ASC Review: Pyramid of Peril

Patracleo's Peregrinating Pyramid of Peril (Matthew Lake)

Seven Voyages of Zylarthen adventure for three to six PCs of levels 5th-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.

Once again, Matthew Lake takes the final submission spot. Last year's entry was the best of the bunch and a decisive winner of the contest. This year? Well...

I'll make this brief, because I've already spent way too much time on this one. The idea here isn't bad: an undead AEgyptian princess zips around the world in her flying pyramid, picking up dummies to run a gauntlet/obstacle course for her immortal amusement. Okay, actually writing that out it looks worse than the concept actually is (I mean, D&D's premise isn't the greatest...). 

The problem with this one (well, my MAIN problem) is that A) it's written for Seven Voyages of Zylarthen, which requires some 'transduction' for me to grok, and B) the re-skinned monsters which need to be translated to 7VZ just so that I can translate them again to D&D terms. Which is a pain in the ass.

When I'm picking up a pre-written adventure for use at my table, I don't want UNDERSTANDING the module to be a "pain in the ass."

I will not quibble overmuch about 7VZ as an entry, because while NO, its system is NOT compatible with TSR-era D&D (its combat system functions differently), that doesn't matter terribly when looking at the adventure itself. All I see is "bugbear 12 HPs" or "gold ankh 500gp" or "save vs. spells or dance madly for 2-12 turns." These things all translate as "standard" D&D, and if you are playing this using OD&D, you don't need to know the funky 7VZ rules, nor does it matter that 7VZ doesn't use clerics or whatever.

No, the two biggest issues here are just monsters and treasures. 

All the damn re-skins. "Scarabites" as goblins. "Stag-Scarabites" as hobgoblins. "Bear-bugs" as bugbears. "Scarabite flyers" as...winged goblins, I guess? Infrared scarabs (invisible goblins). I mean, I get it, you've got a bug theme going on here. I'm trying to play D&D, and I keep seeing paragraphs full of unfamiliar mouthful of words and I have to remember if Rhino-Scarabs are the ones that get ridden (they are) or are those the Stag-Scarabs (no, they're the riders). Scarab-scarab-scarab...sheesh.

But that just makes the thing a headache to parse. The other issue is the treasure.

7VZ uses a "silver standard," which NO is NOT the same as an TSR-era edition of D&D but whatever, I can do math. So players have to SPEND money to earn x.p. (*sigh*) and they get 1 x.p. for every 1 silver piece spent. So, easy right? Just add up the s.p. value and treat it like g.p. for seeing if the treasure totals are good for this adventure, right?

Except that the author isn't CONSISTENT with his nomenclature. He gives some items' values in gold piece, some values in silver pieces, and then there are coppers thrown in the mix just to piss me off (because in Zylarthen, five CPs = 1 SP, meaning that UNLIKE normal D&D, 100K in copper is worth a phat score of 50K experience points, rather than just something to weigh down bodies in the river...). As a reviewer I have to assume that the author did not just typo his way through this thing and meant every scrap of loot to be worth its exact value which, besides being a pain in the ass, GROSSLY OVERVALUES the treasure yield of this adventure...should be 43K in silver and instead you've got 110K.

Of course, if you were just using it as an OD&D adventure than it's grossly UNDERvalued at a paltry 11K in gold pieces. Bleah.

Matthew, you did a great job last year, and you're a creative guy, but this one needs work. For me, it's not even playable...but I don't play Seven Voyages, even if it IS the "new hotness" amongst classic adventure gamers. However, some people do and...as with the ACKS submissions...I'll defer to other reviewers and simply mark this as *** assuming its appropriately functional (if over-treasured) for 7VZers.

The end.