Sindre Berg
02-20-1999, 01:55 PM
I've recently in spite of the warnings I've received from this list
tried to get my dirty hands on all three of the BR Adventures Modules.
This far I've gotten my hands on 2 of them.
Ranting mode activated....
Beware I reveal secrets from Warlock of the Stonecrowns and Sword and
Crown below...
I'm sorry to say this but the Warlock of the Stonecrown Mountains, was
at least to me completely useless. There wasn't even one thing there I
can use for my campaign ! Which in my case is a bit of a dissapointment
considering my campaign is based on Tuornen. First of all the entire
thing was so cloaked with Magical Items you could drown in them...A
Margoyle keeps: a potion, a bastard sword +1, and a scroll with
2xRestoration !, a 7th ! level mage has a ring of prot +3, not to
mention the main villain of the adventure which has only...3 pearls of
wisdom, ring of shooting stars, ring of wizardry, staff of power, dagger
og venom, bracers of def AC 2, boots of stri. & spring, cloak of
displacement, helm of blinking and several scrolls.... What ???? This
items alone propably would last all of my campaign....This items are
even more powerful than what the Gorgon has, his father... And then
comes the fact that there are 4-5 spell-casting humanoid spell-users in
this adventure only.
Another thing that really annoyed was that there were so many errors in
the adventure. Take the Warlock he is a invoker, still many of the
spells on his spell list are from forbidden schools, not to mention that
2 of the 5 new spells he has are also from forbidden schools !
Even the maps (which TSR's normally makes very good, just look at the
other BR maps) are all wrong.. in the stables which are about 20'x60' he
has squeezed in 80 !!! horses plus a war horse and hippogriff ... How ?
By stacking them on top of each other ? And similarily a room with about
the same size has 150 orogs living there ? If you simply change the
scale you get offices the size of courtyards...
Another thing that really gets to me is the fact that there are no more
than 4 outer planar creatures in that adventure ? This could just be my
not so humble opinion, but why can't you leave the outer planar
creatures just there ?? Why should the PC's go around freeing Devas ???
I've played in a Planescape campaign and liked it, but at least in my
opinion it got NOTHING to do with a low-magic BR campaign to do...After
what I've heard some you even use things like Gargoyles sparingly...Then
how many Balors do you need running around the place ?
A last thing which of course isn't the modules fault is that I've been
writing some stuff for the five peaks and sort of incorporating this
thing into that, but it can't possibly be made to fit...
Sorry for trashing this module Wolfgang Baur....but at least IMHO it
simply isn't a BR odule...
The Sword and Crown on the other hand is my impression of a good BR
module.
The level of magic is rather low, with all (almost) of the magical
abilities with stories and names which makes at least me more inclined
to allow them, not to mention the nice fact they were all collected at
the last page. This makes it very easy to lower the plusses a bit, they
even included a sword with a permanent detect goblin on it, but WITHOUT
any other bonus !! Yes I know Rhoubhe has wicked magical items, but he
is a pre Deismaar major awnsheigh which sort of warrants it in my
opinion.
Also the fact that you meet 4 fighter/mages late in the adventure is no
problem...swap them for fighters or just allow them, they are elves and
this was the closest I got to apprentices for Rhoubhe, a High Mage of
renown. His "son" is also some sort of outer planar creature, but he
didn't feel like one and can easily be made into some sort of pure
Awnsheigh without even changing a thing... As such you can maintain most
of the magical equipment in the adventure without changing the feel or
story at all...most of these items should be delivered back anyway
(which is a good hook for an elven/dwarven adventure). Also the most
magical creature they meet was, Umber Hulks and Griffons which is
acceptable in my mind at least. And most of the adversaries were
fighters which is the way it should be....
There weren't any glaring errors as far as I could see here, and the end
of the adventures was one of the best I've seen...they meet Rhoubhe but
he doesn't want to fight them, well at least not all of them... If my
players aren't afraid of Rhoubhe after this adventure they are not
roleplaying properly... :)
If I should criticise anything it would be that the diplomacy event
which is the actual setting for this module get very much turned down,
except for the conclussions in the very end which presents good
"realistic" (ie lose-lose situations) problems for the regent.
Of course I am a bit biased since the latter module is very well fitted
for a campaign within Tuornen, but a module that gives me a poster size
map easily sways me :) And a fight between Avanil and Boeruine is a
dangerous game to play for Tuornen.
So in case anyone still is in doubt I would recommend Sword and Crown
while not at all Warlock of the Stonecrowns...
Ranting mode deactivated...
As a last question, if anyone is interested in "trading" homemade BR
adventures, adventure ideas, adventure hooks etc please contact me...
- --
Sindre
Take a look at my homepage and Birthright PBMG at:
www.uio.no/~sindrejb
tried to get my dirty hands on all three of the BR Adventures Modules.
This far I've gotten my hands on 2 of them.
Ranting mode activated....
Beware I reveal secrets from Warlock of the Stonecrowns and Sword and
Crown below...
I'm sorry to say this but the Warlock of the Stonecrown Mountains, was
at least to me completely useless. There wasn't even one thing there I
can use for my campaign ! Which in my case is a bit of a dissapointment
considering my campaign is based on Tuornen. First of all the entire
thing was so cloaked with Magical Items you could drown in them...A
Margoyle keeps: a potion, a bastard sword +1, and a scroll with
2xRestoration !, a 7th ! level mage has a ring of prot +3, not to
mention the main villain of the adventure which has only...3 pearls of
wisdom, ring of shooting stars, ring of wizardry, staff of power, dagger
og venom, bracers of def AC 2, boots of stri. & spring, cloak of
displacement, helm of blinking and several scrolls.... What ???? This
items alone propably would last all of my campaign....This items are
even more powerful than what the Gorgon has, his father... And then
comes the fact that there are 4-5 spell-casting humanoid spell-users in
this adventure only.
Another thing that really annoyed was that there were so many errors in
the adventure. Take the Warlock he is a invoker, still many of the
spells on his spell list are from forbidden schools, not to mention that
2 of the 5 new spells he has are also from forbidden schools !
Even the maps (which TSR's normally makes very good, just look at the
other BR maps) are all wrong.. in the stables which are about 20'x60' he
has squeezed in 80 !!! horses plus a war horse and hippogriff ... How ?
By stacking them on top of each other ? And similarily a room with about
the same size has 150 orogs living there ? If you simply change the
scale you get offices the size of courtyards...
Another thing that really gets to me is the fact that there are no more
than 4 outer planar creatures in that adventure ? This could just be my
not so humble opinion, but why can't you leave the outer planar
creatures just there ?? Why should the PC's go around freeing Devas ???
I've played in a Planescape campaign and liked it, but at least in my
opinion it got NOTHING to do with a low-magic BR campaign to do...After
what I've heard some you even use things like Gargoyles sparingly...Then
how many Balors do you need running around the place ?
A last thing which of course isn't the modules fault is that I've been
writing some stuff for the five peaks and sort of incorporating this
thing into that, but it can't possibly be made to fit...
Sorry for trashing this module Wolfgang Baur....but at least IMHO it
simply isn't a BR odule...
The Sword and Crown on the other hand is my impression of a good BR
module.
The level of magic is rather low, with all (almost) of the magical
abilities with stories and names which makes at least me more inclined
to allow them, not to mention the nice fact they were all collected at
the last page. This makes it very easy to lower the plusses a bit, they
even included a sword with a permanent detect goblin on it, but WITHOUT
any other bonus !! Yes I know Rhoubhe has wicked magical items, but he
is a pre Deismaar major awnsheigh which sort of warrants it in my
opinion.
Also the fact that you meet 4 fighter/mages late in the adventure is no
problem...swap them for fighters or just allow them, they are elves and
this was the closest I got to apprentices for Rhoubhe, a High Mage of
renown. His "son" is also some sort of outer planar creature, but he
didn't feel like one and can easily be made into some sort of pure
Awnsheigh without even changing a thing... As such you can maintain most
of the magical equipment in the adventure without changing the feel or
story at all...most of these items should be delivered back anyway
(which is a good hook for an elven/dwarven adventure). Also the most
magical creature they meet was, Umber Hulks and Griffons which is
acceptable in my mind at least. And most of the adversaries were
fighters which is the way it should be....
There weren't any glaring errors as far as I could see here, and the end
of the adventures was one of the best I've seen...they meet Rhoubhe but
he doesn't want to fight them, well at least not all of them... If my
players aren't afraid of Rhoubhe after this adventure they are not
roleplaying properly... :)
If I should criticise anything it would be that the diplomacy event
which is the actual setting for this module get very much turned down,
except for the conclussions in the very end which presents good
"realistic" (ie lose-lose situations) problems for the regent.
Of course I am a bit biased since the latter module is very well fitted
for a campaign within Tuornen, but a module that gives me a poster size
map easily sways me :) And a fight between Avanil and Boeruine is a
dangerous game to play for Tuornen.
So in case anyone still is in doubt I would recommend Sword and Crown
while not at all Warlock of the Stonecrowns...
Ranting mode deactivated...
As a last question, if anyone is interested in "trading" homemade BR
adventures, adventure ideas, adventure hooks etc please contact me...
- --
Sindre
Take a look at my homepage and Birthright PBMG at:
www.uio.no/~sindrejb