{"id":4413,"date":"2018-09-08T07:16:57","date_gmt":"2018-09-08T11:16:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=4413"},"modified":"2018-08-31T07:37:45","modified_gmt":"2018-08-31T11:37:45","slug":"5e-the-claws-of-madness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=4413","title":{"rendered":"(5e) The Claws of Madness"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\nBy Chris van der Linden
\nLoreSmyth
\n5E
\nLevel 1<\/p>\n

For centuries, Aelmor Monastery near the port town of Sestone was a safe haven for scholars, monks, and pilgrims seeking enlightenment, its renowned library home to an enormous collection of ancient manuscripts, tomes, and peculiar writings. After suffering a devastating attack at the hands of a possessed monastery elder, Aelmor fell into ruin, its troubled past forgotten. When villagers start disappearing and turn up horribly mutated days later, fear takes a grip of Sestone. What sinister forces are at work? And to what end?<\/p>\n

This 36 page adventure details an island and dungeon with 46 rooms. It\u2019s slightly better than the usual 5e garbage, as the page count to room number would indicate. It tries for a creepy vibe but, still, it\u2019s nothing more than a sub-par hack with the usual thin plot to drive things.<\/p>\n

Generic hooks and the usual setup: disappearances, bodies, etc. Must be coming from that old monastery on the island where bad things happened! Of course it\u2019s an island, that makes it plausible why the villagers haven\u2019t gone there and yet puts the party close enough that at first level they can make it there. Islands in the harbor: the new sewers. Anyway, hooks and plot are for fuckwits and can always be ignored. The real question is: is this thing worth my time to slog through? As is usual, the answer is no.<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t completely sure of that answer though, at least when I first dug in. The designers appears plagued by a certain rare form of mistakes. He clearly had a vision for this, and a couple of good ideas, but had no idea how to sustain it.<\/p>\n

Lets us examine, for example, the opening scene. A sudden commotion in the town square full of people reveals guy with tentacles bursting from him. In most adventures this would be that well-known (and shitty) \u201cstart them off with a fight!\u201d advice. But not here. He\u2019s not hostile. You can even help him some and\/or ease his suffering. It almost makes sense! He\u2019s a villager, he\u2019s come back to the village for help. Why would he eat his friends? <\/p>\n

This was followed up by a keyed map of the village \u2026 that is just that, a key and nothing much else. OMG! NOT a long drawn out description of a general store! NOT a long drawn out description of an inn! Just a map and a notation of which building is which, essentially. It\u2019s almost like \u2026 like \u2026 the designer knows that doesn\u2019t add value! <\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the \u201cgather information\u201d portion of the adventure. It\u2019s one column with some non-odious headings to help you find information. Hmmm. Not exactly terse writing, but, still, it\u2019s only a column. <\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the NPC descriptions. Here\u2019s the one for a guy who\u2019s got some missing shipments: \u201chis short and stout man is a cunning negotiator and expert appraiser, always on the lookout to make a profit. His left eye has been replaced with a sapphire that he usually keeps covered with a fine purple eye patch. When he gets excited about a deal, he cracks his knuckles and stretches his arms out in front of him. His braided brown hair has distinctive dark orange streaks in it.\u201d I could do without that last sentence, and it could be shorter, but, still, the description is focused on meaningful things. Not his life fucking story, but how to roleplay him. Oh course, the next one is full of batshit studpid trivia like \u201che lost his beloved dog while fishing during a stormy night\u201d, but, still, there are hints in these things that this is not a lost cause.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s this attempt at a kind of Lovecraftian dread. Whispers in the darkness, a little bit of subtle madness, the tentacle\/corruption thing. Notes are scattered throughout to help the DM with this. I don\u2019t think it really conveys the full impact of what he\u2019s going for \u2026 but it\u2019s not shit either. That vibe is hard as fuck to achieve, even in a CoC game, and then throw in swords, fireballs, and a \u201cwe kill it\u201d attitude and you can get the sense of the challenge. But his heart is in the right place and while not super effective the advice is not shitty either. <\/p>\n

So far, things are ok. Not terrible. <\/p>\n

Then the actual adventure starts and it goes downhill FAST.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s this island, with a monastery and a couple of levels of dungeon under it. It\u2019s just stuffed full of shitty encounters. I hate to sounds like an old grump, but it reminded me of the \u201cIf Quake was done today\u201d video. \u201cShoot enemies to kill them!\u201d as on screen advice. While walking up some stairs on a cliff were confronted with this little gem: \u201c… One of the bandits is on guard duty, scouting the area about 200 feet ahead of their camp. The adventurers can attempt to make a Dexterity (Stealth) check against the scout\u2019s passive Perception to move closer undetected.\u201d Ok, everybody, make a Stealth check. Why? Uh \u2026 just do it. It\u2019s this weird game-like vibe. If captured one of the bandits will relate that there\u2019s this mean gnoll thats a tremendous fighter that took out two bandits single-handedly! Do you think bandits refer to themselves that way? As bandits? \u201cFour of our comrades died when we were attacked a day ago by a pack of gnolls.\u201d It\u2019s all awkward. <\/p>\n

The place is just stuffed full of meaningless boring old fights. There\u2019s a ghost \u2026 that does nothing, tells you nothing, and is meaningless. And then there\u2019s the text padding. There\u2019s a room titled \u201cCatacombs Antechamber\u201d which gets the following description: \u201cA small anteroom serves as the entry into the catacombs. On the left and right, two wooden doors lead into a U-shaped room filled with sarcophagi. A small flight of stairs directly ahead leads down to the Crypt of Anthomodus. A ghostly presence can be felt in this area. See the \u201cGhostly Presence\u201d sidebar for more information. If the characters investigate the stone door, read:\u201d<\/p>\n

So \u2026 it\u2019s an antechamber? And the room looks like it does on the map? The only interesting thing is the ghostly presence sentence. Just all padding. <\/p>\n

Also, the adventure gets NO bonus points for putting in the Hand of Vecna. Oh, it\u2019s not CALLED the hand, but it\u2019s the hand. Why no points for the hand? Well, because you have to gimp it, of course. Putting it on means you instantly turn CE. Ug! I hate that shit! You want some curse and shit? Fine. But your moralizing with alignment changes are LAME.<\/p>\n

Anyway, long boring room descriptions. Long boring read-aloud. Nothing much going on except for some things to hack down. (mostly.)<\/p>\n

Just another boring adventure, with a little bit of window dressing and a faint glimmer of hope that the designer can get better.<\/p>\n

This is $7 at DriveThru.https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/product\/193826\/The-Claws-of-Madness-adventure-5e?affiliate_id=1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Chris van der Linden LoreSmyth 5E Level 1 For centuries, Aelmor Monastery near the port town of Sestone was a safe haven for scholars, monks, and pilgrims seeking enlightenment, its renowned library home to an enormous collection of ancient … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4412,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/clawsm.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4413"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4414,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4413\/revisions\/4414"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}