Ran this one for Expeditions at the local comic shop. Had an enthusiastic group of six players but the adventure was BORING. Hope future ones are better...

Can you give a summery of the adventure, and where it fell down?

Quote from: Certified;786978Can you give a summery of the adventure, and where it fell down?

SPOILER ALERT...

The adventure begins in a tavern (SIGH) in the city of Phlan on the Moonsea. The PCs are sitting around when a group of rowdy dockworkers bursts in and starts a bar fight (SIGH). In the aftermath of the tavern brawl the PCs eventually learn that the lighthouse at Sokol Keep on nearby Thorn Island has mysteriously gone out, as well as possibly some additional info, etc.

The PCs make their way to Sokol Keep that is basically abandoned and barely described. They are led around by an NPC until they find the dungeon which is a complete railroad. There is no choice of even a left or right path.

Eventually the PCs make there way to the end of the dungeon and fight a couple of undead and discover the solution to the barely mysterious goings on.

The adventure was uninteresting and so easy for my party of 6 1st and 2nd level PCs that I think only two of them ever got hit. Not counting the tavern brawl I believe they fought a grand total of 2 animated suits of armor, 2 ghouls, 2 skeletons and 2 zombies...

So what would you do differently to make this a more interesting adventure?

Quote from: Certified;787076So what would you do differently to make this a more interesting adventure?

- Make it harder
- Try to give the PCs more of a clear cut motive to take part in the adventure
- Give the PCs at least some choice in how to explore the dungeon
- Add some traps, tricks or interesting areas for the PCs to explore
- Make the combats more tactically interesting. The sinkhole was a step in the right direction but still needed more development

Sokol Keep was a nice adventure in Pool of Radiance/Ruins of Adventure with some exploration, some avoidable deadly encounters, a good chunk of backstory to uncover, and a nice big brawl with the PCs and dozens of skeletons on one side and dozens of humanoids on the other. Not the top ten of best all-time adventures, but memorable enough.

Other than it being an iconic dungeon of the original campaign, I see little to nil reason to revisit it with an adventure. Anything that could show up on that site after the problem of Father Martinez and his fellow cursed undead defenders has been solved in the original campaign will make any Return to Sokol Keep only look like a bad pastiche that desperately tries to live off the name (as if there were current gamers who remember PoR).

Dunno if the backstory of the current Phlan allows for that, but if it is possible to rip the new Sokol Keep adventure out and replace it with the original one from RoA, it should be a vast improvement.