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DM BRIEFING
Working on the House Foundations
The Patrician (Guildmaster/Authority figure of the Town the PCs live in) is having the foundations beneath his Residence strengthened. The only access to the caves beneath the House are down a Well in the Mazegarden (where a large Wooden Tripod with a Rope and Pulley currently stand abaove an old Stone well) At some point the Workers went missing and have failed to exit the Well for the end of their Work day.
The PCs are summoned to investigate the matter.
What went Wrong in the Caves
The Panathok Manuscript
Scroll #1:
Scroll #2:
The Panathok Eye
If they make both checks, they are able to resist the eye and will become an immediate target of all zombies who will seek to destroy the PC.
You are aware that barring some remarkable turn of fortune its very likely no adventuring party would ever return from that trip, well okay except for the one who goes off to graffiti at some church...
Interesting concept however
Anyway what level were you considering for this adventure and how were you looking to develop it?
Anyway what level were you considering for this adventure and how were you looking to develop it?Well, they are going up against the magic of an Ancient one...I'm thinking level 1-3.
Owch!
Given what the saving throws you were mentioning that might be overkill unless they have more chances to save against the effect, is it intended as a one shot or an introductory adventure?I guess there's more to what you have planned than is stated.
Call me weird, but I like "best of all possible worlds" better. Because it has points of light. And all the other types of settings I've come to expect from my games and novels.
Without sufficient light, you cannot see the darkness. And I do enjoy twilight so much.
Making this ubiquitous a fixed part of the game limits everything too much, or forces you to do stuff that makes no sense.
For example: If everything beyond a settlement is so deadly for humans, how come there are bandits all over the place. Do lowlives have low nutritive value, or why do the monsters starve themselves to set upon innocent travelers instead of stuffing their faces on bandits?
And who'd do caravans if everything more than a day beyond a city or an hour beyond a village is a grave waiting to happen? I know who wouldn't: Merchants. Those guys are cowards. They wouldn't say so: They'd probably say that the risks outweigh the gains.
Hardwiring a village's need of heroes to solve their every problem is really weird, too. It means your average D&D land needs more adventurers than the top 10 WoW servers combined, or settlements become an evolutionary dead end. Settlements won't survive for a season, what with all the monsters around.
But if they're more heroes than villagers, why is it all points of light? Why haven't all those heroes killed all the monsters a long time ago?
I doubt that the rules as such require this sort of forced campaign model to work, so why do it? What about all those stories about shining kingdoms, legendary for their knights and armies? They cannot exist.
It's all nice and well to have the core rules of a game support such a campaign model, and for the standard game world to have some regions that fit that bill, but all of it?
D&D has always been one of the games that let you play whatever you want. It was never put through a shotgun wedding with its gameworld. Too many places in too many great D&D worlds just don't work like that.
If I had to write a 4e campaign setting, I'd lose my interest after having to have half the foreword, and the whole first chapter of the book be "this is not a points of light setting, we do things different."
For the same reason I could never have adapted DSA as my game system, even though it is a local game: Its world was hardwired into the rules. You had hero types (back when I knew more than a bit about DSA, it still didn't make a difference between race and class) dependant on a specific city or nation, with the name of the place in its very name. But DSA eased off of that.
This is a step backwards, and they should stress that you can do plenty of other things, not have articles further pointing out the limits they want to push onto you.
Well, that helped build the adventure.
Call me weird, but it seems like your crapping in a perfectly good thread again, kawyoss, I hope your enjoying yourself.
Short Story for all of those of you who should probably get on with the actual thread and ignore Kawyoss.
Well, loos, you could, of course, try to see the post for what it is - an attempt to discuss the underlying premise to show how this is tied to the game and how this can work (which I think can be really, really helpful with creating an adventure with those premises. You know, the why and not just the that) - but I'm sure you're too busy casting me as the villain and attacking me with your accusations for any discussion with anyone whose opinion isn't the exact same as yours.
So everyone: Loos is right! I'm the Evil Evildoer of Evilness who wants to kill you all in your sleep because you like 4e. The possibility that a discussion about the strenghts, weaknesses and reasons for this kind of game, and how (or, rather if) it is important to the game itself could help creating better adventures is just too fantastic to consider.
I can tie myself to the stake, but I need help with the lighter.
So everyone: Loos is right! I'm the Evil Evildoer of Evilness who wants to kill you all in your sleep because you like 4e. The possibility that a discussion about the strenghts, weaknesses and reasons for this kind of game, and how (or, rather if) it is important to the game itself could help creating better adventures is just too fantastic to consider.
In this thread, it absolutely is. If you want to discuss the strengths, weaknesses, and reasons for a Points of Light game, feel free to do so in a thread where that's the topic.
But when someone starts a thread entitled "Building a 'Points of Light' Adventure", stopping in just to say the long, drawn-out equivalent of "Points of Light sucks," is just poor form.
Now, hopefully this will steer you away from this thread so that it can continue on its actual topic.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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Well, loos, you could, of course, try to see the post for what it is - an attempt to discuss the underlying premise to show how this is tied to the game and how this can work (which I think can be really, really helpful with creating an adventure with those premises. You know, the why and not just the that) - but I'm sure you're too busy casting me as the villain and attacking me with your accusations for any discussion with anyone whose opinion isn't the exact same as yours.So everyone: Loos is right! I'm the Evil Evildoer of Evilness who wants to kill you all in your sleep because you like 4e. The possibility that a discussion about the strenghts, weaknesses and reasons for this kind of game, and how (or, rather if) it is important to the game itself could help creating better adventures is just too fantastic to consider.
I can tie myself to the stake, but I need help with the lighter.
If that's what you were going for, KaeYoss, then I think you might want to be a little more careful about how you phrase your comments in the future. Looking back at your first post on this thread, it comes off as more attacking the underlying premise than discussing it. Whether it was your intention or not, it really seemed to at least two people like you were mocking the 'points of light' concept and its use, and anyone who enjoys the idea by association. I don't believe you meant it that way, I'm just saying that's how it read.
You're not the Evil Evildoer of Evilness. You just need to ease up on the anti-4e stuff. I'm not saying you can't have and voice a legitimate complaint about the system, I'm just saying that not every thread is appropriate for that kind of discussion. And when you do bring it up, you should keep in mind how your post might sound to those reading it. Remember, this crazy text-based communication loses a lot of nuance, and its a lot easier to insult someone on the internets than in the real lifes.
So everyone: Loos is right! I'm the Evil Evildoer of Evilness who wants to kill you all in your sleep because you like 4e. The possibility that a discussion about the strenghts, weaknesses and reasons for this kind of game, and how (or, rather if) it is important to the game itself could help creating better adventures is just too fantastic to consider.In this thread, it absolutely is. If you want to discuss the strengths, weaknesses, and reasons for a Points of Light game, feel free to do so in a thread where that's the topic.
But when someone starts a thread entitled "Building a 'Points of Light' Adventure", stopping in just to say the long, drawn-out equivalent of "Points of Light sucks," is just poor form.
Now, hopefully this will steer you away from this thread so that it can continue on its actual topic.
The OP themselves opened up the discussion on "Points of Light" by making it part of the threads title. I don't think KaeYoss's post was particularly inflammatory and nowhere did the 4e-bashing premise come up until the responses to his post. Disliking Points of Light does not equate to disliking 4e.
The OP brought forth their idea of an adventure set in a Points of Light campaign. None of their subsequent posts dealt with the POL aspect, but with the setup and beginning to the adventure. KaeYoss's post did not attack the poster, or denegrate their adventure idea's. His post addressed the concept of POL as a possible backdrop of this adventure and why he feels the concept lacking/limiting.
I dislike POL taken in such an extreme form. I actually disagree on what the final version of POL means (the linked article is nearly 2 years old, was released prior to the final product and, as it states: "Keep in mind that the game is still in a state of flux, as refinements are made by our design and development staff"), which is probably why I am looking forward to Eberron so much.
There's a book I think its called the Tattoed Man or something like that and the premise is pretty much what you described with settlements surviving because they use ancient wards to protect themselves from the monsters that wander the wilderness who target the innocent and even bandits alike and the folk use the ancient lore of carving symbols into their home doorways and even cave mouths to keep themselves safe when the monsters roam during the night.
It reminded me of Earthdawn but there people learned some craft skill as proof they weren't possessed as these creatures simply wanted to kill and inflict pain as part of their fiendish nature.
Now that book explained one man's quest to find a way to defeat these creatures which he developed by tattoing the wards onto his bare flesh so even slight contact would have a nasty effect on them but he actually was obsessed that he was slowly becoming one of these demons which returned to their realm described as far below the surface.
Perhaps we should ask how they can possibly survive that first adventure when your description makes it sound that that it would be unlikely they'd survive finding the pool let alone having this scenario turn into a campaign since they would have to avoid gazing into that pool, defeat their comrades and whatever else is down there and return to the surface to let them know what they have found or at the very least persuade them to bury the entrance for all eternity and hope noone decides to ignore their warning...
Is this a one shot or the intro to a campaign and how do you plan getting around that particular problem?
The interesting part of the assertion is if this place exists how many others are there like it?
How did this ruin end up like it has?
Did the original civilisation end up wiped out with little or no indication of why until this particular ruin was found or is there some villainous group working to restore what was lost?
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I've been reading HP Lovecraft of late (The mountains of madness realy set the concept for a Points of Light setting) and decided that there can be terror without overwhelming confrontation. When you stumble into a Mining outpost where the last message was 'we found a funky looking plant in the back of the caves - I'm planning a disection for the Geographer's Guild' only to find the disector missing, a second in command on the table sliced open, and other miners all dead after having built some five-sided Pyramid of Stone scribed with an ancient Symbol - like every one went nuts and maybe there wasnt a plant after all.
Expanding the original Idea
They taste real power and terror of the ancients - are burdened with safeguarding it or getting it to someone who can safeguard it - and they will have to do so because it will draw the attention of the worst as they progress through later levels.
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The OP brought forth their idea of an adventure set in a Points of Light campaign. None of their subsequent posts dealt with the POL aspect, but with the setup and beginning to the adventure. KaeYoss's post did not attack the poster, or denegrate their adventure idea's. His post addressed the concept of POL as a possible backdrop of this adventure and why he feels the concept lacking/limiting.
I dislike POL taken in such an extreme form. I actually disagree on what the final version of POL means (the linked article is nearly 2 years old, was released prior to the final product and, as it states: "Keep in mind that the game is still in a state of flux, as refinements are made by our design and development staff"), which is probably why I am looking forward to Eberron so much.
'Points of Light' can be this extreeme and still viable. It has problems but it can be worked with to achieve a world where terrors exist in isolated, unexplored places. When you go in to investigate what has gone wrong at some site - there is a possibility that the evidence is inconsistent with what realy happened. Adventurers are following in the trail of destruction, not present during the destruction that would have overwhelmed them had they been present.
Adventure Hooks linking this to 'Keep on the Shadowfell'
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Call me weird, but it seems like your crapping in a perfectly good thread again, kawyoss, I hope your enjoying yourself.
Short Story for all of those of you who should probably get on with the actual thread and ignore Kawyoss.
Kawyoss makes several spurious assumptions (that reward can never outweigh risk, that bandits can't fight monsters, that every village needs and gets heroes and then even after that heroes outnumber peasents,etc,etc) and then goes on about the badwrongfun that those assumptions create as if they are something besides his issue
[spoiler]
For example: If everything beyond a settlement is so deadly for humans, how come there are bandits all over the place.>Mayhap people have banded together, in common defence and interest. We >could almost call them ... bandits.
Do lowlives have low nutritive value, or why do the monsters starve themselves to set upon innocent travelers instead of stuffing their faces on bandits?
>Because bandits have weapons and the witheral to use them whereas >innocent travelers are generally alone and by name, innocent.
And who'd do caravans if everything more than a day beyond a city or an hour beyond a village is a grave waiting to happen? I know who wouldn't: Merchants. Those guys are cowards. They wouldn't say so: They'd probably say that the risks outweigh the gains.
>They'd probably say any number of things, moral of the story, in >history in even the most retarded of conditions, you have people who >make a living going back and forth selling stuff where they can >profit. Yeah they are cowards, but they are also greedy, and as long >as the gains outweigh the losses (money can be used to offset risks, >such as by hiring guards, the risk goes from your death to their death >and all that)
Hardwiring a village's need of heroes to solve their every problem is really weird, too. It means your average D&D land needs more adventurers than the top 10 WoW servers combined, or settlements become an evolutionary dead end. Settlements won't...
Not every village gets heroes. thats why some places go dark (not because there is an evil presence but because it is shut down until it is resettled).
There's a book I think its called the Tattoed Man or something like that and the premise is pretty much what you described with settlements surviving because they use ancient wards to protect themselves from the monsters that wander the wilderness who target the innocent and even bandits alike and the folk use the ancient lore of carving symbols into their home doorways and even cave mouths to keep themselves safe when the monsters roam during the night...
I suspect you're thinking of The Warded Man by Peter Brett.
I haven't read it yet. Took a look at it the other day and its on my "want" list. I believe the author mentioned a lot of his inspiration came from rpg's and a specific campaign. From my brief look, you can see some classic elements (such as a monk build that is very non-Eastern in flavor), and it appears to be an excellent example of a fully-fleshed Points of Light setting with a very logical background. WOTC couldn't have asked for a better independent example.
Can I be your minion? I only have 1 hp so I should be perfect for the job.
PS: Sorry couldn't resist.
Only if he can call you "Francis".
"Who's my minion? Who's my minion? You are! I'm a monster, Rargh!"