Hiya
At Game '07, I'm looking at running a Paizo adventure during a late-night gaming event. I will have three hours, so I wondered which adventure would be good. I have issues 135, 136, and 138-147. I was looking at maybe the battle against Kyuss, but that's high-level. Maybe the Tides of Dread (namely the final battle), the Mud Sorcerer's Tomb, or another part of the Savage Tide.
Help?
Chris
Ace, cheers. how would you suggest I work the ending (VP-Wise)? just judge how they did in the battle itself?
Personally, the "one-shot" that's been on the top of my list--and I may get to run it Sunday night--is "And Madness Followed", a Cthulhu-esque adventure for four 9th-level (a good level) characters. Highly original, and easily divided into three parts, this adventure should serve as a unique spin on the standard one-shot with its subject matter and surprising conclusion. (It's in Dungeon 134.)
Another one I'd suggest is in the more recent issue of Dungeon 146, namely Escape From Meenlock Prison. I haven't had much of a chance to read it, but from what I have, it seems short and sweet, with a nice horror motif that really only works at its best as a 1st-level adventure, which this one is.
Hiya
At Game '07, I'm looking at running a Paizo adventure during a late-night gaming event. I will have three hours, so I wondered which adventure would be good. I have issues 135, 136, and 138-147. I was looking at maybe the battle against Kyuss, but that's high-level. Maybe the Tides of Dread (namely the final battle), the Mud Sorcerer's Tomb, or another part of the Savage Tide.
Help?
Chris
If you do choose the fight against Kyuss, don't make it a fight against just Kyuss. It needs to be a fight between the PCs, Kyuss, Lashonna, three blessed angels, Maralee, three broodfiends, Lashonna's pet Pit Fiend, and maybe the Kyuss Knight from the encounter at the Deluxury and like eight of the other Kyuss Knights.
That's how it went down with my players, and it was a battle royale.
If you pit a bunch of 20th level PCs against just Kyuss, especially if it's 5+ players? It's going to be a short session.
I would suggest "The Unkindness of Ravens" from issue 65.
Aye, "And Madness Followed" is a great adventure, especially for a late night style session, and if you find the initial encounter goes too slow you can always ad-lib with the second one to speed the group on to the conclusion. As a one-shot, I'd recommend maybe only use 4x8th level PC's though, especially if your players are good, the fights themselves are not terribly hard (except potentially the last one, but if it's a one-shot failure at the last hurdle isn't such a biggie; especially as this is a Cthulhu style adventure, people dying and/or going mad is almost to be expected!). Or maybe three PC's at 9th level, which from memory is how I ran it as part of my Age of Worms campaign (my group were cautious with the bards, so never got enchanted, so only the big bad monster at the end was a challenge, and even then it got dragged back to whence it came early on due to me rolling a one on the duration die).
A one-shot that I ran two players through with good success was "Torrents of Dread" (EL 6; Dungeon 114). It's kinda spooky, with a village zombie-master the PC's have to find and of course a twist at the end as to what's behind it all. As written it's a bit long for your time-frame, but with some trimming (potentially on the fly in the dungeon) and a really fast playing style, your players should be able to get through a surprising amount of combats and hopefully get to the end. We ran through it in an afternoon, like about 5 hours, but in retrospect I should have helped them find the end point and trimmed a couple of fights towards the end, as we pretty much ran out of time by the last encounter (they ended up killing everything in the whole dungeon before they found the secret door to the end bosses, sigh, I should have kept closer watch on the time and fudged it). It's got a great, simple set-up, with the action starting as the PC's are tossed off a ship-wrecked boat, so you have your players set up an adventuring party destined for some sort of treasure-raiding in the far-flung islands, but they won't know exactly what to expect.
For example, my two players collaborated before hand to create a halfling wizard, elf cleric, human barbarian/rogue, and human fighter. They might have even been 5th level rather than 6th, given the one-shot nature (and the strong abilities of the players). They did really well, chugging through most combats pretty fast, especially if it involved zombies (one turn attempts tended to destroy all the ones in range, the rest were very quickly dispatched by fireball and/or greatswords). As a one-off, I concentrated hard on moving the group forward fast, both in and out of combat, which we all enjoyed (we had previously discussed this too, so everyone knew what to expect). Occasionally they slowed down a little, like when the Tendriculous was in danger of killing everyone it could reach, or when trying to work out what to do in the village (the adventure they were sent on wasn't in the ball-park of what they might have been expecting, which was cool, they were wondering somewhat if they were working for the good guys or the bad guys, but had to do something or be trapped on the island). But these blips were not too long and overall the adventure went really well at a fast pace. A couple of combats were very close calls, and required a combo of luck and revised tactics from the players, while the rest were fun and showed the strength of a well thought out combination of core classes and equipment - some fights were over in one round or less! The beginning was especially funny, because even though I told them they were adventurers on a ship looking for lost treasures, no-one could row a boat or even swim if they ended up overboard!
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We had a great time as a one shot of "The Great Train Robbery" I set it up with pregen charachters that were all hafling rouges working as circus preformers that just happened to be on the lightning rail. The had a great time and it took about 3-3.5 hours to get done. I am not sure what Mag it was in but that adventure is worth the price of the order by itself.
If you've got issue #51 and don't mind making the conversion, Jeff Crook's "Nbod's Room" is one of the greatest one-shot adventures ever written. (In fact I may cook that one up myself for GenCon if anyone is interested.)
I hear "Tamemraut's Fate" and "Torrents of Dread," mentioned above, are okay too, but I think their author's a little bit sketchy.
Don't be modest, Greg. Those were both great adventures. Hope to see more of you in Pathfinder.
There is one adventure coming up in the "ultimate" issue of Dungeon, namely "Kill Bargle", which my buds and I are already lining up to one-shot.
I started years ago with the D&D Rules Cyclopedia, and that big, black box with Zanzer Tem, et al. So, Mystara was my first "campaign world", so to speak. Thus, as luck would have it, I made my very first adventure centered around the Five Shires, and the very first character my brother played was a halfling with an artifact, pursued by this evil wizard, and assisted by another good wizard. (Wouldja believe I hadn't read Lord of the Rings by this point?) But Bargle always got away...
So, Bargle's end is long overdue. When I get #150, they're gonna KILL BARGLE!!!