Anything new in Croaking Fane sketch cover edition?

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Miker601
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Anything new in Croaking Fane sketch cover edition?

Post by Miker601 »

With the sketch reprints of Sailors and Frozen in Time we got a few new pages of material. Does anyone know if the sketch cover reprinting of Croaking Fane has anything new?
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Re: Anything new in Croaking Fane sketch cover edition?

Post by michaelcurtis »

I don't believe there is. I didn't see the draft layout of the sketch cover version before it went to print and only quickly flipped through it at Gen Con, but I didn't see new material (although there is some floating around the slush pile for eventual use somewhere).
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Miker601
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Re: Anything new in Croaking Fane sketch cover edition?

Post by Miker601 »

Thanks for letting us know! The digest sized reprints are tougher for some people to read, so jumping on sketch cover variants with the new material is the preferred method for some.
losloris
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Re: Anything new in Croaking Fane sketch cover edition?

Post by losloris »

Quick language question on this one.

Room 1-7, the stone toad, the punctuation is off and so I need clarification.

For the stone toad: is it, "cold, fire, and electrical attacks, normal missiles have no affect", or, "suffers half damage from normal weapons, cold, fire and electrical attacks"?

There is a difference.

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Re: Anything new in Croaking Fane sketch cover edition?

Post by GnomeBoy »

losloris wrote:Quick language question on this one.

Room 1-7, the stone toad, the punctuation is off and so I need clarification.

For the stone toad: is it, "cold, fire, and electrical attacks, normal missiles have no affect", or, "suffers half damage from normal weapons, cold, fire and electrical attacks"?

There is a difference.

Losloris
By my reading, this:
suffers half damage from normal weapons, cold, fire and electrical attacks
is all one thing.

It's the normal missiles that are the special case. Otherwise it would be
cold, fire, electrical attacks, AND normal missiles have no affect
So "Half damage from x, y, and z, (while) normal missiles have no effect" is the way I'd take it.
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losloris
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Re: Anything new in Croaking Fane sketch cover edition?

Post by losloris »

Gotta say that I am quite happy with the lay out of this module; a straight forward temple with a few interesting features and a rarely used monster; the giant toad. There are vampiric toads, small flying toads and a few others. The uniqueness of the monster is attractive.

I need a swamp for what our next adventure will be. When we played last we ended with three good adventuring choices. I asked the party to help me prepare by deciding which choice they wanted to follow. They opted for our Marsh of Distress, with no idea that I am gonna whip this out.

I could use a suggestion or two. First, I am yet to notice any interesting trap. Or, perhaps we could say, a place where things could go wrong. Usually, in a DCC there is a spot or two where something could go decidedly wrong. I do not see that here.

Second, on the quick, are there some other suitable non frog monsters that pop out of interesting locations? I thot of a snake, a swarm of bugs, perhaps, too, a cluster of moths. Slime beast are always interesting.

My party if basically 7th level, but any suggestion would be handy.

Ultimately my group will have to kill the big beastie in 2-15 and bring something from it (as of yet, not determined) to the pentagram in 2-13. This is to interfere with any operations by Olbydra in this part of Amber (love the name). I will likely have big indications that this is associated with Olbydra.

Also, to get here we passed a broken ship, the Phantom, which we just barely noticed had been attacked by some locatha. So, evil watery beings abound. In the Phantom there was a pentagram on the floor that held an evil water spirit. Hmm. I will likely have several copies of this same evil water spirit (the name will come to me but, human size insectoid with one arm that is a giant lobster claw).

Losloris
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Re: Anything new in Croaking Fane sketch cover edition?

Post by losloris »

The evil guy is a member of the crushing wave. Looks awesome so building with what that could be.

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Re: Anything new in Croaking Fane sketch cover edition?

Post by losloris »

This has been fun to think through. The adventure and setting are basic and functional. Here is a temple and some of its worshippers. This leaves plenty of room for the DM to flesh things out.

In my case we are dealing with a cult of Olbydra - that the is all about frogs fits in well - and, the Crushing Wave. In checking out Olbydra on line I came across a few never winter nights videos that included opening loot boxes. The net affect is I adapted a number of magical treasure that is handy, doubly so when dealing with water based creatures.

And, the preamble/setting for the module has presented a number of keen monster opportunities.

Losloris
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Re: Anything new in Croaking Fane sketch cover edition?

Post by losloris »

Rule #1 - everyone should have fun.

Everyone walked away from this session totally stoked. This is my third go with these RPGs, which all seem to be working on the math of one session and done. Just that aspect alone has provided a huge boost to my group. We ran a little overtime and no one felt the desire to end things abruptly in an unfinished state.

Our aim was to find something in the Marsh of Distress that we could activate to further inhibit the activities of Olhydra on this area. before leaving our home oat Taam's Tower (DCC 3) Trouv Tou had discovered an extra cache of books in the library, six in all. I provided him one opportunity for a thorough glance through a book. He chose this one

The Large guide of Sorcery and Fluctus, which provided extra spell capacity but only for sells regarding water.

We headed out on horse, 10 days travel to get to the onset of the Marsh. From there it was a mish mash of attacks from snake or other watery things, or, they would see in the distance a shimmer of blue coming their way. Have you every been to a railyard when they are queuing up a train? Sometimes you can see a boxcar just rolling, slowly but inexorably until it slams into the train proper. In this case, a wall of water just sliding along. The first one missed (but not by too much) and then dissipated not long after passing the party! there were others that followed on a regular basis. Clearly they were on somebody's radar. There was also an attack by a strange group of somewhat crustacean guys, part of the force from the Crushing Wave, that made an appearance.

And then we arrived at the temple of the Croaking Fane. My party is now thoroughly aware that once we are 'IN' there are no breaks, no opportunity to stop and recoup spells and such.

From a DM's perspective I found the top floor of the CF somewhat empty. From the player's perspective, they were clearly getting spooked out by the imagery and the emptiness. Lighting was an issue (I was happy to limit visibility) which ultimately made the giant frog statue all the more menacing. Try as they may, they could no activate the frog, tho clearly there was something to be activated. Really not sure what they had in mind. I was thinking of a battle but none of what they said while doing this indicated
they gave any thought of what to do next. Trouv Tou had recovered the ring from the fountain which had a low level buzz to it.

Down the stairs, from the paper page perspective, the party focused on the rooms, while the ring buzzed a little stronger. I added a bunch of large frogs, giant frogs, different attacks and attack modes. Such as, just saw a picture of a walking from with light beaming from it's eyes. This caused a blinding of the party making battle tricky. Jumping attacks with belching acid vomit. Tongues that could lash out over a decent distance. All of which the party really liked and pushed them into new efforts of ingenuity.

Through the last door and the ring really buzzed. Lots of frogs, flying, leaping, several different maps needed to keep the imagery clean. Lots of spells spent on this. Battle done, party opted for the left side passage, where I judged that the ring successfully eliminated the large, well hidden slashing trap (and told the party so). Down to the birthing pool, more giant frogs, one successful eaten whole attack which thoroughly freaked the party out - tho they survived this, and then into a back room where they saw a strange type of frog status that clearly had a big missing piece. They poked, scanned, tested and then heard the large booming steps on the giant frog statue from above slamming its way downstairs. Great battle there and then again at the last beastie in the right passage. The large missing piece was found and inserted and, at the end of the day, the party emerged from it all to see a strong glow beaming out of the outer giant frog statue's eyes, the frog provided in the initial picture of the temple.

The party really liked CF for its atmosphere.

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Marzio Muscedere
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Re: Anything new in Croaking Fane sketch cover edition?

Post by Marzio Muscedere »

For those interested, I wrote The Forgotten Library of the Toadfiend. A single room encounter for any dungeon or dire temple dedicated to the Evil Lord of Amphibians. It can be found in Vol. 5 of the The 2016 Gongfarmer's Almanac. Although it is a single room, there is enough to interest players for hours, and it can easily be dropped into the incredible Croaking Fane adventure.
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Re: Anything new in Croaking Fane sketch cover edition?

Post by losloris »

Thanks for that, Marzio, as I would like to have a set of grand encounters once the five towers have been activated.

Losloris
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