Hello, everyone. Pardon that title- it's just that that explains my feelings toward this adventure right now.
Basically, this adventure is bugging the crap out of me. I first read it a month or so ago, when I first got interested in running the Age of Worms adventure path- and as far as I could tell, it looked pretty cool. I noticed an error or two in it, but for the most part it looked good. Then, I came here- and read all sorts of peoples complaints about it. I thought, "Oh, it's not all that bad. I didn't even notice half of that stuff, so neither will my players."
I read it over again this morning, planning to run it tonight- and I started to notice that it... well... wasn't put together well. At ALL. Well, I figured, it can't be that bad- I'll jsut work out the kinks as I go.
Then, I started the adventure. For the most part, it went well- sure, there wasn't really much motivation for the players to do what Smenk told them- in fact, as I was running it, I realized that it isn't even clear WHAT Smenk wants them to do. Kill the leaders? I don't know- all it does is say that Smenk is in this crappy situation, and wants their help. Luckily, my PCs didn't notice it, so I figured no harm, no foul.
That was the first problem. Then, we actually got into the adventure. Then I noticed ALL SORTS of things I hadn't noticed before. Like, for example, the guards and such at the beginning- they attack anyone they see, yet they can be bribed? How does that work? "Ack! Hey- quit- stabbing- me! I'll- pay- yoouuuu...."?
Second, I instantly noticed that if your party isn't a "run in, kill anything that moves, and bash apart anything that doesn't" group (as mine isn't, nor is anyone's I know), there's no clear goal to this adventure. My PCs, instead of just fighting the first people they see, told the Tieflings at the elevator that they wanted to talk to whoever was in charge- and, of course, Theldrick came out. They then agreed to work WITH the Hextorites.
...Eh? How exactly is someone supposed to deal with that? I mean, these are all fanatical cults that are always in need of followers, so why would they deny someone who seemed to have an interest in joining? They seemed to know enough about the Ebon Triad (what with Knowledge checks, as well as Allustan's and the church of Heironeous's help in an earlier session) that they seemed to know what they were talking about. And since Theldrick, the big bad guy in charge has a wonderful Sense Motive modifier of +3 (that is, his wisdom modifier), who's to say he would think anything was amiss?
So, I went along with it. After all, improvising is 90% of DMing, right? Well, Theldrick led them into his chamber (with two of his servants, of course- the married couple whose names escape me) and explained the situation to them- the Faceless One's discovery of the temples, Grallak Kur's arrival, the steady growth of the Ebon Aspect- but then what? I honestly had no idea what to do from there. What is he supposed to have the PCs do? Luckily, one of them piped up, and managed to convince Theldrick and his gang that it would be a good idea to let them play double-agent- that is, they offered to go to the Vecna sect's temple, and try to get some information that the Faceless One was hiding (that is, specific things about the Nethertome of Trask and such). That's when I set the book down, apologized to the players, and decided to come up here and ask for help.
I have no idea what to do. This entire adventure is structured around the idea that your players will go around killing fanatical cultists who really haven't done anything wrong (at least, nothing provable) without any sort of negotiation. I suppose I could just let them go ahead and walk up to the Faceless One's cronies and request an audience, but that just shows me even more things I don't like about this adventure- specifically, the Vecna temple. WHY is there a maze? Mazes NEVER work in D&D. NEVER. Either you draw it out, and the players instantly know where everything is, or you don't draw it out, and none of the players have any idea what's going on (and trust me, there's no middle ground). I HATE it when there's big complicated maps like that. Honestly, it makes no sense whatsoever.
In other words, my group decided not to just run in and kill everything. (Heck, I couldn't even think of a reason why the temple of Heironeous, after seeing the evidence of Smenk and Dourstone's dealings in the Whispering Cairn, as well as the testimony of Filge, didn't send all of their soldiers to investigate it all- but, luckily, the players understood the situation.) So what the heck am I supposed to do? I've noticed other people using other adventures in place of this one, but I'm already halfway through it (and almost all of the exposition has been set). Is there any hope? Should I just skip to the next adventure, and tell them what happened in the meantime? Why is there such a shoddily-structured adventure in Dungeon?
Overall, the Age of Worms is amazing. But this adventure was a bad move, Paizo.
On one aspect, you got it right. A DM should know how to ad lib the works of the adventure to suit the setting and the events according to players re-action/feedback.
Assuming the players found the green worm (Kyuss) and gave the jar to Allustan, and then turn to Smenk for information. You have their goals. Research into the source of the green worm 'infestation in the mines' (See letter to Filge in WC).
My group is not among the Blitz type, so it takes a great deal of time to work-out all of the NPCs interaction for me, I know what's it like to have the PCs walk up to the big boss and... talk him into hiring their help :)
Try to approach 3FoE from another angle, shift a few motives and create minor schemes for the leading NPCs. Maybe when the Cleric PC recount his adventure to his superior, he could be faced with charges of 'treason' in the eyes of his deity calling for a repent (Same goes for Paladins).
3FoE is not all that bad, in fact, I am having a great fun running it now.
Hope not all is lost.
i am going to be running 3FoE this weekend,and my PC's are not really the Blitz type either. However i have a paladin of heironious in the group and they pretty much hate Smenk already. In fact i would be surprised if they didnt try to kill him lol :). My Paladin is definately ''Smash the Evil Doers'' at all costs, so that helps.
Surely you could make the Hextorites betray the PC's?? if that happens they should in retribution - kill the Hextorites and start on the rest??
DM Shane
What is the composition of your group? I guess there is no paladin or LG cleric among the PCs, right ? What are the alignments (and less important, classes) of your PCs ? This might be an indicator what they are up to. Do they really plan to throw in their lot with the cultists ? Or will they infiltrate the lairs to get the needed information that way ?
The adventure is geared towards PCs invading the lairs, thats right. So, if your PCs are working with subterfuge, you will have to make considerable changes. If they really plan to become evil cultists themselves, you will be in real trouble, as the whole campaign is geared towards good PCs intent on stopping evil schemes. Did you ask your players what they intend ? This question is perfectly legitimate, as you cannot prepare if you don´t know what they are up to.
If they want to infiltrate the lairs, it would be ok for the faceless one to see through their masks, as he serves Vecna, the god of hidden knowledge. What the faceless one does with this information, is another thing. This could develop into a game of cross, double-cross and triple-cross. The faceless one would perhaps use the PCs to further his own goals.
The maze problem is not easy to solve, true. I would try to keep the PCs from mapping it out exactly, just giving them enough information to sketch what they are seeing. In general, I don´t provide too exact mapping information to the PCs, as they are not equipped to make blueprint-like plans of the structures they are in. If they are attacked by the kenku, they are distracted from mapmaking anyway. If the kenku lead them toward the faceless one, I would have them blindfolded. If they realize that they are in a maze, the old "left-hand" rule should work, if anyone remembers it. That way, the hassle with the maze could be minimized.
Stefan
So Theldrick's sent the party to spy on the Faceless One? Good call to salvage the module diplomatically, and I ran into a similar issue when I ran it (actually, my issue was that the party was annihilated and the replacement party were independent agents hired by Theldrick).
The party enters the Labyrinth of Vecna and are shortly set upon by the kenku within. Now, being cultists of Vecna and secretive by nature, the kenku are highly unlikely to listen to the simpering excuses of the infidels, beliveing them to be either spies or assassins, and will attack. The battles can run on through the many corridors of the labyrinth, hopefully leading to the evidence needed to incriminate Smenk. Since the cult's major "illegal" activities seem to be mostly worshipping evil gods, add poisons, drugs, necromantic chemicals and other contraband to Smenk's shipment to the cults, for use in the Faceless One's experiments and in the dark pool used to conjure the Ebon Aspect. This way, they'll actually have reason to confront him other than "you're working with evil folk".
Anyway, the Faceless One isn't likely to take kindly to the slaughter of his kenku, and will likely lightning bolt first and speak with dead later. But once the party gets back to report to Theldrick of the Faceless One's death and the cipher in his possession, they find that Theldrick's been murdered by his own followers! The married couple of Garras and Kendra have long been envious of Theldrick's power, and that he gave the choice assignment of dealing with that Faceless snake to a group of unbelievers was the final straw. Whether the party deals with the new threat via combat or diplomatically, that's two of the three cult leaders dead, and the Ebon Aspect's almost ready to burst out (since that is the capstone of the adventure, it should really be kept).
Which means, of course, that there has to be some way for Grallak Kur to die (and for the party being the right level for Encounter at Blackwall Keep). This could be tricky. The first excuse to fight the grimlocks that comes to mind (although someone else could probably do better) is that Grallak Kur, spurred on by his insane, worm-filled visions, decides that the time is right to take Diamond Lake. This leads to all sorts of running battles in the mine shafts and camp, as the guards are taken by surprise by grimlock troops in the dead of night and Grallak Kur is finally shot off the camp's battlements by the party. The party's congratulated by the garrison, Smenk gets taken away in chains on charges of contraband smuggling... and then the Ebon Aspect tears open the mine and starts killing everyone in sight. Even though the party is on the scene to take it down (possibly with a little help from Allustan and/or the Church of Hieronius, if it looks like they need help), popular opinion turns against them, and they may even be held responsible by the miners for the destruction the Aspect caused. An angry mob of miners with picks should be excuse enough for them to take up Allustan's offer of a nice trip to the Mistmarsh for him to catch up with an old friend... and onto the next adventure.
Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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I think it's fair to say that none of us at the office are really pleased with the way "The Three Faces of Evil" turned out. The framework for an excellent adventure is there, but a lot of the details benefit from tinkering to make the module fit seamlessly with its neighbors.
And it could have used a couple more editing passes.
Because of this, I found it a very frustrating adventure to run in my own campaign, something that happened after the magazine came out and it was too late. If we end up doing a hardcover, I think it's fair to expect significant revision of this installment.
In my own campaign, the players were motivated by the note found in Filge's study regarding the green worm and the Dourstone Mine. I added a post-capture roleplaying encounter with Filge in which he recounted what Smenk had told him about the affair, leaking in a few minor details to whet the PCs' appetites and incite their greed. They never spoke directly to Balabar Smenk, refusing his invitation to meet, and instead went down there looking for evidence to implicate him in the illegal activity. It probably helps that two of my PCs are tied to the Diamond Lake Garisson and the chapel of Heironeous, so altruism works on about a third of the party. That's always helpful in sluicing the way toward the adventure.
The implication in my campaign outline was that, barring a clear transition from "The Whispering Cairn," the PCs might be contacted by Balabar Smenk hoping to pay them to sneak in and get rid of any incriminating evidence. This relies on a pretty mercenary party and perhaps also a bit of a dumb one given Smenk's obvious involvement in necromancy, if nothing else, but that was the original intention for having Smenk be the hook into the adventure.
Now that the town has been fleshed out (which it wasn't when Mike wrote the adventure, bless his heart), I might have Chaum Gansworth, a rival mine manager, tip off the PCs about the mine if they need nudging in that direction. Perhaps he heard about them taking out Kullen's gang, and thought he might pass along some information they might find helpful. He could then point them in the direction of both Ragnolin Dourstone AND Balabar Smenk, which would be like killing two of the town's most powerful birds with one stone.
You mention the confusing motivation of the guards at the bottom of the elevator. In my own campaign, I made these guys the scions of a devil who used to have influence in the Great Kingdom, a sort of interrelated fighting society that flocked to the banner of Theldrick a while back when it looked like he might gain power and prestige in a plot back in Aerdy (he didn't). Bored out of their skulls, the tieflings excitedly rush to attack, and aren't interested in bribes. After all, they can take the PCs' pouches off their dead bodies.
These guys lasted about 18 seconds of real time in my game, incidentally.
As to the goal of the adventure, I would suggest locating evidence to tie Balabar Smenk to this evil cult, and of course to find out more about this cult, perhaps as suggested by the party's patrons.
Assuming there is a cleric in the party, he or she probably has a relationship of some kind with one of the NPC clerics in town. That individual would have reason to be curious about the rumors of a strange cult in Dourstone's mine. Any of the mine managers would be interested in shaming him, hoping to gain some of his claims when he is forced to leave town. And where did the PCs take Filge, assuming they didn't kill him? For that matter what reaction did the various factions in town have with their confrontation with Kullen's unpopular gang? All of these events can lead to NPCs more than able to provide the PCs with reasons to want to investigate the Dourstone Mines. It's just that you've kind of got to study the Diamond Lake backdrop really hard and make a lot of these connections youself for it to work well or easily.
Like I said, if we do a hardcover we'll probably expand on this greatly. A dream situation would be not just to do a hardcover, but to do whole books based on the key locations (Diamond Lake, Free City, Alhaster) and fill them with lots of advice on how to keep the PCs on track and what to do when they wander off it. That's a lot to hope for, though, so it's almost not worth considering.
All of this stuff should have been in the module.
Your point about the module not telling you what to do with PCs who attempt to reason with the Hextorites is an interesting one and well worth considering. Since I have two Heironeans in my party this didn't come up, but you're right that the module should provide suggestions for this, or at least reasons why the Hextorians wouldn't be interested in some kind of alliance.
Given the way you've played it so far, I'd say you're doing remarkably well. Theldrick seems the least "convinced" of the three temple leaders. Grallak Kur is a fanatic, and the Faceless One is a schemer who's been onto this for a long time. Theldrick is, to a certain degree, honorable. He might make for a very interesting ally.
If you really want to mix things up, perhaps Theldrick wishes to betray his fellow cultists (as conveniently hinted in the nice-looking player handouts we've included for you to use), and invites the PCs to prove their loyalty to him by bringing him Grallak Kur's journal (or whatever). That way you can run that part of the adventure without too much incident. The big cliffside encounter there is actually quite fun.
After the PCs have pretty much wiped out the grimlocks and returned to Theldrick, he tells them that creepy bird men from the Vecna temple know that they have infiltrated the Black Cathedral, and that the Faceless One himself has demanded an audience with Theldrick to discuss the matter. Theldrick has invited the Facless One and several of his minions (including some kenku) to meet in a matter of hours in the large audience chamber at the back of the Hextorian stronghold. Theldrick works with the PCs to set up an ambush for the Faceless One, and after a bit of dialogue between the two villains about the Ebon Triad to get some foreshadowing into the campaign, Theldrick gives the signal and the place turns into a bloodbath.
By the end, your diplomatic characters have managed a cool ally who might come back into play, say, at the party in "The Prince of Redhand" or even in "The Champion's Belt." And you've gotten the chance to avoid the temple of Vecna, which is really, really tedious.
You're absolutely right that mazes don't work in D&D. I wanted one in there to hearken back to the classic adventures of old, but the fact of the matter is that they've been a confusing jumble in all editions, and will always be so. There are just some things that Don't Work in D&D, and this is one of them. Don't expect to see many more mazes in Dungeon.
As for the Heironeans not acting out immediately in response to Filge, I ran into exactly the same issue in my campaign, and handled it thusly. The Heirnoeans take the "L" in their alignment every bit as seriously as the "G", so they are respectful of the town's legal position even if it is flawed. They could overthrow Sheriff Cubbin and his boys, but this would bring retribution from the civilian authorities of Greyhawk and would bring shame to the Sanctum of Heironeous in the Free City. For the milita of the Garisson to act would be something akin to a military coup--also a no-go.
That said, they don't want to just sit around and do nothing about it, and they know the town's corruption will have to be fixed one way or another, and they would prefer their way to that of the flagellant Cuthbertine Jaran Wierus. In my campaign, the PCs brought a captured Filge to the garisson, where he was imprisoned in an underground cell. While the PCs investigated the Dourstone Mine at the urging of Commander Tolliver Trask and High Priest Valkus Dun, the clerics of Heironeous sent word to Greyhawk formally requesting a senior cleric to come and perform a ritual known as a Tempering, when a church of the Shining One realizes that they must take the law into their own hands. The Heironeans don't enter such a task lightly, for there are a number of conditions that must be met before the church will authorize such an action, and not every run of the mill cleric is allowed to judge. The Tempering amounts to an illegal execution, but in rare circumstances followers of Heironeous believe that it must be done.
The PCs were asked to be witnesses, essentially, in this trial and agreed. Then James Jacobs's character found a way to feed the captured Filge a vial of poison for unstated reasons, and that plot thread neatly closed without the need for a boring ritual in which I spent the better part of a half-hour talking to myself.
Hope that's helpful advice. I struggled with some of the same things you're dealing with, and I think I managed to pull it off well in the eyes of my players, despite some rather unfortunate lapses in the adventure itself.
--Erik
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Let Theldrick do what he plans to do, send the pc's out to murder Balabar Smenk, or better capture him and the other mine managers. Then gather the captured mine managers and let the 3 priests start a sacrificial ritual where the aspect rises and starts his rampage. Then have the aspect attack the pc's at which the pc's have to defend themselves, slay the aspect and enrage the cult.
Erik, thank you for this advice on running Three Faces of Evil. I'm planning on running Age of Worms after I finish Shackled City, and I've been reading the adventures, in general liking what I see. This is the one I was most concerned about, but I like the fix you suggest.
Oh, I forgot about the Ebon Aspect. Have the Faceless One call it from its slumber just as he is about to die. That would be groovy.
--Erik
Nice comments Erik. I had tons of problems with the adventure as well, which ended with a lot of handwaving and puzzlement that I shared with my PCs. They just went along with it and enjoyed it from a tactical perspective. Tactically speaking, the seperate temples are a lot of fun to play.
As to the maze. I had one additional gripe not specifically mentioned. A maze with the only way to proceed further to the final encounter was secret doors???? I had to handwave that as well, as I was not going to spend 4 sessions rolling Search checks :)
A dream situation would be not just to do a hardcover, but to do whole books based on the key locations (Diamond Lake, Free City, Alhaster) and fill them with lots of advice on how to keep the PCs on track and what to do when they wander off it. That's a lot to hope for, though, so it's almost not worth considering.Hmm. This actually sounds pretty cool. I can't be the only GM who finds a lot of campaign worlds over-developed to the point of paralysis. I have no interest in running a Forgotten Realms campaign because of the sheer amount of canon, for example. (Yeah, I'm anal. Moving on...)
How about the Paizo Publishing Backdrop series - an ongoing series of 64/96 page softcovers that focus on creating a believable, fleshed out, specific place for a campaign? Include the major NPCs, and a handful of adventure hooks, but not necessarily any large-scale plots - this would be a supplement, rather than an adventure module.
The Styes, Diamond Lake, Alhaster - the first three entries in the series are already half-written.
As another fringe benefit to this, future Dungeon adventures could be set in these backdrop locations. Obviously, some amount of background would have to be included in the magazine for those who don't have the backdrop book, but for those who do, the adventure becomes deeper/more interesting, without increasing the magazine page count or the adventure size.
Just a thought.
I was thinking something along these lines myself. It would definitely be something I would interested in buying - or working on. I likes my backdrops, my Preciousssss...
I got pretty lucky with my group on this adventure so it overall went well. The guards at the bottom of the elevator waited to see who was coming down. Well the halfling thief dropped out of the elevator before it got to the bottom and got the drop on them (a very nice hide roll and ring of feather fall). They stealthed through most of the temples the best they could, taking them one at a time. The maze for the most part worked for me since I laid it out all ahead of time then tracked Kendu movement on my copy. This allowed them to take full advantage of flanking and suprise on my group which is what I think the maze was intended to do. As far as the secret doors, well the elf spotted on fairly early off and the it was a Detect Secret Doors Spell from there. They were no problem from that point on.
Now for your situation. I commend the players for trying to be diplomatic with Thedrick (sp?) pending its within their alignments. Now I'm not sure I would have had him agree to letting them be double agents. Did he test their battle prowess to see if they were worthy of Hextor? I always figured the cults didn't quite get along so why tip his hand with people he just met. Did he check their alignment? What's done is done now, so I would agree with the above posters that The Faceless One is less trusted and will pretty much attack them without waiting for questions. You may want to give the player a hint that the Faceless One knew they were coming to plant a seed of doubt that Therick set them up.
Hi all
I just wanted to say that, aside from the 'crowded' nature of 3FoE, I really didn't have much of a problem running it. Now, granted, I rewrote the story a bit in order to fit the AoW arc into the convoluted conspiracy arc I was already running, which no doubt helped a bit with giving the characters reason to be there.
One seeming constant in gaming is that players will always do what you didn't prepare for them to do; I guess I got used to it.
So, when my players took down the Faceless One (dubbed Robespierre during the very, very close fight), and decided afterwards to impersonate him in order to get more information...well, I didn't expect it, but that's what they are doing. I already had an idea of goals/personalities/etc. for the local cultists, so I'm just winging it.
Incidentally, my players had a blast in the maze. A large part of that was role-playing, though; they are experienced players, but they are playing inexperienced and rather brash characters. This led to some hilarious (and tense) situations where the party was split up. They were lucky, overall.
hello all,
I am actually a player in UltimaGabe's campaign. I am also the other Dm in our group taking a rest from dming to play this time. Gabe assured me i could view this post without spoiloing too much for myself.
So to start lets say that i am probably one of the reasons this has been so difficult. I am playign a Paladin of Heironeus, who through seeing so much evil be overlooked in this town is slowly faltering in his fate. I captured Filge. I took him to the tmple of Heironeus with all of our evidence and was given a private meeting with Valkus Dun. He informed me that there was not enough evidence to take on smenk or dourstone. AT this point my character was dumbfounded. He never thought that the church of Heironeous would let this slide. He then asked if he could investigate and return with the evidence. He also told Valkus Dun to prepare the troops of the garrison for the age of worms. Keiran, my paladin, also asked Dun to pray to Heironeus to forgive Keiran, becaus ehe now knows that the group who will uncover all this and find out how to handle the age of worms won't be able to do things liek a paladin should.
I udnerstand that i am lawful good, and part of the problem might be that i've played alot of ebberron where alignments mingle alot. I however think Paladins represent good as much as law, and I realized early on that my party is chaotic, and will want to be sneaky and lie and infiltrate. In Kieran's opinion as long as he's fighting for good and keeping within the law he's ok with heironeous.
We didn't truly join up with Theldrick, but we didn't know what we were facing here and when the pary's hexblade told a lie to get us inside to see the fortifications of hextor's temple and learn more about what's happening, i nodded and went along. When she told him I was a blackguard of hextor who posed as a paladin to gain Dun's trust, i nodded again. I didn't stretch my alaignment horribly until I convinced him to fight The church of Vecna. I appealed to his Lawful side, and asked why he would trust who hides so much and isn't it Hextor's call to destroy the weak and become strong. I played on how little Theldrick knew of The Faceless one's plans and how much i knew about Hextor, my God's worst enemy to convince Theldrick to fight the Faceless one for us while we fought The Erythnul camp. I then taled with my DM Gabe about if I still have any Paladin powers, he said that I would have to do some atonement, but I haven't been abandoned by Heironeous yet.
One problem our party has with bad guys, is that its hard to slaughter them wholesale when they haven't provoked you. As players we've done far too many adventures where we run in, kill everybody get the stuff and then look back and realize we're bad guys. We just broke into their house, murdered and looted them, and decided we were righteous just ebcause they had some undead or were ruled by a vampire. in this adventure we decided not to fight until we learned why theyse people were here and what they were up to. My character was ready to fight after eharing about the ebon aspect, but opur cleric barbarian who tries to see the good in all people, wanted to give Theldrick a chance to turn back. He's letting Theldrick deal with Faceless one, and we'll deal with Kralek, and after words he'll give Theldrick one last chance to help us stop the ebon aspecy and save diamond lake, then we'll fight him.
My questions to you are these...
Is it unreasonable for players to need a motive to kill bad guys? Does wearing an evil holy symbol make a you a target for good guys, even if you aren't commiting horrible acts yet? Shouldn't a Paladin's job be to punish the right evil, not anyone who walks up to him with glowing evil or wearing hextor's symbol. I view Paladins as the chivalrous knights of myth, yes they fought monsters and defeated evil knights, But there purpose was to inspire people to do good, and in order to do that, they had to show mercy, compassion, and kindness. How can I kill Theldrick wihtout giving him a chance to stop this and do good. Wouldn't Heironeus be more pleased with me, If I stopped a great evil, and showed an evil man the error of his ways all at once, rather than just slaughtering evil whole sale like some acolyte of erythnul?
These are heavy questions, but I think it makes for better roleplaying if characters struggle with their alignments and what they mean, rather than deciding lawful good means this and only this, following that to a tee and never making a decisionof their own.
just my thoughts. I'd like to thank Eric and all of you for your comments, it emans alot to me as a player and DM, that an editor in chief takes time to read message boards and offer helpful suggestions. You'll also admit your mistakes which says alot about your character. Thank you
Jay
Back to UltimaGabe and your predicament/frustration: Personally I think you're in an excellent position for some fantastic gaming. Instead of being frustrated, my advice is to just roll with it!
My very best games that I have run has occurred when the party completely blows the framework of the adventure and beats their own path through it. As a DM, the frustration comes in when your players end up doing something that is clearly not intended by the adventure and you start feeling like you've done something wrong because its not flowing the way its supposed to go - or blame the adventure because it didn't cover the angle your freaky players decided to take. Instead of getting bunched, take a few deep breaths and see where the players take things.
Erik and the other posters have given great advice as to how all 3 factions should loosely be played in terms of alignment and motivations within the cult - just roleplay the NPC's within those general guidelines and let the players do the rest. Eventually one or more of the factions (Kur, the Faceless One, or Theldrick) will either take offense with the presence of your players or your players will be offended by the actions or plans of the cult and you'll have a great fight on your hands.
One of the worst adventures I had ever read (DarkSun's Merchant House of Amkech) turned out to be the very best adventure my players have ever played - 8 years later they still can gab on for hours about it. My players got off-track from the adventure almost immediately, following their own path. I was making up new areas of the world-map on the fly, throwing in encounters as fast as I could dream them up and only minimally tossing in plot elements from the adventure just to keep them somewhat on the right path. The players really dictated how that adventure played out and they had no idea what they experienced wasn't actually in the module. Months later I got a call from one of the players who had loved the game so much he went online and purchased the thing, but he completely flipped when he read it and discovered it hardly resembled the game he had experienced.
Good luck and above all, have fun!
I like the fact that it appears that you are really trying to put a moral spin on how you approach the adventure. I think it's good to have characters question their moral compass once in a while. The problem you do run into on this is that many people interpret the alignments differently. Adventures and hooks for them sometimes assumes that certain alignments will act a certain way. Since all the cultists are evil, I would assume that the adventure is a little less accommodating to good aligned characters working with them.
My take based on you statements of the events is biased as well. I can understand your waivering on your faith because of the thing with Filge. Being a Palidin is not easy and requires a lot of faith and sacrifice. I do think that you interaction with the Hextor's should have put you out of faith. It's only my opinion based on my interpretation of alignments. Lieing and decption are the tools of evil. You knowing used these tools to get into the temple. You actively set up a union with evil. Your statement of appealing to his lawful side along gives me the feeling that you felt you had to be a little decceptive to get him on the path of good rather than showing him the benifits of good. To me those are the difficult choices Paladins have to make everyday or I guess lawful good characters in general. Overall though, this is just my opinion.
I do think that you interaction with the Hextor's should have put you out of faith. It's only my opinion based on my interpretation of alignments. Lieing and decption are the tools of evil. You knowing used these tools to get into the temple.
IMHO, sacraficing a paladin's platemail for the +5 Lawful_Good_Straight_Jacket takes a lot of the fun out of role-playing a paladin. Jay's moral struggles are what makes the game (and roleplaying) fun. If I were Gabe (his DM) I would keep Jay guessing whether or not he's crossed the line with Heironeous or not - keep him spiritually struggling. Let him do modified minor atonement for his part in the deception if he wants to, but don't punish him as long as he keeps up his spiritual struggle. His character is, what, level 3 or 4 at this point in time? He's just a pup trying to figure out his place in the world and stumbling through moral quandries like this is what will define his character when he hits level 20.
I'd find a way after 3FoE is complete to have the paladin make a definitive statement on how he views lying and deception and whether or not, after its all said and done, he crossed the line. I wouldn't believe that just becuase he didn't draw steel and attack the Hexorites on first sight that he screwed up - that just makes for cardboard, non-thinking roleplaying and should be avoided.
so, i'll be starting in on running 3foE tomorow night, and i'm running into the similar sets of problems, though they are tempered with lots and lots of character deaths. (no TPK, but everyone is on character 2 or 3)
my solution? re-write the whole damn adventure, and take care of a couple problems while i'm at it. i've changed the grimlocks to gnolls - i have a mostly above-ground and outdoorsy party, and my group hates the kind of hardcore dungeon crawl that 3foE turns into. so, i've seperated out the three temples - a gnoll camp in the cairn hills, a ruined temple of hextor a day's ride out of town, and the black cathedral in the dourstone mine. instead of the maze, i'll have the mine level below the elevator be filled with nasty underground critters and kenku, and have a showdown in the black cathedral.
the faceless one i've made a bit higher level, because i want him to escape, and be a part of Illithane's plot with the lizardfolk. his final showdown will come in the egg chamber of the lair of the twisted branch lizardfolk. so at this point, he'll toss something into the black pool which awakens the ebon aspect and attempt to teleport away, leaving the party to fight his two cultist guards and the ebon aspect.
the hextor temple is very similar in design to the temple in the adventure, and the tactics the enemies use will be exactly the same.
the gnoll camp should be an interesting encounter - since i've had to change the hook for this adventure to get the new characters involved, the gnoll camp will be an interesting challenge for the players. they can infiltrate and attempt to free the prisoners, they can attempt the quick and silent killings, but whatever they do, it'll take some serious stratagy.
clues will lead them to the hextor temple - i'm thinking that the PCs, in the course of continuing to investigate Smenk, will try to find out where his "secret" shipments of goods are going to in the hills. i may have to think fast, because this group has a tendancy to lock on to the most irellevent details with deadly (for the characters, at least) precision.
after that, theldrick's correspondence with the faceless one should lead them into the dourstone mine.
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I'm starting 3FoE this evening. I've already changed the ending so that the Faceless One calls the Ebon aspect as a direct summon to cover his escape. They also followed some of Theldrick's followers from the Feral Dog and observed the married Priests in action. I'm not sure how I am going to handle Theldrick, but I don't want him to die if I can avoid it.
The above thread is going to make tonight a great deal smoother.
This is a hot thread with a lot of great information.
For what its worth, I had a great time running this adventure. I made on-the-spot decisions where I had to, but it otherwise went without a hitch.
That said, all of the ideas, not only by Eric, but by the posters as well were very enlightening. I wish I knew then what I know now, and my favorite character to date (Theldrick) would still be alive.
Then, I started the adventure. For the most part, it went well- sure, there wasn't really much motivation for the players to do what Smenk told them- in fact, as I was running it, I realized that it isn't even clear WHAT Smenk wants them to do. Kill the leaders?
Motivating the players--IMC, I paved the way with a number of things:
Filge & the worms: My PC's captured Filge, interrogated him about the note, & turned him over to the Garrison for more interrogation. One of the PCs is a paladin of Heironeous, & Valkus Dun & Trask let it be known that the Garrison couldn't stage a raid on the mine of a powerful mine manager based on the word of a necromancer & a note signed "S" (who could be anyone, really). The PCs were instead encouraged by Trask to go down there & see for themselves--should they be caught, the Garrison could claim ignorance.
Subplot #1--Amon Kyre & waning church attendence: I planted a couple rumors with the paladin. One was about "Amon Kyre" (when inventing names, I like to "Gygaxize" those of the creators involved), the name I gave to the Heironian high priest who vanished 2 years ago (check the DL Backdrop), about the same time the Faceless One moved to town & Ilthane moved in on the Twisted Branch tribe. I emblazoned the cold iron longsword & shield of blinding in 3FoE w/ the symbol of Heironeous. I also planted a rumor about church attendence at both the Chapel of Heironeous & Church of St Cuthbert waning over the last 2 years, implying that perhaps people are turning to other gods.
Subplot #2--Weird happenings in DL: All though WC on trips to town, I'd have the PCs catch glimpses of mysterious hooded figures, & hearing voices that belong to people who aren't there (both the FO & kenku). When Filge was captured, his owl was on the windowsill, watching. When one of the PCs guarding Filge that night fired at it, another bolt came into the window, then they heard someone outside speaking in Filge's voice, & saw a dark figure fleeing into the woods (a kenku that originally went there to slay Filge, as they learned of Smenk's stealing of the worm).
Smenk: Most of the PCs (all but the paladin & wizard) ended up getting themselves arrested, faced with the murder of Kullen & company. Smenk bailed them out. By know, he'd visited Filge in Jail & learned of their intent to go into the mines. Smenk struck a deal--destroy any evidence of his involvement in the mine & he'll make sure the charges get dropped. They agreed. To ensure they'd do so (& because the party at the time was short on help), he bailed Filge out & sent him along!
the guards and such at the beginning- they attack anyone they see, yet they can be bribed? How does that work?
Actually, I wasn't too concerned about this, as the goal is to get into the mine, not parley with mine workers. Allustan helped out here, suggesting they go in at night using Obscuring Mist. I also dropped the dwarf guards (DL doesn't have enough dwarves to justify it), changed the stockade to a simple fence, & ruled that none of the guards were Hextorite cultists (how can the PCs expect to rest in the mines when the cultist mine guards return & find the tieflings gone, 7/or bllod/carnage somewhere else?).
Second, I instantly noticed that if your party isn't a "run in, kill anything that moves, and bash apart anything that doesn't" group (as mine isn't, nor is anyone's I know), there's no clear goal to this adventure.
You pretty much have to fill in those blanks yourself in this case--thus the motivations listed above. I added another subplot once they were inside: One of the PCs is a half-drow who has never met her father (actually, an old character from an earlier campaign in the same world). Noticing that Kur & his band had a lot of loot from a drow war party they'd killed on the way to the mines, I planted a scroll with hints pointing toward her father & his involvement with the Seekers, thus laying ground to bring Khellek in later (which, alas, they've yet to do).
So how'd it turn out? Fairly well. They hit the 3 temples in order. Having a Heironean in the party helped greatly into motivating the others into "kill" mode. I stole Erik's idea by having Theldrick, once he became aware of the party & learned one of them was a Heironean, meet the party in the arena & challenge the "lapdog of Heironeous" to single combat. Though a deal was made for no one to interfere with the two, Filge seized control of one of the troglodyte zombies ("Herman," we named him) & had it start pushing people off the balcony, so everyone ended up involved. Things flowed naturally from there.
The maze was a pain in the arse. I used a couple different tricks, & it was still a headache. I had them draw the maze out as they went along, and I personally kept track of the 16 kenku & 2 weasels by keeping a copy of the map, taped to a piece of cardboard, behind the screen, & used different colored pins (the kind you use in sewing, with the little balls on top) to represent each group. It was the slowest session I ever ran, & more annoying than challenging to the PCs.
The PCs found the goods w/ Smenk's brand on them & destroyed them (but not the coded note which mentioned his name) & headed back to DL. The paladin reported his findings to the Garrison & the others reported to Smenk. The garrison & Governer-Mayor Neff & his crew shut the mine down & arrested Dourstone. About the same time, someone set fire to Dourstone's home, destroying any further evidence of the cult & its participants. Dourstone was found the next day dead in his cell, an apparant suicide by hanging. The arson & death seem to reek of Smenk's cologne, but it may well never be proven.
I'd run with this situation similar to how others have indicated. Theldrick asks the new recruits to prove their worth to him and to Hextor by helping deal with his frustration: get the notebook off the Faceless One so he can translate the scroll. While they're doing so, they are also to try and find out just what in the name of the gods Grallak Kur is rambling about in his visions. The whole thing then becomes a precarious balancing act to try and keep their cover. And of course the quandry that comes up if/when they succeed, and Theldrick wishes to induct them into the Inner Mysteries of the Ebon Triad...
Overall, I'd just like to thank everyone for replying to my conundrum, and I will definitely try to use some of this knowledge in our next gaming session. I'd especially like to thank Erik Mona, as his posts are always quite informative. I went about things slightly different than you all suggested after I posted this in the first place- basically, I allowed the players to convince Theldrick to attack the cult of Vecna (by challenging him to show who's really in charge) without any sort of dice rolls- mainly because, since the adventure wasn't very well put together and there was no chance of getting it back on the track it was meant to be, I half wanted to just skip the whole adventure as well as give the players a reward for their ability to overcome shoddy writing. I figured, if I introduced dice rolling into the scenario, it would rely too much on random numbers, possibly (that is, almost definitely) getting all of the PCs killed just because the adventure wasn't structured well. So, since they had a good idea, I went with it. The only thing they would have to do, though, is to take on Grallak Kur and his gang (so at least one of the sections of the adventure would be done the way it was meant to). I plan on having them come back in the middle of a semi-epic battle between Theldrick and the Faceless One, but I'll figure out the specifics when I get there. So far, it shouldn't be too difficult, and it'll almost be over soon. So then I can move on with the rest of the campaign.
However, despite all of the good ideas thrown around in this thread, there's one response I've gotten from several of you (and, Chris P, don't think this is directed at you, you were just the first one I quoted). This comment, in my opinion, is the absolute least helpful one so far:
Did he check their alignment?
Nope. Not once. Not a single time.
...You know why?
Well, he didn't have it prepared, of course. NONE of the NPCs did. Not a single one had it prepared, had a scroll of it, or had any way whatsoever to determine someone's alignment. There could be a Chaotic Good rogue walking around bluffing them all into thinking he was some warlord from the north sent directly from Hextor and they'd have no way of knowing without waiting a day to prepare new spells. The players sure as heck don't often get a chance to swap out spells, so why should the bad guys? This is yet another glaring piece of evidence that this adventure isn't meant to be run any way other than bash-in-the-door-kill-the-badguys. Nobody has any way to prove whether or not the PCs are lying to them about anything, since NPCs don't bother to put ranks in any sort of social skills, or prepare any non-combat spells.
welp, i'm particularly pleased with how my setup has turned out so far. the PC's begin to investigate the mine, and even go through the trouble of sneaking the rogue in, posing as a miner. he recons, finds the boarded up elevator, but decides not to investigate further without party help.
little did he know, but the other mine guardians (a group of kenku rogues) noticed him and followed him out of the compoud. he chose to make a flashy exit, so the kenku had no problems following him back to the PC's lair. half of them ambush the PCs on the roadside, and the other half stay at the mine - killing off all the mine guards and waiting to see if there are further attempts at infiltration.
the pcs deal with both ambushes fairly well (runs them out of spells and hit points - fighting kenku rogues, in the dark, meant a lot of sneak attacks got through), but have to return to their lair to rest. in the morning, a runner from the garrison comes out to hire the PCs (known as being of a mercenary bent, and the garrison was busy with an earlier set in motion subplot) to deal with the gnoll attack outside of town.
they deal with the camp full of gnolls (who have sacraficial captives for erythnul!), but by that point it was pretty late, so we had to call it a night. they'll find the clues linking them to investigate the hextor temple soon enough (meanwhile, they want to be out of town because of the murdered guards at the mine and the missing minor matching one of the party's description).
overall, this whole setup came out quite well for me.
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Creative Director
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...since NPCs don't bother to put ranks in any sort of social skills, or prepare any non-combat spells.
Of course, when we present NPCs who DO prepare non-combat spells (see Eli Tomorast in #112) we get the "Why is a tough bad guy wasting time preparing spells like legend lore?" lecture from the other side.
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Like, for example, the guards and such at the beginning- they attack anyone they see, yet they can be bribed? How does that work? "Ack! Hey- quit- stabbing- me! I'll- pay- yoouuuu...."?
To be fair, I don't think that it's intended to infiltrate the camp and then to bribe anyone. As I read it, the PCs probably met some of the guards, the foremen or the miners in town (most probably at the "feral dog"). There they have an opportunity to make those people helpful so as to make allies before going to the mines.
I haven't led my group through TFoE yet, but I'm preparing it right now. I don't think, that the maze of Vecna will work for my group as is, and I await my players to rush through the three dungeons, but on the other hand, I see a lot of potential in the adventure as far as "character playing" is concerned. So with some tweaks here and there, I think it isn't to bad an adventure, so there's no need to exchange it with another one.
I just want to give props to Rob Bastard, who, judging from that last post, seems to run a great campaign that benefits from all the prep time he puts in. Nicely done.
Lots of the advice was on target.
After reading this I think the halfling Paladin NPC will
return to the party.
I think he will discover what has become of Diamond Lake at
the same time as the party.
I'll have to look at the module.
Guilt comes from what you do.
Guilt comes from what you don't do.
Evil is also the lack of guilt.
I must agree with most of your points: When I first read the mod I was really disappointed as it falls off in quality compared to Whispering Cairn.
But nevertheless it starts running fine with my group (we started yesterday). Why? Well, all PCs starts with Diamond Lake as their homeground. I gave every PC a backstory with several connections to locals. (note: we were playing @ Eberron)
One of my players is a female Changeling (an "Odo"-styled shapechanger) who worked as a "dancer" at the Purple Rose. Constance as well is a Changeling and the two often change faces/places just for the fun. So it comes that the PC get unintentional involved in Constances espionage for Lanod Neff. As in the backlog for Diamond Lake it says that Constance might not live any longer, I thought it was a nice idea, if Constance errously gets killed instead of the PC while she was in hers disguise. This gives the PC plenty of room for investigation and sometimes makes Smenk her enemy.
Second, as in Eberron AoW has something to do with Eberrons history and cults (dalkyr, Lords of the Dust etc) it was very easy to scatter hints through Allustan and others about a bigger conspiracy. There lies motivation enough to get the players down the cathedral.
I replaced the tieflings with dolgaunths (Eberron native aberrations and dalkyr creations) so no lawfull player will hesitate to kill everything that is involved with these foul creatures...