Maybe something like:
Detects: Priest (Evil: Strong, Weapon: Strong Enhancement, Amulet: Faint Transmutation); Assasin (Spot DC12, Dagger: Strong Enhancement, Evil: Strong), Loud Croaking (Listen DC8).

Heck, since it's fairly standard, the whole thing could be abbreviated as well:
Detects: Priest (E:Strong, Weapon:SEnh, Amulet:FTra); Assasin (Spot12, Dagger:SEnh, E:S), Loud Croaking (Listen8).

Or, if need be, a web enhancement for the adventure could work.

What happened to the short blurb at the start of an encounter that showed what detected as magical, what detect evil would see, and what the players could hear? Those were very, very handy.

All of the artwork. I have scanner and generally do scan and print things like a monsters picture. My scanner only does square selections though. It would be nice to have a picture of a monster that doesn't have the text from the adventure that butts up against it.

I'm getting ready to run Maure Castle for my group. Any experiences or suggestions from those who have run it already?