Saturday Night Delves #1: Revenge of the Iron Lich
It’s about time, right?
At long last, Revenge of the Iron Lich, the first installment of the quarterly Saturday Night Delve series, is available for download.
It’s been a long time coming. I want to extend a hearty thanks to my co-author, Jerry LeNeave of Dread Gazebo, who was nothing but fun to work with and a constant source of inspiration.
Second, I want to say thanks to Taylor Bennett, who has done an amazing job with the artwork for this adventure. Seeing her illustrated handouts are rewards in their own right – which is why they’re mostly saved for secret areas.
Last, but not by a wide margin least, I want to express my gratitude to all the fans on this blog, on Twitter, and on Facebook. Without your excitement, support, and encouragement, this project – and verily, fourthcore itself – might never have come to pass. This is our gift to you.
This is what fourthcore looks like.
Last Update: 5/2/2011 10:00pm EST
Download the adventure! (18mb .zip)
Download the digital tile maps! (17mb .zip)
Download the printable tile maps! (17mb .zip)
Download the pregens! (37mb .zip)
Download the .dnd4e files! (98k .zip)
Scope out the adventure FAQ here.
Scrying Skull
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- Review: Revenge of the Iron Lich « Eternity Publishing
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- Revenge of the Iron Lich – AGD report « Hunter's Haven
- Dungeon Accessories: The Phantom Staircase | Roving Band of Misfits
- Revenge of the Iron Lich – Recap « Things That I Do.
- 2011 Ennies Nominations Announced : Critical Hits
- Now an “Ennie Nominated” Game Designer! | Soliloquy
- Fourth Edition, The Book of Vile Darkness, Fourthcore, and the Future
First Impression: Excellent! I love the flow, the artwork, descriptions…it all is very professionally and tastefully done. Very impressed! I can’t wait to kill a party or two in this adventure!
How long do we have to wait for your next one? Not long I hope. Great job.
Thank you!
SND02 will probably see the dark of night midsummer.
It’s a fine day when Fourthcore can be brought to the masses. I’ll be running this delve as soon as possible, and I’ll keep you posted on how it goes, and by that I man how many characters die. [Insert Evil Laughter Here]
My thanks go out to everyone involved.
The adventure download link doesn’t work, comes up 404 not found.
Try it again.
I’m always happy to see new content being created, and I look forward to finding some unsuspecting victims to unleash the Iron Lich on.
You guys should be proud.
Thank you for your kind words. They’re much appreciated!
Wow. I’ve just read the Accessories first, and there’s a lot in here that I do in my home games. I kept think “awesome! Sersa’s _____ looks similar to mine!” except that the QUALITY of this product is astounding. The creativity is off the charts as well, but I knew that before even I downloaded the files. I wish my cash last year went to something closer to this than some of the bland chapters we got in the 4E Tomb of Horrors. Can’t say enough good things about this though, seriously. I’ll definitely be squeezing in at least one run of this at PAX East.
Yeah, almost every page has some slick, eye-opening, and/or brutal doodad that gets me really psyched to roll this out. Again, can’t say enough good things about this. This should get a couple of Ennies, Best Adventrue, Best Production, Best Blog, etc., no question.
Thanks so much man, that means a lot to us! It’s good to see you, too.
You’re really kind to say the quality is award-winning material. Fourthcore will probably never come close to a earning an Ennie, but it’s good to know some people really love the work we do.
I want to read this, but I have to wait until after our second playthrough (hopefully another podcast coming). I know its fantastic though. I know because there are no wolves.
Maybe you’ll earn more than 300 points this time!
A question on the pregens:
What alchemical formulae does Umbra (Tiefling Bard) know, if any?
Holy crap this thing is sweet! I just did a quick browse through and I’m really enjoying this so far. Can’t wait to dig in to the real meat.
Great work guys!
-Joe
Thanks!
Simply put, AMAZING! Really good work guys, really good!
Thank you! We try.
This is fantastic stuff. I especially love the way the story of the Iron Lich emerges organically as the players progress through the tomb and solve the puzzles. Really great.
It’s interesting to see the changes made between the previews and the final release.
I noticed one typo: in Room I, there’s a reference to a switch in Room G, but the switch is actually in Room D.
Thank you so much, we’re very happy you enjoy it!
We got a lot of good feedback during the previews, and some ideas just burst through at the last minute.
Thanks for the tip, I’ll fix it right away. I’m enjoying the digital format – it lets us respond to feedback quickly, and having so many eyes means every typo ever will be found in a matter of hours.
Ultimately, it means we offer a better product!
Very cool! I’ll give it a download and a read through right now! I always enjoy having another delve to play around with.
Outstanding!
I’m contacting some of my non-4E playing friends to see if they want to give this a shot. I’m using the “old-school/Tomb of Horrors”-ish approach to try to appeal…
Best of luck!
While I personally don’t think of SND or my work as “old-school,” I think there’s some stuff in there that would appeal to fans of early adventures.
I know it’s a platitude, but using Essentials-only heroes might help, too.
+1 Read through only a portion so far, but a really great module. I really like the simple layout and all the fiendish clever dungeon interaction. The handouts, minigames and stuff for dead players to do is really great.
I’d probably tone down the instant death effects for a campaign game, but I’m definitely going to steal alot of this!
Thank you, we’re very happy you enjoy it!
We tried to pay close attention to detail while putting together the best layout we could.
You’re including this in an ongoing campaign?! You’re evil, even if you tone it down.
Do you find the symbol system helpful for sorting through rooms and challenges you might want to adapt into another adventure?
Thank you!!!!! I don’t think I’ll use this as it was designed but I see so many things that I can rip out and put right into my weekly game. I absolutely cannot wait to scare the pantaloons off my dungeoneers. Specifically I loved and would like to see more of: The Deck of Mortals, The puzzles and traps, and the fluff/history/flavor. Great organization and design. Would be more than willing to support SND02 with $$$.
Read through the whole adventure last night. Amazing work! Visceral, exciting, lethal. I love it.
I plan on dangling this bad boy in front of my party as either a one off, board game like adventure or even ask if they dare risk it with their main characters…the rewards are great.
Mayhaps I offer them X resets to get through at which point their warding magics fail and they die for real…
So many ideas. I would also be more than willing to part with some $$$$ to keep these coming.
I started running this for my campaign tonight, the characters are 17th level and there are 7 of them, so that gives them some advantages. I’m nerfing some of the auto-die stuff but leaving in some as well. The things that were straight up save or die will probably just deal a bunch of damage but the bottomless chasm is still… bottomless.
Anyway, really enjoyed what we made it through tonight, The characters didn’t fight anyone yet, and have solved the relevant puzzles to get loot. The 5 that pulled from the deck all got red cards, and some of that will need some toning down as well.
All that being said, love the adventure. Can’t wait to get all the way through it and I promise to provide as much feedback as I can. What I’ll probably do is put together what I did to make it more relevant to an ongoing campaign (ie less chance of TPK but still brutal).
I can’t wait to run this! This totally scratches an itch me and my players have been suffering from since 4e first came out. I’m looking forward to the next installment as well!
Seriously, set up a damn donate button.
Done.
All I can say is “Wow”. This stuff blows my mind. If WotC put out material this good, there would be no edition wars!
This is great! I plan on running this at my next monthly D&D meet up, and I’ll let you know how it goes!
I am also going to be running this as a test of the WotC Virtual Table Top soon, so would it be possible for us to get the exported .dnd4e files from the character builder for those pre-gens? Might also be nice for anyone wanting to use these as bases for their own custom characters!
Thanks!
I’m sure Jerry (jerry@saveversusdeath.com) can hook you up with the .dnd4e files.
I absolutely loved this adventure. I have six people in my group, two of us DM and we alternate through long running campaigns (one is almost three years old now) so this will be a perfect break from those big story-lines and characters. I have been devouring published material and web content for 4e and this module is absolutely standout in terms of quality. The handouts, artwork and maps are fantastic. I love the rumor decks, found items and wraith cards. There is so much attention to detail across the entire module – the icons are fantastic and the layout is very clear and easy to follow. I especially like that the maps are in a different document from the adventure itself – makes it easy to have two windows open and follow each room on the map on your first read through.
I’m glad you set up a donation button, I am literally excited to give my money to support you guys. If you don’t win awards for work of this caliber it speaks to a lack of credibility from the judging committee and not to the quality of your work. My only complaint is that we have to wait three months for the next one!
Thank you so much!
It really means a lot to us to know you enjoyed it. And thank you very, very much for the donation! Email me as sersa@saveversusdeath.com – I have a gift for you.
I just ran through this adventure yesterday and I want to give you guys a huge thumbs up! I never played early D&D but this is everything I want in my delving from now on.
My group consisted of 4 players and our DM (who will be doing some judging at PaxEast) scored a 610. A lot of that was luck as we weren’t terribly optimized as a party, and we started a little late. DM started the clock at 10 but our fourth member didn’t show till about 10:10 so we were already rummaging through the first room.
All in all I just want to applaud this as a massive success and a huge inspiration for what I would love D&D to lean to more often!
Thank you!
We really appreciate it. We certainly love the read-through feedback that we get, but the actual-play experiences people have with ‘Revenge’ is what really makes or breaks the success of the adventure – and fourthcore more broadly. To know you had a great time with the adventure tells us we did our job.
Was Casey Ross your DM?
Interesting module. I would recommend though that you include an option for the PCs to take a non-violent, diplomatic approach to the last combat, convincing the Iron Lich of the error of its ways, most likely by making reference to his virtuous (and proud) history and legacy as a paladin. This would have the added benefit of giving the social characters a little more mileage.
Obviously, this would feature a very difficult skill challenge that makes heavy use of Insight (provides a bonus to the other skill checks/reveals how the Iron Lich might be persuaded), Diplomacy (obvious), History (regale the Lich with remembrance of his past service and deeds), Religion (remind him of his oaths and fealties) and Bluff (improvisational fill in for the others, more difficult).
In order to succeed at this skill challenge, (or at least stand a reasonable chance of success), the party must have at least uncovered or otherwise be intimately aware of the Iron Lich’s history as a paladin, as well the pride he still has regarding his past service. Emphasizing this vaunted history in the skill challenge is the key to convincing the Iron Lich to stand down, or perhaps even redeeming him, and turning him to the side of good.
“I would recommend though that you include an option for the PCs to take a non-violent, diplomatic approach to the last combat, convincing the Iron Lich of the error of its ways…”
No.
Is it because you’re afraid that making the Lich open to reason and diplomacy, even in an excruciating difficult skill challenge in some way denigrates his threat or menace? I would disagree with that, particularly given what the party had endured up until that point; if anything, it makes him a more nuanced and believable foe, and taps into the great emergent story telling in a meaningful way.
Is it then that you fear it’ll make the final encounter anti-climatic or trivial? I again disagree, particularly if you make success contingent on gathering and realizing certain important facts about the Iron Lich’s character (admiration of King Nyctus, pride in his service, etc…) gained through successful exploration of the tomb, and knowledge checks. Without these, the diplomatic route will be all but impossible.
The bottom line is that the Lich appears to have some redeemable, salient bits of humanity about him that seem like they can be brought to the fore with enough insight and skill, and that social skills are woefully underutilized (one of my biggest problems with the module). While I understand that the idea of a fourthcore delve is to focus on challenging dungeon crawl elements rather than storytelling/RP ones, I feel this is a clever way to marry both, while simultaneously giving some weight to those underutilized skills.
No, because people don’t solve their problems with words in fourthcore. It’s kill and be killed.
If you want those elements in your game, then do it your self. Saturday night delves are fourthcore delves.
Hey now, no need to get sharp. He’s just trying to help.
I don’t think his suggestion fits into the fourthcore aesthetic, and I have no interest in implementing them, but they’re well-thought out.
sorry, I don’t always realize how abrasive I might sound, especially in a text-only comment.
Here’s a question: What are the requirements to get on the leaderboard?
After completing a game, submit a detailed play report and scoring breakdown to me (sersa@saveversusdeath.com). Once it gets approved, and if you’re in the Top 3, you’ll get on the board.
Well. Forget that. 3 dead in a pit of mithril after being ported to room J w/o the Steelsun amulet (The portal doesn’t go two ways, does it?)
One died of poison on the 4 armed iron golem, and one made it to the Necrolith, who promptly impaled him on his spikes.
They had a flipping blast though. Those pillars in the entry way shattered one of their weapons right from the get go.
I’ll be running them through it again soon.
Thanks for doing such great work.
What are the chances that you could post some play-by-plays or podcasts or detailed reports for some of the parties that manage to beat it? Maybe it’s ‘coz I’m kinda inexperienced with D&D, but it’s hard for me to visualize how players would win, so I’m curious. ^_^
Thanks for commenting!
There’s a number of play reports floating around on various blogs, but I highly suggest checking out the play reports and actual-play podcast posted by C. Steven Ross at Actions the Rules Don’t Cover. He’s a fantastic DM with solid players, and in the podcast they actually get really close to winning!
My group got a total victory last night, so I may write up a play report for that very soon!
Looks very promising. I’ve been looking for this sort of dungeon design since Goodman Games started doing their DDC tournaments, but I thought it’s not practical in 4e.. thanks for proving me wrong!
I played this the other day and had a great time, it really had an old school feel to it, with all the fiendish traps and puzzles. I enjoyed it a lot, thanks for all the hard work!
That makes me very happy to hear!
Ran a group through this adventure yesterday and everyone had a blast! I’ve been DMing since the 70′s and I really think you all nailed the feel of wonder and terror in equal parts I remember from those days. The group that ran through it were all first year college students who while veteran 4E players really hadn’t experienced that style of play and they are now clamoring for more
For the record nobody died (though one came very close) and they made it to the last room via a short route but failed due to running out of time.
Thanks for a great adventure and I’m eagerly awaiting more!
Cheers!
On Sunday I ran some friends through the Revenge of the Iron Lich module from savevsdeath.com. I thought I’d write a bit of a report for posterity.
The module is a very deadly “Tomb of Horrors” style dungeon full of traps and puzzles, instant death effects and random effects. It is not a standard 4e playstyle. It went really well. They scored 410 points, slain by the Lich as soon as he appeared. I was pretty impressed they made it that far, but Power Word Kill got the best of them all. No, it was not fair.
I told the players this in advance and they showed up with 16th level characters. The PCs were a Shifter Monk, a Deva Wizard, a Human Warlord, a Human Rogue and a human Paladin. I handed out the random gear cards and the rumour cards and pre-drew a couple of the rooms. I ended up using dungeon tiles for quite a lot of the dungeon. Pre selecting these would have helped. Or better yet pre drawing each map on grid paper.
The cards were a hit. Between the short intro reading about the Iron Lich trying to take over the universe and the rumors, the players were instantly comparing notes and establishing a bit of the story of the dungeon.
I tried to emphasize a sort of looming backstory of epic inter dimensional travel that lead to the party’s arrival at the gates of the dungeon. I described the entrance as a house sized horned skull rising from an endless plain of ash.
The players were very very wary. In the first room they were afraid to touch anything. They did not pick up the skull, nor approach the throne.
In the Cobblestone Hall the monk flew directly to the other end of the room. The spectral skull began to appear as he approached so he landed in front of it, luckily and unknowingly avoiding the last pit trap. The skull demanded the password, but the unreliable rumour the Deva had heard about the password was not correct and the Monk was blasted with fire. As I looked at the encounter later I wondered if I should have waited for the party to tinker with the door before triggering the trap. It was an ambush for the monk, but probably saved them in the long run because he was the only one to be hurt. Then he walked back and danced around the pit traps that opened up. The party discovered the secret door at the bottom of the first pit and followed that path. The Wizard cast Comprehend languages to read the prayer written on the wall, but “Hesiarch” wasn’t much of a clue. Next time I would write out a prayer to the Honor and Martrydom of the Blackguards of Stormhold or some such. More hints and more back story are good.
They found themselves in the triangular room of purple eyes. The rogue entered alone and placed an old lantern on the pedestal. He was blasted with psychic energy. They later discovered a hollow sounding panel in the room, but were not tempted to try the pedestal again.
The party then tried the other fork in the dungeon and came to the room of the 8 Statues of Kings. A player had the Scroll of Heraldry and he immediately asked if he could figure out who the kings were. I read the stories of the kings and how they died and it was pretty rad. I brought out a bowl full of Scrabble pieces for the letter puzzle. I felt the need to clarify that the pieces should be arranged one per king. The premise of this puzzle is a little vague. They started going on about spelling various names of the kings and such, and finally I gave what turned out to be a big hint. I reminded the paladin that the Lich was known for his hubris and great ego (I had previously allowed the paladin history checks to know some of the Lich’s history as a paladin of Stormhold.). Thus resulted in one player immediately solving the puzzle. Too much help? I’m not sure. Unfortunately they failed to arrange the pieces so that the kings could read them and therefore failed anyway. The Cloudkill sucked 5 surges from everybody. However, because they partially solved the puzzle and started in order, I had the secret door open and offer another way out. They took this route and skirted carefully around the Book on the Altar.
I asked the Wizard if he wanted to open the book. He had previously cast Comprehend Languages so I ruled that he could read the cover which I said was called “The Book of Laughter and Forgetting”. He did not touch it.
From here they came to the Dark Descent. The Wraith Captain attacked and nearly drank the soul of the paladin. The wizard cast a spell that rendered the party resistant to 11 points of necrotic damage which nullified the spectral minions, though not before they did some damage. nobody was knocked into the abyss, though a couple heroes were crushed trying to jump through the blocks cages that kept popping out of the walls. Nobody jumped to the iron spikes. The party slew the Captain and then picked the last medallion at their leisure, slotting them in their places and then making their way into the mouth of the Lich’s Wife.
Next came the Test of the Chests. This they solved after some discussion. I handed out all kinds of treasure cards. Great stuff. This was all they had for their attack on the Lich. It was now too late to turn back.
The party made their way to the Balcony of the Stairs. They used the Ask the Dungeon scroll and I had the ghost Embecar appear and mock them for not having the Sunsteel amulet but he emphasized the power of the radiant light of the amulet so the paladin suggested casting bless weapon to make the stairs passable. I allowed this to go forward and the party rigged a long tight rope to the entrance to the tomb of the Lich.
In the final battle nobody explored much, but jumped in on the Necrolith and had it dazed for most of the rounds it was active. Some good rolls for them and some weak saves from me had the rust bucket down for the count fairly quick. The 4 hr buzzer rang at this point, but since we were in the final battle i let it ride. It didn’t matter anyways. The little tiny Lich head appeared and spoke the Power Word Kill. This is a crazy deadly and strangely worded power, but it makes sense to me in that it just mops up everyone who would be close to death anyways. Only one character had more than one surge at that point, the Warlord. She survived another round managed to get to the sarcophagus. I told her the Bride lay in the coffin. She threatened to decapitate her with one hand while she unfurled the Scroll of Imprisonment with her other hand. I told her that the Lich paused in a moment of indecision. She respond that she was going to decapitate the bride and imprison herself in the Demiplane of the Bahamas, safe from the Iron Lich!
Result!
On reflection, great dungeon. We could play it again and it would be very different depending on random elements (rumours and gear) and route selection. I was surprised by the path they took. The dungeon has a nice suggestive backstory and I think it could be brought forward even more.
As for the 4thcore playstyle, i dug it alot. I think I could have been more ruthless, but I didn’t need to be. The Lich held his own. I was impressed with the challenge but do-ability of the puzzles. One thing I think I would do next time is emphasize that in the style of play, exploring the surrounding can yield boons as well as curses and traps. The party missed a few opportunities to strengthen themselves. On the other hand, being less curious was good for beating the clock.
All in all, awesome. I recommend this.
Durn
Had a blast running this for a local convention. The players knew they were headed into an undead-themed dungeon, so they built a Radiant Mafia and pretty much obliterated the module: 835 points (Imprison ending in under 3 hours).
I might’ve thwarted them if I’d remembered a couple of the boss monsters’ powers/features better, but that’s the way of it! Very much looking forward to the next Saturday Night Delve.
The wizard pregen’s PDF is corrupt! Would you be able to update this?
This looks really really promising! Hopefully I can persuade my players to give it a try! Stunning quality!
One minor problem though: when trying to download the pregens, I only get a 28 MB file and the Wizard character pdf is missing
Is this intentional? No more Wizards against the Iron Lich?
Thank you for your great work!!
Weird about the characters. I’m not available this weekend to update them, I’ll try to get to it Monday.
Good stuff, my players enjoyed this. Radiant Beams from the pregen cleric is pretty ridiculous against the last fight.
Do you think this would work in a 3-3.5hr slot?
I’m guessing no one who developed this has any idea what the term fake difficulty means because there’s not a single instance I’ve found of anything but early NES-style gotcha traps for not being either clairvoyant. It’s not actual difficulty when you purposefully go out of your way to abuse your power as a DM to create situations where the players are 90% to fail despite doing everything right. It’s as if this entire module were created to show people just how terrible dungeon design can be when you start with the premise that any difficulty is good difficulty even if you have to resort to continuous cheap tricks to attain it.
Also your pregens are atrocious; they’re completely unoptimized and don’t even follow standard pregen rules. Every single one of them is carrying 25000 GP, money that a pregen is given to spend. Yet they haven’t spent it so they’re not nearly as prepared as a character of that level is expected to be. The Ranger doesn’t even have Twin Strike. Feats are a horribly mixed bad of decent and usless.
I agree with James, and I request, nay, DEMAND that you refund DOUBLE his money back!!
James, don’t be a dick. (See also, Wheaton’s Law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wil_Wheaton#Wheaton.27s_Law)
As far as I’m concerned, the pregens make it a lot easier for DMs and players alike to jump into this adventure as a one-shot. Less prep time all around.
The dungeon itself, as well as the entirety of Fourthcore does have “cheap tricks” at times, but that is part of what I see as the design philosophy. I tend to think of it not as “oldschool” or “brutal” as many describe it, but rather as “realistic”. Or as realistic as DnD can be. Look, if I was an evil overlord building a dungeon, I’d put stuff in there that was designed to KILL PEOPLE, not just make them rest for a bit after defeating it. I would also expect the people (elves, dragonborn, whatever) storming my dungeon to be somewhat flawed in some manner, and not specimens of adventuring perfection.
If I want to run/play a game that is designed to be beaten, then I’ll go with ‘regular’ 4E. If I want something that actually has a strong possibility of failure, then I’ll go with Fourthcore. Both have their place (as it says right in the Fourthcore description), and both can be enjoyed without tearing down the other.
Ran this at Buckets of Dice today – the Iron Lich was killed in 3.5 hours (heavy use of preprinted maps made up for the large pregens), but no phylactery or imprisonment.
Hi, which DnD tiles from WotC do you recommend for use of this first module?
I wish I had a good answer for you beyond “any that seem to fit.” I was able to recreate most of it using a few of the Master Tiles sets and some of the original sets.
Letting you know the tile maps and the pregens, their zipped folders do not open or extracted.
I don’t know what to tell you, they work fine here on both of my computers.
I know the wizard character sheet pdf is corrupt, still waiting on the fixed version. :/
All right, thanks.
Okay, thanks.
In order to save toner, I ended up redoing the tile map PDFs quickly in order to print them without the black backgrounds – they’re here:
http://www.xi.co.nz/static/ironlich_printable.zip (4mb zip)
Theoretically Acrobat lets you change the background, but I don’t have access to them:
I’ve been hyping this to my group, and had a chance to finally run it for them yesterday. It was an absolute blast. We had one old school gamer with us, who really helped the party in searching for traps and helping to solve puzzles. They failed to the time limit in the end, but I’m really proud of their 490 score regardless.
Great job on this adventure. Please do make more, the party can’t wait to try more.
For anyone that uses DnD4e Combat Manager, I’ve entered everything for Revenge of the Iron Lich into the following stat library file that you can download from here:
http://www.chedrock.com/pub/DnD/SND01/statlibrary.dnd4
Make sure you backup your existing stat library if any before using this one!! Some of the powers for the PCs didn’t import correctly. I’m not sure if that is due to a bug in Combat Tracker or if there is something wrong with the dnd4e character files. Either way, not critical. Enjoy!
I really love this adventure. I’ll be running it in a couple of weeks. It’s the most refreshing 4e material I’ve read to date!
No spoilers, but for Room G I made an audio file that you can use to add a little atmosphere. You can get it here.
This is the industry needs!
Very well done and ……………. keep ‘m coming
I ran this for my dudes a few weeks back and they loved the hell out of it (450 points, no deaths, ran out of time just as they finished the dismal descent) and we’re doing it again tomorrow.
Below is some cheesy ‘read-aloud’ text for anyone who wants to use it.
====== (to be read in the voice of Deckard Cain from Diablo 2)=======
Can it be only six months since you first heard of the Iron Lich? Yes, six months, and yet it seems a lifetime!
You, and your stalwart companions, have tracked his foul spoor across the lands, seas and even the planes. And, now, you have arrived at the end. For him… or FOR YOU! There can be no turning back!
In the course of your investigations you have found information and items that, based on the best oracles you have been able to obtain, might help you achieve your fearful goal…
[distribute rumours and items]
And now, at last, you stand on a vast barren plain strewn with boulders and bleached bone. Before you towers a huge iron skull. Inside the skull a polished cube of raw steel ten feet on a side guards the gateway to his final redoubt!
In firm unison you utter the forbidden syllables wrenched from the agonised mind of the BloodPriest of the High God GOM SHATTA’R, as he fell to his screaming doom in the Chasm of Dorn Grol’noch!
The unearthly devilforged steel smokes, wavers, begins to glow! A spot of bright red turns white, grows, and wavering streamers of scorching superheated smoke shroud the cube. The choking cloud clears and reveals an oval opening, rimmed with dripping molten metal!
You glance at each other, nod. The time for words has passed.
Cautious, resolute, you enter THE TOMB OF THE IRON LICH!
If you were to run this as a play-by-post game, what would you replace the 4 hour timer with?
21-30 days since the game start?
60 total posts by the players?
40 total posts by the DM?
Despite the great things being done with the Grind and Team Deathmatch PbP games, I generally don’t recommend playing fourthcore virtually.
However, if I had to choose, I would go with limiting the number of days the dungeoneers have to complete the adventure. However, that’s just my inclination. I have no special knowledge of PbP, so you should go with your best instinct and see how it rolls.