It's another cold, dreary, wet winter day on the Sword Coast. In the town of Timberton, just another flyspeck community on the long Coast Road, weary citizens hunker down, do their work, and wait for spring. Here in the west, there are as many stories of woe and misfortune as there are travelers, and people have learned not to ask too many questions of those that the road brings to places like this one.
This module is a short, thematic release with a horror/mystery motif, designed to be completed in one session of play. Tome of Secrets is designed for play with a Dungeon Master and 4-7 Server Vault players who are raised to 5th level at the start of play. This module is a Highlight Game at the NWCon, at Neverwinter Connections (October 25-November 2, 2003). A complete DM's Guide to the module is included in the zip file.
Posted by Jehaine ( 67.169.xxx.xxx ) at 2004-11-11 19:02:00
I have played this module three times. :) Once as a player in a DM'ed module and then I decided to run this module twice as a DM. I have always enjoyed Lazybones's modules for the challenge they present to players as well as the user-friendly nature they offer to beginning DM's. In my opinion, I like the Shrine of the Eth'barat slightly better (I guess I have a soft spot for puzzles and nifty eye candy). However, I really liked the Tome of Secrets for the possibilities it offer to a DM myself on how to create 'atmosphere', tension, story and how to appropriately scale encounters. I think the Guide and the module itself offer great teaching tools for practice. Also, I think in the Tome of Secrets, more so than the Shrine of the Eth'barat, this module encourages you to tinker with the DM client a little more. Another excellent module recommendation from the DMFI guild. :)
Posted by Lazy ( 63.199.xxx.xxx ) at 2004-11-11 08:09:00
Also note, the subraces script you mentioned is a leftover artifact from HCR and doesn't do anything. Thus you can just leave it (or delete it, even) and it won't have any effect on the game.
Posted by Lazy ( 63.199.xxx.xxx ) at 2004-11-11 08:07:00
Answer to questions in the last post (spoilers!):
-The flesh golem is supposed to change faction (to hostile) when the wraith flies into it and disappears; unfortunately the script is bugged and it just sits there. As DM, just highlight the golem and shift-click on the nearest PC when the wraith vanishes.
-The DM should always augment the placed encounters with additional creatures if he/she feels that the players need an additional challenge. As a suggestion, I'd place a selection of the monsters from the custom palette in your DM quickbar at the start of play, that way you can quickly spawn them in as needed.
-In the final encounter, all the mobs always vanished for me when the book was destroyed (it kills every undead creature in the room). As for the villagers, when I ran the mod I always abbreviated the post-rescue scene by transporting them personally back to the inn in Timberton and reporting that the villagers had been returned to their homes in text (in 10 runs of ToS, I went slightly over time in each case).
This is a very fun mod to run. Very easy to dm and can finish in one game session. I had to update the dmfi and subraces scripts a little to get them to compile. Not sure if that's cuz I have HotU or not. Wasn't a big deal, just commented out a couple of constants and it worked fine after that. Also, there's no mention of the subraces scripts in the docs either.
What is the
***SPOILER
***SPOILER
skinned, wizard-made creature for? He's got his own faction, which was neutral to everyone and there's no mention of him in the docs. I ended up just kind of making him follow the players around, and took a couple of jabs at a player who shot him.
***SPOILER
there are quite a few 'placed' creatures and several encounters that are limited in their scaling (1-1 or 2-4 for example). This seemed to work ok for 4 players, but I'm sure if they were more players, especially meat-heads (instead of monks and bards), then the encounters would be too easy.
***SPOILER
the tough mobs don't automatically disappear when the *** is killed, but they always run to one spot in LS when they lose sight of an enemy. Fortunately, I went looking for them and limbo'd them as the players escorted the mayor back to LS. Wasn't sure if this was what was intended, since they're not really killable or if you wanted the adventure to end in the tower. Also would've been nice to drop a 'follow mayor' in the villagers hb script so I could just move one guy and all of them come with me.
Anyways, very fun module, and very easy to dm. Hats off!
~ScrewTape
This is a very fun mod to run. Very easy to dm and can finish in one game session. I had to update the dmfi and subraces scripts a little to get them to compile. Not sure if that's cuz I have HotU or not. Wasn't a big deal, just commented out a couple of constants and it worked fine after that. Also, there's no mention of the subraces scripts in the docs either.
What is the
***SPOILER
***SPOILER
skinned, wizard-made creature for? He's got his own faction, which was neutral to everyone and there's no mention of him in the docs. I ended up just kind of making him follow the players around, and took a couple of jabs at a player who shot him.
***SPOILER
there are quite a few 'placed' creatures and several encounters that are limited in their scaling (1-1 or 2-4 for example). This seemed to work ok for 4 players, but I'm sure if they were more players, especially meat-heads (instead of monks and bards), then the encounters would be too easy.
***SPOILER
the tough mobs don't automatically disappear when the *** is killed, but they always run to one spot in LS when they lose sight of an enemy. Fortunately, I went looking for them and limbo'd them as the players escorted the mayor back to LS. Wasn't sure if this was what was intended, since they're not really killable or if you wanted the adventure to end in the tower. Also would've been nice to drop a 'follow mayor' in the villagers hb script so I could just move one guy and all of them come with me.
Anyways, very fun module, and very easy to dm. Hats off!
~ScrewTape
Posted by Scrotok at 2004-05-01 23:19:00 Voted 9.00 on 05/01/04
Very cool mod! Thanks LB!
Posted by Scrotok at 2004-05-01 23:17:58 Voted 9.00 on 05/01/04
Very cool mod!
Posted by R00kie at 2004-04-22 07:38:15 Voted 9.00 on 04/22/04
This was the first DMed game that I had the pleasure to play through. It was great, and got be hooked on multiplayer NWN.
Recently I returned to this module as a DM, and was pleased to see that it lived up to my memories. A very good module (although not quite up to the standard of The Shrine of the Eth'barat - Lazybones other short DM friendly module).
I would definately recommend this module to anyone looking for a good DMable module.
Posted by LB ( ..xxx.xxx ) at 2004-04-02 10:41:00
You can play without a DM using a local vault character, but since the NPCs are designed to be possessed by the Dungeon Master, the experience won't be as rich or deep as a game hosted by a DM would be.
Posted by Lazy ( ..xxx.xxx ) at 2004-02-03 10:50:00
Rook, thanks for the comment. If you're looking for less combat and more cerebral-style puzzles and traps, try my "Shrine of the Eth'barat" mod here at the Vault.
Posted by R00kie at 2004-02-02 00:55:00 Voted 9.00 on 04/22/04
If you are looking for a short multiplayer module you can't do much better than this. If you are looking for single player then look elsewhere. This module is really well polished - very difficult to fault. Perhaps it a little more combat heavy than I would have liked - but thats personal preference.
This is also a good choice for first DMing experience.
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