I am thinking it a few steps ahead as we are about to finish CoC now.
I re-read the Last Resort module and I am pretty disappointed with it: not much background about the druids order, only a few high-level encounters... I was considering adding background encounters (more ruins with infos about the druids and their allies, may be glimpses of other past cultures and so on). Also, more roleplay or non-combat encounters involved would be ok for me.
Also, (as explained in the "AOW Campaign Arc Design" thread)I plan to start my tie-in with Castle Greyhawk and Return of the Eight just after CoC, I am considering using Isle of the Ape instead of the Island of Last Resort. I will of course adapt and transfer some of the encounters.
Do you have any suggestions or comments on this one ? May be some of you already have modified Last Resort, or used another adventure to add some flavor to it ?
Thanks in advance guys
Bump! Anyone ?
I am not in a hurry, we are just in the middle of AGoW, just started a tie-in with Expedition to the Ruins of Castle Greyhawk, and finished a solo (The Devil's Embrace)for the Paladin (late in levels due to 2 raise dead... a tie-in to the tie-in, because of Iggwilv). Next steps will be RttRoCG and Return of the Eight, before we go to the Spire of Long Shadows (with may be a stop in the Bright Lands...).
Bump! Anyone ?
I am not in a hurry, we are just in the middle of AGoW, just started a tie-in with Expedition to the Ruins of Castle Greyhawk, and finished a solo (The Devil's Embrace)for the Paladin (late in levels due to 2 raise dead... a tie-in to the tie-in, because of Iggwilv). Next steps will be RttRoCG and Return of the Eight, before we go to the Spire of Long Shadows (with may be a stop in the Bright Lands...).
Bump! Anyone ?
I am not in a hurry, we are just in the middle of AGoW, just started a tie-in with Expedition to the Ruins of Castle Greyhawk, and finished a solo (The Devil's Embrace)for the Paladin (late in levels due to 2 raise dead... a tie-in to the tie-in, because of Iggwilv). Next steps will be RttRoCG and Return of the Eight, before we go to the Spire of Long Shadows (with may be a stop in the Bright Lands...).
My players are actually on Tilagos right now. I'm playing it as written (for the most part), but am adding some flavor in the form of random encounters interacting with other random encounters. This is an island teeming with life, so the plains, forests, hills and skies should be full of creatures on the hunt, herds migrating, monkeys screeching. I added a bunch of non-combat random encounters to both give some flavor (this island is populated primarily with freaks of nature that the druids felt compelled to remove from the "real world") and to give the PCs some creatures with which to interact and gather information.
Upon arriving at the island and after hearing of the trials, the players decided to wind walk across the plains towards the forest, assuming it might be the "Doomshroud" that needed a song silenced. On the journey, they spotted a flight of two-headed giant pterodactyls on the hunt, and saw a grazing herd of dire elk suddenly attacked from below by a gargantuan Tilagos bulette. This served to show the characters the freakish nature of the island's inhabitants, and to highlight some of the unseen dangers. They are 16th level powerhouses that are now afraid to walk on the plains. When they reached the Doomshroud, I beset them with a frantic herd of (harmless) shrieking monkeys, followed by a deathly still, and then had them stalked and attacked by a Tilagos girallon, King Kong style. They made relatively easy work of him, but the experience made the island more "real".
I also changed the titan's gargoyles into something more akin to half-elven, half-bat creatures to fit the purpose of the island (why would have generic gargoyles, albeit advanced ones, been transported here by the druids in the first place?).
This island is an amazing palette for a GM with some time and creativity. Maybe there is some insane, suicidal, noble treant wandering the Doomshroud in search of a fire, and will exchange information about the forest's "song" for a killing flame. Perhaps an adolescent Tarrasque is locked in temporal stasis in a deep cave. This island is essentially a remote prison where the strangest perversions of nature now live (and breed). Make it fun.
Bump! Anyone ?
the Paladin (late in levels due to 2 raise dead...)
On a side note, I read a pretty good house rule on these boards regarding loss of level from raise dead. Our group doesn't get together nearly enough, and the idea of losing a hard-earned level (and getting set back months in playing time) was always a thorn in my side. The house rule is that anyone raised from the dead effectively has a negative level imposed until they naturally gain their next level. So the best time to die and be raised is just before killing the big boss.
We also instituted Revivify, which I believe made it into 3.5.
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(The Devil's Embrace)for the Paladin (late in levels due to 2 raise dead...
My group uses a little different house rule to deal with death. No level loose, but you lose 500xp/level to the bottom of your current level but do not lose enough to lose the level. It has worked out quite well. In this case, best time to die is right after you gain the level.
Thks for the fluff ideas and the house rules.
I would like a Tilagos island that is tasting different than Skull Island, for which we have the Isle of Dread, but haven't found the angle yet. Will definitely use your non combat encounter ideas though.
My Tilagos Island took a few cues from Skull Island, only not as far back in time. There, prehistoric mammals roamed the landscape. Great herds of wooly mammoths in the mountainous regions, saber-toothed cats stalking giant ground sloths in the grasslands, teratorns wheeling in the air above.