The Dungeons of Aufstrag ~ some spoilers!

[Tadhg]

Jason Walton!

Beautiful cover and fantastic black and white interior art!

The book is packed! 128 pages - I hadn't realized it would be that big.

The dungeons are excellent. Very cool, very interesting. Not your boring, done before mega dungeon at all. Something more. Since the dungeons are part of Aufstrag which has been at the core of the Winter Dark, Unklar and the legends and lore of Aihrde, it has a very real feeling. There is history there.

The Trolls cover much of the basic history/lore in the intro, so one doesn't even need the Codex or Folio to use this book. Although, having those books and the complete A series will only enhance the gaming experience for your players.

Can't wait to "delve" into and read the book.

My only wish is that TLG creates large maps of the dungeons, since those in the book look great but are very small due to the size of them having to be printed on a single page.

Another "Well Done" to the Trolls.

This book is a must have, if you enjoy running your games in Aihrde.

[Treebore]

Took advantage of the 50% off sale and ordered the print/PDF combo for this just now.

[Treebore]

First impressions:

Artwork is pretty sparse, with less than 1 piece per 4 pages. There was one section where I scrolled through at least 6 pages with no artwork.

Cartography looks really good.

Bummed that this only covers 5 of the 21 main levels, but at over 120 pages (135 with cartography, etc...), its a lot of content.

I hope the Trolls plan on eventually giving us all 21 of the main levels. I also hope they take a lot less than a Decade to do so.

[Tadhg]

Cool, Tree.

How do the dungeons look when you zoom in?

I might have to pick up the PDF, just so I can see them.

[Treebore]

Cool, Tree.

How do the dungeons look when you zoom in?

I might have to pick up the PDF, just so I can see them.

Nice and crisp. Definitely order the PDF now at 50% off using the ADVENTURES50 code.

[mgtremaine]

Code invalid...NOOOOOO I was about to buy this.

-Mike

[koralas]

Odd it worked for me.

[Tadhg]

It occurs to me that I shouldn't have to buy the PDF because the dungeon maps are tiny and I can't read them. I think I'll sent a suggestion to Steve. Mebbe he could put them on a separate PDF for those of us that purchased the book.

[Tadhg]

I'm also thinking that cross-cut/cross section renderings of the dungeon maps (a la Gaxmoor) would be fabulous as well as some drawings of some of the sections/areas/domains for visual coolness for the players to see along with the descriptions of said locations.

And . . in color, of course!

Mebbe, they have this in mind for a full release or KICK.

[Tadhg]

OK, got a PDF and can zoom in on the dungeon maps. They are outstanding.

Peter did a fantastic job here!

[Tadhg]

So, one of the 1st monsters that a party might encounter in The Bone Pit is a bone devil.

The stats say he can summon a pit fiend. I wonder if this is a typo.

The bone devil in the MM can summon another bone devil.

If this in not a typo, then your party is going to die!!!

[I don't believe the pit fiend has been done for C&C, correct? Is he one of those that can't be used?]

[mmbutter]

Both the Bone Devil and the Pit Fiend are in the Crusader's Companion. The writeup in the CC for the Bone Devil says it can summon and equal or lesser demon (and the Pit Fiend is a lesser demon in that writeup).

[Treebore]

So, one of the 1st monsters that a party might encounter in The Bone Pit is a bone devil.

The stats say he can summon a pit fiend. I wonder if this is a typo.

The bone devil in the MM can summon another bone devil.

If this in not a typo, then your party is going to die!!!

[I don't believe the pit fiend has been done for C&C, correct? Is he one of those that can't be used?]

It is written up for C&C, but I considered it so under powered I wrote up my own version of it, which is posted somewhere in the monsters forum.

[Treebore]

Haven't found mine, but I found the great series Kaiserkris posted in the monster forums, and found his version of the Pit Fiend...

https://www.trolllord.com/forums/viewto ... 28&t=10495

[Tadhg]

Thanks for the replies!! Still checking and digesting . . [sorry - I wasn't sure where this thread was going and then realized I should add a spoiler warning - and did so in the title].

[Tadhg]

OK, I did find the stats for the pit fiend later in this book (pg 87). It mentions where it's from ~ Tome of the Unclean!

Wow, I completely forgot about that book. I need to pick up a copy for sure!

Reading through A14 today!

[spudeus]

I admit I've been wondering about Tome of the Unclean - the TLG store has it in PDF only, but I thought I saw that it is slated for paper publication?

[Treebore]

I admit I've been wondering about Tomb of the Unclean - the TLG store has it in PDF only, but I thought I saw that it is slated for paper publication?

Yeah, but the author reportedly had a fit over some criticism he had received over his decisions on his write ups, so quit the project. We haven't had any updates on this project for going on close to two years now. Certainly no more PDF "issues" have been added since the author quit and went home.

(Yes, I am pretty sure I was the "criticism " he couldn't handle.IE how wimpy he was making things, such as the Pit Fiend.)

[serleran]

Wouldn't know but I still have my demons I wrote a long, long time ago.

[Tadhg]

I admit I've been wondering about Tomb of the Unclean - the TLG store has it in PDF only, but I thought I saw that it is slated for paper publication?

Yeah, but the author reportedly had a fit over some criticism he had received over his decisions on his write ups, so quit the project. We haven't had any updates on this project for going on close to two years now. Certainly no more PDF "issues" have been added since the author quit and went home.

(Yes, I am pretty sure I was the "criticism " he couldn't handle.IE how wimpy he was making things, such as the Pit Fiend.)

Well that's a bummer.

Kim is a great guy and I thought he did a bang up job on Classic Monsters.

[Tadhg]

(Yes, I am pretty sure I was the "criticism " he couldn't handle.IE how wimpy he was making things, such as the Pit Fiend.)

Hmm, the pit fiend stats in the Aufstrag book seem to be pretty darn close to the stats in the Monster Manual.

Perhaps they improved upon them since they did the Tome of the Unclean.

???

[Treebore]

(Yes, I am pretty sure I was the "criticism " he couldn't handle.IE how wimpy he was making things, such as the Pit Fiend.)

Hmm, the pit fiend stats in the Aufstrag book seem to be pretty darn close to the stats in the Monster Manual.

Perhaps they improved upon them since they did the Tome of the Unclean.

???

Yeah, he was staying pretty "loyal" to the 1E version of the Demons and Devils, just like he did for Classic Monsters. Just in my experience, even for 1E AD&D, they were far too wimpy for higher level characters. The only thing that made Demons/devils truly scary in 1E, is if they succeeded at gating in even more demons or devils, and got a good sized horde attacking. I was wanting them to be more appropriate for higher level parties such as 12th level and above. 1E Demons and Devils were never much of a challenge at higher levels, unless they got the good sized hordes summoned.

I much rather have them powerful enough to be a challenge all on their own.

[mgtremaine]

I did some more generic conversion in there also. Not as cool as Kaiserkris stuff but should be pretty familiar for the 1E crowd.

https://www.trolllord.com/forums/viewto ... 50#p203250

Sorry to hear that Kim stopped working on the Tome of Unclean. I bought it and like even if I agreed it needed more punch.

-Mike

[Treebore]

I did some more generic conversion in there also. Not as cool as Kaiserkris stuff but should be pretty familiar for the 1E crowd.

https://www.trolllord.com/forums/viewto ... 50#p203250

Sorry to hear that Kim stopped working on the Tome of Unclean. I bought it and like even if I agreed it needed more punch.

-Mike

Yeah, he was doing a good "translation", the only reason I even argued for making them more powerful was because Steve made a comment, well, more than a comment, had an entire conversation, at a convention about needing more higher level monsters in their books for the few campaigns, such as mine, that even get into the higher levels. Demons and Devils are a great opportunity to get just that.

On my own, I power up whatever I want to give myself what I need for my campaign.

[Tadhg]

I did some more generic conversion in there also. Not as cool as Kaiserkris stuff but should be pretty familiar for the 1E crowd.

https://www.trolllord.com/forums/viewto ... 50#p203250

Sorry to hear that Kim stopped working on the Tome of Unclean. I bought it and like even if I agreed it needed more punch.

-Mike

Cool, thanks for posting - I'll check it out tomorrow!

[Tadhg]

As y'all know, The M&T of Aihrde has some really tough beasties and demons/devils for sure. I'll have to review that book tomorrow as well.