I just picked up a copy of "J1 - Entombed With The Pharaohs" at my FLGS and am planning on running it for my group of newish players and I was wondering if anybody else has had a chance to DM it?
If so, what are your thoughts? Is there anything in particular that worked or did not work for you? Anything in particular I should know before giving it a whirl?
Thanks!
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I just picked up a copy of "J1 - Entombed With The Pharaohs" at my FLGS and am planning on running it for my group of newish players and I was wondering if anybody else has had a chance to DM it?
If so, what are your thoughts? Is there anything in particular that worked or did not work for you? Anything in particular I should know before giving it a whirl?
Thanks!
Well, I did - twice!
First let me say this is a fantastic adventure, and has so many cool elements that your players are sure to remember this one fondly.
Now, my perspective on this adventure, and the way I ran it, was as a lethal, complicated module. It requires some thinking from the players - they need to figure out a way to put their hands on the mask, which might require as many as two separate burglaries into well guarded locations... which mean they will have to be sneaky, quite, and smart. Later in the adventure there's some neat dungeon crawling, which is also skill intensive. Many of the fights are hard as well.
Where the adventure really shined was the competition/race with the other group. As a GM, it's important that you always think "what are the Chelaxians doing meanwhile?" I really up - played this part of adventure, and all sorts of cool things happened - for the second group, one of the PCs was actually kidnapped by the rival group in an attempt to gather information, and in response the other PCs managed to kidnap one of the NPCs from the rival groups... all sorts of high tension and drama.
Now, mind you, I killed off both groups. One of the groups didn't even make it to the pyramid, the other group lost a fight in the third room or so... so maybe for a group of newbies you'll want to tone it down quite a bit.
But general advice: watch "The Mummy", and just run with it ;)
any more specific questions?
I've run that module, and I agree with Lord Snow that playing up the competition with the other "team" is key. The two groups were trying to do each other in even before they entered the pyramid, which made the whole thing a lot more fun than a simple dungeon crawl.
I'm actually about to run it, via PBP here on the boards! (assuming I get enough interested players)
I'm looking forward to it.
I played in it, though I think the GM dropped the rival party idea. It was seriously creepy (the curse scared the PCs very, very much--and they don't scare that easily) and very difficult. If your players are not into old-style dungeon delving, you may want to warn them. Plunging in rashly may well get them killed; it's important to take it slowly and be careful.
My rogue still has nightmares about the old guy in the room full of string.
We did not like the sequel as much: the PCs are pushed to do something that the module apparently fiats must fail, and I didn't enjoy that at all.
@ Mary Yamato -- For some reason, this is the first post from you I think I've seen in like 4 years. I was afraid you'd left us! EDIT: Looking at your posts history shows that's not the case; we've just been in different threads.
This is my favorite Adventure Module I've ever ran, with River of Darkness in a close second.
The curse is great, and feels very appopriate. Here's some tips:
-Try to keep the rival adventure party alive as long as possible
-Rework the Pharaoh of Numbers encounter so that it is in a bigger room and he's more than just a reskinned bestiary monster. Try and play up his numbers theme in combat mechanics
-Don't be afraid to steal some of the traps and rooms from the sequel adventure and cram them in the pyramid if you don't plan on playing it