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5 years ago ::
Nov 03, 2008 - 12:57PM
#21
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Date Joined:
Jun 26, 2004
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The LURU things in question didn't appear* to have any way to IDENTIFY them or disarm them other than to set them off. That annoyed me but the encounter wasn't particularly tough. I think describing it as a trap is misleading.
The way you can disable them, i discovered entirely by accident and would never have thought to try as it simply doesn't seem plausible to me from teh description we got (10' wide circle of indeterminate depth with a low rim...)
EDIT: oh yeah.. and doors that are rigged to shut are traps and should be detectable as such!!! (we had this issue in LG CGR modules too)
* I haven't read it yet but my Wizard got nothing from knowledge checks
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5 years ago ::
Nov 03, 2008 - 1:27PM
#22
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- Senior Volunteer Community Lead
Date Joined:
Aug 19, 2007
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I'd agree on doors that slam shut. Though then they'll just have barriers of energy form in the way. 
Keith Richmond
Living Forgotten Realms Epic Writing Director
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5 years ago ::
Nov 03, 2008 - 10:35PM
#23
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Date Joined:
Jun 26, 2004
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That's ok I'll spot the runes and sense the wavy distortions in reality caused by the barrier-magic.
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5 years ago ::
Nov 04, 2008 - 9:45AM
#24
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Date Joined:
Jul 19, 2004
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The Original Poster in this thread was complaining that the DM was "empowered" to not reveal any hazard, if the author did not include a perception check to notice something unusual. I was responding to that in my example.
Your charge is a different issue, albeit just as serious. However, I wonder how typical or accurate it is. I just checked LURU1-1 and (see spoiler)
Spoiler:
Show
For encounter seven, the silver tendrils/pools room, it says in the stat block: Perception ✦ No check is necessary to notice the silver liquid. So to me, that means it is automatic the PCs see weird silver pools, and it is in the box text. Do you want the author to ask for an insight check this is unusual? In encounter five, for the archer trap, it says: Perception
✦ DC 20: The character notices the statue glow briefly each time the archers fire. ✦ DC 25: The character notices the carved archers. The latter DC is well hidden according to the PH, page 187, which fits the situation. I might have made the DC for seeing the glow a bit lower (like DC 15), but opinions will vary. Normally a group of PCs will have someone who has a passive perception between 15 and 20, if not better, at 1st level.
If you have complaints (or compliments) about a specific adventure, I recommend you send them to the respective regional Writing Director and the respective Global Admin.
Keith
Ok, with the archers. You notice their eyes when they fire. You're not walking into a room where they're already firing. The statues don't start to fire until after you approach them.
For the Silvery Pools. Hey look, silvery pools, that's odd but there's obviously nothing to worry about. The group I ran had a perception of 20, when the player decided to roll for it as well he got a 30 and since the description didn't change they were surpised by the "trap".
I have yet to play or run a Waterdeep mod but I'm hoping that there aren't any "traps" of this nature in those mods.
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5 years ago ::
Nov 04, 2008 - 10:45AM
#25
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The problem that I had with the silver pools was that there was no indication, no hint, as to how to deal with them. Spoiler:
Show
We had no way of knowing that they could be disabled using a thievery check. There was no reason for our PC's to attack the edge of the pool.
It's also unclear in the mod whether or not the doors unlock if you kill the guardians but do not "disable" the pool. In addition is each "tendril" a monster or is the pool the "monster" for purposes of OA's? Does a person walking through the room take an OA per square or 1 per pool?
Because of this, we were effectively stuck in a room with what we thought was an unkillable monster with no way out. There should have been some kind of check or work-around. The DM eventually just told us what to do ... the only other option I could think of was to start tunneling. Allen.
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5 years ago ::
Nov 04, 2008 - 10:18PM
#26
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Date Joined:
Jul 19, 2004
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There didn't seam to be a lot of direction on the part of the mod on how to handel the silvery pools. As a DM you really just have to wing it and hope you don't tpk the party.
The other thing I was a little put off by was that there was no way to actually rate this mod. There were no questions of any kind like in the other LFR mods I've run.
This mod is a perfect example of why the two questions: How do the players rate this mod? and How do you as a GM rate this mod? should be included in EVERY LFR mod that is written.
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5 years ago ::
Nov 04, 2008 - 11:39PM
#27
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Date Joined:
May 11, 2005
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Actually, it doesn't. A bad number doesn't say 'anything* about what is wrong in an adventure. If people rate Dale1-1 sub-par, then that tells me absolutely nothing. They may rate it because they don't like the style, because the party was TPKed, because the adventure was a cakewalk, because of a DM that sucked, etc. etc. In fact, I think that it is best to NOT include these questions, and instead include the Writing Director's email address for feedback. So far, I have not had feedback except what I gleaned from generic comment on the boards and a DM's weblog, so I feel we might need to encourage DMs to send feedback. I probably should send my LURU1 feedback (as a player) at some point... Until then: Spoiler:
Show
We did not actually deal with the pools. When we knocked down the last silvery warder we just opened the door (with a Thievery check iirc) and continued on. We talked to the lady then and she neutralized the pool for us before we went back.
Thievery to deal with the ponds is not a great leap, even though it is not intuitive. But you have to get next to the pool and thus take damage to do that. I think a Dungeoneering check might have been appropriate for realizing you can cave in the pools - we didn't think of that possibility either (though IIRC I did attack the pool itself once with no effect).
Gomez
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5 years ago ::
Nov 05, 2008 - 1:12AM
#28
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The other thing I was a little put off by was that there was no way to actually rate this mod. There were no questions of any kind like in the other LFR mods I've run.
This mod is a perfect example of why the two questions: How do the players rate this mod? and How do you as a GM rate this mod? should be included in EVERY LFR mod that is written.
I have not seen any LFR adventure yet that asks what the DM thought of the adventure (but I have not seen all). I agree with Gomez that such questions are relatively meaningless. The success of an adventure depends on so much more then the adventure, and while many people can seperate these factors, many more cannot. Besides, if we know you liked or did not like an adventure we still do not know why, and that is the information we need to improve the adventures. A discussion like this is much more helpful in this regard.
The goal of those questions is to know the outcome of a particular adventure for the setting. I don't need a questionairre to know the outcome of the majority of tables for LURU1-1. It was a relatively streightforward standard adventure, but that is what we were asked to write. As for the traps, part of the problems rise due to unfamiliarity with the system (both from the players, DMs and the authors) and part is a generic known problem with traps that R&D is working on. The prevelance of x-bow traps and the issues that arose because of them certainly taught us some things about what does and what does not work in 4E.
Pieter Sleijpen
RPGA LFR Global Administrator
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5 years ago ::
Nov 05, 2008 - 6:17AM
#29
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Date Joined:
Jun 26, 2004
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I heartily agree that every module should have an e-mail address for feedback. Personally I'd like to see it put on the Story Awards ...a single central address for feedback wouldn't hurt (if people were told to make the module code the Subject line it would be pretty simple to have that forward the vast majority of messages to the relevant WDs) Spoiler:
Show
I hit the pool wtih my Thunderwave in round 1 which is how we discovered they could be smashed.
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5 years ago ::
Nov 05, 2008 - 6:18AM
#30
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Date Joined:
Oct 27, 2005
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I have not seen any LFR adventure yet that asks what the DM thought of the adventure (but I have not seen all).
AGLA1-1, EAST1-1, and CORE1-3 all ask both the DM and the players to rate the adventure on a scale of 1-5. (There's two adventure questions for this purpose, one for the DM and one for the players.) There's likely more, but that's all I've run into as yet.
At any rate, I also think it's a good idea to have e-mail contact addresses printed in the adventure. The only e-mail addresses I've been able to find online are the addresses for the regional POCs, on the LFR Community page - and not everyone knows how to find that page. I don't see contact addresses for the globals (useful in the case of core/spec/adap/quest mods), the writing directors (though I suppose we could just contact them through the POCs), and certainly nothing for the authors (the adventure questions in the above three mods ask that feedback be e-mailed to the author and/or the campaign staff). I happen to know how to contact my own region's writing director (one of the two, anyway) and all of the globals because they're all pretty active on the boards, but I only know that because *I'm* active on the boards and have had discussions with all four of these people. There's no big flashing sign pointing to any of the boards-active campaign staff - someone just signing onto the boards to look for someone would have a good degree of difficulty, I think.
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