By Luiz Eduardo Ricon
Hexplore Publishing
OSR
Levels 3-5
There’s something strange in the neighborhood of Duskenville. Suddenly, not only are people not dying, but all the recent dead started to rise and walk again, seeking to settle their past scores. Hired by a noble knight with a particular dark predicament, the PCs embark on a nightmarish investigation trying to discover why this is happening, while trying to defend the townsfolk from the ghoulish attacks of skeletons, zombies and other insidious undead monstrosities.
This 42 page adventure, inspired by the death art of Hans Holmumblemumblemumble, featur ing ten “place as you will” encounters inspired by the artwork pieces, as well as a small castle with an encounter in it. I don’t know man, how you get 42 pages out of that. There;s nothing here but an outline and some forced art encounters
You know Hans, you love Hans. Iconic artworks. And our designer thinks so also, basing a decent amount of the adventure around the artwork. You’re stopped on the road by this knight who wants your help. No one in the village is dying and the dead have come back to life. He pulls aside his shirt to show a giant hole in his chest. When you go the village everyone says that dudes brother, the knights brother, is an asshat and it must be because of him. In between talking to people you see these little vignettes from the (real world) art pieces. A priest being tormented by a skeleton and so on. You go to the castle to find the brother, to explore it’s empty abstracted locations, only to find him with his normally dead wife, who is very much not dead, but just a little groggy. Oh, also, Death is trapped in this glass globe, all Sandman Episode One style. Free death, kill the dude, adventure over.
This years theme for shitty designs seems to be Abstraction. There’s this mania for not putting any specifics in an adventure. So, hey, I can get behind that. In, like, a one pager. Err, I mean, a good one page dungeon would have specifics, but, like, a one page outline of a much larger adventure? Sure. How about an entire booklet of adventures each of which is one page long, and each of which serves as a seed that can/should be expanded to several nights worth of gaming? That might be an interesting product (that I wouldn’t review.) But, let’s take that same degree of abstraction and instead make it fill 42 pages? I think not. But, evidently, I’m in the minority because everyone and their brother seems to be writing adventures like this, where they seem terrified to write down anything specific to the adventure at hand.
Each NPC/location in the village has couple of bullet points of information you can learn. Like “The priest is disturbed by a growing number of people unable to pass on, despite last rites.” What the fuck does that mean? Unable to pass on? Disturbed? Does dude has his head cut off and is still talking to folk? I’d say that would warrant quite a bit more of an emotion than ‘disturbed.’ It’s abstracted, with no specifics. It’s the concept of an idea, putting the heavy lift on the DMs shoulders. When, in fact, the entire point of having a designer attached is to put the heavy lift on the designers shoulders. Otherwise, why is the DM buying the adventure? Let’s not go all ‘spoon feed the DM’ here; as always, we’re looking for enough to be there to inspire the DM, to give them something concrete to riff off of. The ability to do that, time and time again, is what separates a meh adventure from a good one. Or another one at the guardhouse like “An old incident report details Lady Natassya’s death, noting discrepancies in witness testimonies.” Well what the fuck are they? “Locals are scared but refuse to leave, saying “something” won’t let them.” WHAT?!?!?! Something wont let you? Details? Is it a ninety foot tall demon? You are compelled to run back? A curse kills you in five minutes? I’m not cherry picking here. All of the rumors and information are like this. Weirdly abstracted to the point of being meaningless they were included. “Hmmm, why won’t the villagers leave?” says the designer to themselves “Oh, I know, something keeps them from leaving. DONE!” WHAT?! No. Absolutely the fuck not. That’s the fucking color that makes the adventure. I note, also, that the castle in the end is abstracted also, with just some throw away descriptions of nothing. “A door to the west leads to the service wing, also accessible by the door at the top of a granite staircase rising from the courtyard. There’s nothing here except the marks of past revelries and merriments” Sure thing man.
The only specific are the ten little vignettes. Andthese are ridiculously described, in detail. Lets take … The Skeleton Marching Band! Why did an entire marching band get buried in the graveyard, in their uniforms and with their instruments? Fuck it. I love going to zombie walks and am always the scuba diver/golfer/tennis playing zombie. “• The band has 30+ skeletons —too many for a direct assault.” says the adventure. “ But, also, this is a level three to five adventure. I’m pretty sure that’s an auto turn?
Did I mention the bullshit gothic font used so that it’s fuckign impossible to read some headings? I shall save you that rant again, but its absurd I have to keep going on about how people should actually be able to read your adventure. Then there’s just confusing lines thrown i. Ine one vignette a skeleton priest has the real priest captured. A party member must confess a deep sin! “If the PC refuses, the priest suffers 1d4 damage and passes judgment” Which priest? Did I harm the real one by not doing what the skeleton said or did I harm the skeleton one by rejecting its authority? And passes judgement? The living priest passes judgement? I guess, maybe, it must be the skeleton priest?
Oh, hey, also, you’re soul has been being sucked out the entire time, we learn. “ This is a Soul Syphon, sucking the life force from everyone within 1 mile (except Sir Yannis and his wife, protected by amulets). Every round, it drains 1HP from all within range (Save vs. Spell for half damage)” So half is … a half point? Did anyone read this fucking thing before publishing it? I guess this is more of a “they just started the ritual when you walk in the room” sort of thing? Still, turn undead and all that. Anyway, you’ve got ten rounds to finish him off. No, you don’t know this and it’s not telegraphed. The world just ends sort of thing in ten rounds. Guess you should have gotten your shit together and done some mind reading. Timers only fucking work if the fucking party knows there a timer! They have to be forced to make decisions knowing the consequences. That’s what he fuck tension is. Without that then the DM could just randomly declare at any point, while they are in a tavern “ok, the world ends.” Was it even in danger?
Abstracted to fuck and back, in virtually every part of this. No real adventure, except for the vignettes, which have no tension thanks to the party cleric. “It’s the old wound sire, skeletons are only effective at levels one and two.” There’s no fucking adventure here.
This is $8 at DriveThru. There is no preview. Sucker.
This written for OSE I think: yes it is automatic turning/damned and destroyed (3/4 and up) but only 2d6 each attempt. If a level 3 to 5 magic-user or thief gets surrounded by skeletons they are in trouble, so much depends on how the encounter is set up.
So, a cleric still burns through 6 skeletons/round on average. Now imagine a not-inconceivable party with 2 clerics…
The fact that an adventure chock full of
undead fails to acknowledge that turning exists is insane.
I think it’s perhaps you and Bryce who don’t understand the turning rules.
Per OSE: “Clerics can invoke the power of their deity to repel undead monsters encountered. To turn the undead, the player rolls 2d6. The referee then consults the table opposite […] If the turning attempt succeeds, the player must roll 2d6 again to determine the number of HD affected.”
Some ambiguity there. However, OSE is a B/X clone, so let’s take a look:
Holmes: “When a cleric of the first three levels confronts one or more of the undead, consult the table below.”
Moldvay: “When a cleric encounters an undead monster, the cleric may attempt to ‘Turn’ (scare) the monster instead of fighting it. […] When a cleric attemps to Turn one or more of the undead, consult the Clerics vs. Undead table”
Mentzer: “When a cleric encounters an Undead monster, the cleric may either attack it normally (with a weapon or spell), or try to Turn it. The cleric cannot both attack and Turn Undead in one round. […] When the encounter occurs, the player must refer to the Cleric Turning Undead Table.”
When a cleric confronts undead, when a cleric encounters undead, when the undead encounter occurs. There’s no positive support for the interpretation that a cleric may turn a number of undead *each round*. There’s none in OD&D either, and in AD&D it’s explicitly forbidden.
“There’s no positive support for the interpretation that a cleric may turn a number of undead *each round*. ”
Indeed, I’ve always felt it implied that if you failed an attempt to turn an undead, that’s it. You’ve failed. It just can’t be turned. You weren’t holy enough.
If there is codification that states otherwise, I’ve yet to come across it.
If I remember correctly, Advanced Labyrinth Lord states that if you succeed the first time you can try again next round to turn more undead, once you fail this stops.
>>> When a cleric encounters an Undead monster, the cleric may either attack it normally (with a weapon or spell), or try to Turn it. The cleric cannot both attack and Turn Undead in one round
>>>There’s no positive support for the interpretation that a cleric may turn a number of undead *each round*.
Okey dokey. How do you reconcile the first statement with the “1 turn undead per combat” interpretation?
Does it mean that my cleric, after opting to turn undead (aka the most logical, sensible, and all-around effective action) in Round 1 of combat, has to twiddle his thumbs for the remainder of the battle because he can’t turn undead AND attack?
Or he can swing his mace to his heart’s content in Round 1 and thereafter, but when he opts to turn undead in Round 6, all further actions against the skeletons are suddenly verboten?
He certainly does not have to twiddle his thumbs, since that wording is explicitly that it is only on the round in which he turns the undead that he can’t attack.
I’m not telling you the turn undead rules are unambiguous, they aren’t. I’m saying there is no positive support for being able to turn a new batch of undead each round present in OSE or any TSR version of D&D.
(Holmes actually does seem fairly straightforward: when a cleric meets undead, roll to see how many turn; there’s no suggestion the cleric needs to “do” anything. Moldvay introduces ambiguity: the cleric cannot both attack and turn, but is the turn a one-and-done? “The monster will not touch the cleric and will flee from the area if it can” – forevermore? Only so long as the cleric is turning and not attacking? Mentzer specifies that turned undead will “retreat, but may soon return” – how soon? etc)
In my OSE game, a cleric can turn undead until he fails, but can only affect 2d6 HD each turning attempt. Once the cleric fails to turn undead, that is it for that encounter. If they are auto-turning (or destroying), they can still only affect 2d6 HD per attempt, it just auto-succeeds (no need for an initial roll). Lowest-HD creatures are affected first, so in a mixed group of undead, the low-level creatures are turned/destroyed first, which protects the nastier, higher-HD undead from turning.
A cleric can hold off or destroy many low-level undead this way, but if there are a _lot_ of them, the Cleric is still in a lot of trouble.
When I turn I hold my holy symbol sideways, looks cooler that way
this might be helpful on the turning issue…
https://silverbladeadventures.blogspot.com/2011/01/article-turning-undead.html
I love the ability of people on Bryce comment section to hyperfixate on a few sentences out of a whole review.
Maybe so, but low level undead in higher level adventures is a frequent Bryce complaint so it seemed worth addressing.
Does every comment need to be a comprehensive review of the review? Wth?
We like D&D and we enjoy discussing its various permutations on the internet.
I was responding to anon who complained about comments on only one small part of the review