Burning Shaolin is the first in an ambitious line of products from Atlas Games. This adventure module, the first in a new line branded "Coriolis", presents two sets of statistics for use with the module. One of them is D20, and the other is one of Atlas' other games, such as
Feng Shui for
Burning Shaolin. That doesn't mean that there are conversion notes; it means that there are two sets of stat blocks for every NPC or other mechanical element in the adventure. The Coriolis line is an ambitious experiment on the part of Atlas Games, and I respect Atlas Games for trying it.
Burning Shaolin is set in China circa 69 A.D. (the Han Dynasty), and the PCs are assumed to be either active members of the Secret War ( Feng Shui) or native adventurers who live as heroes in this chaotic time (D20). This is a historical fantasy scenario; magicians exist and so do monsters. Both of these show up as the villains of this adventure.
The adventure happens in four parts. First, the PCs save the Crippled Heroes from death at the hands of a faceless horde of mooks. Second, the PCs take up the Heroes' errand to the Netherworld; they do this because they're out to save the Heroes from an agonizing death and stop the Heroes' enemy from taking over China (or something). This takes them to the Netherworld--a surreal realm outside of time and space--to meet Johnny Ko. Ko dumps more information on the PCs and points them to the villain's hideout. Third, the PCs go to this hideout and get jumped by two nasty demon-human hybrids left to guard the vacant place. From there, they go to the Shaolin monestary in the title and stop the villain from burning it to the ground. They also get the thing that the Heroes need to save their lives, if they are successful.
That's simple enough to summarize. Execution, however, isn't what it could be. The attitude that runs through the text is that those who play Feng Shui are better than the subhumanoids who play any D20 game; the constant backhanded insults to those who play D&D are not appreciated, despite the obvious intent to be humorous. Neither is the disdain shown towards describing the scene in concrete terms, terms that a D20 game requires such as physical dimensions (length, width, height or depth) or the weather conditions (extremes of heat or cold have mechanical effects) or the lighting conditions (darkness is concealment). Matters of time are also irrelevant; this greatly cuts away the narrative tension of the scenario if the PCs aren't under any form of deadline, and in practical terms they aren't. This encourages the PCs to not take any risks, so they'll wait to heal up a little and go ahead when they're fresh. GMs who want to keep up the tension will have to do it themselves.
The plug-ins for emulating the wuxia conventions are also a bit weak; the material in WotC's Oriental Adventures is far and away better than this stuff, and I insist that anyone who wants to run this module as a D20 adventure ignore what's included in favor of that book's material. Why? Because the rules included demonstrate a lack of understanding about D20's philosophy, as epitomized in the text in the first fight scene: slipping on overturned pig entrails requires a Reflex save, and failing it causes the PC to "...fall over, wasting their next partial action." Well, unless that PC was either Slowed or Hasted he'd have no partial action to lose; a partial action is a specific thing, and not synonymous with "standard action". Also, the System Reference Document already handles what happens when a PC gets knocked on his ass: it takes a move-equivalent action to get back on his feet.
It's a big mistake like this that shook my trust in the D20 plug-ins; the Faceless Horde and Wuxia rules shattered it. As it is, a 7th-9th level D20 character will mow through a horde of weak creatures in a brisk and timely manner akin to a beginning Feng Shui PC; the Faceless Horde rules not needless duplicate this facility, it tries far too hard to replicate tropes of Feng Shui to do so. It's far easier to reduce the hit points of a creature down to the minimum and make them from weak stock like orcs or goblins; the effect is the same, and you don't penalize PCs who spent valuable feats for Cleave or Great Cleave or Whirlwind Attack. (BTW, D20 doesn't assign XP for creatures slain; it assigns them for challenges overcome.)
The Wuxia rules are just as pointless. The rules for circumstance bonuses already address the player-created prop idea, and the XP rules already handle story and role-playing bonuses so the stunt XP bonuses are also redundant. The rules to deal with issues of mobility, gravity and improvised weapons are too powerful to give away; those should be feats or class abilities. (Some already are, such as Improved Disarm.) Giving them away dilutes the fact that they aren't everyday abilities, which is true even within the genre. They are also wide open to abuse by players, which is a bad thing.
But is the adventure itself worth while? Let's take a look.
In the first scene, the PCs are in a town or city in China's Han Dynasty. Before long, they encounter a street brawl. A group of armed mooks are about to put five crippled men to the sword. At this point, the PCs are expected to intervene and save the lives of those five men. After they smack down the faceless horde of mooks, the PCs are expected to listen to the five men--the Crippled Heroes--and take up the task of saving their lives from the man who crippled them and now poisoned them: Kan Kuei, evil eunuch sorcerer.
Wow, what a weak plot hook. It assumes too much and relies too much on genre conventions to get the PCs into the adventure. Protagonists who aren't so keen on being action movie heroes are also part of the wuxia genre, and there is no aid for the GM should he have a PC of this sort in his game. Feng Shui GMs can fall back on the Melodramatic Hook, but not D20 GMs and a little help would've gone a long way here. Something along the lines of the suggestions given so freely to the fight scenes is what I have in mind.
Speaking of which, there is neither a map nor a detailed description of the scene's location: a narrow cobblestone street with vendors that line both sides. Again, while the Feng Shui crowd may well get by without this sort of thing it's quite necessary for the D20 folks to get some hard data here. They have ranges to their attacks, radii to their blasts, and limits to their movement. (Not that PCs in Feng Shui don't have hard limits, but that detail seems to be ignored a lot.) If the GM doesn't have some information to help him draw the scene on graph paper, then he's in trouble because he's got to do it himself; this is not why he buys an adventure module. A map or a description with some numbers attached would've been a big help; it's not like it wasn't done later on.
Okay, if the PCs play ball they get to talk to the Crippled Heroes: No Thumbs Chan, No-Foot Li, No-Tongue Chow, No-Eyes Lau and No-Guts Mui. They explain that they were on their way to meet with an ally by the name of "Johnny Ko" in a place called the "Netherworld" when the man who rendered them crippled--Kan Kuei, an evil sorcerer--suddenly came upon them with his loyal mooks. In the end, Kan Kuei poisoned them; they can't cure themselves unless some magic jar that the sorcerer has is brought to them, and the poison's already paralyzed them so they can neither save themselves nor anyone else Kan Kuei has in mind. The quintet wants the PCs to do their deeds for them.
Uh-huh. Again, the assumption of genre conventions to gloss over the lack of a convincing set of standard reasons to take up the adventure arises. These Crippled Heroes are suppossed to be five truly badass warriors, and they got smacked around by Kan Kuei; the PCs are about this many in number and power, and somehow the PCs are to assume that they have a real chance to do what the Crippled Heroes couldn't. It does more than defy logic; it assumes that the PCs are berefit of any sense whatsoever. Appeals to basic greed or idealism is not enough here; not even "If you don't stop him, he'll take over the world!" should be assumed to be sufficient. There ought to be something in the text that addresses some common-sense comebacks such as "Can you prove your claim?" and "If you couldn't do it, what makes you think that we could?" Throw the GM a bone here!
But, for now, we'll play along and assume that the PCs take up the task. They get a map from the Heroes and go on to the Netherworld. Now, I have a hard time believing that a sorcerer so canny as to jump his foes in the middle of a city wouldn't do it again away from any city or village. Yet, that is indeed assumed; the trip to the cave entrance to the Netherworld is casually dismissed as unimportant. My Disbelief Suspenders snapped here.
Once at the cave, it's one obstacle after another. Again, there is no map of anything in this section of the adventure. While this can be blamed on the mutable nature of the Netherworld, D20 doesn't take to that kindly; as encounters with hostile Netherworld NPCs is possible, it would've helped to've had a site map handy. A good part here is the notation of elements that characters from a modern or futuristic setting would recognize with ease; a bad part is that the Netherworld NPCs are vastly different, with D20 characters getting Named NPCs and the Feng Shui characters getting mooks. Another is the rather gratuitous fan encounter, followed by the lamest trap I've seen all year: the Mushroom Men. (They blow up if jostled.)
After this, the PC's arrive at Johnny's secluded Netherworld location. If they're calm and canny, they won't mess with the security system; GMs, do yourself a favor and have the Heroes tell the PCs about it so they can avoid a damned pointless combat scene. He's no pushover, and the D20 characters won't be the ones worse for wear; his stats for Feng Shui make his a PC's nightnamre, while D20 PCs who close with Johnny can take him with ease. However, that's not the point of this encounter.
Johnny's here to tell the PCs where Kan Kuei's hideout is and point them to it. His secondary purpose is to clue in the PCs about the Secret War, especially as it pertains to the adventure. Now, for something so simple as this there really wasn't a need to involve the Netherworld. Johnny ought to've been someone in China that, while hard to find, would provide the information to the PCs upon arriving and showing proof of good intentions. (This, by the way, is a woefully lacking element of the adventure: the friendly NPCs are far too trusting to be believable badasses and the villain isn't cunning enough to be credible threats to the whole of China.)
Again, we'll play along. The PCs leave the Netherworld, obstensibly by retracing their steps somehow; again, this is dismissed as another unimporant detail and again my Disbelief Suspenders snapped. They travel for five days (At last! Concrete details!) over rocky terrain to a dormant volcano. PCs aren't allowed to heal naturally during this time; only magic works. While the module suggests skipping over the trip because nothing attacks or encounters the PCs, I disagree; this breaks the narrative tension that now builds, as the PCs take the fight to the foe (or so they think). They should be cautious and take precautions against an enemy attack; maintaining that tension is best done by going through the motions. It also allows the GM to fill in any gaps in the PCs' knowledge or make room for subplots that the GM wants to incorporate.
And so, on to the next fight. The volcano lair is empty, much to the PCs' surprise, save for two truly nasty NPCs left to ambush the PCs and kill them. These are Sung Chien and Sung Kun, two hybrids of human and demon blood; in D20 terms, they are some sort of sorcerous monk--the stat blocks don't give class levels--while in Feng Shui terms they are potent kung-fu warriors and demons to boot. The D20 crowd, again, has it easier as the monk/sorcerers run out of big offensive steam right quick and close for melee; after that, it's just a big beatdown time for smart PCs. The Feng Shui crowd are in for a brutal beating, with these NPCs able to suck up to 16 points of damage when they take hits at all and then (in melee) able to launch an immediate counterattack for a base damage of 11 or 12 points.
Thankfully, there's a map for this one. All GMs should use the map, as there's going to be a lot of moving around no matter what system you use to run this adventure and it will help you to keep track of who is where. For the D20 crowd, who are hip to the usefulness of maps, I need go no further. For the Feng Shui crowd, this is also good for keeping track of other things that aren't so obvious in gameplay: the range of certain Transformed Animal or Fu powers, Move limits, the reach of some weapons like bullwhips, and where that ichor pool is in relation to something else.
Hopefully, the PCs will win this one. If they do, they're very likely to get beat up bad. After binding wounds and the like, the PCs are likely to find the one thing that can make the trip worth it: Chien Chieh, Kan Kuei's lackey. His purpose is to point the PCs to Kan Kuei and the adventure's climax, but he secondary purpose is to provide a bit of comic relief after so mean and brutal a fight. Play him like a more craven and self-interested version of C-3PO; it'll go over well enough. Most Feng Shui PCs who are clued into the Secret War will want to burn the ichor pool; it's a feng shui site, and it's both evil and in evil hands. Let them try to figure out the deal about the unwanted taint of the Underworld; it's only fair, and the consequences do screw over their PCs for some time or longer.
There's no time limit between this fight and the climax unless they meet Chien Chieh; he's the trigger that sets the two-day deadline into action. It's something for GMs to watch for; sometimes a player gets a clue and uses genre convention to his advantage. It's your call, but I advise against letting him exploit it unduly. (Taking a little time to heal magically or with Medicine is okay; taking a big break in the action is not.)
Finally, we get some recognition that travel in fantasy adventures is far from uneventful; the trip to Kan Kuei's target--a Shaolin temple at Bountiful Mirror Lake--is suppossed to involve a couple of attempts by Chien Chieh to escape the PCs. The text also advises a few more attacks by Kan Kuei's demons, someone specific to the PCs, or a run-in with the Han-era branch of the Jammers. Where the hell was this when it was best used, in the early section of the adventure? Bad form, very bad indeed.
And now, the climax. The PCs should arrive with a half-day or so to spare. This gets spent playing diplomacy with the monestary's abbot, Chung Fu Tui. Since this is a Shaolin temple in a Feng Shui module, that makes this a Guiding Hand stronghold; Fu Tui is not at all impressed by the PCs and must be convinced through either skill at words or arms before he takes the PCs seriously. Even then, they'll have to have iron-clad arguments before he listens to their battle plans; meanwhile Chien Chieh (if present) will reveal that Kan Kuei will not take the obvious route through the bamboo groves, but the most unexpected route possible to gain surprise.
If the players don't figure out right away, let them see the map. If they still don't, that's okay. Most of the combatants (on both sides) are Cleave fodder; the real threats are Kan Kuei, his five Flying Coffins, and one other NPC that won't be named here. (That spoiler I'll preserve.) No matter how you look at it, Kan Kuei is one truly badass combatant; his D20 incarnation is a CR 16 encounter, and his Feng Shui version has Sorcery 18.
He can bash away with the coffins--which, somehow, are occupied by the Crippled Heroes; this is never addressed in a manner other than "he did it; this is the Heroes' current condition"--without fear of breaking them. More of those hybrid monks from the volcano are in the wings if the GM believes that the fight goes too easily for the PCs. It's a big battle royale in the temple, and it ought to feel like one. The PCs, ideally, should: save the temple, get the jar (it's on Kan Kuei in this fight), save the Heroes and kill Kan Kuei. This is not likely to occur without the expenditure of all of the PCs' resources, and maybe even a fatality or two along the way. As the saying goes, "The road to victory is slick with the blood of the valiant."
The rewards for success? For the D20 characters, treasure worth 4500 gp apice; for the Feng Shui characters, plenty of gratitude and such. If they weren't Dragons before, they are now; welcome to the Secret War. Hand out the XP; this adventure's done.
*breathe*
I liked much of this adventure the first time, when it was a 1978 movie called Return of the Five Deadly Venoms. Stealing from the movies is fine for personal home games, but not for commercial adventures; it's in bad taste at best, and it can be more trouble than its worth. On top of that, the entire adventure is pedestrian; the villain is forgetable, the plot is thinner than rice paper, and the premise weaker than wet toliet paper. There's too much reliance on genre conventions--too much belief in style over substance, hoping that the user will gloss over the weak spots--and not enough on hand for the GM to work with.
The organization of the rules and the stats is all over the place; put it in appendices in the back and just refer the GM to them when necessary. Put the maps on the inside covers where they are so easy to photocopy, or as removeable inserts akin to Fiery Dragon's counters for the same reason.
As for new D20 rules, dig around first to see if it's actually necessary to cut new rules from wholecloth; someone else may already have your solution, and it just be designated as Open Game Content. If it's not, talk to them and see if you can devise an open version of it; this will require some talk with folks more informed on that sort of issue than I am, but it should be worth it.
I feel somewhat bad in my low ratings of Burning Shaolin, as I do like the concept behind the product, but the execution soured me; I will, however, not abandon the Coriolis line just yet. I have every hope that the next product will be a great improvement in quality, and I do not want to be proven wrong.
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