I am DMing HTBM tonight immediately after work, and I brought the wrong magazine with me. Can anyone offer any advice or remind me of impoprtant encounters?
We already fought the T-Rex on the beach and suffered a midnight Terror Bird encounter.
Tonight's agenda was going to be:
1. The encounter with the baby diploducus in the clearing (any idea what I can swap put for stats?)
2. The encounter with the arenea (should be okay)
3. The encounter with the nesting terror birds at the cave mouth (need some stats or an alternate encounter)
4. The cave complex itself (this is the tough one)
I was already going to replace the 2-key door with a custom puzzle, and luckily I have that with me. I remember the room with the bridges and the colossul centipedes. Does anything else need to happen in the caves? How long was that first passage? What does the are immediately south of the door look like (I seem to remember a sandy beach, then a road leading off hugging the cliffs.
My resources for tonight: Dungeon 141, MM1, DMG, PHB, and 20+ years experience. Most other books will be avaiable once I reach the game site, but are not available now.
I have until 5:30 central time. Thank you all.
Pop over to the Hypertext d20 site and grab some monsters.
Megaraptors easily fit in with the theme of the adventure and can be used for the Terror Birds. The original adventure called for a tough CR 7 Terror Bird and a two or three CR 4 ones. A megaraptor is CR 6. Your pretty close to the same EL if you use 3 standard ones. Maybe bump up the hps of one to make it the 'mommy' 'raptor.
Any vegetarian dino baby will do for the adventure. Your players are not likely to go and actually hunt it down and its fleeing at a break neck pace. Bottom line - you don't need stats. Its not actually in a fight. Just ad lib.
I think the cave/entrance way is the hardest part of what your facing. Just how long do you need to keep your players occupied? Can you do something like throw in another NPC and make your players fight some sharks to save him? What I'm getting at is don't use the cave this session. If your players don't yet know about these caves do a quick transplant - move them up the sea side cliffs to some place your PCs will not get to this session. Then stall, stall and stall some more.
Throw in some NPC encounters or foreshadowing or something. We know there are annoying Gargoyles - have some jump the players. Play up the NPCs as well - work on their persona, make the players work for any supplies they want to recover from the ship. Maybe they can bump into an Olmec native. Can you use your puzzle as part of the initial gate? There could be two gates after all. One mainly guarded by your puzzle and the other one halfway along the cliff side trek.
* If you whip up another NPC lost on the ship and needing to be saved (he was out cold in the hold or something) you could use SRD sharks and interacting with this person to eat some time.
* play up some of the NPC interactions with each other.
* An encounter with an Olmec. Something is going to eventually make Farshore a worth while colony. One thing that's being bandied about is growing interesting spices. Have an encounter that foreshadows this sort of thing by having the players encounter an Olmec that comes to this part of the island because there are neat spices here. She's not with a nearby village but is instead a long way from home - maybe she's built herself a grass hut or something and is collecting mustard plant seeds while living off crabs she catches in traps. The main criteria is that she can't help the PCs get to anywhere as she'll be hanging out here for some time - but she can talk to them. If your scared that the players might some how get her to help them start adding to Olmec Culture. She needs to collect a spice whole mess of differnt spices so that she can marry. All Olmec girls go on a quest to collect a spice cabinet of their own - important ritual, a girl becomes a woman after she has survived the terrors of the Island of Dread for several months and collected a spice cabinet of her very own. No way she can really help more then some talking, she'll be dishonoured if she fails in her quest and can't lead the players anywhere. Possibly give her a magic item that she would be very willing to trade for exotic spices the players could get from the ship - remember to remove some item of similar power from later in the adventure when your prepping for next session. (Dust of Appearence might work).
* Save the baby herbivore from nasty Megaraptors - combat takes some time so this might eat up some of it.
* Don't forget to crack out the NPCs every time anything changes. Get them going when everyone decides to break camp - and when they enter the woods - and when they leave the woods - and when they approach the Areana - and when they approach the cave. Try jotting down some notes for them to give you ideas (unless your very good at coming up with stuff on the fly - I personally love my NPCs when I use something to jog my Noggin but have lousy ones if I don't have at least something to start with)
* Talk to the Areana. Play her up if at all possible (I can't remember her point in this adventure - anyone help with that and throw in some suggestions for making here more interesting to spend some time with?)
* More Megaraptors before going into the cave. Make one of them have more hps or give it the fiendish template or something so that its a bit different then the last megaraptor encounter.
* Use your puzzle - that should slow them down.
* if their still playing then hit them with some Gargoyles on the cliff face. SRD has the stats, their only CR 4 so you may need at least 4 and maybe 6 for a tough encounter - keep in mind that your players should not have that tough a time resting, make them work for their victory. Swap out Toughness with flyby attack on the Gargoyles then have them go after the weak players or NPCs on the cliff. This should drive your players batty - Also if the flying rules don't drag the game to a grinding standstill nothing short of the grappling rules will.
Unless your running some kind of a marathon this should be enough to keep your players occupied for the game tonight.
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1. The encounter with the baby diploducus in the clearing (any idea what I can swap put for stats?)
It's just a huge animal with 16 HD, Con 20, AC 15 and Speed 20 harried by 6 of the terror birds. They're large animals with Init +7, 45 hp, AC 17, F/R/W= 7/8/4, speed 50, bite +8/1d8+4 and 2 claws +6/1d4+2, BAD 5, Grapple 13, Space and reach both 10 ft, Improved grab (bite), feats: Imp init, Multiattack, Skill focus hide; SDCIWX 19/17/15/2/14/10. If the baby lives, it's supposed to be worth a CR8. The terror birds are in Fiend Folio, page 175, they spend their skill points on hide and move silently.
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3. The encounter with the nesting terror birds at the cave mouth (need some stats or an alternate encounter)
In case they ask, the aranea's name is Lithira
The nest area has one standard TB on lookout (spot, listen +2), which is the only one to have a chance to be aware of the PCs if they come by stealth, as the other birds are distracted tending to the young. There are two more regular TBs on nest detail, and one extra large one. She's advanced, with these stats: Init +9, Liste/Spot +1, AC 19 touch/FF 14, 110 hp (13 HD), FRW 12/13/5, speed 50, bite +15/2d6+7 and 2 claws +13/1d6+3, BAD 9, Grapple 20, Space and reach both 10 ft, Improved grab (bite), feats: Imp init, Multiattack, Skill focus hide, Imp. natural attack (caw, bite); SDCIWX 24/20/18/2/12/12. She has a cloak of Charisma +2 in her nest; the eggs, if kept warm, are worth 500 gp each, and each of the three nests has 3.
4. The cave complex itself (this is the tough one)I was already going to replace the 2-key door with a custom puzzle, and luckily I have that with me. I remember the room with the bridges and the colossul centipedes. Does anything else need to happen in the caves? How long was that first passage? What does the are immediately south of the door look like (I seem to remember a sandy beach, then a road leading off hugging the cliffs. ...
The pass is 6 miles due south, some parts natural, some worked. They arrive in it around late afternoon/dusk if they got directions from Lithira. This is also first contact with Olangru; have the 2 rearmost make DC 20 Spot checks, tell them they feel like they're being watched. Halfway through, they hear illusary sounds of a cave-in behind them.
Complex: The air's dank, smells like rot, and all the wall carvings and such are covered in mildew. The NPCs are all jumpy, except Avner, who's glad to be away from the birds.Entrance: A throne, a skeleton with a +1 longspear in its ribcage pinning it to the throne and a 500gp necklace, and a half-full stone fountain with stagnant water(8 ft deep, 4ft of water). DC 20 Search to find the red stone rod (8 pounds) at the bottom, DC 15 Fort to avoid 1d2 Con damage from drinking the stagnant water.
Centipede Chasm. Mildew caked stone statues of guards on either side of the exit from the entrance. 2 stone bridges over the chasm. The centipedes are Gargantuan, with 66 hp.
Eastern bridge leads to stuck double doors, DC 28 Str to open. It leads to some winding passages with burial niches. There are about 200 bodies total, as each niche has 6 shelves. None have any loot, or even anything fancy. Empty niches hold murals of skeletal humanoids or dogs wrapped in snakes. 3 randomly positioned mummies animate and attach anyone who messes with the bodies. They also attack anyone who messes with the secret door. They each wear 500 gp necklaces. It's a DC 22 Search to find the door; a DC 25 K[rel] identifies the murals as the Olman god of death and undeath, Mictlantecuhtli.
Behind the Secret Door: An Olman shaman in a sarcophagus. Lots of carvings of animals, plus a mural of the intered. He's wearing a feather headdress and has a ceremonial dagger in one hand and the blue stone rod in the other hand. The room has a CR 6 spear trap in the floor; the spears are coated in greenblood oil and they're triggered by opening the sarcophogus; inside of it, there's the body holding the blue rod(also 8 pounds) and a MW silver dagger. he's also wearing a gold medallion with a pink 3rd level pearl of power.
The western chasm bridge leads to a rectangular room with a stagnant pool in one corner, which is sort of collapsed. There's a 115 hp black pudding hiding in the pool. This room and the winding passage of niches lead to double doors that face each other.
Beyond the doors, there's a small room with the water-tight iron doors to the south, and pedestals opposite them on the north end of the room. One pedestal is blue marble and the other's red granite. Simultaneously insert the matching rods into the niches on the tops, and rotate clockwise to release the doors, which are otherwise 4-feet thick, ironclad stone, with hardness 10, 1,440 hp, and break DC 50.
The beach is part shallow water, part deep and has 3 large monstrous crabs (stormwrack). Each one's 30 pounds worth of food if killed and cooked.
THANKS. With the terror bird stats, I can easliy rework the baby dino encounter and I can up them for the cave enterance. I got my hands on MM2, so the baby dino will be an ankleosaur (I like the tail slap as they try to help) I figure about an hour tonight with the arenea. I can boost the dire birds stats for the cave enterance (that was one tough encounter). The cave complex info you gave is more than enough to work with until tonight's finale, which is the puzzle door to the outside. Throw in some foreshdowing for the bar-ilgura and I think I have about five hours of playability without any serious re-writes.
If it is going too fast, then I can increase the NPC drama in the middle (I managed to stick them with extra NPCs anyway) and add that gargoyle ambush at the end to fill up the remianing time nicely.
Sweet!
What I would do is just explain to the group what happened and then rush home and grab the issue, unless for some reason you don't have a vehicle or something. Your group would probably understand and probably wouldn't be angry or anything.
But then again, it looks like you have it all figured out.
I'd like to see your custom riddle/puzzle thing, there are more than enough keys floating round already.
I have a quick question. I will be running HTBM the next time we get together to play, and I wanted to make sure of something. The gargoyle chief has DR 10/magic and 5/adamantine, due to the crown. I want to make sure this does not stack. If my characters are using magic weapons, DR will be 5, but if they are using adamantine weapons, with no enhancement bonus it would be DR 10. Please let know this is correct.
Director of Games
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I have a quick question. I will be running HTBM the next time we get together to play, and I wanted to make sure of something. The gargoyle chief has DR 10/magic and 5/adamantine, due to the crown. I want to make sure this does not stack. If my characters are using magic weapons, DR will be 5, but if they are using adamantine weapons, with no enhancement bonus it would be DR 10. Please let know this is correct.
You are correct.
Jason Bulmahn
HTBM Author