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I voted for #5, but that doesn't quite cover my position. I was really looking forward to 4e, but the leaks of the past few days have really soured me. Not enough that I'll say no for sure, but more than enough to kill my earlier enthusiasm.
The hook has issues, but after that this entry reads like a tall-tale made up on the spot by a eight-year-old in desperate need of a ritalin fix. No doubt you've wowed me every step of this contest, and I am convinced that you both are an RPG Superstar and will have many successful published modules to your credit but I suspect it will likely be because of your outstanding overall participation, not because you win.
Boomer, I seriously want to lock you in a closet somewhere with your favorite variety of energy drink on tap, an endless supply of sugar cookies and a box full of mini-cassettes for you to dictate whatever madness springs to your mind while I keep you trapped in a mild state of sensory deprivation. However, at the end of the day I think I'd still want someone else to do the actual write-up so that even the relatively poor DMs of the world can make sense of it all.
I'd wish you luck, but I honestly don't think you'll need it.
The initial hook is awesome and very mythic in tone, but I'm having a hard time seeing why the players are getting involved. From the initial description this sounds like something out of an 8th level party's league.
Getting into the meat of the adventure I am rather underwhelmed. You hit all the big desert adventure tropes but there is also a good deal of seemingly pointless busywork involved, complete with undead-filled-tower of a guy who was probably living here just a week ago, which for some reason seems to suffer from load-bearing-boss syndrome. I kinda feel like this would have played out better if the PC's were given the option of which piece to go after next after acquiring the first.
It also hurts that the entire adventure had me constantly fighting off a serious case of deja vu for Diablo 2's second act. It had a desert themed fetch megaquest about searching multiple locations to find and reassemble a magic staff (which also functioned separately as magic items) in a race against extraplanar evil, including at one point facing off with a cult that blacks out the sun.
Hmm... high level is a big turn-off for me since I really start to lose interest in the system after 12th or so and the balance of power gets unruly. That said, it feels like you've done a good job of establishing some barriers to keep the PCs from running rampant over your intended mystery plot, something which can be tricky even at low levels sometimes.
There's a lot of stuff going on here, but I get the feeling that much of it will never actually come to light. I also question if some of my players will be able to sit still long enough to get through the tightly-packed set of social scenes in the middle of the adventure.
This is quality work, but it's not something I would run or be particularly excited about playing through.
Wow! This is just an amazing mish-mash of cool stuff. Epic (Clash of the Titans and Ring of the Nibelung), yet videogame-ish (Shadow of the Colossus, the first God of War) at the same time... and the doomed king has a sort of fantasy riff off of Iron Man for good measure!
This is the first entry I've read and I've got to say you've set a -very- high bar for your competition. Well done, Christine!
Well, that and I've been voting strategically the entire contest (including a few last-minute changes to try and get my second-tier picks in). Now that it won't be possible I don't personally see much value in keeping a poll going.
Call me a gigantic hypocrite if you must, but I'm of the opinion that for the last round we shouldn't reveal our votes. With the all-or-nothing nature of this last round it just doesn't seem right.
ericthecleric wrote: To help your scoreboards, Nem-Z, I voted Chase and that's it. No mystery second vote used. I know, but I'm leaving it open for you if you change your mind.
Also, before posting each updated count I double check my results by adding up the total votes (including floaters), dividing it by number of votes/person that round, and comparing it to my running count of total respondents.
Page 2... time for a poll update.
The top three look to be more or less settled, (with a bit of shoving and bickering for #2) but the battle for 4th is still going strong.
EXIT POLLS wrote: 38 Total Respondents
##########
28 Chase on Charred Ground
18 Monkey Goblins Attack!
15 Impartial Tribunal
~~~~~~~~~~
05 Vale of Rohthang's Rest
05 A Prayer for the Fallen
~~~~~~~~~~
01 A Precarious Shrine
Bookeeping wrote: 04 Total Floaters
##########
ericthecleric (chase/???)
Clandestine (chase/???)
magdalena thiriet (vale/???)
[Propeliea's wife] (chase/???)
The battle continues and both ties are shattered!
It's very stormy at the bottom though, and the critical 4th place spot is in very rough contention.
EXIT POLLS wrote: 30 Total Respondents
##########
23 Chase on Charred Ground
14 Monkey Goblins Attack!
11 Impartial Tribunal
04 Vale of Rohthang's Rest
~~~~~~~~~~
03 A Prayer for the Fallen
01 A Precarious Shrine
Bookeeping wrote: 04 Total Floaters
##########
ericthecleric (chase/???)
Clandestine (chase/???)
WormysQueue (chase/???)
magdalena thiriet (vale/???)
It looks like Christine has basically invited the rest of the field to eat her (volcanic) dust.
As for everybody else, this could be a real slugfest all the way to the finish line. Exciting stuff!
EXIT POLLS wrote: 22 Total Respondents
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20 Chase on Charred Ground
09 Impartial Tribunal
09 Monkey Goblins Attack!
~~~~~~~~~~
01 Vale of Rohthang's Rest
01 A Precarious Shrine
01 A Prayer for the Fallen
~~~~~~~~~~
Bookeeping wrote: 03 Total Floaters
##########
ericthecleric (chase/???)
Clandestine (chase/???)
WormysQueue (chase/???)
Looks like it's that time again, folks!
I can't resist stirring up trouble at the bottom of the list so my votes once again go to a couple of the underdogs: Joe and Jason.
EXIT POLLS wrote: 10 Total Respondents
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08 Chase on Charred Ground
05 Impartial Tribunal
04 Monkey Goblins Attack!
~~~~~~~~~~
01 Vale of Rohthang's Rest
01 A Precarious Shrine
~~~~~~~~~~
00 A Prayer for the Fallen
Bookeeping wrote: 01 Total Floaters
##########
01 ericthecleric
Your map is busy as all hell and missing some vital info. I'm not particularly happy with the design of the seating area, as the stairs seems awkwardly placed. It would make more sense to me if they branched off from the ramp area, creating a choice for the PCs right off the bat. I also would prefer a different arrangement for the columns, likely adding a fourth one and setting them up in a square pattern so as to no block the judge's view of any of the witness stands.
It's very telling that my only complaints are in the aesthetic department, though. Great stuff!
Wow, this is the design equivalent of landing a crit with a scythe.
I love just about everything here except the map, specifically the trees.
Surely they don't grow only huge leaves at perfectly perpendicular angles? A clear case of letting the graph paper control the map rather than simply overlaying it. A more complicated arrangement including branches and the ability to climb between multiple levels at different heights, possibly all contained within a single tree rather than three of them, would have really added a lot of tactical possibilities.
Great map, and great gimmick right off the bat. Boy do I wish you'd found an easier way to track the ship's list than asking for weight, though. I can't recall a single time I've ever run or played in that was more than half-hearted in tracking encumbrance and the like. I also don't get a solid feeling of just how severe the slope here is, and kind of wish you'd subdivided the area of the ship into 4 zones to better represent the realistic effects of being at a greater distance from the fulcrum point. If the water is shallow enough that the ship became grounded in the first place I'm somewhat skeptical that there is actually room for it to fully submerge.
After all this setup its just a pack of utterly forgettable goblins? Meh.
I'm not sure why the players are here or why they should care, however... there just isn't much in the way of motivation. Someone earlier had a comment about goblin archers attacking the PCs earlier, and I could buy that as a reason to investigate this interesting location while just passing by.
I like the location enough to use it, but not with the current bland occupants and not unless I had a way to get the players to care about it.
Opening text is a bit overdone, using some words I'm unfamiliar with and a string of descriptors that don't really gel into an image for me.
It would have been a good idea to establish right off the bat just what the context of this encounter is. It takes far too long for me to learn just what the heck is going on, why the PC's should care or even be here, and I never get a feeling of why the shroud is needed or who the heck this dude is anyway.
The map is pretty cool (NPI), with a little variety of terrain but overall a little empty. I expect putting a few holes in the ice, however, will spice that up in a hurry... though why aren't the locations of the holes-to-be marked? And just how is a strong wind getting down into this 30' deep gorge, anyway? Howling above the gorge I can buy but down on the surface, not so much.
Creature mix seems a bit too wild and unconnected. I like both halves of the encounter, but they just don't mix well.
Overall I could take or leave it.
The map is confusing as all hell... from the description I believe that it shows two rooms and the remainder of the ziggurat, but if so this thing is far from impressive in size. Cramped quarters is doable, but 8 townsfolk is just too many to keep track of. Overall the map is not very inspiring, though the additional possibilities created by the holy water and statue help a little.
What spell is being used here, and how does it work? Why do the priests change but the commoners and PCs are immune? It seems like the little pinch of ash was actually meant to protect them from the spell's effects, but that makes no sense to me at all.
Tying the death toll to the effects of the environmental changes was a nice touch, though I think there are too many townsfolk just lying around for easy kills.
I don't especially like this one, but it has its moments.
I believe Daigle meant "American Idol"
I was pulling for ya but I guess it just wasn't meant to be.
propeliea wrote: We've been close, but never exact. Worse (or better?), we may very well be due for a big surprise. ...except this time if you take the final two voters into account we were dead-on.
Just saying.
Nem-Z wrote: Final totals?
The tie at the top is settled but the 6th-place battle is unrelenting! At this point I think it's still entirely open which of the contestants will be left behind. Good luck to everyone still slugging it out down in the trenches!
EXIT POLLS wrote: 40 Total Respondents
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29 In the Bleak Midwinter
28 The Darkblight
25 Mind the Machine
13 Born of Lightning
10 Kakuen-Taka, The Hunger that Moves
~~~~~~~~~~
06 The Ooze Imperium
06 Savagery, Sorrow and Shame
~~~~~~~~~~
02 Scared to Undeath
Bookeeping wrote: 01 Total Floaters
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01 Andriale (machine, undeath, ???)
New Page? New update!
The last few votes have really made things interesting, creating both a 3-way tie for first place and a savage battle for the crucial #6 spot!
EXIT POLLS wrote: 30 Total Respondents
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21 The Darkblight
21 Mind the Machine
21 In the Bleak Midwinter
09 Born of Lightning
06 The Ooze Imperium
~~~~~~~~~~
05 Kakuen-Taka, The Hunger that Moves
05 Savagery, Sorrow and Shame
~~~~~~~~~~
01 Scared to Undeath
Bookeeping wrote: 01 Total Floaters
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01 Andriale (machine, undeath, ???)
Looks like it's about time to update!
There's been a little jockeying for the pole position but there seems to be a very clear distinction between the top three and everyone else.
EXIT POLLS wrote: 26 Total Respondents
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19 The Darkblight
18 Mind the Machine
17 In the Bleak Midwinter
08 Born of Lightning
05 Kakuen-Taka, The Hunger that Moves
05 The Ooze Imperium
~~~~~~~~~~
04 Savagery, Sorrow and Shame
01 Scared to Undeath
Bookeeping wrote: 01 Total Floaters
##########
01 Andriale (machine, undeath, ???)
After some thought my 3 votes this round went to:
Hunger
Ooze
Savagery
EXIT POLLS wrote: 21 Total Respondents
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15 Mind the Machine
15 In the Bleak Midwinter
13 The Darkblight
05 Born of Lightning
05 Kakuen-Taka, The Hunger that Moves
04 The Ooze Imperium
~~~~~~~~~~
03 Savagery, Sorrow and Shame
01 Scared to Undeath
You can safely ignore everything below here. I just finally got tired of fighting with the reply button and it's habit of omitting spoiler text.
Bookeeping wrote: 02 Total Floaters
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01 Andriale (machine, undeath, ???)
01 Gbonehead (machine, hunger, ???)
Alright, finally somebody got around to doing an 'alien' vibe connection between the 3 monsters (first thing that sprang to my mind)! But it's all about fey? And undead too? Ugh, how many of those two creature types do I have to see today, people?
False start: 5 yard penalty, repeat 4th down.
A cool idea gone -way- overboard... and a third ooze obviously tacked-on just to fill the 3 creature requirement. This entry could benefit greatly from some well-considered consolodation of powers and simply dropping a few of them at the curb.
You also seriously dropped the ball on the electric ooze. If you had spent half the creativity on it that you quite frankly wasted on the brain oozes you would have had a much stronger shot at advancing.
Umm... me too?
Goblin/stirge hybrid thingies are awesome. The rest, not so much.
Interesting idea, poor execution. Well, okay, the drowning one is nifty, but the other two are inherently very blah-ish.
The falling one for example... a prone brownish humanoid figure? That's it? Imagine how much better this could have been with a little more shock value added:
"It manifests as a wide bloodstain and a incorporeal pile of unidentifiably shattered remains. On its turn the creature levitates up to 10' off the ground and reforms into the shape it had in life, flailing madly in abject horror at it's situation as if falling rather than rising. It then crashes back down to earth in a target square within its movement range and explodes on contact in a shower of gore, thus reverting to its inert state. It prefers to land in squares that are occupied, using its incorporeal touch attack on this unfortunate target as it comes thundering down upon its victim."
Let's see... a somewhat ho-hum undead template that fills a glaring void, an interesting golem with quirky spell interactions, and the strangest Fae I've ever seen put to paper.
Good use of theme overall, but I'm not entirely sold.
I've only read three of them so far, so it will be a while before I chime in.
With all due respect to A Grave Man, if presidential primary elections can have polls that are as completely off-base as the NH ones were, why are you concerned with our little exercise here?
EXIT POLLS wrote: 07 Total Respondents
03 Total Floaters
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05 Mind the Machine
05 The Darkblight
04 In the Bleak Midwinter
02 Born of Lightning
01 Kakuen-Taka, The Hunger that Moves
01 Savagery, Sorrow and Shame
~~~~~~~~~~
00 Scared to Undeath
00 The Ooze Imperium
I'm not a big fan of this, but then I don't care much for Fey in general or for real-world mythology (especially the woefully overused pandora's box riff) popping up in my games.
The Ooze is interesting, but even with you 'encounters' section I'm finding it hard to picture it every actually attracting enough attention from my players to get them to actually encounter it.
The whole Time I'm reading this I can't help but picture a group of the little bobble-head guys from "Princess Mononoke" gone horribly wrong.
The little guys I like, the wing-things i like, but the last one feels very 'meh' to me. I would have preferred it if you had made the mansions as a more distinctive undead template and crunched them out instead.
COMPLEXITY GOLEM - love the flavor, hate the mechanics. It's just too darned powerful for that CR and the combination of immunities and incorporeal nature means that the average party may have no way to deal any significant damage to the thing.
DUNGEON CORE - awesome "Metroid" feel to this thing (and by that I mean the original 8-bit game). I can see it being a challenging encounter in person by placing it in a room with some reusable traps that the brain can attempt to juggle the characters into repeatedly. Lava/acid pits + conveyor belt floors, area and line spell effects that can be triggered in sequence, moving partitions that control the flow of the battlefield... lots of possibilities for a very memorable encounter.
I'd also like to add that it makes -perfect- sense for someone to have two (or more) Dungeon Cores in proximity to each other if the actual dungeon is a large enough complex that just using one would leave large portions out of it's effective range.
DREAM DISTILLED - I feel there's a disconnect between the dreamy nature of the template and the various powers that it can impart (well, except for the nightmare one). Very "Sandman"-ish idea but you didn't sell me on it.
Fresh update for page 2
It appears the top 8 are still very solid, though there is a little bit of jostling taking place this time.
EXIT POLLS wrote:
33 Total Respondents
12 Floaters
~~~~~~~~~~~
21 Arthelia
15 Abzirael
15 Kotalya
12 Avinash
11 Onuyaka
10 Seskadrin
10 Voeren
08 Hetty
~~~~~~~~~~~
06 Durgal
03 Fleshstripping
03 Torquil
02 Kalyani
02 Mwana
01 Haunter
01 Limro
00 Elsie
Mactaka wrote: maybe its an SRD thing? but then again you used Asmodeus.
Asmodeus is from real world mythology and thus open to anybody to use.
Laserray wrote: The technique of voting for submissions you don't think are the best - if commonly used by voters - will affect the validity of the results.
Since I intend to buy products created by the winner, I recommend that people vote for their favorite entries, period.
Yeah, I'm well aware of that. I also don't expect many people to follow my strategy so I'm comfortable sticking to it anyway, especially since we have reports that last round's winners and losers were only separated by a thin margin.
And, well... to be perfectly honest I likely won't be buying what the winner creates anyway since I never use prearranged adventures. I like designing new content and tinkering with rules too much to 'outsource' that part of my gaming experience.
Updated to include my picks (leaving off my 3 absolute favorites who are already at the top of the chart):
Durgal
Kotalya
Seskadrin
Voeren
...and that's the extent of my attempts at 'gaming the system' this time. I've been very underwhelmed this round and don't feel particularly motivated to try and save many of the underdogs.
EXIT POLLS wrote:
29 Total Respondents
09 Floaters
~~~~~~~~~~~
18 Arthelia
14 Abzirael
12 Avinash
12 Kotalya
10 Onuyaka
09 Seskadrin
09 Voeren
07 Hetty
~~~~~~~~~~~
06 Durgal
03 Fleshstripping
02 Mwana
02 Torquil
01 Haunter
01 Kalyani
01 Limro
00 Elsie
On further review I have to drop this entry from my short list, mainly because of the AC issue. You could have done -so- much better with just a little thought.
CR 18, dex 1 and still wearing a non-magical chain shirt? Hell, I could have accepted it if you tried to be cute and made it Scale Mail (especially since the increased dex penalty really does nothing to you with your skill choices) but as-is it just seems very lazy.
She's also listed as wearing nonmagical rings and shield of faith is only listed only as an afterthought. Why not toss in a +2 ring of deflection instead of some of the loot-only stuff, when certainly by 18th the players will see it as just a lump of cash anyway?
Just an update, but interesting. 7 new voters and the top 8 didn't so much as trade spots!
I actually still haven't cast my own votes, but have narrowed it down to 6.
EXIT POLLS wrote:
25 Total Respondents
09 Floaters
~~~~~~~~~~~
16 Arthelia
11 Abzirael
11 Avinash
09 Kotalya
09 Onuyaka
08 Seskadrin
07 Voeren
06 Hetty
~~~~~~~~~~~
04 Durgal
03 Fleshstripping
02 Mwana
02 Torquil
01 Haunter
01 Kalyani
01 Limro
00 Elsie
There's a little interest generated here and there, but overall it left me feeling very 'meh'. Plus, the whole time I kept wondering when the Inevitable that's out to stop this immortality seeker would turn up, but alas it was not to be.
nope.
I liked the flavor of this entry better before I read the comments. It might be a bit unfair, but seeing the twist Set suggested on the basic concept really highlighted just how much better this idea could have been than it ended up.
Awesome idea, but it just doesn't quite work as presented.
I kind of wish you had gone all-out with the idea even to the risk of DQ by really taking the SRD limitations and running with it... say, perhaps by using a Phantom Fungus as the base creature instead of dwarf, using the elite array to get his INT a bit higher, tack on the barbarian levels instead of the usual progression by HD, and use a few feats to replicate dwarven traits. It would be an unusual abuse of the rules, certainly, but that kind of daring would have cinched you for my vote if you made it past the DQ filter.
As is, it's a strong maybe.
I wasn't a fan of Euraleon and I still just generally don't like aquatic stuff, but this guy still somehow intrigues me. I think given his 'corrupt and control' motivation and heretic status that you missed a big opportunity in choosing the 4-armed mutation over the one that would make him appear to be a member of the very race he hates.
Maybe.
It's a villain, but one I've seen countless times before. The only things that separate it from a pack of typical Bond villains is that it's an ogre mage and that it doesn't seem to have any actual plan... and both these traits are negatives in my book.
nope.
Solid idea but you presented it rather poorly.
How in the world does a kid in a typical fantasy setting get to be anywhere near fat enough to be labled 'disabled'? How did she manage to get 60 kids without anybody noticing, or care for them all for that matter? What possible reason could she have to attack the PCs, when in all likelyhood she's the one who will be tracked down?
It's just not cutting it for me.
Ugh, the name is just plain horrible. Otherwise though its a very well-done entry, if perhaps a bit cliche in the 'cult leader' department. I rather like psionics and found that your use of them was perfectly suited to the task, though I don't like it as a religion.
Maybe.
Subtle and interesting idea, if a little underwhelming compared to some of the others. Has great flavor, very much a twisted Gaiman-like charecter. Lack of ambition and tie to a specific location make it much less noteworthy though.
a strong maybe.
With the votes thus far being rather spread out, I just went ahead and put everyone on the list right now.
I also wanted to correct a minor problem with Avianna's poll numbers before it got lost in the shuffle. Matrissa's votes were not counted accurately, which is an easily understandable mistake if you don't read her post closely.
EXIT POLLS wrote:
18 Total Respondents
07 Floaters
~~~~~~~~~~~
13 Arthelia
09 Abzirael
09 Avinash
07 Kotalya
06 Onuyaka
05 Seskadrin
05 Voeren
03 Hetty
~~~~~~~~~~~
02 Mwana
02 Fleshstripping
01 Durgal
01 Kalyani
01 Limro
01 Torquil
00 Elsie
00 Haunter
I'm rather disappointed by the lack of actual villainy, and I also think you missed an opportunity in not making his companion be a string of different female riders. such a change might have justified (with a bit of a stretch) dropping the second plot arc in favor of an infestation of young fiendish centaurs and (unrelated, of course) a cave containing numerous female corpses, all apparently dead of childbirth complications.
Still, very good stuff and kudos for making excellent use of a previous round wondrous item.
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