Ahh well.
But I did do a conversion of Trolan and Sougad for 3e.
I'll dig them up and post them.
Originally posted by primemover003
Not that any skills are used by monsters/enemies besides Spot/Listen, Hide/Move and Concentration checks
thats sarcasm, right? RIGHT?
Anyways, any words of caution for running the adventure? where are some pitfalls? i'm still searching for a plausible explanation, why the godsmen don't realize what's going on in harbinger house: 2 barmies escape and the planitary gets stolen, this should make a cutter think. at the moment i tend to a version where factol ambar doesn't realize that the planitary was stolen, because it was exchanged with a false one.
*) There are a lot of encounters that were written from a scenematic/dramatic point of view. Fro example, the chase across the rooftops up to bloodgem park (end of chapter 1) of the encounter in the church in excelsior (iirc) Make sure the main antagonists don't get killed in this encounter. Use the gate and teleport tactics of sougad to your advantage. Plan for what happens when pc's manage to capture or kill sougad anyway.
*) There are a lot of red herrings and subtle hints in chapter 1. Keep pc's on track. If pc's ger friendly with the harmonium officer investigating the case, you could use her to steer them in the right direction if nescesary.
*) they know exactly what's going on. At least Ambar does. He may have let one or more of the barmies escape. He's treating this incident as a test-case for his own ascention. He doesn't know about Narri, though. She is the proverbial monkey wrench. His concern, therefore is to have the PC's concentrate on taking her out of the picture.
*) Harbinger house is the closest thing the godsmen have to an R&D facility. Everything that goes on there is very secretive. Godsmen working there have a special status, whoever's in charge of the facility has access to an enormous amount of resources. Of course, it's a thorn in Ambar's side. But what can he do? The focrux is too important to the godsmen for some reason. And whoever controlls the house, controlls the focrux. A nasty incident could change the balance of power. In this scenario, Harbinger House operates independently of the other godsmen, and hires outsiders.
Originally posted by Shemeska the Marauder
Yep, when I use folks from the 2e material I convert on the fly if I need the numbers. Or make them up beforehand or on the spot if I absolutely need to. *chuckle* 9/10 of the actual numbers honestly never get used. I rarely for instance make up the skill ranks for NPC's in my games unless they're recurrent.
Conversions are fairly easy. First, monsters? Eya! MM, MM2, FF, BoVD, etc. Most are there. And if they aren't you can devise a fairly easy equivalent looking at the level of the characters and the challenge rating of available nasties. Second, NPCs? Eya! Fairly easy, too. You have Jamis Buck's 3.0 NPC generator and www.stanford.edu/~marke/npc.html, an online 3.0 generator. 3.0 and 3.5 are so radically different that you can use these older generators for NPCs. A few tweaks here and there, and you can get fairly accurate conversions with little effort.
Just some thoughts.
Originally posted by puk
Here are a few pitfalls:
*) There are a lot of encounters that were written from a scenematic/dramatic point of view. Fro example, the chase across the rooftops up to bloodgem park (end of chapter 1) of the encounter in the church in excelsior (iirc) Make sure the main antagonists don't get killed in this encounter. Use the gate and teleport tactics of sougad to your advantage. Plan for what happens when pc's manage to capture or kill sougad anyway.
Indeed. This is where my PC's broke the plot's back everytime we played this module (3 times, different parties). I think it was poorly designed from a game POV. In fact I doubt it was ever play tested without using some deus ex machina.
That particular pitfall is pretty easy to avoid once you know it's there. Just have Sougad jump into the portal just as he's being struck or by the PC.
it's ironic, but i think i'm up to the scope of the planes but have real difficulties with the rules, because there are so many spells, feats and combat rules to know. I have no problem with improvising rules, the problem is i'm sometimes bested by my players, because they can play the rules to their full advantage and my npc are just impotent. Perhaps i should use another system...
Anyways, thanx again for your help
Well one of the PC's DID magic missle one of the not so helpful witnesses/informants and they were scragged and hanged by the Hardheads... so I guess only twice did it fail on the roof top scenes
Sthelysh: It really helps if you know the rules. It frees up a lot of time you can spend on the storytelling aspect of the game. I've found putting together NPC's and running mock combat between them really helps.
A player of mine told me playing the Temple of Elemental Evil (computer game) taught him a lot about the game mechanics.
I think I'll start one right away. I'm running in the abyss this weekend.
Otherwise everything I've ever run on my own has been my own plots from scratch.
Maybe I'm obsessed, maybe I have too much time on my hands. Dunno. It's not even that I think modules are badly written. Heck I worship the ground that Faction War walks upon. I just don't have any intention to actually run it ever.
I find premade adventures to be invaluable tools in helping me string a campaign together. I've been subscribing to Dungeon magazine for over 9 years and have no plan on letting it ever run out. It's not that I'm not creative, but it's good to see how a good adventure is structured. Also I occasionally find a module that perfectly fits my party and requires minimal work to prep for that specific group.
Spoilers ahead.
1. The Roof scene: Make sure Sougad has a GOOD lead. He's nuts, but since he was nearby when they search hsi place, he can laugh and get out the window, and run for a good distance before the PCs even got to the roof, even a monk, RUNNING full speed just barely caught up to him, and since Sougad just bull rushed him and had him clinging to the roof. Remember Tactics, A single character is easy for a large group to dispatch. So make sure the party is separated. Remember if Sougad is in light armor, then well, he can run faster than a mage can fly.
2. The second trouble spot that there could be is the temple, there we have one little Sougad against a full group of fighters. The party could make short work of him if they all jumped him. So again, make it difficult for him to do so. My party was full of characters who had great tumble scores, and in gerenral were fast on their feet. So, add victims caught in the flame, add barriers for them to get past. The temple is BURNING quickly, chances try not to let your party get near him at once, one or two at a time is key.
3. As for the big S here are the classes I used: Ftr10/Rog2. Fairly simple combo, but it works, gives him Evasion, which is useful against spellcasters, as well as enough feats to make him dangerous. I gave him a greatsword instead of a bastard, and gave him improved crt, weap focus and spec, expertise, combat reflexes and dodge mobility and spring attack. I think I gave him Iron Will and Lightening Reflexes too. It makes this fellow surprisingly resilliant. My party's level averaged about 6 at the time.
those should be the big trouble points, the only other one would be the last fight. A decent half fiend, a succubus and some manes will seriously try most groups, if you throw sougad into the mix it gets crazy. My game had about 7 or 8 6-7th lvl characters and they had some trouble. So just keep that in mind and you should be fine.
-Greyjoy
