I'm currently running this adventure from Dungeon 86 on ENWorld as a PbP; has anyone had any experience playing through this as a DM or player? Any advice/tips/stories to tell?
I remember it being a very fun adventure to play. Kind of an "Indiana Jones" feel to it. I did get real tired of the jungle natives around every corner. My sorcerer did get revenge, however. Well-rolled scorching ray in barracks room equals burned outline of native on stone wall.
Interesting, I'll have to avoid making the encounters too 'samey', and try to make sure that the characters have the opportunity to use social skills with some of them.
The
It wasn't so much that the encounters were the same, it was more along the lines of "cripes, more natives". The individual encounters along the river were varied in the setup (the canoe attack was especially memorable), the natives were just a continuous thorn in our sides.
The fear traps toward the center (if I remember correctly) were challenging to overcome due to some less than stellar saving throw rolls.
All in all, I enjoyed Rana Mor a bunch (didn't get to play the finale, but I heard it was a blast) and may be utilizing at least the temple in the jungles of Malatra in my FR Caravan campaign.
Haha, there are lots of tribesmen aren't there? :D The canoe attack promises to be... interesting. The characters are:
Duskblade 3/Swashbuckler 2
Swashbuckler 3/Fighter 1/Ranger 1
Cleric 5 (with tailored aquatic summoning list)
Abjurer 5 (summons fiends)
Rogue 4/Sorcerer 1
All humans (I cut back on non-human races a lot to get a Howard/Leiber type feel)
(quite glad the two main spellcasters are both single class!)
I think the majority of them are very experienced PbP players (the cleric player in particular who always has good builds and fun backgrounds) - it's off to a fun start already.
I ran that adventure converted to Eberron back shortly after Eberron came out.
Fun adventure.
I doubt it'll be that helpful to you, but I made the natives the scorpion-obsessed drow native to Xen'drik instead of humans, and I kept the assaults limited to night-time raids. Fewer, but slightly more difficult fights.
I think that was the only substantial change I made. Everything else was just flavor. (The Heart is a dragonshard, the ruins are from the giant's fallen empire, etc.)
I ran this adventure a couple of years ago. I actually have a campaign log of it on my other computer that I can post later today.
I modified things a little. I took out a few of the encounters with the natives, but added in a couple of others (needletooth swarm). My version was set in the jungles of Chult. The PCs never really explored the outer areas of the temple and pretty much headed straight for the inner temple. They were paranoid about natives stealing their boat and didn't want to dally. As I recall the natives did take their boat and they had to battle to win it back.
The encounter with the water elemental was pretty hard on them, but they had the most trouble in the temple. The hecuva cleric killed at least one party member and badly wounded several others. He proved to be really hard fight for them. I remember it being a fun adventure to run, and I had been looking to run it for a long time.
Did anyone give Balama Theron the Banda language as one of her bonuses for high Intelligence. The adventure seems rather vague as to whether or not she can speak it (we know she can't read or write it, because there is no written Banda script) Otherwise, one or two of the set-pieces lose a little impact if no-one understands it.