Shattered Circle Opinions?
Thomas Mulloy
I am starting a fresh campaign, with experienced gammers, and a couple
newbies. I am wondering what anyones thoughts are on the module "The
Shattered Circle"? I have yet to run it (starting Saturday). But it looks
pretty well written. If anyone has any opinions of the module good or bad I
would like to know of them.....
Tom
Hugh
news:8785ti$231a$1...@newssvr04-int.news.prodigy.com...
putting them through it. It looks a little tough on newbies, but experienced
players should manage fine. Some of the encounters can kill a party quite
fast unless they know when to run.
Hugh
Staffan Johansson
>
> I am starting a fresh campaign, with experienced gammers, and a couple
> newbies. I am wondering what anyones thoughts are on the module "The
> Shattered Circle"? I have yet to run it (starting Saturday). But it looks
> pretty well written. If anyone has any opinions of the module good or bad I
> would like to know of them.....
I haven't run it yet, but I'm planning on doing so soon. It looks like a
pretty good dungeon crawl to me, but I'm not very happy with the way it
uses monsters from all sorts of sources. IMO, a core adventure for
beginning characters has a target audience of newbie players, and
including monsters that aren't in the MM or described thouroughly in the
adventure should be a no-no, IMO - especially when one sort of those
monsters provide the main opposition in the adventure.
Other than that, it looks good, and has sufficient XP potential to get a
group of 6 1st level characters up to 2nd, and mayabe even 3rd or 4th
level depending on how generous the DM is with "story" XP and individual
awards.
--
Staffan Johansson (bal...@crosswinds.net)
"There was always something that needed transferring from A to B or, of
course, to the bottom of the C."
-- Terry Pratchett, Hogfather.
john v verkuilen
>Thomas Mulloy <Vad...@prodigy.net> wrote in message
>news:8785ti$231a$1...@newssvr04-int.news.prodigy.com...
>>
>> I am starting a fresh campaign, with experienced gammers, and a couple
>> newbies. I am wondering what anyones thoughts are on the module "The
>> Shattered Circle"? I have yet to run it (starting Saturday). But it looks
>> pretty well written. If anyone has any opinions of the module good or bad
>I
>> would like to know of them.....
>>
>Haven't run it yet. But as soon as I get a fresh bunch of characters, I'm
>putting them through it. It looks a little tough on newbies, but experienced
>players should manage fine. Some of the encounters can kill a party quite
>fast unless they know when to run.
Cool module and it has some very cool premises. Unfortunately some of them
don't fit my campaign world (including the nonexistence of drow) so I would
need to do a rewrite. But I'm sure I'll run it someday.
Jay
--
J. Verkuilen ja...@uiuc.edu
A legal King Crimson bootleg from the Aug. 2-4, 1996, Mexico City shows:
http://drm.goestoeleven.com/wm/dgm/default.htm.
Tim Burke
>
> I am starting a fresh campaign, with experienced gamers, and a couple
> newbies. I am wondering what anyones thoughts are on the module "The
> Shattered Circle"? I have yet to run it (starting Saturday). But it looks
> pretty well written. If anyone has any opinions of the module good or bad
I
> would like to know of them.....
>
I'll jump in here and add some spoiler space and then offer my comments
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I've recently ran "The Shattered Circle" and found that it has it's
strengths and it's weaknesses. It is a well written and quite extensive
dungeon, one that players will not get through in a single session.
The encounters can be quite tough as can the traps. PCs will need
to pull out and rest and recouperate so make sure that you set the
Circle within a couple of miles of a Temple and an Inn. I made sure
that there was a small village nearby that sold the basics and an abbey
about a couple of miles away to tend to healing.
There are alot of rooms that are just straight out slugfests with no
apparent reward so combat is going to be a factor in this game.
Traps are damn well everywhere in this place due to the power
of the Foundingstone and they reset themselves after time. The
traps alone can wipe out your entire group with little difficulty
and this is only on the 1st level of the dungeon. I ran 4 3rd level
PCs through it and all but one got screwed up by the trap at
location #21 in the upper zone. This is generally okay except
for those that don't make their saving throw fall asleep for
24hrs with no way to wake them.
It was funny that in my game the Halfling Thief set the trap
off and was the only one to make his save :). Over a period
of time he dragged them one by one to an empty room and
locked the door behind them and went for help to the Abbey
that I placed several miles away (I made the PCs work for
this particular deity and they were sent to investigate the
farmer's dissapperance and the "weird stuff happening")
Oops digression....back to the review.
The door at #5 on Level 1 can only be opened with the
key held by the critter at #47 two levels below. I found
this to be counter productive and really slowed the tempo
of the game as the PCs had to trudge back up 2 levels to
open the door at #5 on Level 1 to get the clue to go to Level 3
Make a thief or a mage able to open the door at #5, it
really doesn't unbalance the game.
I was disappointed that the module featured too many
monsters that don't appear in the MM. The new critters
have descriptions only with no corresponding artwork.
This just sucks. If WotC are going to put in new critters
at least give us a damn picture of it so that I can SHOW
my players what they are facing. The one picture of the
critter in question (The Chitine) is at the end of the module
and this one is a vastly superior version of the critter
which also shows plot spoiling info in the background.
This critter also has more limbs that the others encountered
so it is worthless as a descriptive picture at the beginning of
the game. Unfortunately you have to go through a city
of hundreds of these things before you can see the pic
at the end of the module. This was frustrating for the PCs.
So other than these points try and have fun with it but
don't hesitate to change the stuff that irks you before play.
It really helps if you do this.
Tim Burke
Brisbane, Australia
Zimri
> monsters that don't appear in the MM.
This should be on a DM's Bill Of Rights. In a beginner's module, if
non-MM monsters are present, they must be accompanied with a full
description. We can call it the Second Rule of Cordell. *
> The new critters
> have descriptions only with no corresponding artwork.
> This just sucks.
Yeah, it does. As a side complaint, I think the outsides of castles
and temples need to be illustrated as well. The trickier, more
detailed traps too. Inspirational pictures of adventurers bravely
fending off monsters can take their turn in line. Cheers to "Temple of
the Frog"'s temple, "Scourge of the Slavelords"'s hill fort, and
anything from a Tomb of Horrors book; jeers to "Lost Temple of
Tharizdun". And Night Below mixed the wheat with the chaff (as it so
often did) by showing us Great Shaboath and the shrine of Juiblex but
not the City of the Glass Pool or Broken Spire Keep.
>The one picture of the
> critter in question (The Chitine) is at the end of the module
> and this one is a vastly superior version of the critter
> which also shows plot spoiling info in the background.
> This critter also has more limbs that the others encountered
> so it is worthless as a descriptive picture at the beginning of
> the game.
In other words, the chitine illustrated at the end of the module was
NOT the chitine described in the earlier parts of the module. That
*does* suck.
> Unfortunately you have to go through a city
> of hundreds of these things before you can see the pic
> at the end of the module. This was frustrating for the PCs.
If I ran it, I think I'd photocopy that picture and do some editing.
Not the sort of thing I like to do. I'm no artist.
-- Z
*(The First Rule of Cordell - aka the "Necromancer Rede" - is similar:
it applies to character classes and spells that appear in an unliving
supplement, and holds for all levels of play. To be fair to Bruce, the
rest of TSR must shoulder the responsibility for not reprinting said
supplement.)
Barry Smith
> In other words, the chitine illustrated at the end of the module was
> NOT the chitine described in the earlier parts of the module. That
> *does* suck.
Spoiler space-----v
I don't think that was meant to be a Chitine, Zimri. Caullum is a
Werespider, and a recurring villain in my current campaign. :)
Tim Burke
Barry Smith wrote
Caullum is a werespider but in his natural form is a chitine.
p.30, Column 2 The Shattered Circle
"Notes: SA - Caullum can transform between a hybrid spider
and humanoid form (his natural, chitine body)..."
Tim Burke
Brisbane, Australia.