Scrotum's Monolithic Sanctuary (Szilard Dreska)
OSRIC adventure for three to five PCs of levels 4th-6th
I am reviewing these in the order they were submitted. For my review criteria, please check out this post. All reviews will (probably) contain *SPOILERS*; you have been warned! Because these are short (two page) adventures, it is my intention to keep the reviews brief.
*sigh*
25 encounter areas. Again, I will quote The Rules Of The Contest:
"...8-24 keyed locations, ideally a single session's content."
Everyone gets that right? 8-24? I mean, for my money that's waaay too much leeway for a "single session," unless you're still running eight hour sessions like we did back in high school. But it's Ben's contest, and he set the terms (even if he couldn't abide by them himself).
But what's one extra encounter area, JB? It's only 25. Sure. But then, why not 26? That's only one more than 25. Heck, why not 27? or 28? It's all just guidelines, right?
Wrong. Disqualified. Again.
But everyone hates that, so here's the review of this unfortunately named adventure.
[yes, it's unfortunately named. Sorry. I can tell from the author and play-testers' names that these are probably Hungarians, but to the English-speaking world you might as well be calling this "Penis's Monolithic Sanctuary." And reading about how Scrotum's name "was slowly forgotten" just made me think, yeah right pal, ain't no way I'm forgetting that. Trust me on this. I'm the guy that once made the mistake of creating a PC with the name of "Balzak" and having to suffer through jibes for weeks thereafter]
This is a three level dungeon that has almost nothing going on. Ostensibly written for PCs of levels 4th to 6th...well, it's really not. It's way too light on treasure (should be something like 75K and it has less than a third of that) and only five of the 25 encounter areas contain monsters; which are:
- 6 skeletons
- 2 "breathstealers"
- 2 "mechanical scorpions"
- 2 juju zombies
- 1 spectre + 1 shadow
[there are also a couple rooms that have a heightened chance of random encounter; however the encounter is always 1d3 giant rats...not much threat to 5th level PCs]
The author notes that "breathstealers" are not found in the OSRIC rules and that the creature is borrowed from a Gabor Lux adventure; he provides a stat block of the creature (published with permission). Great.
How about the mechanical scorpions? Those aren't in my copy of OSRIC.
There's a lot of missing/left out information. Ability scores are reduced via traps willy-nilly with no stated duration...these are permanent? Can they be cured? How does the mechanical scorpions electric sting work? Is there a saving throw to reduce damage? Can breathstealers be "turned" by a cleric since they are undead? What should they be turned as? A red lotus plant makes anyone examining it go berserk on a failed saving throw...for how long? Forever? Until the dude is put down like a dog by his fellow PCs?
Why the heck do we need a magic devil painting casting charm monster spells on the party to get them to fight the juju zombies? Have D&D players EVER needed a reason (let alone magic domination) to exterminate zombies with extreme prejudice? What is this...some poor excuse to shoehorn "roleplaying" into the adventure?
There are only TWO magic items in this three level, 25 encounter dungeon: a +1 scimitar and a cursed +1 dagger that inflicts cannibalism on its wielder after first use. Some might call this "mudcore."
This one ain't good. Low two stars (**-), even if it wasn't disqualified.
Hello. Thank you very much for kind words. After my disappointing entry last year with Pit of Muirneag, I thought that I should keep it simple and write an adventure that I'd like to play in myself. I've never written an underwater adventure before, and thought that I would give it a go. I fancied seeing whether I could write in a dragon turtle, the most powerful BX monster, and found a way to do so. If a party were to awaken it then there would be regional consequences even if the party escapes. The play test didn't awaken him.
ReplyDeleteI was also surprised to find that BX doesn't have defined rules for underwater combat, and must have mistaken the rules in the DMG as being in the Expert book.
On the magical treasure, I definitely have a weak spot for giving it out, as there are relatively few magic items (aside from weapons and potions) in my games. I decided absolutely to stick to the contest's page count rule, otherwise I'd have expanded a bit on the magical treasure and also fleshed out some rumours and hooks around Gronda, Morag, the intelligent magic sword, and exactly who's tower the rocs have occupied.
It *is* pretty deadly, and from the playtest two clerics are essential and elves and magic users with fireball (or wand of fireballs) are quite a bit at risk of being curtailed. If the adventure makes the cut, then I'd probably increase the numbers of party members by 2 - 3 for a total party size of 6 - 8.
Yeah, one thing to consider is the "cascade failure" effect that comes with small size groups, ESPECIALLY in B/X which doesn't have nearly as much redundancy as AD&D (all those multiclass-types). You lose one guy among seven or eight and you're okay...lose one guy among four or five and things go rapidly downhill.
DeleteI wasn't looking for new magic items, just SOME magic items. Maybe a magic trident (as spear)...or hell, even a couple potions of water breathing (do the merfolk ever take lovers from the surface world? I seem to remember a Disney movie about that...).
But all-in-all, a very good job. Love the seagrass meadows and the images of mermen "flying" when attacking...that's great stuff.
Hi! I read all your reviews, so by the time it was my turn, I knew exactly what I was doing wrong.
ReplyDeleteI don't want to be defensive, but this was my first published adventure, so I made mistakes due to my lack of experience (too many rooms, few treasures/magic items, few monsters, I gave the breathstealers stats but not the mechanical scorpion, etc.). I'm sure that if I hadn't submitted this adventure, I would never have gotten feedback about these mistakes. So I want to thank you for taking the time to read the adventure and giving me such detailed feedback. I'll try to think about them and learn from them.
PS: About the title: I didn't know what it meant. I had gotten feedbacks about it but I had already sent it so I couldn't change it. One thing I'm sure about is that this is going to haunt me for a while :D
Haha! As I wrote, I've been there...and I don't even have the excuse of trying to write adventures in a foreign language!
DeleteRegarding Errors of Design:
These happen. You may have a ton of experience writing and running adventures for your personal games, but that's not the same thing as writing something for publication. These days, I try to write my own adventures as if they will all (someday) be run by someone else. It requires more discipline, but it also results in a better product. Looking back at some of my earlier efforts "for publication" (like Hell's Own Temple, an adventure I wrote for Prince's first NAP contest) I can see just how shoddy they were compared to my most recent stuff.
The good news is the more you do it, the better you get at it.
; )
Keep trucking, keep cobbling, don't let it haunt you too much. You've got the first one under your belt. Build on the experience.