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Forgotten Tomb (5e) $0.00
Publisher: R&D Adventures
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by Raymond F. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 01/29/2015 19:17:35

Text says this is an encounter designed for one to five characters of level one, but based on the number of monsters, their CR, and calculating in Combat Encounter Difficulty on page 82 of the DMG, and factoring in the trap this encounter seems to me to be a little on the easy side of easy, and with the monsters all bunched up in one area if the PC's win initiative it could be over before all players have a turn. I would recommend planning on one monster per PC for this adventure, and spreading them out. Conversely two of these monsters might be an OK encounter for complete newbie players.

The text says there are two monsters marked with X's on the map. The map has four X's. For the tactically minded the X's are not placed inside a square rather, kind of haphazardly splashed around a small 10x10 area. As previously noted it would be better to spread the monsters about a bit, and clearly mark which square they reside in, not an intersection of four squares, or on a line between two squares.

The trigger plates for the traps suffer from the same misalignment as the monster locations do.

The number for one of the pit traps is mis-located onto a chest.

I would suggest spending a bit more time on map drawing and correctly locating markers on the map.

There is nothing terribly compelling about this encounter, nothing beyond "hey there is an open door, lets check it out!" but this would be fine as a very early introduction to what its like to play an RPG as it contains elements of combat, traps, and exploration. If had some complete player newbies to the game I would consider using this as an intro encounter after fixing the aforementioned issues.

There is zero history which could be a plus or minus depending on if the DM feels like completely improvising on the spot or has an idea where this might fit into the ongoing game or what the game could be. Personally I would have liked to have seen a bit of history. What are the names of the interred? Surely they have some kind of marker, such as Here Lies Sir Robilar Pray He Ne'er Rises. If they don't have names why? might there be some indication they are buried as unknown soldiers, or are they cursed to be unnamed because they contained a heinous act.

All in all it seems to me the publisher put about 10 minutes of work into this. Maybe I should not complain because its a free product, but if you are trying to entice me to buy something you need to dangle a nice tasty carrot, not a worm ridden apple.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
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Creator Reply:
Thank you for your excellent feedback! We have to say after reviewing your comments that you’re dead on with most of your comments. We’ve taken your advice and reconsidered the number of skeletons in this encounter and changed it to four.

Our original thinking was that the traps in the encounter would present some difficulty adding to the challenge of the encounter if the players had to escape from the pit traps before they reset or while skeletons were attacking their friends above.

We have also fixed the alignment issues with the monsters and trap triggers that were mentioned. And a note of clarification, the number that is located on the chest is there because the lock on the chest triggers the trap.

You’re also correct when you say the encounter must have been written for newbies. That was our intent. Our thinking was that there would be a number of people out there with the new fifth edition in hand that would be playing at a beginning level and might appreciate something they could just jump into for about an hour.

The feedback about the history of the men interred in the tomb is well taken. We’re currently working on a full adventure that will have much more of this kind of detail.

Thanks again for taking the time to write such a thoughtful review. We’ll be sending out an updated file shortly.
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Forgotten Tomb (5e)
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