LAIR OF THE BRAIN-EATERS (D.M. Ritzlin)
Adventure is written for PCs of levels 1st - 3rd; actual number of party members is un-listed, but the playtest group has five names. Five sounds about right.
This low level adventure is pretty sparse...sparse on hooks, sparse on treasure, sparse on on antagonists (both number and variety). You can read Prince's review here.
29 encounters over three levels is a good number. Maps are...odd. Two entrances into the dungeon site, but the main entrance to the main section (20 out of 29 areas) is the lowest level...the other two levels are above? So how deep does that initial stairway drop into the bowels of the earth, in order to have two levels of architecture above?? Especially as that main level is described with 25' ceilings. Magical D&D, I guess.
Treasure is under 8,000 g.p. worth. I'd want at least 10,000. Very few magic items, unless you count "enchanted brains" (consume as potions). Assume the x.p. value is the same as a potion? But will players recognize this as "treasure;" hard to see them deciding to eat cerebellum, especially given the degeneration of the brain-eating cultists. Not very portable items, either. Even if the PCs detect them as magic, they're probably going to figure it as some sort of trap, rather than a reward.
Not much danger...small variety of monsters, and all fairly weak...good for 1st and 2nd level players. Traps on the other hand are crazy. Illusionary floors over bottomless pits, 300' chasms, a trapped "front door" that has a 50% chance of inflicting 2d6 damage in a 10' radius (tough on 1st level characters), a second entry contains THREE damage-dealing trap rooms in a row. To be fair, the latter is unlikely to kill all...or even most...of the party, even if bumbled through...and should the party enter that way, they face only four skeletons before a HUGE payday (a room with 4,000 g.p. worth of unguarded treasure, plus the necromancer's spell book!).
Not how I'd design it.
I think I'll put this one just outside of Boise...that's the current starting location for my players' new low-level characters. Still plan on them finding their way into the desert, but this will be an all right warm-up. Also goes along with that DCC "Lankhmar" adventure I picked up a while back (and converted to AD&D)...makes a good follow-up scenario.
THE ARCANE FONT OF HRANADD-ZUL (Daedalus)
Adventure is written for "4 - 6 characters of levels 2 - 4 (plus henchmen)." The summary section at the end implies that the party be about 10 strong including henchmen...which may actually be appropriate given the danger level of this adventure (see below). Here's the initial review.
The summary is a godsend, providing treasure and x.p. counts for all of the 25 encounter areas plus wandering monsters. Slight adjustments are necessary (the x.p. value of a scroll of possession is 2,000, not 200; also, I don't award x.p. for spell books recovered), but it generally does all the work for me. For a party of five 3rd level characters, I'd be looking for around 20,000 x.p. worth of treasure...but if you're talking TEN characters, you'll be wanting more in the 40K range. Considering that you'll probably lose AT LEAST three or four characters in this deathtrap, 30K would probably be fine, and the mark of 26,614 hit by Arcane Font looks pretty darn close.
That number, however, is a trifle misleading. No less than 5,450 x.p. of that number comes from wandering monsters (there's a drow on the run being pursued by a bugbear bounty hunter and its hobgoblin gang), and it's quite possible that NONE of this will be discovered: neither group has a camp in the dungeon, or any way to track/locate them other than a 1 in 8 chance on the wandering monster table. In addition 4,000 g.p. of the treasure is tied up n two immense bronze statues/cressets, each weighing 1,500 pounds...trying to get those out of the dungeon will be a helluva' feat, let alone getting them to a place where they can be sold to a collector. At least the drow's magical items aren't labeled as the normal dark elf stuff that dissolves in sunlight; yes, one could assume that's the case (subtract another 3K+ from the treasure total), but I probably wouldn't...I'd also probably change the creature to a non-dark elf on the run (because I haven't introduced drow to my players as of yet).
SO...17K of probable, recoverable treasure...which is still okay for a group of four surviving (3rd) level PCs. Which is (maybe) the BEST you can expect to walk out of this place. While the place is light on monsters (only one-fifth the encounter areas have set creatures), they are VERY ROUGH encounters for a group of this level: 10 large spiders, 12-16 grimlocks, a carrion crawler, and an intelligent, evil plant capable of making up to 19 attacks per round (minimum of 8) at range. 1d6+2 of those attacks (30' range) carry a save vs. poison or be mind-controlled effect, that is likely to turn a low-level party's henchmen into turncoat murderers. I can easily see ANY of these four encounters ending in a TPK.
This scenario will be well-placed outside of Mountain Home, Idaho...a quite suitable replacement for the "meager farming village of Blightmor" on the road to the southern wastelands. Probably I'll re-skin the humanoids as human bounty hunters (with the same hit dice) and leave out the whole Underdark political shenanigans. The PCs themselves might be bounty hunters hired to bring back Drannon the elf (all the elves in my campaign tend to be on the shady side of the law) having to contend with the rival group...gives the players incentive to seek out that extra treasure stash if they know the runner is packing goodies. Of course, they'll probably bumble into a pack of grimlocks and get wiped out...
Last thing: I also HATE the magical effect of the namesake font...I do not want characters gaining the ability to cast magic-user spells, even at the cost of a few ability points. No. Fortunately, I'm not sure how any party is going to get past the killer plant (but you never know)...I would probably have the effects, good and bad, fade with time. Poor Vezzelar, being a mind-controlled slave of the plant master, has no choice but to continue his regular baths.
; )
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