The Thamus Blade - Solo adventure

markyx16

The Thamus Blade

The Thamus Blade: NWS-DACTUKWMX
Chapter 1 - Rescuing Answers: NW-DC64NKE5B
Chapter 2 - Following the Horde: NW-DHVMWBW9D
Chapter 3 - Memories: NW-DJHWOYMOY

One of your contacts told you about a dwarf sage named Altair. He has a knack of historical items and owns a book store called the Introvert.

He is looking for a mercenary, although the details around his intentions aren't clear. Time to pay him a visit.

Quest type: Heavy Combat with a Light Story
Completion time per chapter: Under 30 minutes
Starting Area: Protector's Enclave
Difficulty: Medium to Hard.

The campaign is designed around short but enjoyable straight forward dungeon crawls. The first chapter is my first foundry quest, and the second chapter is designed to be much more straightforward (although a bit of twist via story at the end). The third one is longest out of the bunch, with a heavy mixture of dialog and combat.

markyx16

Made a few extra changes to the two chapters. Mainly cosmetics, and ways to see the flavor text much better.

markyx16

Heavy modifications done to the encounters and narration in Chapter 2.

wezbob42

Just played part 1.
What I liked - The vistas in the open areas, enough details to make it look natural, but not so many that it feels forced.
The dungeon crawl was fun, and the fights were pretty well balanced (40 rogue)
The lack of waypoints might make some people grumpy, but your map was intuitive enough if you'd been paying attention to where you'd been

Issues I noticed - Many of the traps are too far into the floor to be disarmed.
One goblin in the last group before key boss spawned stuck in the wall
I needed to kite the bosses group to stay alive during the fight, which is good, more challenging, however the group of archers that spawn as the first group to fight on the way out of the room, spawned on my head since i had been kiting and killed me. I am assuming those are the next series of enemies to be encountered after the bosses chest... I would suggest making using that chest spawn them rather than the bosses death. If you meant it to be evil... it worked. (Nothing wrong with evil dungeon masters, they tend to be the best)

I'll Play part two tonight or tomorrow and give you feedback.
Overall enjoyable, just my style of combat driven with enough story elements and character development to give purpose without drowning in lore.

I'd appreciate feedback from authors for my first full length mission as well - Thread is here - http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?243942-In-Blacklake-It-Waits-Dreaming

Look forward to more, subscribed.

wezbob42

Tried part 2 this evening, was unable to finish. After killing the boss before 'teleport to Nima' I was out in the hall before the room and the effects that pop up after that fight prevented me from entering it and getting to the teleporter. (Purple Flame on a rune circle)

markyx16

I updated the first one to make some changes with the skeleton. I'm still debating on whether or not the last fight is "too much" since I'm mixing standard with hard. Yet at the same time, the Savage is pretty slow and probably one of the least challenging elites in the game. I also increased the elevation some of the traps, and removed the ones in the Chief's room.

I also pushed the purple "flamewall" way back further as you mentioned. I didn't realize a fight can go back that far.

wezbob42

Oh, no neither end fight was too hard. they were both enjoyable. Just as a 40 rogue with a crappy cleric companion that maxed out at 15... I tend to use the environment as much as I can, and that location where the purple fire was in the second one, as well as where those skeletons spawned in the first one were both excellent bottlenecks for line of sighting stuff. I wouldn't touch the difficulty, some people seem to think foundry missions should be story OR combat focused, but I really enjoy ones with a good mix of both, I don't mind what some would consider a 'grindy' foundry mish with a whole lot of encounters like what I saw of the 2nd one if there's a good point to it, and your storytelling is great. I'm looking forward to replaying part 2 tomorrow

markyx16

Giving this a quick bump since Chapter 3 (the final one) is done.

voivodak

Hi markyx, I'm willing to try your campaign very soon, maybe in the afternoon (morning here now ). The comments that you've received have made it seems interesting. I would be happy if you could return the favor.
My quest is in signature.

voivodak

okay, I played your quest with a friend. Now I'll tell you my impressions. We were a GF lvl 37 and lvl 31 DC.
In general I can say I really liked it. The meetings were easy but surely this depends solely on the fact that there were two. I liked also very much the story. It is not confusing but realistic and it may be followed with ease (I say this because lately I've played in many quests with a convoluted plot). The dungeon's structure is the thing I liked the most. Many rooms and well detailed.
I only played the first chapter. This night i'll play the second chapter because I'm really curious to know how it continues the saga of the Thamus blade

My quest is in sign if you want return the favor and review it

coanunn

Marky, Just finished running your quest. Unfortunately I have to say I was a bit put off by the multiple stacked encounters. That aside the story is well written and very enjoyable. Where the real issue is would be your decoration in the caves. All the places you used the fences you didn't use invisible walls to prevent the player, monsters, loot, etc to get stuck behind them. I got stuck behind one in the war room, I had multiple fights where a monster got stuck on/behind them and nearly every fight I had loot that when it "falls" would fall behind the fences. This can all be solved by lining those with invisible walls. To quote Zovya, players are like sand at the beach, they get in all the places you didn't expect and aren't comfortable of your bathing suit. Invisible walls are your friend.

Hope my feedback helps.

markyx16

Your feedback does help and I just published two of my quests with these changes. I didn't think of it before!

As for the encounters, I stack them to add different variety in the fight. For example, having just the savage with the orcs isn't interesting. Having the Savage with an undead thing summoning minions makes the encounters way more interesting. The way I stack it is either easy + easy or standard + easy. Only time where there is some challenge is via the end with hard + standard.

And based on the feedback I'm getting, no one is really complaining about it saying it's too hard or too easy.