TDE - Revelations from Heaven

[Diamondfist]

hello DiamondFist, cool name by the way,

Does "all the PDFs" mean "Every published product through December 2017 (PDF)? Thank you!

I believe it does. And if we assume that the English releases are coming out at the same pace as the German releases we are a little over a year behind Germany, so that should be everything that is out over there at the moment, and the books coming in the next couple of months or so (so maybe, hopefully), the end of the Theatreknights campaign, the (first) Magic book and the next regional Setting (Albernia and the Windhag Mountains).

That would be well worth the 99 bucks alone But there are also the other adventures, hero works stuff, etc. And if we manage to get to say 6 months behind Germany (big if I know) then we would get the stuff coming out at the beginning of next year.

Exciting times. Exciting times indeed.

I owe you a very overdue "thank you". Thank you for responding. I had to re-read the text a few times, and it makes me feel dumb that I can't wrap my head around certain things that is obvious to other people. I finally understand it now; I wish the add-on wasn't so expensive, otherwise, I would have included it in my pledge, but it was already way more than I wanted to spend, though it was mostly worth it. Thank you again for the response and compliment.

[Lambert]

My reply here got eaten by the website gremlins a few days ago but here we are with my second attempt.

So first of all thanks for the compliment.
Secondly I went back to the original Kickstarter pledge where they said the pledge would contain approximately 30 releases. Assuming that is still true then we get the PDFs at a little over 3 bucks a pop, which is dirt cheap. Also, seeing that the Almanac PDF was included we got a rebate during that Kickstarter which I am going to spend on some flashy Add Ons So in essence the prince overall has come down a little and we might just be under the 3 bucks per PDF (still assuming 30 products).

Sure paying for it in advance is a) a stack o cash and b) putting our faith into Ulisses that they will continue to churn out quality products. But then we hear them being surprised with the first print run of the Core rules selling out before hitting release date and surely that is a sign that things are going better than expected and hence might mean they can employ more people to translate more products (like the Vademecums etc) and us the fans will end up with more stuff for this amazing game.

I am feeling rather positive about all this.

[Lanir]

I picked up a physical copy of this adventure from my local game store. It seems to indicate in the dark text box on page 12 and again on page 48 that at least some of the player handouts would be available on www.ulisses-us.com but I can't seem to find them anywhere. The text refers specifically to the maps on the inside front and back covers but if a pdf of these still needs to be made I'd request pages 57, 63 & 64 be included as they would also be useful.

Let me know where to look for these. Thanks!

[Eric USNA]

I posted the important one in this thread:

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=761

I am still making plans for an actual Downloads page on the website. I'll get that up soon, and I'll add the pages you suggest as well.

Thanks!

-Eric

[Teekayy]

For now you can use the german handouts:

http://www.ulisses-spiele.de/download/1 ... s_fdff.pdf

At least the maps should be of help.

[Lanir]

Thanks! Sorry to ask for the same thing in a different topic, my search-fu failed I guess.

[Lambert]

No,
I think it is good to remind people if something is still outstanding and there is no need for you to have searched far and wide. Also this community being still pleasant, help and answers were just a few clicks away.

Enjoy the adventure, it is a great one and will be part of my campaign.

[julianwolfe]

Where do I even begin?

Lanir ran this module for us over the last 3 weeks. It was a disappointment at best, a complete train wreck at worst. After we played, I read the module, and all I can say is, I am not at all pleased.

Spoilers follow.

► Show Spoiler

Encounter 1: Bear

This thing busts out of the woods chasing the girl. No problem, right? We have 3 100 point characters, I've built a feisty Blessed of Rondra warrior-type who takes the bear head on to let the girl get by, with the intention of taking a few hits then making a run for it. We've also got a Mohas Hunter and a Raven Witch in the party. 900 point build, 3 characters, falling within the minimums for the module.

This should have been a TPK.

We can't run, because the bear can specifically "run faster than humans"

The bear has to fail two frenzy rolls to not fight until dead.

Our witch inconveniently didn't take the only spell that would have ended the encounter immediately.

No guideline is given how to deal with when the bear both frenzies and hits 50% of HP on the same round. (this will always happen together because of how pain levels work)

The thing gets 2 attacks per round.

Again /we couldn't run/.

The GM decides that it's going to just run off despite making its second Frenzy roll, because to do so would have killed the whole group, the girl, and probably the sheep. End of adventure.

If that wasn't enough, we had part 2 in the town. The night at the inn was lots of fun to roleplay, and we had a lot of character interaction. So that took a lot of frustration out of the previous encounter.

Then you get to exploring, and nobody is there to help you. Things /have/ to be in a certain order.

The elf is a red herring, and tells you about an (optional) unhelpful reference to a dragon. (Why should we care? Are we murderhobos?)

Or he (optionally) tells you about the Owl Witch who doesn't do magic the way he thinks it should be done. (Again, not enough detail to be helpful, because everything else that comes out of his mouth is purposely garbage. How are we supposed to trust anything he says is of value?)

We did some more digging around and finally decided to scope out the Blacksmith. There isn't really anyplace to hide in plain view in town, and it's a small village so the people there are understandably suspicious of strangers just lingering doing nothing in the square, so the GM had to handwave that really glaringly obvious roleplay detail as well to let us see the Dwarf go out to the cave in the middle of the night.

Then we get to the cave and everything falls apart.

MadBeard noted some of the problems with this part of the adventure here:

Few inconsistencies:
For me it seems illogical that villagers who just became cultists (month ago tops according to timeline on page 7) have so high CTV in Basilisk tongue and Club. They surely didn't have time to train with these weapons. They are after all simple villagers.

Also it's illogical for them to all have Basilisk tongue because you can't just purchase it. Someone must craft it and then sanctify it. Blacksmith is very busy with creating a statue and only became under influence couple of days ago so from where are these daggers came from?

Under Cultist combat behavior says:

The cultists attack heroes with superior numbers and like to employ Feints with their basilisk tongue daggers.

But they don't have Feint special ability.
It seems to me that Cultist stat block is for generic cultist stat block and was probably copy/paste from some other source.

We have no idea what we're dealing with. We have a cult of the nameless one in front of us as we try and sneak up on them. But there's only 3 of us! These guys are utterly capable and have rediculous damage, and of course because it's the nameless one, there's an unadjustable 13 enemies to fight or at least take damage from. Furthermore, the module calls for 3 to a character in the wolf rats that we skipped.

To Sarah: Did you even do the math on this? Did you look at how this cave is laid out? We avoided two combats by sneaking behind and STILL got creamed.

I run in, take damage from 6 guys at once intending to just go in and stop the ceremony. Raven fails to hit the innkeeper to distract her. I managed to land one solid blow and am cut to half my LP. Everyone rolls badly for several rounds and loses all of their fate points as I pick up Praionde and try to GTFO. The GM handwaves the rest because we're facing yet another TPK.

We failed to obtain the true plot point of the adventure (the meteor stone) and thus basically missed the big story reward, and the nameless one's cult got away.

We would have been better off joining them and just derailing the module.

In short: If you want this module for the town, go ahead. That part is great. But the rest of it is a poster child for how to frustrate both the players and the GM, and the designers should be ashamed of passing this off as playable. This whole thing was frustrating to no end. For $20, I truly expect better.

What a shame. I was really excited for this. It was supposed to be our first big module.

In short: Skip this, buy Justice and Noble Valor if you can get it. That one was a blast.

I'm sorry if I've been absent from the forums for a bit, but we actually have been playing a LOT of this game, and I'll try to get more reviews up. I think we've exhausted most of the Kickstarter modules and Justice and Noble Valor at this point. All we haven't played are The Thorwal Drum and A Goblin More or Less.

[Flash]

► Show Spoiler

But there's only 3 of us! These guys are utterly capable and have rediculous damage, and of course because it's the nameless one, there's an unadjustable 13 enemies to fight or at least take damage from.

I don't have the adventure at hand at the moment look at your points but I Think I remember there being an option for downgrading the number of fighting cultists by making them basically frightened non combatants.

Sad to hear you had such a bad experience with the adventure. But then the adventures isn't among TDE's best. When I am feeling generously then it is middle of the road with the added pitfall that is suffers from being the first written for the new edition.

I like some of the Hero Work ones like for example Witch's Dance much better.

Generally speaking: Adjusting combat difficulty is somewhat a combination of acquired skill and art for TDE gamemasters. Combat effectiveness of groups can vary a lot thanks to the open way you can build your characters. A cake walk for one starting group can be a potential TPK for another group depending on how you build and equip (Armor is so huge... ) your characters.

To come back to the adventure. Yes the choice of the opponent for the first fight is somewhat questionable for a beginning group. But the it is also helpful to establish how dangerous mere animals can be in TDE.

[Lambert]

I have read the adventure and am using it as the Corner of my campaign. I.E. this village is important in some of the ongoing plots and PCs will visit here from time to time. I was surprised by your dislike for it and I have a couple of comments.

1) The adventure asks for 3-5 heroes with 900-1200 AP
So if you are playing it at the very bottom power level 3 character with 900 points then it is the same as playing a computer game on hard setting. As the Games Master you might wish to slightly turn down the stats of encounters and the like. In the adventure there are often suggestions on how to make key scenes harder, if your party is breezing through them, or easier if the party is struggling.

2) Not everything needs to be fought
A hungry animal could be placated with say a killed sheep, scared away with flames, be evaded to an area where it cannot follow. People can generally be reasoned with, intimidated, convinced or bribed. Of course you can stand in front of everything and have a straight up fight if you must, but that option is only suitable if you have a party that is particularly good at that sort of thing.