XSOLO. Lathan’s Gold
This is one of the solo adventures. They are basically Choose your Own Adventure or Lone Wolf, but with the D&D rules. This one introduces new rules like how to quickly end a combat, but we will be doing a regular D&D combat and exploration and such for all of the areas in it. We will be using the mechanics of Lathan’s Gold, but not the plot or the main characters. The main plot has Lathan, the ship captain who owns his own ship and is betrothed to this hot princess but she is captured for ransom for 1000 gold, but Lathan doesn’t have that money (despite owning a boat) so he borrows 750 gold to equip himself and enable himself to get the money and get the princess. Stupid. Why not borrow the last 250 gold? Or sell an item or two for it?
There are a lot of plot holes in modules sometimes. Why did the pirates in Isle of Dread wear metal armor during the day in camp when not expecting combat in the hot of the tropics, and wear metal armor on pirate raids, in boats? Why did the people in the Taboo Island temple wall up the back section in order to keep monsters and creatures away, and it worked, when they only things down there were crocodiles, two giant crabs a giant oyster and two kopru, and there were no stairs down, just a pit trap in one place and a collapsed floor – neither of which had been triggered at the time? How does Mantru have a splinter group with more than 40 people, when the village only has 7 houses? They aren’t even longhouses. Maybe they left due to a lack of shelter. Why did a fire giant send only two out of five hobgoblin armies to attack a strong fort? There are numerous examples of monsters too big to fit in the corridor, or poor designs (like this stockade just now, which has the only way you can get to the back half, and the stairs down, through someone’s office. WTF? Or the keep’s design where the private bedchamber of the lord goes through the armory? WTF? Or Castle Caldwell’s stupid design which lacks many things in a castle, like throne room, private quarters, and other essentials . In the dungeons of the stockade, the only way from the torture room and that section of the castle was through the secret lab and the alchemist’s chamber, or through a huge tract of tunnels that meanders through beehives and a chasm you have to walk along the wall, and so forth. Why would you make that design? ) I can understand a mage caught unawares having tool spells like Detect Magic and Read Magic instead of combat spells, but what about one heading for combat? I came across a dragon that had memorized levitate and I laughed at that spell being memorized.
Anyway, Lathan’s Gold will be Alzar’s Quest since he owns the ship and so forth. We will be sailing around and looking to find some goodies.
I expect this will lead into:
MSOLO2, X8, A3, and eventually I1 and C1 back in the Isle of Dread. As you can see, I keep adding modules to our super Isle of Dread campaign, but I think they all work. X8 is being added since it takes place on a small island in the Sea of Dread. How could I not include that as well? I keep pushing back I1 and C1 because I saw how hard they are, especially I1. I think C1 could be run anytime now, but other modules have higher important in the storyline than look, here’s a shrine.
Oh, did you see how the Gauntlets of Ogre Power are really powerful. No wonder I was surprised to see them in a low level module. I cheated. I rolled twice to see if I got the 10% chance they became another item, and nope. As a reminder, whenever a spell appears in a scroll or a named item appears, there is a 10% chance it’s a random spell from the Wizard’s Spell Compendium or item from the Encyclopedia Magica. I roll a d10 to figure out what kind of spell it is 1-4 common, 5-7 uncommon, 8-9 rare, 0 very rare, with adjustments made for the class and situation. Alchemy spells are more likely to be in an alchemist’s spellbook, no matter the rarity.