So I have been quiet as of late, yes. My normal life has exploded with activity. Kids in Spring soccer, getting the house ready for warm weather, and so on. So I have been playing 4AD, but I changed it up a bit. I have taken a slice from the deeper dungeon rules that made its way to the SOBH group and that is resting.
My adventure started out with a Warrior, Cleric, Elf, and Dwarf (there is too much fight in these guys). They have made their way in through 42 rooms, and have to stop collecting GP as they have reached their limit of 200GP each.
So what I have done is after 10 rooms I will allow them to rest for say the night. In the morning they get 1 LP back, and 1 Spell back. During the rest they must make 5 WM rolls. On the second night they rest, after the first WM roll of a 1, the remaining WM rolls will have WM show up on a 1-2.
Using this I am able to stop play after 10ish rooms. I have stopped 3 time in the 42 rooms and have only faced 3 WM in total.
By the time I hit room 23, the party was all LV2 and killing every thing they met. What they were not seeing was bosses. So I decided to make all Vermin, and Minions the full amount. Say if it is 2d6 minions they just face 12. This helped a bit, but the party kills on.
I was hoping to fill the smaller graph paper with a map, and I can do this easily if I keep going, but there is getting to be little challenge at this point. I think having an all fighter party is not so fun after the first few rooms.
So I am going to continue with this party, but I have to up the ante for this party, but before I continue, I have to stop this game and play the new adventure that was released on Friday, then I will come back to this game.
Till then happy adventuring.
In the South West of An-mor is a small town called Embershire. Embershire is struggling to stay alive, being close to the Savage lands to the south. Just inland about 20 miles to the East is an old sliver mine called Dewham. The mayor is looking for a party to clear out the upper levels of the mine, and find the main shaft down to the lower levels. He has sent in a number of towns folk only to have a very few return alive. Some have been brought back as solid stone.
The Mayor sends out notice for a party that will bring back the head of this Medusa monster keeping the mine closed to the towns folk. He offers a 100GP for the head, and another 50GP for the map to the shaft.
The party that answers this call is made up of a Barbarian called Vulr Nurato, from the wilds to the East. Galan the Elf from the forest lands in the North, The Wizard Arius Pufyane, who left his school early as he could not stand any more lessons. Then lastly the Rouge Dyer Rassler, form no ware, and every ware. This party is all armed, and equipped to take on the mines and bring back what is asked of them.
They head off to the East with a guide to Dewham mines, and arrive after a days hike. The next day the wake to see the guides gone. With the mine entrance 200 yards away, they make a quick march to the door, and bash it in. They party enters a dark and wide room. It is littered with old timber, and debris. They see three doors on the North wall, and decide to take the middle of these doors. They open the door to a long corridor with a branch to the East.
1)As they enter the corridor 4 goblins jump the front of the party. The party reacts and kills this scum quickly. But behold the Rogue finds 110Gp in the dead.
2) Pushing forward they venture North skipping the Eastern branch, near the end of this long corridor it opens in to a medium room. As the pass the entrance a fierce Minotaur charges them. The party erupts into battle, that lasts a few rounds leaving Galan the Elf wounded twice. The Rouge finds 80Gp, while Galan bandages up his wound.
3) The party passes through the door to the North in to a corridor shaped like a 4. They also find a puzzle box, and quickly open it. In side is a wand of fire balls.
4) Taking the North East branch the party enters a corridor turning to the East with a room. As they party was all talking about the puzzle box they walked right in to 10 Fungi Folk. The battle is all in favor of the party, as the Fungi fall quickly. This allows Galan to level up, and they find 15Gp.
As this room had no other doors, the party headed back to the last corridor, and move to the North West door.
5) In this corridor it is shaped like a Y, with 2 Goblin Samplings waiting to be killed, and they were.
6) Pressing to the North East again the party finds them selves in yet another corridor heading North, with a bend to the West then back North again. As they wander through this corridor Arius tripped on something and all most got hit with a dart. Dyer examines the trap finding it held 9Gp. With traps now in mind the party puts Dyer in the lead.
7) At the end of the corridor was a door, and the party went through it. This was an empty room with a door to the North. The party took a moment to rest and found a ring on the floor. A ring of teleportation. Vulr is not happy and wants to keep moving so the party hit the Norther door.
8) This was a medium size square room with doors on each wall. Also there was 14 vampire bats. Once more the party battles on killing all but 2 that got away. The party is faced with three doors and they decide on the East door, and make their way in to it.
9) They find another medium sized room but with only one door to the East. But in the middles of the room under a pile of junk the Rouge finds another puzzle box, and quickly tries his hand at it. Ouch He cries, and it cut in to him for a wound. The Wizard takes the box and tries him self also feeling the pain of this box. Vulr, takes the box and outs it back, saying it is bad magic do not touch it again, and heads to the next door.
10) The door opens to a long corridor to heading East, ending in a square room, with another 10 Fungi folk. Both the Barbarian, and wizard get wounded, but the Fungi folk are all killed in the end. They find 5Gp, and Vlur levels up.
11) The door to the East leads to the very same room, but for the 3 Orcs, ready to kill. The wizard drops an Exploding 6s, to finish them off. There was a small pile of 7Gp on the ground. As this was the last room on this path the party heads back the way the came, and was lucky not to run into anything along the way.
12) Taking the West door in room 8, finds the monster they were looking for, but before they knew it Arius, was turned to stone. In the battle that followed no one else was hurt, but the Wizard was smashed (no one had a bless scroll), and left for dead. The party grabbed the head, and found a small fortune in gold on the floor. 200Gp, and fire ball scroll.
13) The party, with out a lantern made a wrong turn and started down a new path, but stumbled in to a small sack on the floor with gem worth 110Gp.
14) Heading North the ran into a door, and passed through it to find darkness, and 11 rats. The three danced around in the dark squishing them.
15) Heading East they opened another door, and ran into 3 hobgoblins. The Elf ended up with a 6 and took two of them out, and Vlur got the last one. They found a scroll of protection as they felt around with their hands. Knowing they would not do well to continue they turned around and headed out of this foul place.
The party did well till they got back to the entrance room, and found 4 hobgoblins waiting for them. Every one took a wound during this fight, but they made it out alive, plus a potion of healing.
Heading back to town. Here they were able to collect the 100Gp for the monster's head, but nothing for the location of the main shaft. The mayor has asked that when they are healed and find a new wizard, would they try again. The party agreed. In one months time they will return to the Dewham mine.
This was a self made adventure, using the quest table, and some place names. I picked (rolled) bring me the head, as the main goal of this adventure, and finding room 21 on the room tables.
In the next part the party will go back and select a different door, at the entracne, and this time if they find 21 or 35 (rooms with no exits) they will have found the main shaft. The reward will be 200Gp this time. Well the party is now off looking for a Wizard to fill the roll of Airus Pufyne (what a silly name).
Noel
4AD Caves of the Kobold Slave Masters Adventure Link
4AD rules Link
Last week I was asked to play test a new adventure for 4AD. I was not sure I would be able to devote time to this as weekends are very busy for me. But I was going to play 4AD any way Saturday, and Sunday morning so what the heck, I said yes.
A few minutes later the adventure was in my inbox. Now I was at work and I was trying to do my job, the whole time this file was sitting there waiting for me to read it. So at lunch time I took a bite of my sandwich and started reading. I got in a few pages and realized I have to stop reading, as I was not prof reading this, I was to play this.
This adventure is broken up in to 3 chapters. The first chapter was a pre-built adventure with a map, and a story line, all I needed was a party. I used the party from my last write up, as I wanted to play not create a party. I read the opening section of chapter 1, and got my party ready to go. I am not going to spoil the chapter at all but to say this I lost my wizard. This looks like a very simple adventure, that turned out to be a challenge.
After licking my wounds and hiring a new wizard, it was on to chapter 2. Now this chapter was more like the games from the the base rule book. You start with the map entrance table, and then roll for content, but now you will roll on tables created just for this adventure. This was very challenging as well. I started off with great rolls, but ended up 31 room deep before the final boss was encountered. This is not going to be the normal, as it comes down to your die rolls. So I ended up collecting enough life saving items along the way, but I was very close to loosing some of my party during this chapter.
Now on to Chapter 3. This is a solo rpg right? It should be simple right? Well I will say I am not going to say any more about chapter 3 other than it was a challenge for me to get through it.
For the price point of $2.00 I am so happy with this. It did take me allot of time to get through this as it was on a weekend, and I have two kids in soccer, and a honey do list to complete. I had to sneak off from time to time to complete the adventures, with me finishing chapter 3 on Tuesday of this week.
I have thought of way to re-play this adventure already, and I will share them when I do replay this with a new party.
To wrap this up, I loved this adventure, it was more that I thought a solo adventure could be just a week or so after the rules were released. I cant wait for the next one (I do not want to play test it, I want to play as a normal player).
Andrea, once more I want to say thank you for bringing RPG back in to my life.
I have enjoyed the last few weeks reading all the reviews, and email that have been posted about 4AD, and will continue to look for these reviews and emails for along time.
Noel......
