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I'm excited to start running this adventure in the next month or so, and the Smiteworks folks were kind enough to expedite the release of the Fantasy Grounds version after a request (once I had my pdf).
It has been a while since I picked up a standalone adventure. Do they usually release interactive maps as part of the pdf?
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Oh Gods I can't fight the urge to be THAT person...
The henge is the circle of ditches and banks (specifically in the sequence ditch/bank/ditch) not the monoliths.
Sorry, back to your usual program. :)
Yes, you are correct, but we also have humans naming places Hill Hill Hill, so YMMV.
Some pirate or merchant sailed by once, made a note of it and said "it's a bunch of rust trees or something, like... like a henge of rust."
Another sailor said, "You mean like a Rusthenge?"
And on that day, the name was born, never to be changed by the most pedantic of naturalist scholars.
However, I will grant you a special boon for pointing this out. When you run or play this, please only refer to it as "Rustmonoliths." Do not correct anyone else nor explain yourself, just keep saying "Rustmonoliths" with a smile on your face and offer no explaination.
Oh Gods I can't fight the urge to be THAT person...
The henge is the circle of ditches and banks (specifically in the sequence ditch/bank/ditch) not the monoliths.
Sorry, back to your usual program. :)
Huh. I could have sworn I responded to this already, commenting that two of my usually pretty good dictionaries have the wrong definition for "henge" but wikipedia gets it right. OTOH, that was about 6 AM, and I'd been up all night, so maybe I'm hallucinating -- or you posted the same thing in another thread. :-)
Creative Director
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Names of locations aren't always best when they're 100% accurate in definition. Sometimes, places get named for the poetry and emotional impact and the way the word sounds and feels when you say it.
The names "Rusthenge" immediately evokes in the reader what the site looks like in a way other names don't.
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Another "bad name" example: Canada.
From the official Canada governement website:
“Canada” likely comes from the Huron-Iroquois word “kanata,” meaning “village” or “settlement.”
So, the 2nd biggest country in the world is effectively named "Fillache" ("Village" with lots of typos). :P
To anyone who’s bought this: what is the general style of the adventure? How much of it is social encounters vs. exploration vs. dungeon crawling, etc?
So, I just started running this and have now gone in and counted up the XP. If I haven't missed anything, the PCs will only level up to 1 if they do *everything*, including all the ways to reach the location of chapter 1's climax, which feels unlikely for the PCs to do. Have I missed something or severely miscalculated?
Other than that, it reads like a great adventure, can easily just milestone it, but this kind of bothers me a little :)
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Creative Director
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So, I just started running this and have now gone in and counted up the XP. If I haven't missed anything, the PCs will only level up to 1 if they do *everything*, including all the ways to reach the location of chapter 1's climax, which feels unlikely for the PCs to do. Have I missed something or severely miscalculated?
Other than that, it reads like a great adventure, can easily just milestone it, but this kind of bothers me a little :)
Sometimes, the XP rewards in a chapter do get a bit tight. We generally try to aim for a total amount of rewards of 1,100 or so to build in a little wiggle room, but at the same point, in game, the transition from chapter to chapter doesn't always need to land on a level up break.
If you're worried that your PCs aren't going to get close to 2nd level, you can always give them an ad hock XP award for completing their goals in Chapter 1 to give them a boost. Note also that at the start of chapter 2, in the "Starting this Chapter" section, on page 28, the PCs gain 80 XP for doing just this (exposing the cult and gaining the aid of the villagers). Further, they can gain an extra 40 XP beyond that by delivering a map of Stonehome.
And in retrospect, I think that this section WAS originally included at the end of chapter 1, but when it came time to lay out the adventure, chapter 1 was overlong and chapter 2 was a little short, so moving that section to the next chapter allowed us to keep the page numbers happy and kept me from having to cut a half-page of text from chapter 1 and add a half page of text to chapter 2.
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Just want to point out, what I think is a typo.
On the description of Osprey Cove, the text reads "While Osprey Harbor's..." as well as "Earn income in Osprey Harbor..."
I believe this was a mix-up of Iron Harbor and Osprey Cove.
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There's a couple foes right near the beginning of Chapter 2 that suffer from the "not a good target for the Weak adjustment" that several foes have. Their description and capabilities also don't line up very well. As a result I did a small rework for any GMs that may wander over here.
Replace the Weak Animated Armors with the following:
Rusted Bull Armor - Creature 1
[medium][construct][mindless]
Perception +4; darkvision
Skills Athletics +7
STR +3 DEX -3 CON +4 INT -5 WIS +0 CHA -5
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AC15 (11 when broken); Fort +8, Ref +2, Will +3; construct armor
HP15; Hardness 5; Immunities bleed, death effects, disease, doomed, drained, fatigued, healing, mental, nonlethal attacks, paralyzed, poison, sickened, spirit, unconscious, vitality, void
Construct Armor Like normal objects, the rusted bull armor has Hardness. This Hardness reduces any damage it takes by an amount equal to the Hardness. Once it is reduced to less than half its Hit Points, or immediately upon being damaged by a critical hit, its construct armor breaks, removing the Hardness and reducing its Armor Class to 11.
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Speed 20 ft
Melee [a] horns +8 (forceful, magical), Damage 2d4+2 piercing
Melee [a] gauntlet +7 (agile, free-hand, magical) Damage d6+2 bludgeoning
Reckless Charge [aa] The armor strides twice and then makes a horns strike with a +2 circumstance bonus to its attack roll. It becomes off-guard until its next turn.
So our GM has noted that they have no idea why Iron Harbor has the flag of Xin-Eurynthia. Does anyone else know?
Iron Harbor itself isn't. The ship (trireme) is. The ship and crew are from Xin-Edasseril.
Thanks for the correction. Still doesn't make much sense. Could just be an error, which is pretty funny because I spent the whole AP questioning people about it.So our GM has noted that they have no idea why Iron Harbor has the flag of Xin-Eurynthia. Does anyone else know?Iron Harbor itself isn't. The ship (trireme) is. The ship and crew are from Xin-Edasseril.
What part doesn't make sense? It's explained very clearly in the module.
Xin-Edasseril is not Xin-EurynthiaThanks for the correction. Still doesn't make much sense. Could just be an error, which is pretty funny because I spent the whole AP questioning people about it.So our GM has noted that they have no idea why Iron Harbor has the flag of Xin-Eurynthia. Does anyone else know?Iron Harbor itself isn't. The ship (trireme) is. The ship and crew are from Xin-Edasseril.What part doesn't make sense? It's explained very clearly in the module.
** spoiler omitted **
ha, thanks for pointing out my part in adding to this confusion!
Yes, I have requested every adventure product page now say what levels it covers, above the line, both in the future and retroactively.It's for 1st to 3rd level characters.Can I make a hopefully constructive suggestion, that this be added to the official text at the top of the page? It's good information for everyone to have!
And when will this be executed?
On the fourth Tuesday of next week. At dawn.
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Another bit of advice for any GMs looking to run this one.
Restoration Vulnerability A vloriak suffers agonizing pain when a creature or object recovers from a debilitating effect in its proximity. The first time in a round in which a creature who is affected by a negative condition and is within sight of the demon reduces that condition's value, the demon takes 3d6 mental damage and cannot Lick Rust on its next turn.
The problem here is the idea that ANY condition with a value that gets reduced causes damage to the vloriak. This includes:
- The vloriak uses its paralyze spell and makes a hero stunned 1. When they reduce their stunned condition, the vloriak will take damage.- The vloriak downs a player character and they become dying 1. When they reduce their dying condition by any means, the vloriak will take damage.
- Meitremar uses the horn's stinking cloud. A hero that becomes sickened and then clears the condition will cause the vloriak to take damage.
- A vloriak that uses its intimidation bonus to demoralize will take damage when its victim recovers from frightened 1.
It is very easy for the Vloriak to take damage every round through no purposeful action from the party (though keep in mind it can trigger only once per round), and in practice it is all but impossible for it to defeat any PCs because their successful recovery checks while dying will likely finish it off.