Alec Austin's page

I noticed recently that Dragon has an article request forum on its message boards, and while Dungeon doesn't have nearly as many articles each month, I'm interested in hearing about which Campaign Workbook articles people think are the most useful, and what kinds of articles they'd like to see in the magazine.

Personally, I like quirky and less obvious articles, like #119's "Sounds of the Underworld", and flexible articles that don't require much work to use, like "Five-Second NPCs" from #117.

I'd like to see more Critical Threats, but with 2-3 stat blocks for a character at different power levels, so the character can be used in a campaign more easily.

Anyone else?

A few comments on the adventure and Eberron's flavor in general:

* The first thing my players did after killing the Queen was to ask how damaged her body was, so they could sell it to a museum. I suspect this was partially motivated by the fact that a prior visit to Thurias Tower after the Forgotten Forge impressed on them that antiquities and rare specimens are quite valued, and is partially just the pulp trapping rubbing off on my game. Either way, it's a trend I like.

* Adamantine Body (the warforged feat) is just brutally effective. Tom has had AC 21 since 1st level, and that'll only increase once Qual picks up Craft Wondrous Item. It's not really a problem, as running a 3-player game means that the party either needs to be a bit tougher than normal, or encounters have to be adjusted to compensate (by adding friendly NPCs or lowering ELs).

* I really didn't expect the party to head straight for the Queen and take her out, so I'm glad that the adventure had instructions on what to do if that happened. Things lose a bit of their drama with both the Queen and Vestran's thug brigade dead... but I suppose it beats having three PCs being kidnapped and having to fight Vestran, the Queen, and hordes of thugs and cultists unprepared.

Anyway, now that I've run most of it, I must say I'm liking the Queen with Burning Eyes a lot more than I did on paper. The dungeon crawl itself isn't particularly outstanding, but the event-based stuff surrounding it and the world context really work for me.