Tides of Dread Adventures!

[Zombie Boots]

***Spoilers!!***
I don’t understand why Players are allowed on these boards OFCOURSE spoilers! Maybe I just don’t like typing spoilers all the time?

So Tides of Dread is an excellent place to flex those DMing muscles and throw in some flavor of what you want out of Savage Tide, however last session after running the mini-adventure of Troglodyte attacks on the East Gate (of farshore), I felt very under whelmed and my PCs were seemed unimpressed. I understand the Trogs weren’t supposed to be a challenge but if the encounter is not at least interesting then what is the point?

So fellow DMs I’d like to ask how did you guys run the “Theif at the Warehouse” encounter and the “Inspection of the Eighth Olman Tribe" encounter? I’d be interested in how you handled the situation and setup for it, and more importantly, what did you change?

Also any other adventures that you DMs crafted yourselves in Tides of Dread would be wonderful to hear as well! New ideas are never unwelcome.

[Matthew Vincent]

Zombie Boots wrote:

So fellow DMs I’d like to ask how did you guys run the “Theif at the Warehouse” encounter

It's more of a thinking encounter than a combat encounter, and besides it's intended to be a red herring.

In my game, the PC's staked out the warehouse for a couple days, but the Ethereal Filcher (once hurt) slipped away pretty easily, especially since the PC's didn't know what to be prepared for. They said to heck with it after Meravanchi gave them flack for wasting time.

As for the Trog tribe, the players just said that they'll spend a day getting rid of them but just wanted to hand-wave it (i.e. no XP). Since trogs are only CR1, they're typically worth no XP to a 8th level+ PC anyway... so I generally just hand-wave such encounters anyway.

[Hired Sword]

Matthew Vincent wrote:

Zombie Boots wrote:

So fellow DMs I’d like to ask how did you guys run the “Theif at the Warehouse” encounter

It's more of a thinking encounter than a combat encounter, and besides it's intended to be a red herring.

In my game, the PC's staked out the warehouse for a couple days, but the Ethereal Filcher (once hurt) slipped away pretty easily, especially since the PC's didn't know what to be prepared for. They said to heck with it after Meravanchi gave them flack for wasting time.

As for the Trog tribe, the players just said that they'll spend a day getting rid of them but just wanted to hand-wave it (i.e. no XP). Since trogs are only CR1, they're typically worth no XP to a 8th level+ PC anyway... so I generally just hand-wave such encounters anyway.

My players decided to let the Jade Ravens handle the Trogs (they have absolutely ZERO respect for the JR, none whatsoever; esp. after TBG when the JR were captured), so in essence, a hand wave as well. Even tho Trogs are generally CR 1, if my PC's had insisted on handling it themselves, it wouldn't have been too terribly difficult to cook up a couple if advanced elite Troggies to make it interesting. As it was they felt their time was better spent on more productive tasks, and they were right, because they barely made it to week 8 before the attack and they hadn't yet retrieved the Sea Wyvern (still haven't... yet).

Most of the Non-VP tasks in ToD were deferred until after the assault, so those will be handled in the space between ToD and LD. They are eager to get the trade route up and running.

Cheers!

[MrFish]

In my game the Jade Ravens handled the trogs too, along with a squad of mixed militia and Olmans the pcs had given some training and weapons to. As for the thief at the warehouse it was kind of put on the backburner.

For low level type encounters with higher level characters one trick you can use is to make it tricky and complicated rather than physically dangerous per se. Trogs aren't really intelligent but they could have a savage cunning.

[lin_fusan]

I've run the troglodyte subplot and the 8th Olman subplot and it feels pretty subpar to me. The point, of course, is that they are extras, background details to flesh out the island and such.

That's fine, but players have a tendency to latch onto random things and giving them incredible significance.

For example, the trog adventure sounded like a typical dungeon crawl, which for my players, evidently screamed massive treasure haul. It wasn't until the middle of the battle that I realized they didn't know what trogs were. They were throwing massive spells thinking they were a major encounter.

As for the 8th Olman tribe, the ape idol "clue" made them think it has something to do with the bat idol. You know, an idol = an idol. So when they found "cultural artifacts," they immediately felt they had wasted their time.

I would have left them out, except the players couldn't make up their mind what to do. The fact that both of these "adventures" are on the island of Tamute was perhaps the only reason they choose to do anything.

[Zombie Boots]

Hmn, any suggestions on spicing these encounters up?

Since it looks like my PCs are going to attempt and tackle the warehouse theif I bumped his Charisma up by 1, and gave him a level of Sorcerer. Giving him spells such as Silent Image, ghost sounds, dancing lights. Illision spells have an endless supply of disorientation.

Also I think I'll need to flesh out the thief's cave hind out if the PC are determined to track it down. I suppose recovernig the supplies would increase the VP earned beyond simply stopping the Theif would it not?