| 12 people marked this as a favorite. |
So, my group just finished "The Haunting of Harrowstone" after 8 sessions. Here's our group's impressions, what worked, what didn't, what I would have changed, and what I added.
Our Group consists of pretty experienced players, one long time veteran (DM of our Kingmaker game), two players who are fairly experienced (completed CoT, nearly at end of Savage Tide, halfway through Kingmaker), and two newer players (who also have a little experience in our Kingmaker game). Group consists of the following:
-Aella- Female Human Barbarian (Taking Superstistious route)
-Alucard- (Yeah, I've tried to kill him for the ridiculous name, but what can you do...)
Male Dhampir Magus
-Foxglove- Female Tiefling Rogue
-Nepthys- Female Elven Cleric (Pharasma)
-Willum- Human Male Fighter (Specializing in the Scythe)
For the campaign, I allowed a 20 pt buy build. In addition, we utilized the Harrow-point systen instead of Hero points, which made for some great flavor and interesting dynamic in combats, especially since some of the cards could be used on allies. Anyways, here's what I thought were the strongest points and weakest points to the module:
The Good
(1)Overall Story is Awesome- The idea of a haunted prison where the ghosts of the worst prisoners are in danger of escaping is awesome. The detail given to the five prisoners and the various other personalities within the dungeon is well done. My players were quite interested in discovering what happened during the final hours of the prison, and almost every haunt elicited not only dread but also curiousity. The tie in with the Whispering Way is good for propelling forward the overall story arc, and the events centering around Vesorianna's losing of her husband twice makes her story downright tragic and sets up the organization to be real villians.
(2)Interesting, unique encounters- There's lots of bits of flavor that I like having in each of the encounters. Risen skeletons burst into flames after a few rounds, a raging Poltergeist flings about vials of alchemical equipment, animated straight-jackets and chains come to life, and the unique five prisoners themselves are all pretty good. There's a few encounters I didn't like and a few I added to to compensate for five playes, but I'll get to those.
(3)Good expansion of haunts- Not only are the haunts within the prison all unique and awesome but there's also the slew in the back of the module to add in, which also helps define more guidelines as far as the upper limits of what a haunt can do. None of them were singularly as lethal as the ones in "The Skinsaw Murders" (with the exception of the furnace) but still pretty effective in evoking terror.
(4)Good Doom-Clock-Counter Mechanism- The use of the bloody letters and the rising power of the Splatter Man created a good sense of impending doom. (I coupled this with a couple DM tricks too, which I'll get to)
Good Encounters:
-Murky Pond Blazing Skeletons (and ones in basement)
-Ghostly Brands
-Animated Straijacket
-Cold Spot
-Piper of Illmarsh
-Father Charlatan
-Gortis Vortch
-The Splatter Man
What I didn't Like
(1)Kind of bland personaltities- While this didn't occur in my game, I've heard about groups that basically wanted to burn the town to the ground and then the prison, since they thought that the whole town was a bunch of racist, narrow-minded simpletons. Other than Father Grimburrow and Kendra, not a lot of warmth is given as written to the other NPCs in town. In fact, there's very little to connect adventurering types to the homely councilmen and merchants of Ravengro. This is partly due to the Trust System as written, as any interactions the PCs initially might have are gonna be laced by a negative modifier and having to pay higher prices for necessary goods. Fortunately, most of this has been remedied with the awesome amount of community created content.
(2)Some encounters were weak- This might have been my group's build (which stayed straight-class until the end), but because of the dungeon's design, the placement of the monster, and the abilities of the monster, some fights went from scary after the first round to boring after four.
(3)Inactive Antagonist Syndrome: As written, there's nothing to stop extremely wary PCs from tackling the encounters in the prison at a rate of one or two per day. This is due to the proximity of the the town to the dungeon and the fact that other than The Splatter Man, none of the prisoners take any active role in trying to stop the PCs from foiling the plan for a spiritual uprising. While the bloody lettes are good, they don't really do anything to hinder or interefere with the PC'sattempts to stop the ghosts. I wish there had been some sort of mechanic or haunt that tried to keep PCs from returning to town (Unable to leave or escape, like the ghosts of the prisoners, or interfered with by skeletal guards and hounds.)
Weak encounters
1)Headman's Scythe: It's not even the fact that the hardness bogs down the fight, but the Scythe can't do enough damage in one turn that anyone couldn't heal it with a CLW or channel. Action and damage economy make this one boring fight. There's a chance the DM might roll a 20, but this is the only threat here (which obviously didn't happen in my game, and since we open-roll, I wasn't about to fudge just for the sake of arbitrarily killing a character).
2)Slamming Portal Haunt: It was scary the first time it happened, since no one knew what was in the dungeon, and it was used to split up the party. After about the third time, the haunt was a little less of a threat, and after the fifth, would have been forgettable if not for me altering it. (Altering which doors opened and closed, and having bloody letters on them after the Splatter Man's optional dream event) I like traps and haunts that isolate or split up the party, especially in a horror game. It would have been cooler to be able to capitalize on this.
3)Animated Manacles: Creatures with Hardness and low-damage outputs make for pretty boring fights. Why are these things CR 1s and not 1/3, since they can't really do any damage.. Again, its a lot cooler in horror to capitilize on things that isolate, seperate, or hinder a character.
4)Old Ember Maw: I've read about this haunt being fantastically scary in other groups when it worked. My problem here is with haunts in general: I don't feel that they should have attack rolls (they don't roll initative after all). Maybe its because in my game the Haunt missed five consecutive attack rolls, taking away from the horror as flames licked every direction except at the party. This takes away from the horror: When a haunt has to make an attack roll, it makes it seem more like a creature than part of the environment or history of the place. (Unrelated example "If you go upstairs, the dead-lady's touch will send you into endless slumber like hers... if she can roll above a 7.") These are haunts, not creatures. They should be recreating the moments that lead to their events, not trusting into the luck of an attack roll.
5)The Lopper: Action economy hurts the Lopper. His problem isn't hitting, its the fact that every hit he scores can be mitigated by a cleric or someone with a wand of CLW. As long as he's not healing, its easy to pile on the damage. Interestingly enough, Willem the Fighter critically hit him with his own Handaxe, making the fight even more one-sided. Even using the environment and his acrobatics, his damage output even with the fast-healing wasn't enough to pose a threat. I should think a real Wraith would've been worse. Also, the Dhampir was completly immune to the Lopper (a minor quip since Dhampirs ARE one of the suggested playable races for the AP) due to his negative energy affinity.
6)The Mosswater Marauder: Again, what should have been a scary encounter ruined by the necessity of a Haunt rolling a d20 (which missed 3 times, hit once and got saved against). The Beheaded would've been a nice addition had they not become a liability; when the cleric's channel affects not just the haunts but also destroys all the beheaded, it piles up the damage pretty quick, well past the 13 hp the haunt is supposed to have. Of all the encounters with the Prisoners, this one was the most disappointing, even after doubling the HP of the haunt.
Changes I Made
1)Trust Points: Obviously, I had read a lot about the trust point issue before running the module and was aware that a fix was needed. I didn't want to do away with the system entirely since a fellow player and DM was using it in our Kingmaker game (using some of the conversion work in those threads). I looked and decided partially on Mortagon's awesome expanded system of Trust points. Some of the encounters and personalities I used, some I didn't (Used the Avanki's, Alendru, Jominda, Old River and the Silk Purse Patrons from that, as well as their side-quests) Basically, I gave a Trust Point for every person they made helpful in town (instead of 1 for friendly and 3 for helpful) since I thought their trust score might inflate too high. This proved a good mathematical estimation, as the PCs did what they could to get the scores as high as possible while simultaneously coupling that with minor mishaps (like killing Gibs), the Splatter Man's daily trust loss, and my own device, the chiming bells haunt.
2)Expanding the Role of the Prisoners in Town. This seemed to work pretty well in my campaign, and since I ran 5 players, it made me make it a little more personal for each player.
3)Other Sidequests: Besides the quest with the Cursed Well (which I thought was well written), I needed a few more things to get my PCs up to second level before the tackled the prison.
Vampiric Cattle Mutilations (abridged version) Father Grimburrow is contacted by a local farmer describing attacks on his livestock. The father leaves for the day then comes back, unable to solve the mystery (blood drain attacks, but not the work of a vampire) before being called back to town to cure some ailments. When the PCs pry, he tells them of what he's seen and sends them on his behalf to help the farmer. The farm is about a 2 hour journey by foot, and the creature appears only at sunset. The creature is not a vampire but a Vampiric Mist. Worse still, the creature is using a local pond about half-a mile away as a blood depository, feeding a swarm of leeches with its contents then gathering more blood. Ridding the cow-fields of the menace (and keeping it from fleeing back to its pond) nets the PCs 3 trust points, 5 bottles of Ardeal Gold Brandy (25 gp a bottle) and a Masterwork Dagger.
4)Speed Up the Clock: After they stopped Gibs and were about to clear the top level (with 16 days gone of 30), I wanted to create a since of doom and show the desperation present within the Splatter Man. The next Bloody Letters drawn on the monument were two letters this time, making the PCs second-guess the regularity of their appearance. My counter got as high as VESORI, with four to go. Not bad.
5)Encounters Changed: With five players, I either added some things, changed some encounters, and so forth.
R7)Removed Xtabay (I knew they would never encounter it)
R10)Added one Skeleton
S7)Added another Manacle
S8)Added Giant Black Widow Spider (Bestiary 2)
S10) Added Yellow Musk Creeper Zombie Rat Swarm
s18) Added Extended Doom Haunt (Showing final moments as Vesorianna and guards panic), replaced flaming skulls with Ectoplasmic Humans.
T2)Moved all stirges to R7, Added 4 Yellow Musk Creeper Zombie Dire Rats
T3)Added Giant Yellow Musk Creeper
T4)Had Stirges from R7 and Giant Stirge appear 1 round after haunt began. Gave Piper 5 more HP.
T5)Added Ear Seekers to pantry door.
U1)Changed to Two Crawling hands and Screaming Skull Swarm (which rises as dozens of skulls from the water)
U2)Added two skeletons
U3) Added 8 HP to Vortch
U4)Added 14 HP to Lopper
U6)Added 6 HP, added one extra Beheaded.
U7)Added Advanced Gelatinous Cube (The old floating Skeleton trick, replaces Grey Ooze in U9.
U8)Added two Animated Manacles
U9)Alchemical Runoff ("There is a faint alkaline smell", chemical runoff from the drugs and agents used on prisoners here.) Removed Grey Ooze, added Alchemical Ooze Swarms (1 Sanguine, 1 Phlegmatic, 1 Melancholic)
MY RANT ABOUT HAUNTS: As stated above, I don't like the fact that haunts require an attack role to achieve their effects. It seems the opposite of horror when the searing flames from Old Ember Maw can't touch the slowest character in the party (flat-footed). Are the angry spirits also very clumsy? ...Cause that makes them not scary at all. I think my problem is the fact that a haunt's attack bonus is equal to its CR. At low level, a haunt has a 1 in 2 chance of hitting most flat-footed PC with an attack, versus mid-level where its more like 2 in 3. I feel that a Haunt should have a Charisma score that influences things like its HP and attack rolls. I've found HP to be another slight problem, since haunts only get double their CR unless they're persistent, which even then doesn't get high enough to escape a channel (especially since it doesn't get a save against it.) Low level is when haunts should be the scariest, yet the fact remains that the attack bonuses and HPs of most haunts encountered at this point won't be high enough to be a serious threat. Worse, its possible that the cleric channels before a "meaningful, story-driven" haunt manifests, even a persistent one. I know, I could always not do open-die rolling, but that also takes away from the horror in its own way.
Despite my criticisms, a big thanks to the online community, Michael Kortes, Brandon Hodge and F.Wesley Schneider for developing this fine piece of work, its definitely in my top 10 modules.
Now, to start running "Trial Of the Beast"
AWESOME review and feedback! Very much appreciated! =-)
I appreciate it Brandon, as well as the work you put into this module. Everyone constantly remarked how true to a horror genre this module felt despite being 'D+D', which traditionally IMO doesn't lend itself well to horror. This module did, in spades.
-Pan: I'll post something tomorrow, just got off a ten hour work day and my mind needs to unravel. I slightly messed up as a DM by not keeping an accurate track of PC HP totals, which contributed to a dead rather than a downed PC (I don't like killing PCs without at least a die roll, a saving throw, or at least some chance of getting out of it.)
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I didn't trigger anything until the PCs had moved out of the oubliette's holding cell and into the main area. As they entered, it began the bloody letters haunt, which freaked the players out. The PCs tried methods other than channeling to end the haunt (like pouring holy water on TSM's spellbook), but it was channeling and physical damage that stopped it. I rolled 3d6, resulting in 10 damage to the whole party, turned the room to difficult terrain, and then had TSM rise of from the oubliette. "You. You who seek to stop my escape. I know your names... Who will be the first to have it written on the wall?" With that, init was rolled, with the Splatter Man immediately opening up with a volley of Maximized Magic Missles, which severly wounded Alucard snd dropped Nethys into the negatives (As said earlier, in this style game I keep track of player HP totals, their saves, and other stats. Nothing breaks up the horror mood like asking "What's your AC?", so I knew I could drop one PC (The Cleric) without killing anybody. This put the fear into them.
-Round 2, TSM begins summoning, except I decided to swap out Fiendish Dire Rats for Ectoplasmic Humans, as he called out ("Rise my fellow prisoners! Kill those who won't let you leave!) I didn't feel like this was a major change in power, and so ghostly prisoners joined the fight. The cleric is healed and brought back into the fight.
-Round 3, TSM unleashes another MMM, Severly wounding the PCS though not dropping them. One channel later, most of the damage is healed except to Nethys, the Cleric who already has 18 hp at max. The ectoplasmic humans serve as a distaction but aren't a major threat. One gets a lucky hit on Nethys.
-Round 4, TSM begins summoning again, which Nethys tries to stop by channeling offensively. This not only disrupts his spell but also eliminates the ectoplasmic humanoids. I should point out that Willem the Fighter and Aella the Barbarian are constantly chasing after TSM and occasionally scoring a hit on him. Foxglove also got a lucky hit with a ghost-touch arrow, and Alucard spell-swung away.
-Enraged (and also forgetting how much Nethys healed) TSM levels an entire MMM at Nethys, dropping her dead. I didn't realize how little she had healed up to that point and had meant to put her in the extreme negatives, not into the dead zone. The result is a dead Cleric and an immediate sense of doom from the rest of the party.
-Round 5. Alucard begins utilizing TSM's spellbook to do damage to him. The two bruisers keep throwing attacks at him. He attempts to summon again.. and is disrupted by Willem. At this point, TSM is about halfway down on HP.
-Round 6. TSM uses his touch on Willem. Rolling for about 23 damage to the already wounded fighter. Willem saves for half and is still standing. A series of lucky attack rolls pile more damage on him.
-Round 7: TSM goes to finish Willem with his touch... and critically fumbles! Every PC still up used a combination of a ghost-touch-arrow, holy water, and magic weapons to finally put him down.
** spoiler omitted **...
Thanks for the extensive review and tips. I plan on running this soon.
Also, I plan on running another horror module as soon as next week (Hangman's Noose). I like your idea of tracking player's HP for a horror game and plan on doing that.
I actually had a cheat sheet that had each player's HP totals, perception totals, saving throws, AC, and attack bonuese. This made it a lot easier to describe the horror of the scene without delving into the mechanics (which I feel detracts from that sense of fear). There were times when I would ask the player to roll a d20 and not tell them what it was for.
Thanks for all this. Are you doing TOTB now? I'd love to see a similar review for that module.
I'm getting ready to run the in-between journey before TotB. They're going to head to Clover's Crossing en route to Lepidstatd, so I'm doing something there with the ghouls,TWW, Adivion Adrissant, and host of zombies for my version of 'Night of the Living Dead' (which I feel is one of the few horror troupes that CC doesn't really feature)
After that and TotB, I'll write up how that went. I have an unfortunate feeling that more names my be gracing the obituaries page by the end of that module. (Pett always seems to have at least one 'killer encounter' per module, and I've already read the thread on the one for that adventure.)
Very cool. Definitely liking speeding up the clock in Ravengro.
Thanks guys, I should have something up in a few weeks for Broken Moon. My PCs are one encounter away from entering Feldgrau, and I have a feeling that getting through that is going to take one to two sessions, barring some extremely bad luck. (Like Acretia actually 'going off' or a Vrood TPK)
Should be here. I should probably have some sort of compilation thread for my campaign...
This is great cant wait to use this is my game
Where is the Cursed Well encounter I keep hearing about
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Sorry, took me a bit to find it again.
It was a side-quest and expanded details on all of the townsfolk that Mortagon wrote up. Extremely helpful.
The link to the thread is here. See Mortagon's 8th post for a link to a whole bunch of DM goodies he wrote up for HoH.
My party loved the curse well encounter