Sebastian's page

Dang! I didn't see that this message posted and then posted the same thing again (luckily I had copied most of it into the clipboard). Could a kindly mod please delete one of these threads?

Thanks,
Sebastian

I've been going over the AoW Overload to make sure that I understand the entire Ebon Triad/Kyuss/Dragotha conspiracy, and here's what I've got.

Backstory

-Dragotha has been trying to get Kyuss to come back from the monolith because he is bound to him/wants to slay him (AoW Overview)

-Dragotha's avolakias servants/allies created the Ebon Triad to fool clerics of Vecna/Hextor/Erythnul into thinking that Kyuss is the harbinger of their Overgod. (Into the Wormcrawl Fissure)

-Dragotha recruited chromatic dragons to assist him in this endeavor, including Lashonna and Ilthane (Encounter at Blackwall Keep, The Prince of Redhand, Kings of the Rift)

-Lashonna has been plotting against Dragotha, and used Balakarde as a pawn in that game, ultimately resulting in his death (Into the Wormcrawl Fissure)

-Either Lashonna or Ilthane contact Loris Raknian and turn him into an agent of the Ebon Triad. The mission they give to him is to use the Apostilic scrolls to create super-ulgurstasa. (The Champion's Belt)

-Loris Raknian uses his illithid agent to acquire the scroll. He is somehow involved with the Ebon Triad cell in Diamond Lake (Hall of Harsh Reflections)

-Ilthane creates new varieties of kyuss spawn using the lizardfolk as guinea pigs. He sets the lizardfolk against the humans, though it's not clear why this is done before his experimentation is complete. (Encounter at Blackwall Keep)

-The Faceless One sets up shop in Diamond Lake because there is an abandoned lair of Vecna in the area. For some reason, the Vecna lair also has a significant link to the Ebon Triad. (Three Faces of Evil)

-Balabar Smenk is pressed into helping the Faceless one keep his cult activities secret, but doesn't trust him. As a result he hires Filge to perform research for him into the cult's activities. (The Whispering Cairn)

Questions (some of these will hopefully be answered in future installments)

-If Balakarde knew of the location of the Libarary of Last Resort, he presumably knew of where Dragotha's phylactory is located. That being the case, why did he go to the Wormcrawl Fissure w/o the phylactory?

-Do the Wind Dukes have anything to do w/Kyuss, or are they just the vehicle for introducing a piece of the Rod of Seven Parts?

-Is anything about the Ebon Triad true, i.e., will there be an Overgod that follows Kyuss's arrival? If not, how do you explain the mini-overgod in Three Faces of Evil?

-If the PC's (presumably) keep foiling the plots of Dragotha, how is he able to activate the monolith and bring Kyuss into the world?

-Why does the monolith get teleported to Redhand? Why does Dragotha wait there to get attacked by the PCs? Why would he let Lashonna hog all the glory? If he knows the PC's are going after his phylactory, why does he not also realize that Lashonna is a traitor?

I think you handled the situation really well. Losing all his equipment will be a defining experience for the bard and the party as a whole. I'm sure it won't take him long to get some equipment back. The skeletons in the first room of the observatory have some weapons, and he could always borrow a secondary weapon from another character.

As for Kullen, I don't think I would have him ambush the characters. If you need to justify not having him ambush, consider how much work it would take for Kullen to wait for the party to leave the observatory after fighting Filch. He doesn't know when they're going to go, how long their going to stay, or whether or not they'll even survive. Sure, he could go spend his day camping out and watching the observatory, or he could be running other errands for Smenk and making his living.

In the battle between lazy and evil, lazy wins every time.

Sebastian

As for retreating and resting, the first time the PCs retreat, the cultists likely assume that they've beaten them for good and won't take many measures against a second attack. Only after the PCs retreat a 2nd time will a particular group likely decide to plan against a 3rd invasion.

That makes sense for the early part of the adventure, but the encounter with the Ebon Aspect seems like a tpk waiting to happen. Won't the party be relatively low on resources after having taken out the last cult leader, and won't the aspect cut through them like a hot knife through butter? How did this go in the playtest?

I expect that after defeating the last cult leader, my players will try and leave the mines without resting, figuring that it is much safer to do so on the surface. I don't know how they will defeat a CR 6 creature at that point.

Sebastian

I think the biggest problem is that the npc classes aren't balanced against each other very well. The commoner in particular is terrible as compared to the others (unless they've beefed it up in 3.5). ASEO - Did you give the players who took commoners anything to compensate for this fact? It seems like a bonus feat or extra stat points are almost in order...

I tried doing something like this in a campaign (having everyone take a level in an npc class), but all the PCs came back as aristocrats.

Disclaimer: This is an absolute, unmitigated, stupid nitpick. It's the sort of insignificant thing that DM's/reviewers love to get hung up on.

I have a hard time accepting the fact that the wind dukes, or any creature w/a strong association w/the elemental plane of air, would either bury their dead underground or, worse yet, choose to dwell underground for an extended period of time. Aren't air and earth opposing elemental forces? You wouldn't expect water-based creatures to burn their dead in funeral pyres or spend extended amounts of time in a desert, would you?

That's my nit-pick. I otherwise love the adventure, love the air elemental touches, and would like to run it. But I need some excuse or justification to allow for suspension of disbelief. Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Sebastian

I'm not a huge fan of Eberron, but I've really liked all but one of the adventures that have been published in Dungeon (Queen w/Burning Eyes was a bad generic dungeon crawl). I have to say that I like Eberron adventures better than the historical adventures (there was the russian one and the one set in the middle east) that have occassionally appeared in the past.

Sebastian

#36 Jul/Aug 92. Asflag's Unintentional Emporium (3-7)

Hi Willie,

I was wondering if you could tell me the proper pronounciation of Asflag. I ran the adventure about a decade ago and pronounced it (w/o thinking) as "Ass-Flag." Despite referring to him as "Az-Flag" for the rest of the session, my players continued to rag on me about the name. ("Does he have a banner w/a butt on it flying above his tower?") To make matters worse, I had intended to have Asflag return as a lich (IIRC, he had died in the adventure leaving his tower behind), so the comedy of his name was that much harder to live down.

Anyway, that's a great body of work. Pronounciation snafus aside, I enjoyed reading or playing a number of your adventures.

Sebastian

Converting from early editions to 3.5 is a whole different ball game. If all of the creatures and items in the old adventure are present in 3.5, it should be fairly painless, but keep in mind that the final product might not be challenging enough, or too challenging, for the party level for which it was originally intended.

I agree.

A DM in our group ran a conversion of the original 1e Spider Queen modules. There's an ambush that occurs early on involving something like 10 6th level fighters, a handful of rogues, and a spellcaster. The characters are only 6th level. Needless to say, that encounter had to be reworked.

Sebastian

I'm glad to hear there will be electronic versions of the issues. Any idea what issue you'll be starting on?

Is there any chance that you might start posting electronic versions of new issues or are you only able to publish electronic versions if you meet Wizards' conditions? It'd be really nice to just have the downloadable issues and print out only the adventures, maps, and NPC's I need.

Sebastian

I try really hard to give sources for all the non-core monsters and classes we use in the magazine, and to give physical descriptions where appropriate. It's easy to forget to do this with a templated monster, since in a lot of ways the stat block for a templated monster IS self-contained. But still... can't hurt to be extra double careful about this stuff.

Don't get me wrong. I think you do a fairly good job of giving stats and a working description of the monsters in the text. It's just that sometimes I want to find the monster entry and look at the art so that I am clear on what exactly the creature looks like. As for putting sources for non-core materials, I did notice that iss 122 did a good job in one section (the illithid grafts sidebar on pg 28 cites to the fiend folio) and a not so good job in another section (the needlefolk on pg 47 don't have their source listed, but do have the best description of non-core creatures that I've seen to date.)

On the whole, I think the magazine has improved in providing enough info to use non-core material, but adding the source would really be helpful (and not take up much room).

Sebastian

Is there any chance you could start printing what book a non-core monster comes from? The stat blocks are great, but a lot of the time I want to read up the full description of a creature before running it.

For example, in the Styes (iss 121), I wasn't entirely clear what a corpse creature even was from the short description. I finally realized that it was basically a zombie (from the Book of Vile Darkness if I remember correctly), but wouldn't have been able to figure that out from just the stat block and description.

Sebastian

Thanks Great Green God. I thought I had clicked on the dungeon forum when I posted this. The thread you pointed out addressed my point entirely. Thanks!

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed an abnormal number of missing NPC familiars. Issue 114 included a dozen or so hobgoblin adepts (Fiendish Footprints) and a troglodyte adept (Final Resting Place) all without familiars. The absence of familiars is explained in the adventures, but not very well. I've noticed this in other issues and was wondering why familiars don't make the editorial cut. Is it because their stat block takes up too much room? Are they too big of a pain to track in play? Does everyone else have smarter players than me that target NPC familiars?* I'd much rather have an unstated familiar than no familiar at all.

Sebastian

* http://www.giantitp.com/cgi-bin/GiantITP/ootscript?SK=154

Alright, here's a question for those of you that have been subscribers since 3e first came out. I'm going to be running the Dying of the Light from issue 84 and wanted to know if anyone else had used the adventure and if they had any advice. The castle seems so big and the npcs so intelligent that I worry about bringing it all together.

Thanks,
Sebastian

Alright, here's a question for those of you that have been subscribers since 3e first came out. I'm going to be running the Dying of the Light from issue 84 and wanted to know if anyone else had used the adventure and if they had any advice. The castle seems so big and the npcs so intelligent that I worry about bringing it all together.

Thanks,
Sebastian

Edit - I meant to post this in the dungeon magazine forum. I will delete this and repost there. If a moderator would like to shut this thread, please feel free.