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silverwolfer
Senior Scribe
789 Posts |
 Posted - 07 Sep 2013 : 06:44:59
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Quick question, has anyone ever ran the sons of grummush adventures from 3.5 E?
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Jeremy Grenemyer
Great Reader
USA
2717 Posts |
Posted - 07 Sep 2013 : 07:37:53
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I bought this adventure with an eye towards my Realms collection.
The map of Xûl-Jarak caught my eye and it's one I've wanted to use in one of my own Realms campaigns, but I haven't gotten around to using it yet.
Lots of useful NPC and monster stats in this adventure. |
Look for me and my content at EN World (user name: sanishiver). |
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silverwolfer
Senior Scribe
789 Posts |
Posted - 07 Sep 2013 : 08:05:42
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| from what you remember of it, if you sat down an hour a day to play the game, how long do you think it would take to run it? |
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Jeremy Grenemyer
Great Reader
USA
2717 Posts |
Posted - 07 Sep 2013 : 08:24:34
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Lets see:
The adventure is in 4 parts.
Part 1 is baiting the hook. Part 2 is getting there. Part 3 is Xul-Jarak and Part 4 is the aftermath.
Part 1 and 2 shouldn't take more than one night of play. Maybe a night and a half or even two if you have the kind of players that aren't smart enough to give the DM a break, or if you want to spice up the travel part of the adventure with a custom encounter or two of your own.
Part 3 is the real meat of the adventure, with 48 keyed locations. It's a 4th level adventure and there are plenty of orcs wielding weapons with x3 Crit Modifiers so I'd expect a lot of healing and resting. I'd estimate 4-6 sessions to get through this part.
Part 4 could last half a session to a few sessions, depending on how much the DM wants to spend time throwing encounters at the PCs on their way back to Melvaunt, how much you and your players like to roleplay once they're back in Melvaunt and what your plans are for follow up adventures.
So maybe eight sessions, each session lasting four hours. That's 32 hours of play so at least 32 one hour sessions, give or take. |
Look for me and my content at EN World (user name: sanishiver). |
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Ayrik
Great Reader
Canada
7970 Posts |
Posted - 07 Sep 2013 : 23:09:31
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| My players have run *away* from the Sons of Gruumsh ... long story. |
[/Ayrik] |
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Mystic Lemur
Seeker
58 Posts |
Posted - 08 Sep 2013 : 02:51:12
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| If you're not going to tell us the story, you shouldn't tease. :P |
"What mattered our lives now, when our world had been torn from us? Folk wept, or drank, or stood staring out over the land, wondering what new horror each dawn would bring." -A review of the FRCG ;) |
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hashimashadoo
Master of Realmslore
United Kingdom
1150 Posts |
Posted - 08 Sep 2013 : 14:03:01
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I've run through it twice. The first group did well (apart from one budding necromancer who turned a wyvern into a zombie and took it for his bed to restore spells, hoping it would hide him from patrolling orcs. It didn't.) and managed to beat it, though they failed to clean it out completely. The second group was overwhelmed in Xûl-Jarak's courtyard thanks in part to some really bad Move Silently rolls and a lack of magical healing.
I was really disappointed in the source material for Melvaunt. The only way it makes ANY sense continuity-wise is if it's set AFTER Mysteries of the Moonsea, a sourcebook that was released after this adventure. Thankfully, the time PCs will spend in Melvaunt is minimal. |
When life turns it's back on you...sneak attack for extra damage.
Head admin of the FR wiki:
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/ |
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silverwolfer
Senior Scribe
789 Posts |
Posted - 08 Sep 2013 : 18:32:59
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| I heard it gets a bit, harry and that you need more healing magic then usual, would you agree with that , hash? |
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Ozreth
Learned Scribe
188 Posts |
Posted - 09 Sep 2013 : 08:36:11
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| Funny you ask, I'm running my first session of this tomorrow night! It will be for 7 players and they are all level 3. I'll try to remember and report back. |
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Diffan
Great Reader
USA
4430 Posts |
Posted - 09 Sep 2013 : 17:31:12
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I ran it with my group as a continuation of a overall story arc called Hereos of the Moonsea. In addition to most of the stories taking place in the Moonsea region, it also was going to be primarily done with pre-made adventures. As the PCs completed the Buring Plague (once free Adventure on the v3.5 original adventure site) at 1st level and fought some Zhents holding up in an abandoned temple to Tyr (and thus, desecrating it's site) they reached Melvaunt and completed a few side quests there to achieve 3rd level.
At this point, they started the Sons of Gruumsh adventure and were about 3rd/4th level. We had a Human Scout (that secretly worked for the Zhents in assassinating all Cyric-worshippers in the organization), a half wild-elf Spirit Shaman, an Aasimar cleric of Kossuth (DMPC due to the small number of PCs in the group), and another human Fighter who was a mercenary (also Zhent in disguise).
They did fairly well inflitrating the Orcish stronghold and went ALL the way to destroying the ritual and stopping the main BBEG, though the main Fighter PC got killed. Getting out....well that was rather hard for the remaining PCs. See the orcs discovered the few orcs they killed getting into the stronghold and the whole upper part (courtyard and all that) was now bustiling with activity. The PCs tried to escape but were met with some STRONG opposition. The NPCs they saved had to step in an help fight with them and Still two PCs died (the cleric and scout). In the end all the NPCs made it as well as the Spirit Shaman. They were able to raise the cleric and scout with the money they found (killed some Zhent agents who were carrying a chest).
All in all it was a fun adventure though I think they would've handled the escaping part better. |
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Ozreth
Learned Scribe
188 Posts |
Posted - 10 Sep 2013 : 10:10:19
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Welp, as promised I'm back to report. 6 unoptimized level 3 characters made it through to just about the end of part 2 in about 4 hours of play (and they spent about half of that time doing investigations in the city). So far it's really fun and I think it offers up a lot more than it initially seems. Also the encounter and weather table and the way the days of travel are laid out with events really make it feel like a dangerous trek through Thar.
Good stuff. I imagine it will take about 5 or 6 sessions of them to complete this. |
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hashimashadoo
Master of Realmslore
United Kingdom
1150 Posts |
Posted - 10 Sep 2013 : 12:53:27
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quote:
Originally posted by silverwolfer
I heard it gets a bit, harry and that you need more healing magic then usual, would you agree with that , hash?
My first group did it without bringing a tonne of healing with them and like I said, my second group was real unlucky. That said, I seem to recall several members of the first group spending a lot of time at an uncomfortable level of hit points (I may be wrong, it was over 6 years ago that I first ran it). I'd probably make sure they had a fully - or near fully - charged wand of cure light wounds in someone's pack before they enter Xûl-Jarak as well as a potion or two each in case the wand-bearer gets separated (or has an attack of cowardice).
The courtyard is a doozy for an unoptimized party of appropriate level. That was the big obstacle in both cases. |
When life turns it's back on you...sneak attack for extra damage.
Head admin of the FR wiki:
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/ |
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has anyone run the sons of grummush?
