Jul 18, 2011 -- 12:27AM, Dielzen wrote:

Jul 17, 2011 -- 4:47PM, Fardiz wrote:

Only two leaders. The party was as follows (AL16):

Lazy Stalker Shaman (Animus Predator) 15
Lazy Warlord|Bard (Unsure) 15
Whirling Barbarian (Adroit Explorer) 17
Battlemind (PMC Cleric) 15
Beastmaster Ranger (Sharpshooter) 16
Sorcerer|Ranger (Sharpshooter) 14

AL15.333.

Deuce's PP is Infernal Eye, silly Fardiz.  Build stub in my sig.

Bah, you weren't even really playing up!  Tactical leaders (especially Init buffing Warlords) drastically increase the effective APL, it's almost a gimme that you need to increase levels or add more monsters in Paragon.  +2 hit/defenses on team monster makes a helluva good difference.

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Jul 17, 2011 -- 11:37AM, Cpttylorx wrote:

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I'm glad you prepped the first combat correctly. Everyone so far has reported it was a cake walk, then blinked in suprise when asked how they saw anything, as most dm's gloss over the fact that it's almost always dark, or in low light.
There was some talk from the servent but it was pulled, But also, not many people effectively pull off the fact that he is in a fullplate tuxedo. Ah well.

It seems you're very solid with DME, and thats great! I'm glad we were able to provide you with the template that you could play around with to challenge your players, and I want to thank you for running my darkness encounter correctly. I'd ask, did you enjoy Hibiki, the creatures presented, even if dme was required to up the level of difficulty for your group?  The way the Arc was written altogether was the roleplaying was in the first two, with the third being a culmination mission. We hope we succeeded at that.

Might I inquire for the first combat, what DME changes you made, so I can take into account for the next time I help write a module, as Im trying to improve upon my first work, and move onto my second.

Fardiz, I'm sorry the encounters were so easy for you guys. For the first encounter, did you all have darkvision or some way to mitigate the circumstance of being in almost total darkness, and the -5 penalty imposed by such, as well as the inability to correctly target squares due to no los?

Were the dominating when combat advantage shadow creatures unsuccessful in attacking your group, as they start invisible, or should? Can you give an explination of why you were dissatisfied with the combats as they were written or run?

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Sounds pretty epic guys.
Hopefully the Neth story coordinator will let me write for Neth year 2, as I have some absolutely terrific idea's that spawned from all the back and forth.  (Note, the following rant is based on what I was assigned from this module.)

Overall, I'm glad that the mechanics of the first combat have gone the way I envisioned them too. Pc's that have made item choices, etc are not punished, nor is the sunrod the end all be all.  When I first pitched the idea. The first thing John sent back was. You have got to be kidding me.  I however having played a lot of LFR, judged a lot more of it. Wanted to put together a really unique combat that brought the lack of being able to see into play.

Also, listening to Godsmack at the time I was drafting idea's. I couldnt help but latch onto one line from one of their songs which prompted the direction the combat went.  I was listening to "Release the Demons" To which I promptly asked John. "Can I put Demons in this" John - No.  "But this song has g..." John- Skip. No. Bad Skip.

Eventually the concept of the fight came from the lines. "What do you see when you're in the dark, and the Demons come." I simply replaced Demons with Shadovar, busted open my books and went fishing to find creatures to fit my concept. Thankfully the concept was kept intact, although the dominating monsters was my editors contribution, as well as a less detailed map. (Damn your self imposed restrictions! My first map was a thing of art!)

Overall I'd like to thank everyone who has given me feedback, and for being understanding this is my first LFR module that I have helped write, and I hope my next offering builds on whats here, and goes forward. Lee and Michelle also are really happy that the over all feedback has been good. The team is glad we were able to offer a solid story driven plotline for this years Neth arc.

Now, to potential writing directors out there. I have great turn around times, good communication, and if you have something you want done, I can do it. I come with good reviews. Or at least I better. /eyes John Dubois.  I'd be glad to help flesh out, or even try my hand at a whole module this time!

Skip
-Because I can

Sounds pretty epic guys.

Actually it was Paragon.

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Jul 25, 2011 -- 9:57AM, 22_Over_7 wrote:

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Did anyone take the deal?

I would love to take a party of evil *ahem* "unalligned" *ahem* PCs through a load of LFR modules to actually take a look at the other options that are previded in the modules but would never be taken by any good or lawful good characters and thus never occur.

Jul 26, 2011 -- 1:30AM, Fardiz wrote:

Jul 25, 2011 -- 9:57AM, 22_Over_7 wrote:

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Did anyone take the deal?

I would love to take a party of evil *ahem* "unalligned" *ahem* PCs through a load of LFR modules to actually take a look at the other options that are previded in the modules but would never be taken by any good or lawful good characters and thus never occur.

Sadly, the "alternate option" in this adventure was intended to be a "greater good" choice, but we apparently didn't do enough to push it (or LFR players are stuck in a "do mission, get xp and treasure" mentality, but I suspect the former). We'll try to do better with that next time we try it.

I thought it was compelling enough...I have a hard time imagining Good/Lawful Good characters actually NOT making the deal.

It was a shade prince talking, therefore he was lying.

Of course...  Spoiler: Show

Jul 26, 2011 -- 2:50AM, JohnduBois wrote:

Sadly, the "alternate option" in this adventure was intended to be a "greater good" choice, but we apparently didn't do enough to push it (or LFR players are stuck in a "do mission, get xp and treasure" mentality, but I suspect the former). We'll try to do better with that next time we try it.

Sorry, John, but it wasn't very compelling. 
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Jul 26, 2011 -- 8:52AM, Fardiz wrote:

It was a shade prince talking, therefore he was lying.

That didn't help his case any either.
(( And I've had this experience before - "She warned you. It's your fault for not listening." "She was evil, why would we believe her." "Well, she was telling the truth." "..."  :D ))

-VIC

Jul 26, 2011 -- 12:48PM, AH_Iceman wrote:

Jul 26, 2011 -- 2:50AM, JohnduBois wrote:

Sadly, the "alternate option" in this adventure was intended to be a "greater good" choice, but we apparently didn't do enough to push it (or LFR players are stuck in a "do mission, get xp and treasure" mentality, but I suspect the former). We'll try to do better with that next time we try it.

Sorry, John, but it wasn't very compelling. 
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Between the desire (from the whole party, really) to follow Shadowbane's goals and the fact that his notes and journals and everything were Right There for the taking, we didn't see much reason to parlay.

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Jul 26, 2011 -- 8:52AM, Fardiz wrote:

It was a shade prince talking, therefore he was lying.

Fair warning: If you take this perspective, you are going to get taken in future adventures. Evil doesn't mean lying, it means self-interest. A self-interested bit of honesty can go significantly further than a lie in the right circumstances (a great many circumstances, come to think of it). Your Insight check is your friend.

Oh I know that personally. This brings us back to the question of relative player/PC intelligence (one of the reasons I dislike riddles and puzzles in LFR).

I was also playing a hack 'n' slash barbarian - not much insight there. 

Jul 26, 2011 -- 2:50AM, JohnduBois wrote:

Sadly, the "alternate option" in this adventure was intended to be a "greater good" choice, but we apparently didn't do enough to push it

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Jul 28, 2011 -- 7:00AM, Mengu74 wrote:

Jul 26, 2011 -- 2:50AM, JohnduBois wrote:

Sadly, the "alternate option" in this adventure was intended to be a "greater good" choice, but we apparently didn't do enough to push it

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Just to throw in a random idea, if there is going to be a choice like this for choosing the lesser of two evils (or greater good, or whatever you want to call it), in a series of mods, put that choice in the first or second mod, where it doesn't affect the quest XP. Then in the third mod, depending on which path the PC took earlier, there could be different rewards that lead to the same quest xp.

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Yep, my ritual caster who has been fighting agents of Shar for the last couple thousand years immediately went, "Don't do anything that would destroy his notes or lab", then let Shadowbane take the lead. 

I look forward to seeing the further destruction of Sembia in future modules  

Jul 26, 2011 -- 2:55PM, JohnduBois wrote:

Fair warning: If you take this perspective, you are going to get taken in future adventures. Evil doesn't mean lying, it means self-interest. A self-interested bit of honesty can go significantly further than a lie in the right circumstances (a great many circumstances, come to think of it). Your Insight check is your friend.

Fair point.
Though I will note then, John, the hope that future modules will give us a good number of hints (since we'll miss half of them *grin*) about whatever might be going on - before we get to those kinds of interactive encounters. It's one thing to give us juicy, interesting roleplaying choices to make, presented by fleshed out NPCs, but it's another to have such things come totally out of left field.

See you this weekend, man!
-VIC

Aug 1, 2011 -- 8:44PM, AH_Iceman wrote:

Jul 26, 2011 -- 2:55PM, JohnduBois wrote:

Fair warning: If you take this perspective, you are going to get taken in future adventures. Evil doesn't mean lying, it means self-interest. A self-interested bit of honesty can go significantly further than a lie in the right circumstances (a great many circumstances, come to think of it). Your Insight check is your friend.

Fair point.
Though I will note then, John, the hope that future modules will give us a good number of hints (since we'll miss half of them *grin*) about whatever might be going on - before we get to those kinds of interactive encounters. It's one thing to give us juicy, interesting roleplaying choices to make, presented by fleshed out NPCs, but it's another to have such things come totally out of left field.

See you this weekend, man!
-VIC

If I recall there is additional information to be gathered along these lines but they involve the players volunteering for more streetwise checks. And unless done via ritual, those can subject the players to extra failures in a skill challenge.

Whether or not the players have this knowledge of the mechanics or its communicated to them, I think the attitude of most characters on an assassination mission is to get in and out with the least exposure possible.

I have to agree with fugacityD. It is borderline bait and switch to present the adventure as an assassination mission (which in an of itself implies a certain degree of moral flexibility), and then try to turn it into something else.

The only bait and switch going on I think, is to check and see how blindly pc's will follow orders, without interjecting free thought.
This series is a monorail, that much is true. However the way and path in which pc's approach the missions are completely up to them.  If you want to go in and Seal Team 6 the bad guy, no problem you can do it. If you want to do some recon, and see whats going on before you pull the trigger. No problem.

We cant please everyone; we arent trying to. But we put a little bit for every style of group in this series. Go in guns blazing, take no prisoners module? Check. Go in Learn the backstory, get an idea of whats going on - have something for your face characters to do? Check.
Give people a weird and ultimitely cool artifact, whether they align with or agaisnt people? Check.

If you went into this module, with a lets go guns blazing attitude, I think we delivered that expierence to you. If you went in, and said hey - things arent adding up, lets check this out. Blam. Got that done for you as well.

Its all about how you percieve things, or your ability to change gears on the fly.

Peace.

It's not bait-and-switch - you can still kill him.  Bait-and-switch would be something like a mod that opened up with you getting hired for some treasure hunt, and then it fast forwards you past that section to the part where you have to conduct the auction for the treasure.

I've run many adventures with grey choices and greater good concepts over the years (I run a lot of Cthulhu, where the greater good may mean kidnapping homeless people and trading their brains to Elder Things to keep an ancient god buried in the Antarctic, for example) and they are not easy to set up. I loved the series and look forward to more, but the reveal needed much more work. As it stands in the mod, it will not work:

1) it fails the rule of three. When you need players to understand something is unusual, you must give them three ways least to discover it. One they'll never find, one they'll ignore and the the final one to make them understand. This is a standard for investigation mods but is  equally applicable to "things not begin as they seemed"

2) It contradicts the experiences of playing previous LFR mods. All previous shades have been straight out bad and untrustworthy. When you change direction, you need big, bright signs. 3-3 could be such a sign. Next mod could start with a scene making it clear that the choice was real and that keeping them shade alive would have been good.

3) it is not possible to keep him alive with a player in your group that has a chance of getting the weapon. Frankly, anyone who decides that they will screw the player out of a very flavorful artifact forth sake of potential plot is a bad player. The name of the game is fun, and the artifact is a known and definite fun. Letting a shade live is, at best, cool for 15 more minutes of play.

4) There is no obvious downside to killing him. I read that section of the mod carefully and when my players said that he might be right, but that it was safer just to kill him -- as they had promised to do -- and bring back his notes, the only potential issue was that he might be a moderate in Netherese politics. But wait, what use is that? The mod made it seem they'd never listen to him anyway!

Overall, An excellent mod, but a pointless non-decision at the end. GMs should not worry much about it and gloss over it. Probably best to treat it as a sign of things to come rather than a real choice.

Thanks for the feedback, Graham!

I have a few bits of response:

1) Rule of Three: The story arc for the year 3 Netheril adventures was constructed all at once, with adventures peeled off after.  The "rule of 3" is definitely invoked over the course of the trilogy - I wrote part two and Spoiler: Show

I can see how you're referring to desiring the "rule of 3" in the scope of the adventure, though.  The difficult aspect of that is that it would require a certain amount of role playing and additional encounters, and the adventures can already run long.  Not that its a bad idea though!

2) Stay tuned for year 4.  I have it on good authority that... wait, someone's at the door....

3) I hope they enjoy their new shiny.  Like, *really really* enjoy it.  Some evils aren't as great as they're made out to be, and who ever earned it should really keep that in mind as we move forward in the story line for next year and beyond.

4) Oh wow.  See number 2!   I love seeing responses like this.




Overall, I'm very excited to not have been a writer for year 3, but to be able to watch the plotline develop from here out.  The fact that the admins are allowing us to use the players as such integral resources in the construction of the game's storyline is really cool, and the Netheril writing director has been very positive about using the player feedback in a way that informs players about the consequences of their decisions, as well as rewarding players for doing things "according to plan".

I'll give this the old college try.

The rule of 3.  This could be applicable if we were going for hand everything out. We werent.  We wanted people to not go into neutral and just glide through the module.  In particular in 3-3. We wanted players to have paid attention to 3-2, and then ask questions in Shade about how things were going.  If you didnt get it in 3-2, didnt get it in the skill challenge in 3-3 then we left the big bright sign when the Prince said. Hey this is whats going on.

Dont really know how much bigger a sign you need at that point.

Previous LFR modules. We didnt really want the same expierence as previous LFR modules. We wanted something fresh. We dont broad brush paint anything.  Just because LFR has painted all potential shade's as evil before hand, dosent make the entire race evil. That is a misconception that people inflict upon themselves.  We looked at it, as a way for adventurers to see the very best in humanity, instead of metagame that since its a shade it *must* be stab a granny, smack a baby, take your lunch money evil.

Artifacts and you. This is where your arguement loses steam. As you basically say this isnt a roleplaying game anymore. This is table top Diablo. I'd say a player who plays his character true, because of the plot, because of their character is a great player. The player who misses out, a very good sport if they take it well, a very horrible player if they get upset.
Why is an item - swaying your decision? Is your character the type that lusts for power? Or is the player the one who needs to have the special cert?  D&D has always been about story telling. Shiny's are just a bonus.

The Prince was a moderate in politics. But then again so are many other people. The only question becomes at that point. Why kill someone for the sake of killing him? If your players can agree that killing him is a bad idea, or maybe that he is right and holding off something big and bad. At that point they made a decision to commit an evil act.  Let us assume the moral ambiguity of the situation. Sure they are hired to kill him. But now they have determined that he is infact keeping thousand of innocent lives from harms way. The decision to then go "ah screw it lets kill him anyway" takes them from a shade of grey, right into the big black gaping maw of evil.

If they had simply alpha struck him, I wouldnt say the same. But by listening to his plea, weighing the evidence, and deciding to kill him anyway, they went from being heroes to killers.  It cant really be argued any other way. "I dont get phat loot 1 unless we kill him. Oh wait he is saving lives by keeping this storm away? Bah. I want my loot - kill him and take his stuff" Sounds more like munchkin, then D&D.

But thats just my thoughts. ^^
YMMV.
-Skip

While I have no trouble accepting that the various Shade Princes have different personalities, priorities and personal agendas, that does not IMHO translate to everyone must or should agree to work with them.

  When I role play my dwarven paladin of Selune, there is no williness to compromise or discuss with any Shade or lackey of Netheril.  They are (fact) worshippers of Shar, an evil Deity, who is the arch-enemy of my Deity (Selune).  Moreover, the goal of the Shades is to re-establish the Netheril Empire and rule the world (fact).  In my paladin's viewpoint, that a given prince might be a "moderate," less interested in the corporate agenda and more in his personal outcomes, is interesting but irrelevant. Whether or not any given statement by a Prince is truth or falsehood is also interesting but irrelevant.  They are at war and have been for a long time.  There is no moral ambiguity in killing a Shade Prince when you worship Selune (a Good deity).  My role playing the character is in no way related to the bennies of an artifact, xp, gp or other treasure.  

Sorry, Skip, but none of us get to define Good and Evil in the Forgotten Realms, that has been done for us.  (If WotC, TSR, and ultimately Ed Greenwood had not identified alignments for the deities, you might have an argument.) This is not Greyhawk where moral clarity is lacking. Maybe there is a practical, strategic or tactical advantage to working together on a short term problem (a convergence of state interests, like what too often happens in the Real World), but please do not attempt to recast that as being Good or Evil.

Opposition of a group, such as the Sand Kings to an Evil group does not mean they are defacto worthy or saints or even competent. 

Not saying Unaligned PCs might see some advantage or wisdom is siding with the Prince.


Keith

Eh, just because the evil villain has studied his tropes well enough to deflect some attention doesn't make him not an evil villain.

If people show up to kill Szass Tam, for instance, I wouldn't call it evil to kill him even if he says "If you kill me, I'll lose control of the undead and they'll attack innocents all along the border of Thay." or even more direct "My death will set off a plague that will strike down all of the children of Aglarond. You may as well surrender, for you dare not attack."

Those innocents were only in trouble in the first place _because_ of him. If he was even telling the truth, which there's hardly enough time to ascertain. If you want there to be moral ambiguity at the time, instead of after the fact, it needs to be more setup. Take that as you will.

Having an artifact along for PCs to keep if they go along with it, or be potentially mind controlled into following if they don't... probably just further locks the deal, as a lot of tables are going to end up with someone there just to get a cool named sword. 

Aug 14, 2011 -- 9:36AM, Keith53 wrote:

While I have no trouble accepting that the various Shade Princes have different personalities, priorities and personal agendas, that does not IMHO translate to everyone must or should agree to work with them.

  When I role play my dwarven paladin of Selune, there is no williness to compromise or discuss with any Shade or lackey of Netheril.  They are (fact) worshippers of Shar, an evil Deity, who is the arch-enemy of my Deity (Selune).  Moreover, the goal of the Shades is to re-establish the Netheril Empire and rule the world (fact).  In my paladin's viewpoint, that a given prince might be a "moderate," less interested in the corporate agenda and more in his personal outcomes, is interesting but irrelevant. Whether or not any given statement by a Prince is truth or falsehood is also interesting but irrelevant.  They are at war and have been for a long time.  There is no moral ambiguity in killing a Shade Prince when you worship Selune (a Good deity).  My role playing the character is in no way related to the bennies of an artifact, xp, gp or other treasure.  

Sorry, Skip, but none of us get to define Good and Evil in the Forgotten Realms, that has been done for us.  (If WotC, TSR, and ultimately Ed Greenwood had not identified alignments for the deities, you might have an argument.) This is not Greyhawk where moral clarity is lacking. Maybe there is a practical, strategic or tactical advantage to working together on a short term problem (a convergence of state interests, like what too often happens in the Real World), but please do not attempt to recast that as being Good or Evil.

Opposition of a group, such as the Sand Kings to an Evil group does not mean they are defacto worthy or saints or even competent. 

Not saying Unaligned PCs might see some advantage or wisdom is siding with the Prince.


Keith

Keith. If we arent going to argue morality and alignment. Then whats to stop my pc from slaughtering a village when I sit down just for the kicks of it. I'd call that evil, wouldn't you?
I'd voice that killing someone because his stat block is evil. Is just a way to justify murder.  But then again. Im the kind of person that likes pushing people into moral quandries.

The pins and needles we walk upon, are the idea of. How, how, and why do we justify what makes an evil act, an evil act.  What makes this even more unique; is the basis that in 4e you can choose to kill someone or knock them unconcious, even if they are Szass Tam.  So to me, the idea to say. Heck. Let's kill him and take his stuff, lacking the ability for them to say. hey lets knock him unconcious and take his stuff, means that the group chose to kill him, when they could have taken him alive.

My only arguement here was. If a party deduces that the Shade prince is being honest, and holding off the expansion of Netheril (fact) wants to keep the Storm from killing thousands of innocents (fact). And is judged by the group to be perhaps working toward a greater good, then the idea to execute him, and take his stuff, versus taking prisoner - means a concious decision to murder someone simply because he has something you want at that point (Shiny sword). For your character yes I can see justifiaction.

I'm just being me, and throwing out the other side of the coin. Side with the terrorists, or side with the conqueror state. No matter which, this is a Shade of Grey module.  As the Sand Kings dont care if they kill just your average shade, who farms, works hard, tends a shop and has no political gains or influence, just a guy going to work basically.  They go by the "If it's red it's dead" pvp mentality of MMORPG's. The Netherese are just as bad, but here we have one guy who admittedly evil, but self interest is pointed to making things better for all people so he can get a bigger cut of the pie.
God I wish we had another module to flesh out the Neth series. John keeps lamenting about how much better the story could have been if we had a 3-4.

I will start a new thread so as not to hijack this one.

Keith

Calling the Sand Kings "terrorists" is... is... well let's just say in this day and age you don't want to throw that word around lightly.

Is there ANY direct evidence IN AN LFR ADVENTURE that the Sand Kings have engaged in evil acts? (Let's put it that way, so as not to drag in real world issues.)

I am not aware of any.

(Rumors and innuendo spread by Shade Princes do not count as direct evidence.)

Some general thoughts on the recent commentary:
1. Words in my mouth, please don't put them there. While I'd have liked more time to get NETH3-3 in a place to make the choice a better choice (we were aiming for 50/50 and clearly missed), NETH3-4 was never on the table and I'm not sure how I'd have done a NETH3-4.
2. The goal for this adventure was *always* for both choices to be equally valid choices, and a choice between taking what may be your only chance to kill a Shade Prince and potentially putting the lives of many, many innocents at risk if you do. Clearly, as I said in point 1, we missed. We've taken notes.
3. NETH3-3 is not the only LFR adventure to feature agents of Netheril telling the truth. In all three NETH adventures, the only person working for Netheril who was dishonest at all with the PCs was someone who wasn't even working for Netheril (in fact, the allegiance was the main area of deception). If you're used to Netherese agents lying as an expression of their evil, get unused to it now or expect to be disappointed in future adventures (or at least warm up your Insight checks). Everyone knows Netheril is bad; lying and appearing to be good doesn't get them anywhere.
4. The PCs have interacted with few high-level agents of Netheril in a discussion setting, and none as high as Yder (and I'm 100% certain about the latter of those claims). Anyone who thinks otherwise is projecting player attitudes into their PCs, especially if they decide someone's lying without an Insight check.
5. The word "terrorist" was not thrown around lightly; it was intended to indicate that the Sand Kings were killing innocents to sow fear into the population of Netheril. They are, and there is direct evidence as long as you don't believe that every person who lives in Netheril is a lying servant of the Shades (and if you do, you're likely to be sorely disappointed by these and future Netheril adventures). NPCs in NETH3-2 and NETH3-3 have personal, mostly first-hand accounts of the Sand Kings engaging in acts of wholesale indiscriminate slaughter (in fact, between the two adventures there are three opportunities to learn such information); whether these acts are evil or not is debatable, but it is clearly established in each story that the Sand Kings are killing citizens of Netheril who are merely trying to make a living and not committing evil acts of their own.
6. In the end, while I hoped that the choice would be about 50/50, we decided that if there was any error, it would be in favor of the PCs killing the Shade Prince. We had future story plans for either contingency, as foreshadowed at the end of this adventure. I assure you, you will not need to wait long to determine the impact of this adventure (and some others).

Just to iterate at the top again: great series, loved it. Will run it again any time I can very happily. 12 hours of gaming and only one or two minor nits to pick is an excellent strike rate. I would volunteer to write for NETHERIL in a heartbeat except that I've just finished a 240 page technical book, got a rough first draft of a stage play, have committed to a chapter for a programming book, and am writing plots for a level 25 4e campaign and a Dr.Who campaign.

And I'm still half tempted becaue I think the series is that good!

To be clear, I think it became clear that the sand kings were not nice, at least at the end. Terrorists (aka freedom fighters) seems an appropriate moniker. However the shade prince does not come out as any better, really.

Things learned about Yder in 3-3:
- Yder is the head of a major worship site dedicated to Shar.
- If the players make not one, but two optional checks in the second skill challenge scene, they find that the general shade population generally believe he is true to his word when dealing with the common folk of the city.
- When you enter his mansion, you are expected by the denizens, who immediately attack without any attempt to talk. Yder later let's the party know he knew they were coming, so the assumption is he wants you dead, and is only now talking because his minions failed to kill the party.
- When you enter his workroom, the only unusual features are some caged demons.
- When he talks, he states only that he doesn't think NETHERIL should expand. He doesn't think its wrong or evil to enslave people, destabilize governments or even return conquered lands. All he states is that he thinks further expansion is a bad idea. Frankly, I would assume that he thinks they should consolidate their powe base for a century or so and THEN push to conquer e universe. There is no sense given that he thinks Netherese expansion is wrong per se, just that it's not a good idea now.

So, summing up. Yder serves an evil godess with a portfolio including unrevealed secrets, knows you are coming and has ordered his main servant to kill you without talking to you. He keeps caged demons around and doesn't think the general Netherese strategy and plans are wrong, just that now might not be a good time to expand. The artifact you spent adventures with, your employers and your characters pre-paragon experiences all tell you to kill him. If you are lawful, you also gave your word you would.

Set against that is the fact that, if your party had social skills and decided to hang around the city a little, you know some commoners think he's true to his word when dealing with them.

This is not a 50/50 decision. Look at it from the players POV and see the evidence they see. Write it down in list form and then look at whether you have given enough to the layers to make a true choice. I played 3-1 and 3-2 with a drow assassin who took the Lolth paragon path and even she had a hard time thinking there might be anything in what Yder was saying. What hope does the average good cleric of Bahomet have? Or an unaligned character, even?

This is an easy thing to do. I've written dozens of adventures where I thought as a writer I'd made something obvious, when it really wasnt. It's a hard thing to do. And, fortunately, it has pretty much no effect on the rest of the mod, so it's not a serious issue. This is more a note to say that (1) I like the concept of the quandary (2) I'd like there to have been a quandary. More please!

@skip: there is a big difference between wanting an item because it is powerful and wanting it for fun. You state "Why is an item - swaying your decision? Is your character the type that lusts for power? Or is the player the one who needs to have the special cert?  D&D has always been about story telling. Shiny's are just a bonus" which is odd because I told you ... Because it is fun -- it IS for storytelling. It is cool and fun simply for the story aspect of it. It's not a killer powerful item, any more than the ELTU one is. Nice for some classes, yes, but way more nice for some characters because it makes their character more fun! I'm sorry you think the only reason someone might want an item is for power, but not all 4e players are like this. For my characters, they tend to have more loyalty to their friends then to an empire. If you like it is another grey area of decision making. I would argue that party cohesion and loyalty should be a strong force in the game. Asking both characters AND players to act against this is another strike agains the concept that the choice was 50/50

Iterating again that the length of this note should not be judged an indictment. The series, and this mod, were great. I strongly encourage and support more like it. I've just written a lot of non-traditional adventures and know that sometimes it is hard for a writer to realize that what the PCs see can be very different from what  the writer expects, and that their decision-making process can be grayer even then a terrorist-tyrant decision ...

Well put and played Graham. Thank you ^-^

Anyway, finished NETH3-3 a couple of days ago...

I really like the mod and the series.

Spoiler: Show

Jul 26, 2011 -- 2:50AM, JohnduBois wrote:

Sadly, the "alternate option" in this adventure was intended to be a "greater good" choice, but we apparently didn't do enough to push it (or LFR players are stuck in a "do mission, get xp and treasure" mentality, but I suspect the former). We'll try to do better with that next time we try it.

The problem certainly for us at AL20 with the "greater good" deal was that we had a Wizard of Oghma L20 who's going to take Sage of Ages as his Epic destiny. 

If you look at that from a story point of view he's already a very powerful ritual caster who's about to get access to a whole college of sages even more powerful and he's got direct access to the church of Oghma. So any threat of only I can do it is largely moot given the sizeable rutual resources available outside waiting for him.

So, for the wizard at our table, it was a case of "Yeah, yeah, yeah you're all powerful and a great rutual guy but I'm just as good not to mention my friends waiting for me to return."

I suspect at AL20 this will be a common situation for any tables with a strong Arcane or Divine character with a good alignment.

On the whole though we loved the mod and the fights presented an interesting challenge. I'm not sure I'd do anything to change it, it rounded off the series quite nicely.

Sep 4, 2011 -- 7:56PM, Benird wrote:

Jul 26, 2011 -- 2:50AM, JohnduBois wrote:

Sadly, the "alternate option" in this adventure was intended to be a "greater good" choice, but we apparently didn't do enough to push it (or LFR players are stuck in a "do mission, get xp and treasure" mentality, but I suspect the former). We'll try to do better with that next time we try it.

The problem certainly for us at AL20 with the "greater good" deal was that we had a Wizard of Oghma L20 who's going to take Sage of Ages as his Epic destiny. 

If you look at that from a story point of view he's already a very powerful ritual caster who's about to get access to a whole college of sages even more powerful and he's got direct access to the church of Oghma. So any threat of only I can do it is largely moot given the sizeable rutual resources available outside waiting for him.

So, for the wizard at our table, it was a case of "Yeah, yeah, yeah you're all powerful and a great rutual guy but I'm just as good not to mention my friends waiting for me to return."

I suspect at AL20 this will be a common situation for any tables with a strong Arcane or Divine character with a good alignment.

On the whole though we loved the mod and the fights presented an interesting challenge. I'm not sure I'd do anything to change it, it rounded off the series quite nicely.

I'm not sure that the Church of Oghma has anything resembling the resources Netheril does on this one. Netheril has working for them thirteen (well, now twelve) individuals who, two thousand years ago, plane shifted a city while the fabric of magic collapsing, and plane shifted it back a century ago. They have the guy who stopped the Maelstrom last time, giving them direct knowledge of how to do it, not to mention that the guy who stopped it last time has been an epic level caster for two thousand years and is a Chosen of the deity who started the Maelstrom.

I'm not usually one to underestimate the Church of Oghma's resources when it comes to magic, but when it comes to powerful shadow magic that the Netherese have successfully manipulated in the past, if one of the rulers of Netheril said that only they could stop it, I'd be inclined to believe them unless I rolled that Insight check. Level 20 characters have a lot of power, but they are far from the biggest powers in the Realms (and, to be honest, if the PCs were the biggest, baddest people around, I wouldn't be writing or playing adventures. If the villain - in this context, Netheril rather than Yder - isn't more powerful than the hero, the story is pretty boring).

Glad to hear you enjoyed the adventure anyway!

Like I said we had great fun in the series and loved this mod.

However on the particular wizards side, it's not just Oghma here but also that he's almost a Sage of Ages and therefore has that college of magi who he could also work with. And he's a cocky little SOB who believes his power is eternal espeially when combined with the resources of the Oghmaite (that's what they are isn't it?) and Sages.

You are right though that millenia of study from the Netherese is a powerful force but they BBEG had his notes right there. It wouldn't take a temple of Oghma long to pull it all together knowledge from those notes and combine that with the idea of the pathenon where Oghma could just walk over to Shar and use his domain of knowledge influence to get her to share some info.

Of course that all depends on how you believe the pathenon works but I feel that the gods have their domains and they rule across them (sharing rule with other gods of the same domain). Oghma has knowldege so has sway over the other gods when it comes to matters of knowldege, just like Shar holds sway over darkness (and knowledge), Bahamut justice, etc, etc. And given that Oghma is unaligned there is a chance that Shar would share knowledge with him to achieve a goal that she's obviously already supporting.

 That's just how I saw it at middnight on a Sunday night though. And like I said, I loved the idea and the adventure. I just don't think it's a large enough pendulum for a good based party in a generally good based campaign to follow, particularly with shadowbane inside a PCs head.

 

While the characters likely do not know it, but Shar's ultimate goal is correcting the mistake she made at the dawn of time: creating the world

Anyway, I have no doubt that an epic level cleric of Oghma would eventually learn something that can stop the Maelstrom from growing (removing seems unlikely since why would it otherwise have existed for 100 years) it will take a lot of time even with the prince's notes. By that time it might be too late for a sizable portion of Sembia.

I'd point out the relatively obvious problem for the Sage of Ages character - not only might you be aware of the Maelstrom issues, but you're also likely to be aware of far greater threats that only you have the resources to deal with. Who cares if the Maelstrom eats Sembia if due to your lack of commitment, Shar unmakes the world?

Sep 5, 2011 -- 8:38AM, Mommy_was_an_Orc wrote:

I'd point out the relatively obvious problem for the Sage of Ages character - not only might you be aware of the Maelstrom issues, but you're also likely to be aware of far greater threats that only you have the resources to deal with. Who cares if the Maelstrom eats Sembia if due to your lack of commitment, Shar unmakes the world?

This is a very good point.

I did find the twist very interesting though and certianly a good thinking point for an Oghmite/Sage of Ages, or any Arcane or divine high level ritual caster really. 

I don't think it would change many groups choice though. 

Aug 14, 2011 -- 6:33PM, JohnduBois wrote:

2. The goal for this adventure was *always* for both choices to be equally valid choices, and a choice between taking what may be your only chance to kill a Shade Prince and potentially putting the lives of many, many innocents at risk if you do. Clearly, as I said in point 1, we missed. We've taken notes.

...

6. In the end, while I hoped that the choice would be about 50/50, we decided that if there was any error, it would be in favor of the PCs killing the Shade Prince. We had future story plans for either contingency, as foreshadowed at the end of this adventure. I assure you, you will not need to wait long to determine the impact of this adventure (and some others).

John,

Just an FYI - our group decided not to kill the Shade Prince. My character, who despises Netheril and all it stands for, decided that his first loyalty and duty was to the people of Cormyr, and I couldn't risk the magical storm in Sembia getting out of control and moving next door. I lobbied heavily against combat, once we were able to talk to them.

Amusing anecdote below...

Spoiler: Show

Over the past three weeks, marlofkark and I ran significantly modified versions of the Year 3 Netheril adventures. Our players (two separate groups of 4) greatly enjoyed the adjusted adventures, so we're sharing them with the world.

Yes, our adjustments go well beyond so-called DM Empowerment (DME). We modified the NETH adventures specifically to satisfy ourselves and our players.

We are indebted to the original authors of the NETH adventures for creating the framework upon which we built. We "stood on the shoulders of giants".

NETH 3-3 version 2.0
Spoiler: Show

Here's what happened when we ran this.
Spoiler: Show

Very interesting. I read the NETH3-1 adjustments and perused the others and I find some of your changes to be pretty cool. In your spoiler block here you state the following:

"There is no doubt it my mind that our polishing these three mods contributed significantly to the positive response."

It should be noted that we received a lot of positive response from the original adventures as written. So, there is no doubt in my mind that your "polishing" these three mods wouldn't have, in fact, made a significant impact in the overall response they would have received from the masses of groups that ran them. For your individual group? Obviously, yes.

Tom --

First, I described my experience to Joshua at some point, as feeling as though  he  and I were polishing a fine gem.  Our "polishing" satisfied our  personal  desires for these modules.  Our tastes are not everyone's  tastes.  To all of original authors of the Netheril trilogy, there  was never a  question in my mind, at least, that we were dealing with  gems, all three of them.

A second, more detailed comment to follow.

- Mark (The Marl of Kark)

Oct 3, 2011 -- 9:01AM, marlofkark wrote:

Tom --

First, I described my experience to Joshua at some point, as feeling as though he and I were polishing a fine gem.  Our "polishing" satisfied our personal desires for these modules.  Our tastes are not everyone's tastes.  To all of original authors of the Netheril trilogy, there was never a question in my mind, at least, that we were dealing with gems, all three of them.

A second, more detailed comment to follow.

- Mark (The Marl of Kark)

Sorry if I sounded harsh or upset. That was not my intention. I suppose I was a little irked by one of Joshua's comments. I'm glad you all enjoyed the series in some form or another. I will say this. There are probably an unlimited number of ways that we could tweak these modules and make them different (better?) and it would probably be positive for some and negative for others. My original proposal is actually light years away from the finished product. If I was able to make modifications to it today then there are things I'd change myself.

Tom --

Secondly, the line you quote was originally intended for Joshua, as Joshua was copy/pasting our personal e-mail correspondence (with my permission) to provide the summary/feedback.  I had two general concerns in mind (the particulars of which he was already aware when I wrote it):
Spoiler: Show

As you can also see, my quote had in mind a specific conversation with one of our players following NETH3-3 that specifically mentioned my two "criticism" with LFR in general, without my prompting her in any way to do so.  This is why I was so definitive in my statement.

So, Tom, I totally commend you for so reasonably and politely making and following up on your point.  Your criticism is well placed.  On our end, it is certainly easier to criticize and offer suggestions AFTER something is written, when the lion’s share of the work (and all of the blood and sweat) has already been endured by someone else.  Please temper our often blunt critiques through this prism.  I, for one, am not volunteering all of the incalculable time and energy as you have.  You have nothing by my utmost respect and appreciation.

P.S.  All typos in the materials Joshua posted are entirely mine.

- Mark (The Marl of Kark)

Mark, thanks for the explanation. I'm curious if you've played through ELTU3-6 then? I am also guilty of writing that one and it has another big moral dilemma. However, it should be noted that in both cases I, and my fellow authors, were working from basic plot premises provided by our writing directors. Not that I don't agree with them, because I did enjoy writing them that way.

I've been trying to stay distant from the recent commentary on this series, in part because I know I'm personally attached to all three adventures, and partly because I don't want to discourage people from using the content we produce in their own way. However, after reading through the comments about this adventure (multiple times), I feel that I need to make a couple comments on the "modifications" discussed:

1. If you don't want to play in or DM a series that contains moral ambiguity, maybe this isn't the series for you, and maybe it's a better choice for you to run MYREs than to change the story content of an existing series this heavily. One of the major objectives of this series was to present the PCs with the dilemma that not everyone they'll work for is shiny and heroic - shades of grey do exist, especially in a region overcome by darkness. Screening that information out of the adventure takes away significantly from the flavor the authors and I were aiming for in this major quest.

2. More importantly, any venture of this type should be *very* wary of changing the conclusion or results of an adventure beyond what is listed in the adventure, as well as changing the motives of the NPCs involved. In this series in particular, what you presented to your players, in particular with your changes to the major NPC, not only goes in *direct* contradiction to what's written in the mod, but it makes parts of the next Netheril series completely unplayable to your group from a story perspective, as events in that series lead from some events in this series that no longer exist or make sense to your players.

In short, it appears that you had good intentions in modifying an adventure series that you don't think your players would have enjoyed in a manner that you think they would have, but making modifications to the degree that you did in contradiction to the written text and motives of the NPCs is a very dangerous prospect, and quite frankly, I think it's inappropriate and irresponsible to post it in a public forum such as this and encourage other DMs to do so as well. 

Oct 3, 2011 -- 11:23AM, JohnduBois wrote:

In short, it appears that you had good intentions in modifying an adventure series that you don't think your players would have enjoyed in a manner that you think they would have, but making modifications to the degree that you did in contradiction to the written text and motives of the NPCs is a very dangerous prospect, and quite frankly, I think it's inappropriate and irresponsible to post it in a public forum such as this and encourage other DMs to do so as well. 

And let's not ignore the other big issue:
Spoiler: Show

I'm by no means saying that this was intentionally done, but that's a buzzsaw waiting to happen.

Oct 3, 2011 -- 11:08AM, marlofkark wrote:

I like being able to feel unashamed about getting behind the good guys and feeling no twinge of guilt about bringing down a major bad guy.

I'll confess to not being a big fan of moral ambiguity in modules (and positively detest the "You were working for the real bad guys all along. What a twist!" plot that pops up every now and then).

It's not that I have any problem with morally ambiguous games; they can be a lot of fun.  However, I want a consistent tone in a campaign.  I don't want a campaign in which one adventure is nothing more than "You're Good; they're Evil.  Go kill them." and the next is all shades of grey where the PCs are supposed to question what side they're supposed to be on (and potentially end up fighting each other).  Pick a tone and stick with it.

In this instance, there's also the case that allying with a shade prince is a completely idiotic thing to do. * Show

As such, you either have the DM trying to figure out just how much the PCs know in-character about the guy who's trying to sell himself as being a poor misunderstood victim, or end up having the PCs fall for an epic bluff check which results in a rather anticlimactic end to the trilogy.

Neither sounds particularly fun, so I'm fine with getting rid of the ambiguity.

Three things:

(1) We went well beyond DME. I tried to be explicit about this.
(2) We tried to make Concordance with Shadowbane harder, not easier.
(3) I (Joshua) still object to to so-called moral dilemma for reasons outlined below.

(1)
John duBois is entirely correct that our modifications to the NETH 3-X adventures, to remove the moral ambiguity, may well make future adventures nonsensical.

We are willing to take that risk. For ourselves and our players, future storyline problems are the price we will have to pay.

I'm not a big believer in disclaimers, but, here you go: don't try our NETH 3-X modifications at home unless you fully appreciate the ramifications.

(2)
Re: Shadowbane. If anything, our modifications make it harder to achieve full Concordance with him.

Spoiler: Show

(3)
My objections to the so-called moral dilemma is that it both comes out of nowhere and it not believable.

In both NETH 3-1 and 3-2, you have basically no evidence that the Sand Kings are anything other than what they appear to be: freedom fighting Bedines trying to reclaim their land from the Netherese.

Then all of a sudden in NETH 3-3, based purely on a couple of optional skill checks, you find out they are ruthless "bad guys".

Yeah. Sorry, but that is crap.

Also, as bgibbons points out above, it is utterly unbelievable that Prince Yder is somehow a force for good. He is Evil with a capital E, based on everything we know about him.

If you want to redeem a big-time villain of the Realms, there has to be more to it than just "he keeps his word" and "he's working on a ritual that may or may not help out at some indeterminate point the future".

Its sounds like you played a Myre based off the Neth Series, that had no shadowbane, and basic Myre xp, and rewards at the end.
It dosent sound like you played anything like the Neth series what so ever.  I'd say your shadowbane for whoever got it, was invalid, and that you should adjust xp and gold, as well as bundles to typical Myre status. But then again I'm no one important.
PS. I told you they should have talked more trash John ^^

My two coppers....

I feel it's important as DM's and organizers to maintain campaign integrity where possible. It's not kosher to make modifications like this, because players who are playing in your area are welcome to pick up their characters and take them to conventions, online play, etc. They may even move to another part of the country and start playing with other groups.

If something isn't fun about a mod, it can generally be corrected with a scalpel, rather than a chainsaw.

Again, just my opinion.

I will also admit to making the following changes to the mod:
1) Yder, as a true Prince of Shade, cannot actually be killed - merely discoporated (which I beleive is consistent with 3.5 canon regarding Shades)
2) There is no copy of the ritual Yder is using to prevent the growth of the Maelstrom - if he is "slain", he will reincorporate at an undetermined later date with little inclination to continue the ritual.
3) Yder does this because Netheril would prefer to rule over an intact Faerun, as opposed to one ravaged by the Maelstrom (this should be pretty obvious, but I explicitly state this).

But these are small changes that do not alter what I believe to be the intent of the mod.

Oct 3, 2011 -- 3:47PM, Cpttylorx wrote:

Its sounds like you played a Myre based off the Neth Series, that had no shadowbane, and basic Myre xp, and rewards at the end.
It dosent sound like you played anything like the Neth series what so ever.  I'd say your shadowbane for whoever got it, was invalid, and that you should adjust xp and gold, as well as bundles to typical Myre status. But then again I'm no one important.
PS. I told you they should have talked more trash John ^^

I'm going to second this (including the PS!)   If you don't play the mod that was written, you can't get the awards from that mod, since you didn't play it, you may as well say "I played CORE 1-11, it's a lot like AKAN 2-1, so I may as well just take an item of my level+1 or lower as the reward."

Eh, it's dangerous to argue that you should count modules as MYREs cause the DM ran it wrong. There's a thread in the other forum of players wanting to not count a poorly DMed run...

The changes viewed in a vacuum seem like good changes to customize the experience for your and your players tastes. Unfortunately in a living campaign there is no vacuum.  As such I agree that this should probably be treated as a MYRE treasure wise...

But

Again, there is no vacuum.  If the players were not aware up front of the extensive modifications made then just letting it be is probably the wiser cause of action. Just add it to the list of things to maybe formulate an "official" rule for. 

Oct 3, 2011 -- 11:23AM, JohnduBois wrote:

I think it's inappropriate and irresponsible to post it in a public forum such as this and encourage other DMs to do so as well. 

This.

DM may make adjustments to an adventure for the better enjoyment of the players at their table, but the forums should not be used to encourage others to deviate (beyond DME) from the adventures as released.

Long story short from my group on the Neth series. Skill challenges were boring/pointless. Shadowbane was mostly more annoying than anything else. Combat was good. Not too harsh, but not to easy. That was fun.

Thanks for the brief feedback, efutch; can you expand on that?

Even if you PM the authors anything would help.  There's a lot of changing circumstances in each of the adventures and I know that I'd like to hear more specific information about 3-2.

I want to say that I enjoyed the Netheril series a great deal.  It did  help that we had an incredibly skilled DM that worked to get into the  parties head.  We went long simply from all the roleplaying and trying  to figure out what the correct thing for the group would be to do in  this very gray situation.  I don't think any group could spend years and  years fighting against Netheril and come out of the experience as  paragons of virtue and light.  I felt there were hints through all three  mods that led to the group having to make tough choices about what they should do.

My character is an adventurer.  She almost gets killed for the greater  good or perhaps for treasure on a regular basis.  She understands this  comes with the job.  Her concern, in her contact with Yder, were all  those people who are not warriors by trade or by necessity.  If this is  Netheril with someone sort of tugging on the leash to keep them "civil"  then how much worse could it possibly get with him gone?  Was it her  right to make this choice for people all over the realms?  To plunge  them into an even nastier world.  It was very difficult to decide what to do.  The back and forth between the group was lots of fun.  It was more than simply, "I stabbed that bad guy lots of time for you.  His plan is foiled.  Gold now please."

Though in our case our hand was somewhat forced by one of the PCs getting in a tiff with Shadowbane and refusing to battle.  So we ended up going down the less traveled path.

This is definitely a tough series of module to play.  Thinking in completely meta terms there are characters I have who simply could not play these adventures.  The moral ambiguity would simply be too much.  So I won't play those characters if I do these again.  There are plenty of LFR mods that are as black and white, ultra shiny good as Captain America punching Hitler in the face.  These mods are not those kinds of stories.  If you don't enjoy that kind of darker story then don't play them.  I think it is at least a little disrespectful to the writers, and all their hard work, to totally change their story because I don't care for it.   I don't enjoy horror movies, but I don't demand that they change them drastically so I can watch them.  It would be a boring story if the teenager simply had their torrid, unprotected trysts and then no monsters showed up to hack or stab them repeatedly. 

Thanks for the feedback. It is much appreciated.

Hello! I recently ran all three the neth 3-x adventures for a local group here in the Netherlands, and if you're still looking for more feedback here are some of my thoughts on 3-3:

Spoiler: Show


Overall I would rate the adventure 8/10, for having a good premise and good combats, but a  disappointing skill challenge and somewhat-limited role playing opportunities. I hope that wall of text above was somewhat useful

Oct 30, 2011 -- 2:22PM, lunattic wrote:

Hello! I recently ran all three the neth 3-x adventures for a local group here in the Netherlands, and if you're still looking for more feedback here are some of my thoughts on 3-3:

Spoiler: Show

First off, the premise of the aventure, infiltrating Netheril to actually assassinate a shade prince, seemed very cool and managed to excite most of us beforehand based on uniqueness and by feeling exceptionally relevant even amongst the paragon adventures that manage to actually make you feel like a paragon adventurer. In my experience, not many paragon modules succeed in this (though they can still be very enjoyable, of course). I must admit that I'm not completely aware of how much liberty is given to writers concerning storylines and what is allowed to happen, but to whoever thought it up/allowed it, you get my thumbs up.

On to how the session actually went:

-party setup: level 12 monk, level 12 fighter x 2, artificer/warlord 12 (killswitch variant themed after santa-claus). Played at AL 14.

-Introduction: Not much to say here. There seemed to be a bit of a plot hole between neth 3-2 and neth 3-3, as in neth 3-2 the goal of the adventurers is to give the Sand Kings a one-time use of a portal into Shade Enclave. It feels a bit strange for them to send only the adventurers, even if they have completed the previous adventures. If the sand kings are truly backed by major powers such as cormyr, as indicated in the closing monologue, and the way in really is a one-time backdoor thing, why not use that portal to send more agents along or launch a larger scale attack? One of the PC's made a comment on this and I tried to cover it up by just replying that they weren't ready to strike in force yet, but the point was a bit moot since netheril is unaware of the backdoor existing, meaning they could just wait it out.

-skill challenge: I'm afraid that apart from the actual first check by the guards (which was rather amusing since all the PC's had fought netheril at least once/were infamous and did not have a shade coin, making the bluff really hard which lead to some fun role-playing), it felt rather dull and repetative (PC's have done this thing numerous times during heroic modules in more or less the same fashion). It might be my failure as a dm to stress how bad things would go if discovered inside the capital of Netheril, but I more or less immediately saw player interest drop very low when the goal of this skill challenge and the urban setting were made clear.

-Encounter 3: Since the pc's were smart enough to all buy ointments of darkvision, the darkness was no problem for them at all. With good focus firing on the party's only leader, the encounter was still tense regardless (the leader lost roughly 7 surges due to the monsters teleporting/critting and the party not having a controller to restrict their actions). One defender used speed 16 to more or less teleport next to the caster on the roof and eventually killed him while the others in the courtyard eventually got the monsters under control. If the fighter didn't have shadowbane's powers and concordance 17, along with all of the enemy dominates missing, this would have gone far worse. Overall a nice challenge.

The one thing that seemed odd to me here was the auto-5 necrotic damage on the caster; this should probably be higher as it is none-consequential and too easily resisted at paragon.

-Encounter 4: Yder's arguments seem doomed to fail. Upon skimming through the thread so far, most of the points I have about this have already been pointed out by others. It didn't really help that the fighter with Shadowbane had been role-playing the session as though shadowbane was already dominating him/deeply influencing his thoughts, so he charged the second Yder came into view. The rest of the party was too loyal to eachother to seriously consider Yder's proposal to leave him and abandon the mission, even though one of them actually did talk back. 

Since the party had only had one short rest and no skill-challenge failures, the encounter started with just Yder, the guard captain and the shade giant. The leader used a radiant power on his first turn to remove the shade's insubstantial ability, after which the party more or less killed him in the same turn, leave only Yder and the guard captain. After a really-close struggle, the party was left with the healer bloodied and out of healing (though healing figurine was out) and most dailies and encounters spent facing Yder at full hp with one of his defensive utilities still unused.

 At that point I had to call the adventure due to time-constraints, unfortunately. The challenge level for the encounter seemed spot-on for AL 14 and it was a worthy ender for a good series. If I had to change one thing though, I would have lowered Yder's defenses a bit for more HP since he was extremely hard to hit for anyone not using shadowbane at the +3 bonus (ref 33 and his other defensive powers while most of the monks targeted that defense made it rather frustrating for him, for example. I understand that it's high-tier and he's the final boss of the adventure line, but it seemed overkill).

Overall I would rate the adventure 8/10, for having a good premise and good combats, but a  disappointing skill challenge and somewhat-limited role playing opportunities. I hope that wall of text above was somewhat useful

Thanks for the feedback. A couple notes regarding Cormyr and the epilogue:
1. The monologue is meant to be a little vague on purpose, but I will tell you that it references a group manipulating the Sand Kings and not a group backing the Sand Kings.
2. For the foreseeable future, you will not be seeing Cormyr, Lururar, the Dalelands, Myth Drannor, or any other government that is opposing Netheril doing anything that even remotely resembles an act of war against Netheril. One of the reasons that the PCs are being hired by small, guerilla-style groups is that there is an uneasy truce between Netheril and their "good-aligned" neighbors. This is a detail that was largely omitted from the NETH3-X series because, for the most part, it was not relevant to the story. As the story area adventures proceed, it will play a significantly larger role (in NETH4-1 to a small extent, and in NETH4-2 to a much larger one). I'd say that this is something that really isn't up to me as a Writing Director (which is technically true - that's a political position that we can'tsignificantly alter for a number of reasons), but to be honest, even if I could create open war between Netheril and Cormyr, I wouldn't because I think that making the PCs, rather than nations, the agent of the actions as much as possible creates more PC-focused and fun adventures.

I just played in this mod today, and, being the high-concordant wielder of Shadowbane, chose to pick up the item. How would I handle this in the builder? I can't find it as a particular item anywhere. Would I just put a generic +4 item in it's place for determing the power cards?

Oct 30, 2011 -- 5:45PM, AuricRAvenhelm wrote:

I just played in this mod today, and, being the high-concordant wielder of Shadowbane, chose to pick up the item. How would I handle this in the builder? I can't find it as a particular item anywhere. Would I just put a generic +4 item in it's place for determing the power cards?

My understanding is that the Character Builder now supports custom items. If that is not true, I would recommend using a generic +4 weapon as your weapons so your individual power cards have the correct attack and damage values, and do everything else by hand. 

Oct 30, 2011 -- 5:47PM, JohnduBois wrote:

My understanding is that the Character Builder now supports custom items. If that is not true, I would recommend using a generic +4 weapon as your weapons so your individual power cards have the correct attack and damage values, and do everything else by hand. 

I haven't checked CB recently for making custom items, but I followed this advice for equipping my PC with Lesser Shadowbane.  I used a generic +3 weapon, and hand-typed a separate sheet with the weapon's powers.

Nov 1, 2011 -- 8:47AM, JohnduBois wrote:

We tried to be pretty thorough about Yder's intentions and the potential implications of the PCs' choice. [...] What could we have done to make that clearer?

More foreshadowing, preferably in the first two modules. 

Most players aren't going to be inclined to accept a villain's argument during the final combat as to why they should walk away.  They need to have at least significant doubts before they get there.

On a metagame level, there's also a bit of a social contract issue.  By sitting down at the table, the player is saying that he's going to accept whatever (sometimes flimsy) hook an author gives him and play the adventure.  If you accept that killing Yder is a bad idea, then this module falls into the "Aha! You screwed up by biting the adventure hook!" category, which is almost always going to go over badly.  (See "Your employer is the real villain" modules, which thankfully haven't really infected LFR yet.)

This is exacerbated by the fact that it's the conclusion of an entire trilogy.  One adventure was about getting a powerful weapon to be used against shadow creatures; one adventure was about simply getting the address for this portal (and at least one Sand King agent literally died to complete that mission).  If you get all the way to the end and then discover that killing Yder is a bad idea, you've retroactively rendered all of that fairly meaningless.

(That's not to say that it wouldn't be great dark 'n gritty fantasy.  That's almost a staple of the genre, of the hero getting to the end and finding out that everything he thought he had accomplished was worthless.  Unfortunately, in the context of an adventure, that just means you're telling the player that he's wasted his time and shouldn't have been so gullible as to bite on the hook.)

I think the only way this could have worked is if it were possible for the information to be known at the beginning of the adventure, and have the decision point be up front instead of at the end.

Another great way to handle this would have been to have this just be a raising of stakes; you can still kill Yder, but now doing so means you take on the responsibility of preventing a catastrophe (which might mean spending half of year's worth of time units, or losing a level, or some other meaningful non-monetary cost).  Unfortunately, LFR really isn't really set up for alternative character costs.

As to his particular arguments, I don't think the issue was so much whether the statements were true, but more the issue of mistrusting the individual and his motives.  Or, to put it another way, it wasn't so much what he said, but wondering about what he wasn't saying, and not being willing to trust he wasn't leaving important things out.

The person in question was more devoted to Shar than most of the other princes, the right hand of the high priest of Shar and brother to the demigod of shadows.  Given his religion's focus on only sharing secrets when beneficial and corrupting followers of good deities, any information shared is going to be suspect, so I don't think there's any way you could have reframed that encounter by itself to accomplish the desired outcome.

Nov 1, 2011 -- 2:22PM, bgibbons wrote:

The person in question was more devoted to Shar than most of the other princes, the right hand of the high priest of Shar and brother to the demigod of shadows.

I'm curious - where did you get this information? This would be the first time I've heard Rivalen referred to as the demigod of shadows, and information regarding each prince's devotion to Shar is hard to come by and inconsistent.

Nov 1, 2011 -- 3:21PM, JohnduBois wrote:

Nov 1, 2011 -- 2:22PM, bgibbons wrote:

The person in question was more devoted to Shar than most of the other princes, the right hand of the high priest of Shar and brother to the demigod of shadows.

I'm curious - where did you get this information? This would be the first time I've heard Rivalen referred to as the demigod of shadows, and information regarding each prince's devotion to Shar is hard to come by and inconsistent.

The fact that he's the chief templar of the Dome of the Night would imply a greater devotion to Shar than that of the other in the Twelve Princes.

Nov 1, 2011 -- 4:13PM, kitrack wrote:

Nov 1, 2011 -- 3:21PM, JohnduBois wrote:

Nov 1, 2011 -- 2:22PM, bgibbons wrote:

The person in question was more devoted to Shar than most of the other princes, the right hand of the high priest of Shar and brother to the demigod of shadows.

I'm curious - where did you get this information? This would be the first time I've heard Rivalen referred to as the demigod of shadows, and information regarding each prince's devotion to Shar is hard to come by and inconsistent.

The fact that he's the chief templar of the Dome of the Night would imply a greater devotion to Shar than that of the other in the Twelve Princes.

It could. But since Shar is the state religion of Netheril, it could also reflect his position in the state. There's a precedent for Netherese princes, even those fully devoted to Shar, demonstrating a preference for the wishes of Netheril when they conflict with the wishes of Shar (see Rivalen's actions in the final book of the Twilight War series). And at heart, this is where Yder's motivations come in as well - the Maelstrom poses as much a threat to the ambitions of Netheril as it does to the other nations of Faerun. Netheril doesn't benefit if Shar succeeds in ending the world. Per the FRCG, this is something that the Netherese go to great lengths to hide (that the princes are not fully unified on an issue), but there is some disagreement.

Rivalen being the Chief Templar is something akin to Kalak Tithian being the High Templar of Tyr - I never took it as a sign of utter devotion, just a sign of his ability to silence the opposition.

I suppose it could be inferred that he's the most powerful of Shar's minions in Shade, but then we're back where we started all this: inference and rumor.  They seem to be the hallmarks of each of the Princes

Netheril presents a plethora of story opportunities, and while I agree that Yder's influence could have been made more clear in NETH3-1 and NETH3-2, I feel that the focus of the area was less on Yder and more on Netheril as a whole, and an introduction; a foreshadowing (no pun intended) of the next several years of adventures.

EDIT: Not Kalak.  I meant Tithian, prior to the demise of Kalak.  Extreme pain + incessant prattling from one of my gamers + forums = stupid, stupid typos.

Nov 1, 2011 -- 4:37PM, warfteiner wrote:

Rivalen being the Chief Templar is something akin to Kalak being the High Templar of Tyr - I never took it as a sign of utter devotion, just a sign of his ability to silence the opposition.

I suppose it could be inferred that he's the most powerful of Shar's minions in Shade, but then we're back where we started all this: inference and rumor.  They seem to be the hallmarks of each of the Princes .

My understanding was that, as a Chosen of Shar, Rivalen was... well... chosen by Shar to be her servant and enforcer. Not to mention the divine essence he picked up at the end of the Twilight War novels.

Nov 1, 2011 -- 3:21PM, JohnduBois wrote:

I'm curious - where did you get this information? This would be the first time I've heard Rivalen referred to as the demigod of shadows, and information regarding each prince's devotion to Shar is hard to come by and inconsistent.

The Rivalen information is secondhand from the Forgotten Realms wiki, based on a summary of Shadowrealm, so I certainly could be wrong.

My description of Yder being more devoted to Shar than the average prince was my take from Lords of Darkness, which describes him as (a) dedicated to the cause of his deity, (b) wanting to see the will of Shar guide the Shadovars more than it currently was, (c) the only one other than Rivalen who has a symbol of Shar incorporated into his personal sigil, and (d) one of only three princes with levels in a divine class.

To me, there were three main reasons that the NETH 3-3 choice did not seem equally valid.

(1) There is no foreshadowing that Yder might be doing something beneficial (you CAN discover some hints of it in the skill challenge, but that's optional so many tables will miss that information). All villians are going to say "Wait, don't kill me!" when the adventurers have infiltrated his compound, killed all his guards, and are standing there about to defeat him. Because there wasn't really any foreshadowing from reliable sources, it just sounded like a villan saying whatever nonsense he thought might keep him alive.
     It also doesn't help that many players (myself included) aren't knowledgeable about realmslore and have never heard of the Maelstrom before. To me, it just sounded so way over the top (and coming from an untrustworthy source) that it didn't seem like it could possibly be a real threat. If I were a police officer arresting a mob boss and he said "Wait, don't arrest me. If you arrest me a bunch of atomic bombs are going to explode, destroying the entire world." .... I'd just roll my eyes and think "Yeah right, the world is going to end if we arrest you. Nice try. You really expect us to believe that? You couldn't come up with a more plausible threat?" And then I'd arrest him. The Maelstrom has never been mentioned in any previous LFR mods, so for players who are unfamiliar with this particular bit of realmslore, it seems like something that can't possibly be that big of a threat (that Yder is exaggering the danger). LFR mods have introduced players to all sorts of threats to the Realms - the Spellplague, the Queen of Thorns, etc. Since the Maelstrom has never even been mentioned before, if you don't know the history it doesn't seem like that big of a deal.  

(2) Choosing to not kill Yder basically negates everything the players have done in the NETH trilogy and means the entire trilogy was a waste of the PC's/player's time. If the PCs don't kill Yder, the world is exactly the same as if they hadn't played the trilogy at all. A choice in a mod should be active - Do the PCs do X or do they do Y? The choice should not be "Do X or do not do X." Choosing to NOT do something isn't fun. It's not fun to end a mod in the exact same position you started - then it feels like your PCs are just hampsters running in a wheel (lots of effort without actually going anywhere). 
    Take CORM 2-2 as an example. Spoiler: Show
   
(3) NETH 3-3 did not state clearly enough that the Maelstrom was not something the PCs could easily  control on their own. When my table heard that his research notes were there, players immediately said "Great! We have all of his notes and we are (and/or have allies who are) powerful spellcasters. Combining all of Team Good's resources we should easily be able to stop this on our own. We don't have any use for this guy, so let's kill him." Again - this was made worse by many players not knowing the history or details about the Maelstrom. John - in this thread you have posted things like that the Netherese have been studying this thing for centuries and even epic-level beings struggle with it. (With the follow-up being that it's unreasonable for PCs to think that this is something they could handle.) Well - I didn't know any of that until you posted it. The fact that this was beyond the abilities of the PCs should have been communicated better in the mod.

Edited to add:
And finally..., an out-of-game reason. This is (supposedly) the climatic battle against the BBEG. At the very end of a module/trilogy, many players just want to kill some stuff. Players don't know that there is another combat if they choose to let Yder live, so it may seem to a player that they are choosing between a big climatic BBEG combat or the end of the gaming session.

Also, I do not think big decisions like this should happen during (or at the start of) combat. Once there is a battlemap and minis on the table, players quickly shift to "combat-mode" and are eager to roll initiative and start the combat. There's kind of a Pavlovian relationship going on here - gamers see a battlemap and their hands immediately start itching for some dice.  If players had to make the decision before combat (or at least had a chance to give the possibility serious thought beforehand), it's more likely that groups would seriously and carefully think through the options instead of making hasty decisions ("Stop talking with this chucklehead - I'm excited to start combat! You're only delaying the inevitable...").

From another thread:

Nov 1, 2011 -- 2:02PM, Mommy_was_an_Orc wrote:

I think the issue really is the foreshadowing or lack thereof in the mod. Yder needed say a known good organization/country saying, "Well, yes, Yder is what he is, but he might actually be doing the right thing here in controlling the Maelstrom. If you could use the Sand Kings' portal to get into the city, warn Yder that assassins are being sent after him, and then steal some macguffin instead, we'd greatly appreciate it. No killing Shade Princes and yes, the Sand Kings might not be happy with you afterwards."

I'll tack on to this excellent idea . . . The Rule of Three. If there is an important/vital point or piece of information that you want the PCs to have, there should be at least 3 entry points to that information.

In hindsight (always 20/20), some bits of foreshadowing in 3-1 and 3-2 followed by two additional clues in 3-3 would give the PCs pause to consider the situation (rather than trying to interrupt the BBEG anticipated monologue).

And the credibility issue is not as important as having independent confirmation of the details. If the PCs meet a commoner in Encounter 1 who complains about the expanding Maelstrom forcing him to relocate, Naramus in Encounter 2 conveys information about the world-saving work his master is doing, and during these scenes Shadowbane goes over-the-top with the opposing view "bah, the peasant had to flee his home - that's what you get for living in a shade-ruled kingdom" or "as long as the shades are killed when the world is destroyed, it is little price to pay."  This feeds enough clues for the PCs to listen to Yder and find out what is really going on.

There's a HUGE difference between the BBEG offering the information (clearly for his own motives), and the PCs inquiring for the information because you've piqued their curiosity. It also makes the encounter more PC-focued, as they can drive the conversation, rather than relying on the NPC to carry the scene.

Step 1: Scatter clues, hints, and rumors for the PCs to gather. (Don't information dump.)
Step 2: Armed with a little information, the PCs are more likely to take the lead in social interaction with NPCs. 

Note that this does not mean that the adventure is truly investigative in nature. It just allows the information to be parsed out when appropriate, and builds towards a reveal that the PCs are expecting (and therefore willing to listen to.) 

Personally, I think the thing that actually had to happen was... you got to pick which shade prince to kill.

After all that setup, we were finishing the mission, one way or another. I'm okay choosing which target though  

NAramus did talk, a lot in encounter 2 in the drafts.
John had decided that a doorboy who dialogued was not a good thing. 8P

Nov 4, 2011 -- 12:12PM, Cpttylorx wrote:

NAramus did talk, a lot in encounter 2 in the drafts.
John had decided that a doorboy who dialogued was not a good thing. 8P

Because a minute and a half of taunting in boxed text added information that is now missing?

Jun 20, 2011 -- 11:53AM, Cpttylorx wrote:

So as a Co-writer, I'd love to hear feedback from people on Neth 3-3.
-Skip

I

HATED

playing it even though I liked the story line and here's why: Spoiler: Show

Mar 19, 2012 -- 11:48AM, Gunthar wrote:

Jun 20, 2011 -- 11:53AM, Cpttylorx wrote:

So as a Co-writer, I'd love to hear feedback from people on Neth 3-3.
-Skip

I

HATED

playing it even though I liked the story line and here's why: Spoiler: Show

I play an Assault Swordmage. With the ubiquitous "Anti-Teleport Field" I had two at-wills, one encounter power and one daily that worked and no mark enforcement. After the latest BI that also destroyed my abilities to function I'm really rather annoyed. I shouldn't have to completely re-train/rebuild my previously fully functional character at this point due to adventure design. 

My other, potentially minor, gripe is the opening skill challenge. Basically, to make some of the initial checks you HAVE to have an optimised Bard (and some assists) rolling VERY well or go another way was a trouble spot for the other group (I played with the Bard, Resourceful Warlord, Charisma Rogue and Starlock). I'm not saying the challenge was necessarily bad (it was interesting to see his diplomacy skills challenged greatly for the first time) but most groups wouldn't have a chance.

The storyline, NPCs, etc. were all top-notch and the foreshadowing bit was really good so from a narrative standpoint it gets five stars and a thumbs-up. The mechanical side gets a - 7million though.

What anti-teleport field? The city has wards preventing you from using teleportation rituals to get in our out of most of the city (has to, otherwise nothing else in the entire plot line makes sense), but on a quick read-through, I don't see any reference to blocking all teleportation, and I don't remember seeing one when reviewing the adventure either (because I also don't like those sorts of mechanics). If one snuck in, I apologize and assured you it was missed in editing (although that obviously doesn't improve your play experience).

I'm gonna ignore the spoiler block, because I'm pretty sure it's not actually a spoiler...

Mar 19, 2012 -- 11:48AM, Gunthar wrote:

I play an Assault Swordmage. With the ubiquitous "Anti-Teleport Field" I had two at-wills, one encounter power and one daily that worked and no mark enforcement.

Um, I'm pretty sure there's nothing like that in the mod.  Certainly I didn't see it, and I've run it and played it with a PC that teleported a lot.

Have you considered out-of-game explanations?

Interesting, I did not read the module as I was not one of the DMs this time around but our group had two different people run it and at least three people read/reviewed the module independently and all came to the same conclusion.

Gunthar...

Spoiler: Show

Spoiler: Show

Mar 21, 2012 -- 8:27AM, Gunthar wrote:

Spoiler: Show

We had many different sources of light going, the issue was definitely outlined as teleporting does not work by the DM and was the way it was run when the other group played the module also. It's really weird that multiple people independently came up with the same interpretation though I most of us had been involved in the Myth Drannor BI run earlier this month which may have colored perceptions too and why none of us questioned it

The only thing I can think of is that the DM misunderstood the wards preventing long-range teleportation (which exist for story reasons - one does not simply ritual into Shade Enclave, and to have it be possible to bypass the Netherese checkpoints in that way would make the first two adventures pointless). I thought we pretty clearly said that they blocked specifically long-range teleportation rituals, but it may have been less than clear. The monsters having a ton of teleport powers didn't suggest to the DMs that it didn't work that way?

That was my thought too, but we just chalked it up to "Module Cheese" to deal with later so we could get on with the game.

There's something terminally cool that did happen I need to mention too, even though it likely won't happen very often by "Accident". Spoiler: Show

Mar 21, 2012 -- 8:27AM, Gunthar wrote:

It's really weird that multiple people independently came up with the same interpretation

That's not unusual, because it's unlikely that it was completely independent.

The default for a lot of DMs is to simply run an adventure the way it was originally ran for them (or the way they've seen it run or had described).

Rather than searching through the module to make sure that, say, the elves get a surprise round, or the PCs all start in a particular position, or the room is in total darkness or whatever, they just assume that their original DM was correct even if they're not seeing that detail themselves.

... which, to be fair, is exactly what you did in posting a complaint that assumed that your DM's use of this restriction meant that it must have been stated in the module.

In this case, the likely culprit is an instruction that the PCs need to teleport in by specific means, and can't just teleport directly into someone's home, as the area is warded against teleportation.

I suppose I can see how someone could misinterpret that statement, though the number of creatures with teleportation powers (with stated tactics of them using those powers) seems like it should have been a bit of a clue that this wasn't the right interpretation.

Mar 21, 2012 -- 11:40AM, bgibbons wrote:

I suppose I can see how someone could misinterpret that statement, though the number of creatures with teleportation powers (with stated tactics of them using those powers) seems like it should have been a bit of a clue that this wasn't the right interpretation.

It is very typical for DMs who make assumptions in that way to also further assume that any warning signs from creatures are either:
A) a mistake by the writer, but need to play as written anyway
B) because they're creatures of X, they're immune to the wards of X. 

And B) was specifically stated by our DM who otherwise did a great job.

I'm not sure if this is the appropriate place to post this question but I had a question about the story awards in this mod.

Spoiler: Show

Thanks for your time.

BTW I did like the mods.

May 20, 2012 -- 12:29PM, DanMathMan wrote:

I'm not sure if this is the appropriate place to post this question but I had a question about the story awards in this mod.

Spoiler: Show

If you have Neth01, 05 and 09 you are allowed to upgrade a magic item. If you have Neth 05 (I believe) you get purchase access to an uncommon potion or elixir. Can you have both the potion access and the upgrade magic, or does using the potion access use the NETH05 award so that you cannot upgrade with the NETH 09 award?

Thanks for your time.

BTW I did like the mods.

My intent was that you would be able to use the benefits of all three story awards if you earned all three. Earning NETH01 and NETH05 is a prerequisite for earning NETH09, "hoarding" them is not (because we want people to use their story awards, not hold on to them hoping their value will improve later).

Thanks,
So what I did was right.

Dan

A question about the NETH10 award: 

Spoiler: Show  

Sep 16, 2012 -- 3:09AM, SpacyRicochet wrote:

A question about the NETH10 award: 

Spoiler: Show

The current award states that the coin's power is the encounter-long darkvision. I'm very, very sure that I've read somewhere that the coin's power is a property that gives you darkvision 10 (I prefer this version, btw).

Which one is it? And if it's the former, how did I manage to read the latter?

 

Spoiler: Show

Spoiler: Show

No chance of errataing NETH10 back to the story award description text?

Get enough coins, and I think you can become a shade, and they get snazzy darkvision. ^_^

If you have a module like that in the cooker, let me in on the playtest