The Mystery of the Floating Rock (Adam Szabo)
B/X adventure for four to six PCs of levels 3rd-4th
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.
So, I'm currently in the process of developing my own "floating dungeon" scenario, and when I saw this entry on the docket I thought, hey, maybe this will work for me and I won't have to put in the blood, sweat, and tears of writing my own!
No such luck.
This two level dungeon is "only" 18 encounters, but it feels larger and is positively crammed with stuff, necessitating all manner of odd and nonsensical abbreviations and nomenclature which makes it difficult to parse. What does "VO:9" mean? How am I supposed to interpret the note "a chest contains 1d100 pcs?" Pieces of what? And what in God's name are "at" and "et" as relates to the value of treasure?
This claims to be written for B/X. This is not B/X. B/X monsters do not have an "attack bonus" like some WotC-era version of D&D. It doesn't make any sense with regard to descending AC (which the author uses). And it's not used consistently! A 3HD harpy and a 4HD white ape do NOT use the same column of the attack matrix, so even if this attack bonus somehow translates, it should not be the same.
The premise here is of a wizard who has created a floating dungeon/fortress/lab from which to genetically engineer perfect monsters for conquest. The "wizard" is 5th level. His most potent spell is a 5d6 fireball. He also knows the spells stinking cloud (not a B/X spell) and repair (not a spell in any edition as far as I'm aware). No, this is not how B/X runs magical research. This is just making up something "cool" for low-level players.
A spellbook is not "loot" in B/X by the way, and has no value (not that a value was given).
Several magic items are non-B/X and non-described. No such thing as a wand of telekinesis (and no charges provided), no such thing as a potion of self-transformation. No idea what a lightning crystal staff is (and no description provided of its abilities). What is a "power rune" and how is it activated? I grok that the mutagens carried by servants are some kind of potion or consumable, but a little more explanation on how they work would have been helpful and appreciated. As it is, this "nice idea" requires a bit of "winging" on the part of a DM trying to use the adventure.
There are more things I could pick out that are problematic: storm elementals (again, how is this being summoned by a 5th level magic-user?), brownies (not a B/X monster), projectile protection (huh?). The bottom line is that it's non-functional as written. Meaning: if I am a B/X Dungeon Master armed with a copy of the B/X books, I will not be able to run this effectively.
Low two stars (**-).
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