I’ve just spent some of my lunch hour reading through Tim "Shroomy" Eagon’s just-published Dungeon Magazine adventure, "The Oasis of the Golden Peacock". Did I enjoy it? Yes, I did.
What we have is a vaguely-Arabian Nights themed adventure (although, in this one, the beautiful princess seems to be kidnapping the scholar) with a number of really great links to the world of eladrin and the fey. Given how much I enjoy the fey as part of 4e (I ignored them in 3e), it’s already got a pretty good start.
Probably the most frustrating thing about the adventure is also one of its better features: it really reads as part of a larger tale. Yes, the adventure itself is self contained. You need to rescue the scholar and, assuming you are part of a competent party, you will and everything resolves nicely. However, that’s not all of it – there are lots of things going on here that warrant expansion by the DM. The main villainess has background material that could influence your campaign if you want it to. The setting – the oasis itself – is full of unexplored potential.
It’s hard for me to judge the merits of the tactical encounters on a brief readthrough, so I’ll largely pass over them here. There are some fun ones (I love the secluded lovers), and the adventure is also written so combat isn’t necessary all the time – another great point in its favour.
A sidepoint: There are a few eladrin described as "mamluks" in the text. This made me sit up and blink since I’ve recently acquired a copy of the GBoH expansion Mamluk. Did you know that the Mamluks were originally slave soldiers that converted to Islam and were trained as horse-warriors? I didn’t – Wikipedia to the rescue. Seeing them as infantry in this adventure threw me a bit (since I’m thinking of them in terms of Devil’s Horsemen), but props to Tim for using such an evocative word – even if I’m not quite sure of its proper use!
There are two skill challenges that I noticed in the adventure. Skill challenges are probably the hardest design element in 4e to get right, so I was fascinated to see how Tim handled them in this adventure. Hmm.
The first is a negotiation encounter. I have a problem with many skill challenges, and that is when it’s too easy for a one character to go "Diplomacy, Diplomacy, Diplomacy, Diplomacy" with everyone else sitting back (or aiding). This one (mostly) falls prey to that. Yes, it does change skills required halfway through – a nice touch – but it lacks good group interaction. Most skill challenges I’ve seen have that problem: they tend to be single character challenges. (For negotiation challenges, I’m not sure of the solution, either).
The other challenge occurs in the middle of a combat, so that only one or two characters are taking part isn’t so much of a problem. One trick that recent skill challenge developers have used is limiting the number of successes a single skill can gain. Good trick. Unfortunately, this one is greatly restrictive on those skills. You can get 4 successes through Skill #1, 4 successes through Skill #2, and 1 success through Skill #3. You need 6 successes to succeed. At this point, I sort of marvel at the design, but not, alas, in a good way. Honestly, this would do far better with no limitations on skill #1 and skill #2. It’s taking part during a combat and is a time-critical element. One character would take 6 rounds to complete it (assuming all successes), which is a very, very long time to be out of a combat – especially as it’s very unlikely they can go all the way!
However, apart from the skill challenge problems, everything else in the adventure seems fine.
I would imagine that the biggest problem facing potential DMs of this adventure – assuming that those DMs are running ongoing campaigns – is the setting. A desert setting is not quite standard. I’d be very tempted to recast this adventure into a demiplane and have the scholar kidnapped from the "real" world; it’d fit in well with a lot of the rest of my Greyhawk campaign at present (I’ve even got a potential scholar-target!) Alas, given I’m currently in the middle of a demiplane adventure, I doubt I could throw this at the same group immediately. That’s a pity -they’re at the proper level to undertake it!
So, that’s my preliminary review of The Oasis of the Golden Peacock. Is it worth considering? Definitely. Go, read it and have fun.
I don’t run any 4E games (though I’m finally about to play in one), but the skill challenge idea is something I’ve implemented in my own ways over the years on multiple occasions. In my current campaign, I had one PC who devoted a lot of his skill points to Diplomacy, so I’ve made sure to throw decent diplomatic challenges at him.
Now, my game has always been very focused on roleplaying, to the point where the rules would often become a secondary consideration to the natural flow of a scene, so I once had this very same player approach me (years ago, now) and complain that he didn’t see the point in putting any ranks into social skills since all that ever seemed to matter was our actual interaction at the table. So I made sure, after that point, to make my system a little more transparent.
Roleplaying does make a difference in any negotiation – a PC who has a decently high Diplomacy but approaches the king with insults (intentionally or not) – will not simply get to sit back and enjoy the fruits of his heavily augmented skill checks. But… the check is still important. I just use the roleplaying to modify the results somewhat, and use the checks to guide my roleplaying of the NPCs.
So when it came to complex negotiations, other PCs present could choose to lend their aid in various ways, which turned out to include the application of other skills – gathering information regarding the mark’s personal affiliations and disposition, planning clandestine meetings with underworld contacts, sneaking into someone’s lair to get the goods on them, convincing other notables to lean on the mark in some fashion, incurring favor with the mark or his affiliates through unrelated events… whatever I could come up with.
It’s obviously more than simply walkin’ up and talkin’ to a guy, but it seems that interesting skill challenges could be built that way.
Merric, thanks for the great review. I’m kind of kicking myself that I didn’t realize that the mamluk’s were principally cavalry (and I’m pretty sure I read that Wikipedia entry several times), even if Najid fights from atop his camel; basically, I wanted to describe the stock eladrin warriors using a term for “warrior” or “soldier” from the Middle East. Mamluk immediately came to mind.
Honestly, the skill challenges were somewhat difficult to write. I wanted to avoid the one character repeatedly rolling problem, which is why I happened to use the hard limit on the applicable skills. I really love the idea of Skill Challenges, so this was a good experience, but I definitely want to improve upon any future ones I write. I’m definitely going to try to get my hands on that skill challenge from the MM2 Gameday adventure; you’re not the first person to rave about that particular skill challenge.
If you run the adventure, please let me know how it goes. That applies to anyone reading these comments. Thanks!