Dungeon Magazine #191 - June 2011.pdf - Dungeon Magazine 155-221 [D&D 4] - m1988k

Adapting

“The Lich-Queen’s Beloved”

By Rodney Thompson

I love continuity. While working on the Star Wars

Roleplaying Game , I learned to master it (as well as

anyone can master the continuity of such a vast fic-

tional universe). Even before then, I tried to make

different aspects of the same universe work together.

Back in the days of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

2nd Edition, I reworked old Greyhawk modules to

fit the continuity of my Al-Qadim campaign. Later,

I adapted elements of my 2nd Edition Forgotten

Realms ® Campaign Setting adventure for use in 3rd

Edition. In the last year, I’ve run two epic-level 4th

Edition games that are direct sequels to the Age of

Worms adventures from the World of Greyhawk

campaign setting by having my group convert their

characters from 3rd Edition D&D. I’ve even included

references to the Ghost Tower of Inverness, another

World of Greyhawk location, in the most recent

D&D Encounters season.

Conquering the challenge of connecting two

seemingly disparate elements is rewarding, both as a

creative exercise and as a source of interesting ideas.

The imagination involved in bridging concepts is

what makes character creation in the D&D G amma

W orld Roleplaying Game so appealing: When you

give me “android” and “yeti” as character options,

putting them together challenges me in an entertain-

ing way.

Some months ago, I decided to bring my Forgot-

ten Realms game to its climax, but I wasn’t sure how

to wrap things up. I was leafing through old issues

of Dungeon magazine when I came across issue 100,

featuring “The Lich-Queen’s Beloved”—a famous

adventure pitting the players against the githyanki

lich queen Vlaakith. If you don’t already have the

original adventure, you can download it as a compan-

ion piece to this article.

I had never had the chance to run the adventure

in 3rd Edition, so converting it to 4th Edition to use as

my campaign capstone excited me—especially after

I discovered that none of my players had ever run,

played, or even read the adventure. This conversion

would help my players, who had been my gaming

group only for 4th Edition, experience a classic part

of the Dungeons & Dragons tradition, while tying

my campaign into the larger Dungeons & Dragons

experience.

I knew that playing a Chris Perkins adventure,

filled with great lore, would mark a high point in

our game. What I couldn’t predict was how this

conversion would shape my view of adventures and

adventure design in 4th Edition.

C onversion

P hilosoPhy

After my initial reread of “The Lich-Queen’s

Beloved,” I made a few basic decisions. First, I would

reproduce the original experience as faithfully as

possible: Killer traps would remain as deadly as

ever, and powerful spell effects would pack their

same punch. Second, I would adapt mechanics with

more precision and less “re-envisioning” than usual.

Third, I would convert the monsters over using a

direct correlation between challenge rating (CR) and

level; thus, the CR 16 tl’a’ ikiths (more on them later)

would become level 16 soldiers. I did more redesign

during monster conversion than I did anywhere else,

because I wanted the levels to match the CRs so that

the monsters would present about the same chal-

lenge as before. Finally, I would not alter the number

of monsters in a given encounter. If three githyanki

guarded a door in the original, three githyanki

Jun e 2011 | Dungeon 191

Adapting “The Lich-Queen’s Beloved”

would guard that door in my 4th Edition conversion.

Effectively, I decided to ignore much of the advice

from the 4th Edition Dungeon Master’s Guide ® regard-

ing building encounters and instead let the chips fall

where they might, using the same assumptions Chris

Perkins had used when designing the adventure for

3rd Edition.

With these three guiding principles in mind, I set

out to begin the conversion.

Level16Artillery

Medium shadow humanoid (undead), githyanki XP 1,400

HP 122; Bloodied 61 Initiative +10

AC 30, Fortitude 26, Reflex 30, Will 28 Perception +13

Speed 7 Low-light vision

Immune disease, poison; Resist 10 necrotic; Vulnerable 10

radiant

Traits

O Heat Mirage F Aura 1

Any enemy that attacks the kr’y’izoth from outside of the

aura rolls its attack twice and keeps the lower result.

Standard Actions

M Blackflame Touch (necrotic) F At-Will

Attack: Melee 1 (one creature); +19 vs. Reflex

Hit: 2d10 + 6 necrotic damage, and the target is weakened

until the end of the kr’y’izoth’s next turn.

R Lightning Bolt (lightning) F At-Will

Attack: Ranged 10 (one creature); +21 vs. Reflex

Hit: 4d10 + 3 lightning damage.

R Scorching Ray (fire, force) F At-Will

Attack: Ranged 10 (one creature, or two creatures adjacent

to each other); +21 vs. Reflex

Hit: 2d10 + 13 fire and force damage.

R Flesh to Stone (force) F Recharge 5 6

Attack: Ranged 10 (one creature); +21 vs. Fortitude

Hit: 4d12 + 10 force damage, and the target is slowed (save

ends).

First Failed Save: The target is immobilized instead of

slowed (save ends).

Second Failed Save: The target is instead petrified (save

ends).

Move Actions

Telekinetic Leap F Encounter

Effect: Until the end of the encounter, the kr’y’izoth or one ally

within 10 squares of it gains a fly speed of 5.

Triggered Actions

Blackflame Shield (fire, necrotic) F At-Will

Trigger: An adjacent enemy touches the kr’y’izoth or hits it

with a melee attack.

Effect (Opportunity Action): The triggering enemy takes 2d12

fire and necrotic damage.

Skills Arcana +20, Insight +18

Str 16 (+11) Dex 14 (+10) Wis 21 (+13)

Con 20 (+13) Int 25 (+15) Cha 8 (+7)

Alignment chaotic evil Languages Common, Deep Speech,

P utting in

the h ours

The conversion process went more smoothly than

I expected. For one thing, I already had a sizable

stable of monsters converted. When I wrote the

githyanki section of The Plane Above: Secrets of the

Astral Sea™, I had relied on “The Lich-Queen’s

Beloved” for source material, so all I had to do now

was to update the damage numbers to bring them

in line with post- Monster Manual ® 3 expectations.

That approach took care of a lot of the rank-and-file

githyanki the players would run into, allowing me to

substitute them where appropriate for the githyanki

troops that had class levels. In other cases, I took

the equivalent creature from the appropriate book

and adjusted its level. To convert the red dragon

Holocaust, for example, I used the red dragon from

Monster Vault™ and removed levels from it to match

Holocaust’s challenge rating.

Later in the adventure, the characters end up face

to face (to face) with Dessakrul, a two-headed red

dragon. Again, I began with a stock red dragon. After

adjusting the level, I added a few powers from the

new hydra to give the dragon a more two-headed feel.

This approach illustrates my first lesson of conversion:

Draconic

Whenever possible, use the tools you already have—

it’s a big time-saver.

Of course, I still had plenty of work to do on the

more involved conversions. I made the 4th Edition

versions of the kr’y’izoth (undead githyanki spell-

casters whose life essences Vlaakith drained) and the

tl’a’ikiths (their martial counterparts) my top priority.

Because these two creatures show up multiple times

throughout the adventure, I knew that their conver-

sions would go a long way. After finishing them, I had

taken care of most of my monsters. I’ve included two

of them here as examples.

Jun e 2011 | Dungeon 191

Kr’y’izoth

Adapting “The Lich-Queen’s Beloved”

Level16Soldier

Medium shadow humanoid (undead), githyanki XP 1,400

HP 157; Bloodied 78 Initiative +14

AC 32, Fortitude 29, Reflex 27, Will 28 Perception +13

Speed 6 Low-light vision

Immune disease, poison; Resist insubstantial; Vulnerable 10

radiant

Traits

O Attractive Whispers F Aura 3

Any enemy that starts its turn within the aura is pulled up to

2 squares to a square adjacent to the tl’a’ikith.

Insubstantial

The tl’a’ikith takes half damage from attacks. Any time the

tl’a’ikith takes radiant damage, it loses this trait until the

end of its next turn.

Standard Actions

m Silver Sword (psychic, weapon) F At-Will

Attack: Melee 1 (one creature); +21 vs. AC

Hit: 2d10 + 3 damage plus 10 psychic damage.

M Violent Slash (psychic, weapon) F Recharge when first

bloodied

Attack: Melee 1 (one creature); +21 vs. AC

Hit: 2d10 + 3 damage plus 18 psychic damage, and the

target is removed from play (save ends). When the target

saves, it appears in an unoccupied square of the tl’a’ikith’s

choice adjacent to the tl’’a’ikith.

Move Actions

Telekinetic Leap F Encounter

Effect: Until the end of the encounter, the tl’a’ikith or one

ally within 10 squares of it gains a fly speed of 5.

Triggered Actions

Intercession of Will (weapon) F At-Will

Trigger: Any enemy within 3 squares of the tl’a’ikith makes

an attack that does not include the tl’a’ikith as a target.

Effect (Immediate Reaction): The tl’a’ikith shifts up to 3

squares and makes a melee basic attack against the trig-

gering enemy as a free action.

Str 24 (+15) Dex 18 (+12) Wis 20 (+13)

Con 21 (+13) Int 12 (+9) Cha 10 (+8)

Alignment chaotic evil Languages Common, Deep Speech

Equipment +4 githyanki silver longsword ( Manual of the Planes ™ )

The next step of the conversion process entailed

adapting traps and magical effects from the 3rd Edi-

tion adventure to my 4th Edition game. Fortunately,

Chris did me a big favor when he based his array of

traps on the tir’su glyphs of the githyanki language

and then reused the glyphs within his adventure.

Rechristening them “a dialect of Deep Speech,” I con-

verted each glyph as faithfully as possible. Because

the originals glyphs mostly dealt damage, I could

replicate them by having mine deal about the same

damage as the encounter power of a monster of equiv-

alent level. When I was finished, I had seven traps

that I could use throughout the adventure.

With the monsters and traps handled, I could now

tackle the tricky part: the other miscellaneous magi-

cal effects.

Much of the adventure takes place in the Palace

of Whispers, home to the whispers of the damned, an

effect disquieting enough to shake the nerve of even

the bravest warrior. In 3rd Edition, a player failing the

initial saving throw took a –2 penalty to attack rolls,

saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks while

in the palace. I decided to keep the same effect, with

one exception: I changed the Will save to an attack

against Will that triggered when the character first

entered the structure.

My players soon discovered that they were no

longer in the same “appropriate challenges with lim-

ited durations” game we’d been playing. Although

this approach initially frustrated them, I decided not

to budge because I wanted to see what they would

do. To my (pleasant) surprise, my players reacted

to the new dynamic by becoming more creative.

During their first retreat from the Palace of Whis-

pers, for example, they asked a wizard to deafen

them magically so that the palace’s disquieting

susurrations could not affect them.

The strange doors that filled the lich queen’s

palace also challenged the adventurers in various

ways: One type required psionic powers to open,

another dealt tons of damage to living creatures

when they passed through, and still another kind,

seemingly composed of undead f lesh, refused to

open for anyone other than Vlaakith. I converted

these perilous portals faithfully, but I also added

a few elements because I did not want my players

to feel stymied; after all, the adventure proceeds

through these doors. In my new version, items scat-

tered throughout the palace enable characters to

open certain doors or pass through them harmlessly;

for example, one potion turns a character tempo-

rarily undead, whereas another provides a small

amount of psionic power points. I placed these items

in logical locations that would also require the char-

acters to circumvent the doors a few times before

finding them.

It worked. Although the players initially felt frus-

trated by the doors, they soon grew more and more

resourceful. This adjustment gave rise to an interest-

ing pacing dynamic: The early stages of exploring the

Palace of Whispers consisted of a constant struggle

against the palace itself, but, as the characters pro-

gressed—battling denizens and finding treasure

caches along the way—they gained the means to

move on to different challenges. The players became

better at navigating the palace and, as its challenges

faded into the background, the dangers posed by

the monsters (and, eventually, Vlaakith herself ) took

center stage.

Jun e 2011 | Dungeon 191

Tl’a’ikith

Adapting “The Lich-Queen’s Beloved”

e nd r esults

In the end, a conversion succeeds or fails at the game

table. This one went surprisingly well, even though

its design sensibilities were so different from those of

the campaign that preceded it. Up to this point I had

designed my adventures by the book, worried that

deviating from the Dungeon Master’s Guide ’s advice

would produce a game different from the one other

people were playing, and therefore useless to anyone

but me. It turns out that my fears were unfounded.

Running “The Lich-Queen’s Beloved” using 4th

Edition mechanics (while keeping the 3rd Edition

f lavor) added amusing new dynamics to the cam-

paign’s climax. I enjoyed watching my players relearn

lessons from earlier editions, such as the caution

they began exercising after they started running

into things they couldn’t overpower. I’m no big fan

of the “your players should constantly fear for their

characters’ lives” philosophy, but that doesn’t mean I

didn’t enjoy seeing my group exercise a bit more pru-

dence (on the other hand, perhaps they had grown so

cavalier because I had failed to instill a true sense of

danger earlier in the campaign). I also enjoyed how

the adventure’s complexity drove the players to return

to old roleplaying standbys, such as mapping the

dungeon themselves and keeping track of what they

encountered and where.

With a few exceptions (such as the tricks for

bypassing the doors), I resisted the temptation to pro-

vide ways around problems. This decision ran counter

to my usual style of adventure design, in which a

character overcame a noncombat test by making a

skill check or passing a skill challenge. As soon as the

players saw that they couldn’t just make a skill check

to design a spell to counter whispers of the damned , they

realized that they needed to become more creative.

The way they rose to the occasion made me realize

that I had underestimated them when I designed my

old adventures.

If making challenges harder on my players taught

me something, so did making encounters easier. I

discovered that it was OK for players to face only

two opponents in one fight, even if neither of them

was elite. The encounter went faster, and the players

enjoyed occasionally rolling over the opposition. This

taught me an important lesson: Attrition still means

something in Dungeons & Dragons. Taking a little

damage in a fight might be no big deal, but taking

a little damage in five straight fights carries a toll

because daily abilities run out and unspent healing

surges dwindle.

When I looked at the pressure placed on the

party’s resources over an entire adventure instead of

a string of encounters, I found the results liberating. I

realized that I did not need to balance every encoun-

ter to fall within an “acceptable range,” because, over

a long enough period, the characters would end up

drained of the same resources anyway. Even better,

this approach made the hard fights feel harder.

Retreating to preserve resources became viewed as a

necessary and acceptable tactic, because the players

knew that more challenges awaited, and they couldn’t

count on having the resources needed to tackle them

otherwise.

In the end, I learned a few things about both

adventure design and 4th Edition that I’ll carry

forward into future games. First, I found that my play-

ers face challenges more creatively—and feel more

satisfied afterward—when I deprive them of an easy

way out. Second, I learned that spikes of high tension

and periods of low tension are good, and that having

a wider variance in encounter difficulty works out

because of long-term attrition. Third, I realized that I

could include “unfair” elements”—such as instant-kill

traps or ongoing effects that messed with characters—

as long as I used them to punctuate the dangers of the

adventure and not as constant beat-downs. Fourth,

I learned that exploration is essential to the classic

Dungeons & Dragons feel, and that traps and haz-

ards are more than set dressing—they constitute an

important part of the exploration and discovery pro-

cess. The weird doors in the Palace of Whispers aren’t

just obstacles; they are something to investigate—dire

entryways that reinforce the alien feel of the adven-

ture’s setting.

Finally, my greatest lesson was that my players

were better equipped to handle challenges than I

thought. Even when they failed, they found ways to

continue the adventure as long as I gave them enough

freedom to execute their own plans.

C onverting to

o ther e ditions

Here is my quick take on converting “The Lich-

Queen’s Beloved” to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

1st or 2nd Edition.

The 1st Edition Fiend Folio provides basic informa-

tion on githyanki that we can use to populate our

dungeon. That’s half the battle. We also need a way

to convert the rich variety of githyanki variants that

make “The Lich-Queen’s Beloved” so memorable.

Luckily, we can summarize 1st Edition monsters in

just a few lines, so we can convert many of these ter-

rific monsters quickly.

From the original adventure, we know that

the lich queen rarely allows her servants to grow

Jun e 2011 | Dungeon 191

Dungeon Magazine #191 - June 2011.pdf

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: