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Dungeon Crawl Classics 42
The Secret of the Stonearm
by Luke Johnson
An adventure for character levels 2-3
D20 fantasy adventure (3.5 ruleset)
This is not a playtest review.
The criteria I use to evaluate a d20 adventure includes the following:
THE BASICS: (not exactly spoilers)
The adventure is 32 pages long + 2 both inside covers used for maps. Cover price of $8.95 American
1.5 pages of credits/legal/advertising
5 page of introduction
4.5 pages of city adventure
14.5 pages of dungeon adventure
4 pages of new monsters
2.5 pages of new magic
The encounter breakdown follows:
1-3 negotiation encounters: one to start the adventure, and 1-2 in which the party might convert an enemy to an ally.
11 combat encounters
2 puzzle encounters
2 trap encounters
SYNOPSIS:
In this adventure, the characters are hired to find a woman who has gone missing. She has been kidnapped by a bad guy named "The Stonearm Scourge" because she has done research on an ancient tomb of a prism-lord that the Scourge would like to loot. The party must chase after the bad guy and rescue the prisoner before the bad guy completes his mission. The bad guy leaves a few toadies behind to hinder the party and the bad guy also has done some research that allows him to maintain a slight lead in the very small dungeon.
Goodman Games typically says that the Dungeon Crawl Classics series "don't waste your time with long-winded speeches, weird campaign settings, or NPCs who aren't meant to be killed." In the case of this adventure, I disagree. This adventure has a huge amount of background, almost 15% of the text of the adventure. There are a number of speeches/visions/displays that include a rather large amount of exposition (encounters M-1, 2-2, and 2-9). The adventure also includes a new branch of magic "viomancy" having to do with creating golems and bionic body parts, the adventure also includes magic phenomena "ley lines" which allow distant travel, and the adventure includes some ancient gods "prism lords" that saved the world from an evil. These are a LOT of baggage for a generic adventure and make it far less easy to drop into a generic campaign world. In encounter 1-12, a fairly large section is devoted to naming and describing NPCs who are not part of the adventure and serve no purpose whatsoever except to flesh out the already overly long background.
THE SPECIFICS:
1. Interesting and varied encounters: (2/5)There are a few unique encounters, including a showpiece encounter on a fraying rope bridge, and a pair of encounters in which an enemy can be converted to an ally. There is also a fairly interesting encounter with a huge (10 ft. high) human skull. There are not a lot of encounters, but what there are show some interesting variety. This category is hurt by the brevity of the adventure and the linear nature of the encounters.
2. Motivations for monsters and NPCs: (3/5)Other than one major NPC with his own goals, every creature seems to have the same desire: kill the party. One group of thugs early in the adventure was provided some interesting dialogue, but there could have been a much greater variety. Many of the opponents are undead, constructs, and vermin, which doesn't allow for much in the way of motivation.
3. Logical: (2/5)Some things appeared to be a bit tacked-on. Why would a primitive spider-worshipping cult set up shop outside the tomb of an ancient demigod? The two are so completely unrelated as to not appear to belong in the same adventure. There is a secret room in the middle of a pit trap for no apparent reason. The bad guy is missing a major "key" because a thug stole it and it happens to fall into the party's hands early on... a reasonable party might simply unload the key on a local merchant and forget about it, since nothing about it indicates its importance later in the adventure.
4. Writing Quality: (3/5)I was annoyed by some of the naming. The bad guy is named the "Stonearm Scourge", he has a stone arm. His toadies are named the "Stonehands" and they have stone hands. groan. For the most part the encounters are linear, clearly written, with a bit of descriptive text followed by the usual encounter and monster text. The monster stat blocks are in line with the encounters so there is very little needless page-flipping. The adventure will take a fairly large amount of work on the part of the DM to accommodate the odd magic and background into a generic campaign.
5. Ease of DMing: (2/5)Most Dungeon Crawl Classics have at least a few player handouts or illustrations, but this adventure has none. The main villain is only a 3rd level NPC, but he has nearly 100,000 gp in magical gear. That is simply outrageous in the economics of D&D world. You don't have to worry about that magic falling into the hands of the party, because part of the valuable gear prevents the PCs from acquiring it. This seemed to me like a very cheating way of making a boss encounter tougher than it should be (without killing the party), and also guaranteeing a recurring villain. The main villain with his 100,000gp of gear might be a little challenging to run, the most challenging part being the objections of the experienced players as the DM starts miraculously saving the villain and preventing any well-deserved rewards for the players. Some of the treasure seemed very random and inexplicable... a long lost but fully charged wand of lesser restoration? The adventure was very short and linear, having only one branch. There were suggestions for the DM to fudge some rolls to make an encounter turn out appropriately... my opinion is that a professional writer should design encounters that work fine on their own and not require fudging. I really did not like the foray into odd new magic and the very heavy background required for this adventure... perhaps I've been spoiled by the many superior Dungeon Crawl Classics adventures I've been reading lately. I really would like to have seen an adventure with player handouts, less improbably bad guy gear, and far more generic setting/background. It would have helped to have a bit of a broader adventure with more character choices as well.
FINAL WORD:
Nothing stood out as particularly exciting about this adventure, and a fair number of things bothered me. I did not feel that this was up to the standard of excellence set by most Dungeon Crawl Classics adventures. This adventure was entirely forgettable with one exception: there is a minor artifact that the party might discover... a crystal hand that can be empowered to cast particular spells. This item looks like it would be a fun addition to some campaigns and the place in which the party finds it is an interesting encounter. There is no chance that I would run this adventure.
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