ASC Review: Owlbear Hill

Owlbear Hill (Scott_M)

AD&D for four to seven PCs of 5th-7th level

I happen to love owlbears...a lot. But I don't love this adventure.

For my review criteria, you may check out this post. All reviews will (probably) contain *SPOILERS*; you have been warned! Because these are short (three page) adventures, it is my intention to keep the reviews short.

Now we reach a place that I, as a reviewer, dread: the place where an adventure doesn't feel right. You think to yourself, 'I just don't like this thing'...but it's hard to place your thumb on the reason why. You start to look for nitpicks to justify that feeling, but you wonder if you're doing a disservice to the adventure, the author, or to others who might not share your particular preference in aesthetics. 

Even though my style has been called "grouchy," I don't want to be a heel. I want to give credit where credit is due.

Owlbear Hill is another adventure that's a little large for (what I think of as) an adventure site. It has four levels with some 22 detailed encounter areas...and yet there are even MORE rooms and chambers that are un-number and un-detailed which (to me) easily count as "empties"...at least 10 more. For me, this puts it it squarely in the "small adventure" realm, which will probably take 2-3 nights to finish...and should thusly have commensurate danger and treasure.

Scott_M's adventure fits the contest parameters: three pages and a page with maps. However, he also provides a link to a folder of downloadable extras, including cheatsheets and map blow-ups. While this is undoubtably helpful (both as a DM and a reviewer), is it quite within the spirit (let alone letter) of the contest to provide such accessories? I will admit that I used the cheat sheet to check my own treasure counts...and found errors in the author's accounting. Mm.

The basic idea is that an old, abandoned ruin of a chaos temple has been taken over by "a band of gnolls and an insane warlock," the latter of whom has decided to use the place to conduct vile experiments of animal cross-breeding in order to "spread fear and death to nearby communities, destabilize local lords, and establish himself as master of the land." The surface of the hill has a small group of gnoll look outs, the cellar holds the gnolls, the upper dungeon contains the warlocks lab and various monstrosities, while the lower caves contain both an ancient (secret) sarcophagus...complete with treasure and avenging spectre...and the caves where the warlock's prize creations, the owlbears, make their lairs.

There's a lot going on...perhaps too much. Because this is not a one-off scenario, but has some situational ramifications for a campaign. And yet it's stuffed into a tiny space that feels cramped and (perhaps) not "realistic" enough. For me, it lack verisimilitude. 

And it takes liberties with D&D assumptions and tropes. Gnolls aren't orcs, so I don't see why they'd follow this mad wizard anywhere. What's in it for them? Given their descriptions..."dog-faced," armed with spears and short bows...I feel like these were once imagined as kobolds. Where are the great bows, the pole-arms, the two-handed swords? What's with all this 1d6 damage? Where's the mercenary attitude, the chaotic devotion to 'might makes right,' the willingness to turn on their allies? These guys should have already killed and looted this crazy human...fed him to his own creations.

Then there's the warlock himself. He's 8th level. An 8th level magic-user can barely create magic potions...and here this guy has set up the huge twisted machines and is running fantastical experiments that have created owlbears and skunkbears and boarhawks and snakewolves and porcupanthers (where did he even get a panther, let alone five? Is this a tropical area? Same goes for the...presumably created...gorillabears). The machine is interesting, its effects are interesting, but the thing doesn't make sense to me.  The guy's highest level spell is 4th level. This type of menace should be the contraption of a 12th+ wizard. Unless he's a sham who's just using his polymorph other spell to duplicate owlbears he's seen...but then what about the other hybrids?  The author tells us that all monsters in the dungeon level are "under the effects of a Charm Monster spell, which Zerod recasts periodically." But there are upwards of 30 such monsters in the dungeon and this guy can only memorize two 4th level spells per day...and they're both the aforementioned polymorph other. ALSO: you need to be able to communicate with said monsters in order to give it orders like "don't attack the other monsters." So this guy speaks mimic? And gelatinous cube? And 'skunkupine?' Nah.

There's a bulette in a sub-basement arena that one infers is being fed the "hybrid-rejects" whenever the warlock has enough to trigger the trapdoor of their holding cell. But we're told there are five such rejects weighing a collective 50# and and 500# of meat needed to trigger the floor...how long does it take to acquire that many? Doesn't a bulette eat horses? Doesn't it need more space to wander than a 50' diameter chamber? I mean, they're 15' long. Just how much sand is in the chamber allowing the thing to burrow beneath the surface (with "iron plates bolted to the bedrock" to prevent its escape)? And just when and how was that much sand trucked into this ancient temple to provide the warlock with his pet-in-a-bowl?

And then there are the owlbears. Instead of the 5+2 hit die creatures found in the MM, the author decides there are female owlbears with 4 HD and a male owlbear with 6+2 HD. I dislike this. As a guy who's written an owlbear adventure or two, you just assign the bigger ones the higher HP totals (if you want to distinguish between sex, for example)...you don't change the HD, which affects both spell use and attack capability. PCs should not be able to sleep owlbears unless they're juveniles.

Total monetary treasure is 42,190 with an additional 90,250 if all magical items are found and sold for a bit more than 132K. Expected take should be closer to 200K (like 198K)...I don't assign treasure value to a magic-user's spell book (it is not a prepared magic scroll) and even if I did, it wouldn't be 20K/40K value assigned by the author. The UA would valuate it as some 5,100 g.p. assuming a standard spell book.  ***EDIT: I made an error; UA places a value of 500 x.p./1,000 g.p. per spell level on spell books (my cost was based on the cost of writing the thing). If you choose to use UA rules, Zerod's spellbook should be valued at 20,500 x.p. / 41,000 g.p....close to what Scott has, but still a skosh off***

For me, this one gets just under three stars (out of five)...it is a serviceable adventure if folks don't think about things too much. I tend to think about things...that's my fault. If I was EOTB, I'd knock off another star for the "crawl through the latrine chute" part, but I'm not that grouchy.

; )

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