Scions of Punjar

[xredjasonx]

I recently sat down to read through this adventure in preparation to running it for my group, and I must say, this is a really well-written adventure. My group has been asking me when I'm going to continue the Punjar adventures, as I ran Sellswords of Punjar when it first came out. I especially love how in the Famished Froghemoth there are little gambling in-games that the pc's can participate in. And the fact that the pc's have options of where to go from the beginning is just really cool.


But....


I ran into the same problem with the size of the maps that I did when I ran Forges of the Mountain King - in places the maps are just way too small. For example, area 3-4 is supposed to contain 8 skeletons, 8 decrepit skeletons, and one boneshard skeleton standing "in two even rows of eight each in front of the door, with the boneshard skeleton standing alone before the two lines." This is of course if the pc's don't disturb the couple of things listed in 3-3, which would cause the undead in both 3-4 and 3-5 to come shambling out. But if you take a look at 3-4 on the map, the room is only 5 squares wide and 7 squares long, and this is including the 6 stone sarcophagi on each side of the room (total of 12). It's pretty much the same story in 3-5, except with zombies. Again if the pc's don't disturb 3-3 and decide to open one of these side doors, there isnt even enough room to place the monsters let alone fight them.

Re-tooling the map doesn't take a long time, but it's the fact that one has to in the first place. I'm just wondering if this is going to be persistent in future DCC's or if more attention will be placed on this in the future?

[Harley Stroh]

Jason,

You've caught one of our last "translation" projects, bringing a project that was scheduled to be 3.5 up to 4E. Rest assured that the DCCs and the MDs will have sufficient room for 4E play. There may be one or 2 more errors that snuck through playtest and editing, but we're narrowing the margin, and --- thankfully --- soon ALL the DCCs will be native 4E.

Thanks for bearing with us. Apart from the map issue, this is really cool adventure.

//H

[xredjasonx]

Thanks for the reply Harley.

I will point out again that the writing of these DCC's is superb, looking forward to more!

[arlanni]

Jason,

Although Harley beat me to it, as author I'd like to add my bit. The original design of the encounter (IIR correctly) had something like 8 skeletons, which was a suitable encounter for 3.5. In the 4E version of the encounter (with a suitable EL), we now have 17 creatures. Big difference. And as authors, we are still getting used to the concept of 4E encounters (and monster roles), after 7 years of designing 3.5 encounters.

As Harley mentioned, its one of the last of the "transition" modules that features the 4E growing pains.

Thanks for the feedback. Its important for later printings. And by all means keep us updated on how your players handle the module and its challenges.

Chris

[xredjasonx]

Jason,

Although Harley beat me to it, as author I'd like to add my bit. The original design of the encounter (IIR correctly) had something like 8 skeletons, which was a suitable encounter for 3.5. In the 4E version of the encounter (with a suitable EL), we now have 17 creatures. Big difference. And as authors, we are still getting used to the concept of 4E encounters (and monster roles), after 7 years of designing 3.5 encounters.

As Harley mentioned, its one of the last of the "transition" modules that features the 4E growing pains.

Thanks for the feedback. Its important for later printings. And by all means keep us updated on how your players handle the module and its challenges.

Chris

Thanks for responding Chris, again I really like the way the module is set-up. Scions has probably been my favorite read so far, as far as 4E DCC's go and I can't wait to run it. However my group is in the thick of playing Scales of War, which goes to 30th level and I'd like to get more of that knocked out before we move it to every other Monday instead of every Monday. But the main reason I might hold off for a bit is that I know my group is going to be hot for trying a Players Handbook 2 class/race, so I will probably wait until that comes out before I start running the Punjar adventures again. When I do I will to make sure that I post up a proper session by session post here.

Keep 'em coming!

[AstroCat]

Do we need to adjust the Skill Check DCs in this module like we did in Sellswords?

[Antioch]

Just bring the module over before you run it and I'll help you expand the encounter areas and monsters: I had a lot of fun tinkering with the last one.

[xredjasonx]

Just bring the module over before you run it and I'll help you expand the encounter areas and monsters: I had a lot of fun tinkering with the last one.

Cool cool, since we are going to go through Sellswords of Punjar again I was more than happy to leave the map at your place so you could re-draw it on your mats to make all the alley, rooms and hallways bigger to suit 4E combat.

Just....dude...when you get to that part with the decoy...don't say anything and just kind of hang back. I want to see if anyone murders that little girl like your poor little minotaur rogue Tuska did. The look on your face was freaking priceless.

[Antioch]

Tuska didnt kill her: she was dead with one of his shuriken in her skull when he got there.

[xredjasonx]

Uh-huh

[Antioch]

I'd be interested in playing Tuska again at some point. That, or making him a persistent NPC.

[xredjasonx]

Are you gonna play him again for Sellswords or play the sorcerer?

[Antioch]

For sellswords I'm going to do the drow spider beastmaster, or a sorcerer if Josh really wants to make a kukri wielding monkey.

[xredjasonx]

Ok, I will finally be running Scions of Punjar this coming Monday. I'll do my best to post up session logs of this biweekly campaign. I really like the module and am excited to run it.