Review: King of the Trollhaunt Warrens

Be warned, I do have some spoilers listed here. If you’re currently playing this then out of respect for your fellow players and DM's please skip this one.

We started playing on October 1st 2009, and by November 20th we were done. Only playing once a week.

At the start the players were level 12 going on level 13 and by the end they were level 14. I did adjust encounter to match, but everyone enjoyed the story.

The adventure is broken down into a few sections. Initial, Search, City Attack, Warrens and Feywild. Well my party ended up skipping the latter half of the warrens; they simply used a ritual found from previous adventures to teleport to the feywild and went exploring.

The city fights were excellent and well loved by the party however I felt it was a bit much, the encounters didn't seem to make much sense. There was some excellent role-playing in the city both before and after the attack.

I felt Scallymag was not powerful enough for a big baddie, including the changed one at the end. The map with the game was great, and is defiantly reusable. In fact next week I will be posting a small adventure that uses those maps.

What I would have liked to see from WotC

Grid Numbering on the Mini Map

For those of us remaking the encounter map, it would be nice to see an ABC along the top and a 123 along the side. I did this by hand, but it would be nice

Encounter Options

I think it would have been great to help the DM customize the encounter by offering a list of optional monsters to swap out. You don't have to put the full stats, just a few extra.

Example (if your party made easy work of the last encounter, try adding in this xxx)

List of Random Names/Races

I hate this question, players always ask for a name and im unprepared.

Notes on rituals to overcome skill challenges. In the very first encounter the warlord intimidated a troglodyte who surrendered and I was out of names.

Question Summary

At the end of every LFR game there are a few questions that need to be reported back to the RPGA. These questions actually server another purpose that I think goes un-noticed. The questions relate to key events in the adventure and how it was handled. This way 6 months down the road the DM can review the questions and get familiar with what happened.

I know a lot of these are up to the DM to do, but it would be nice to see WotC help out every now and then and add some more tools.

Interested in more, get yours today on amazon.ca

Until next time, keep your dice on the table.

The level 0 Delve, Roleplaying Introductions

So you recently started playing with some new players who had just started playing D&D in the last two editions and are focused on the rules.

That's great, but you find yourself sometimes wishing they would break away from the rules a little bit to try new things. Well then this delve is for you.

The idea behind this delve is that the party is not quite level 1 yet and do not have money to get what they need. It limits their resources so they can think outside of the box more. The adventure is just very basic notes, its up to the DM to decide what happens or how each encounter is built out, i am only simply providing notes.

All players also have a 'new power', the DM should review this with them.

DM for a second: That right, you as the DM allow the player to take control of the game for a second, the player spends an action point, and changes something in the game to his or her advantage.

Level 0 Delve

• 1x at will, 1x encounter, 0 daily
• no feats
• no equipment DM gives each player one or two basic item, depending on party role.
• players only have 1/2 healing surges

Adventure

While traveling with a group of adventures/family/etc the caravan became under attack by some orc's and goblins. the adventure were beaten and taken hostage along with the family members, the party was knocked unconscious and the game starts when they wake up.

DM Notes: No not use a map or miniatures for the setup, simply in great detail describe the scene, the color of the trees the time of year, day. Is there a smell wafting in the wind. Hint at players that the caravan might contain some useful equipment. (this is where they find their first weapon, some rope, some paints) the paints are their so they can use it later.

Skill challenge 1

Track everyone back to the base, success = they arrive, fail = -1 healing surge, and the party needs to find a way out of a trap from a local hunter. let RP begin (all in a deep pit that sinks, all hanging upside down in tree's little bit of both.

DM Notes: Don't roll initiative, just ask the party what they do, let them decide what they will do and let them roll in order. Better yet, don't allow any rolls. A success is simply a good idea, a failure is something that would just waste the party's time. The skill challenge is over once every player has had a chance at either success or failure. If they just don't seem to be getting it maybe drop a few hints, or make them fail and have to role play out of being trapped or lost in the woods.

Encounter 1

The group has come up to the camp, soon realizes there are too many of them to fight. They need to figure out a way to pull some of the orc's away from the main camp. This is where the DM comes in to help and give hints to the players. DM should suggest use of cantrips, or disguises to pull an orc away before entering combat.

DM Tips: Monsters in encounter 1 should be 1/2 the number of players. The key here is this should be something for the players to have fun with. When you started the adventure maybe there were items they could have used, like an old mop and some paint, one of the players could have disguised as a female orc and pulled a orc off tot he side. The key with this is to have fun with it. as long as the players keep role playing set them up for success. Maybe they do enough role playing that you don't need to roll to knock out the orc they just do it. No map or miniatures.

Encounter 2

Now that the main guards area dealt with, the party needs to find a way to attack the rest of orcs. Monsters = number of players + 2 minions. Instead of charging in, the DM should suggest a few things that are outside of the game. have ranged players go in tree's, have the mage distract them and play tricks for combat advantage.

DM Tips: Hopefully by this point your players should be picking things up and getting into the role playing aspect. One idea is to tell the group they can see the camp of the orcs, ask one player what it looks like, then go around to each player asking them to add something to the scene. Then start the encounter. Tell them they can only add one thing to the encounter. Build out the map & miniatures as the players describe the scene.

Encounter 3

Once the main encounter is over with the party can enter into a battle with the main boss, 3rd level orc, with some minions. setup combat in a situation where the party can split up and take advantage. have minions do ranged from higher ground.

End of Delve

If you plan on developing this into a campaign, then a perfect reward is that the group of players now advance onto level 1, they get their normal 100g starting money plus an extra 100g and their choice of a level 1 magic item.

Hope you like this idea, please let me know what you think

Artwork provided by Andy "ATOM" Taylor

Until next time, keep your dice on the table.
A thought from Mikes Mind

Game Anouncement for May 2009

So every month (Saturday, May 23 from 12:00 pm to 6:00 pm)I will be running a public game here in good old Brantford, Ontario.

Dan from Alternate Icons has been gracious enough to all us to host the games there. These games will have enough room for around 15 players total, three tables of five. Shoot me a email and grab a spot today, meet some of the gang from my Shadows of Orcus campaign and have fun playing D&D.

This month we of course will be running the World Wide D&D Game Day event for Monster Manual 2.

Saturday, May 23 from 12:00 pm to 6:00 pm

Here is some brief notes on the game day adventure

“The Silver Caves are a complex of numerous caverns connected by the streams and channels of a great river. A silver dragon named Erithon ruled over this region with an iron claw before dying years ago. Its lair was said to be somewhere deep in the Silver Caves, but powerful magic and evil creatures guard the river and the caverns alike.”

Journey Through the Silver Caves – A kobold wyrmpriest has stolen an ancient book of prophecy from the people of Albura, a fortress on the borderlands. The kobold has a dark plan for the book – and only you can stop him in time! An adventure for 5 pre-generated 5th-level characters.

As mentioned earlier the Game Day in Brantford will be held at Alternate Icons
View Larger Map
257 Marlborough Street, Brantford, ON N3S 4T4‎

Saturday, May 23 from 12:00 pm to 6:00 pm

What to chose from (3 tables)

• Dwarf Paladin
• Dragonborn Rogue
• Goliath Barbarian
• Tiefling Warlord
• Eladrin Wizard

Official Alternate Icons Link

Dungeon Master Tips: Organizing your Adventure

This week i am going to discuss how you can organize your adventure. All adventures in my opinion require a bit of planing. For every hour you intend to play an adventure you should spend the same amount of time planing.

I personally break up all of my adventures into 8 encounters, i mix and match the kind of encounters i want to do but for me a single adventure takes players from one level to another in 8 encounters. At our speed that's 4 weeks of game play.

Tools

There are various tools at your disposal but for me my main ones are the Dungeon Master Guide , MS Word, MS Viso, DDI Compendium, and DDI encounter builder.

MS Visio

The key to a good adventure is not wanting to railroad your players. So i create a start of my adventure, and a end, where i want my players to end up. I'll add a few boxes to the Viso showing possible pieces of information they can find. As i figure out the general storyline i then plot everything out into the Viso. the key is to make it fit on one page

Don't have MS Visio? Try LucidChart

Dungeon Master Guide

Great for references, nuff said.

MS Word

I build my encounters in MS, The first page contains the adventure name and details, the second page is blank. The third and fourth page is a the basic story line and my RP notes, while the 5th page contains the Visio drawing from earlier.

Now i break up the encounters so that the basic encounter information is on the left hand side, and the map (which honestly I've taken from dragon and customized for my own needs) on the right hand side. The next few pages contains monsters information taken from the DDI Compendium so i have everything i need in one place.

I repeat the encounters in the exact same method adding blank pages where i need to.

Don't have MS Word, try OpenOffice

DDI Encounter Builder & DDI Compendium

The DDI Compendium has two tasks for me, one is finding monsters and creatures that fit my story, level, and encounter so nothing seems out of place. The second is to copy & past into word so i have all my information during game play. I recommend for monster pages to be two columns, and formatting the text a bit. i can fit large monsters in 1 full column, and usually two minions per column.

The encounter build i use after i have a list of creatures in mind, and just use it to figure out what creatures are going to be in each encounter.

Don't have a DDI Account, try Monster Lister & Encounter Planner

Binding

Once i have everything checked over and it looks the way i want it to look, i save it off as a PDF (plenty of PDF printers out there) and upload it to staples. I will get it printed on both sides in black & white (so when your doing your map use circles with letters in them to identify monsters (A)). And i pick a cheap binding. the hole process costs me around $4.50 for a 30 page document.

Additions

Another great addition to add after the fact is the 'PrintableDM' sheets i mentioned before hand, I'll send them to staples at the same time for printing and usually get 8 done at a time. if your lucky they will accidentally bend the corners on them and you don't have to pay. good thing i was folding them in half anyway :)

So there you have it, you spent 8 hours designing your adventure, and saving all the information and you have a nice hard copy to show for it. Some of you are thinking, 8 hours that's a full days work for me. Well sometimes being a DM is, but when you have everything organized and know where your game is going, you can spend a hour a night on it after the kids have gone to bed. Before you know it your two adventures ahead of the game

That's all for this week's DM's tips, remember its us vs. them!

Late Night Link

So by now most of you know that wizards is letting you download their first 4th edition published adventure the Keep on the Shadowfel, check it out.

[WotC]
This is the first published adventure using the 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons rules, suitable for entertaining your friends for hours with brave deeds and harrowing perils. You, the Dungeon Master (DM), and your friends can explore dungeons, banter with villains, and defeat vicious monsters with sword, spell, and prayer. Together, the player characters (PCs) can work to thwart the insidious plot of an unholy cult, winning great treasure and a heroic reputation.

Link here: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4dnd/dndtestdrive