Adventurer's League Season 2 (Part 5, Lower Track)

All right Game Fans, we’re continuing with our look at the 2nd season of the Adventurer’s League for Dungeons and Dragons, 5th edition.  Unlike last season, we’re not going to take these adventures in numeric order, but we’ve split them up into two different tracks based off of their suggested character level.  Today we’re looking at two adventures for the lower level track, DDEX 2-11: Oubliette of Fort Iron, and DDEX 2-12: Dark Rites at Fort Dalton.  Let’s dive in, and take a closer look at the next part of Season 2

DDEX 2-11 Oubliette of Fort Iron

All right Game Fans, Season 2 of Adventurer”s League (The Elemental Evil Story Arc) picks up with mischief at Fort Iron.  The ancient stronghold was once a seat of power for the dark dwarves known as duergar.  Hidden beneath that ancient structure are tunnels and caverns that were never fully explored.  Something stirs in that ancient redoubt, will a band of adventurers be able to avert a crisis?  

DDEX 2-11: Oubliette of Fort Iron, is designed for 1st thru 4th level characters, with an average party size of 5 suggested.  For Adventurer’s League play, the level range is a hard ceiling, and characters of 5th level or higher are not playable in this adventure.  This specific adventure is built to run in two parts with a brief introduction.  Remember to bring your D & D Survival Kit with you when you show up to game.

Note: This adventure is slotted to take up two hours of time, so plan accordingly with your timing and you can potentially run this adventure and the one that follows it, Dark Rites at Fort Dalton in the same evening.    

Note 2:  This adventure has a fairly close timetable for the DM to follow, so make sure you’re keeping track of time the way you’re supposed to, DM.

Adventure Introduction

The adventure itself takes place north of Mulmaster in the small town of Point Iron.  There are four different potential hooks for getting the adventurers to Point Iron, two of which are faction assignments.  Regardless of how the characters have gotten to Point Iron, they make contact with a local business person who’s offering them a job.  The job offer comes with some free gear and a chunk of whatever’s to be found at the site.  

Part 1: Point Iron

The first part of this adventure is astonishingly sort.  If the characters need to pick up any extra gear before they head out, they have the option to do so.  They can also try to pick up some local rumors, but before you know it, they’re off and running.  They encounter an interesting NPC, (actually a recurring character from Season 1) who makes life a little more interesting.  Beyond that, it’s a pretty quick trip to the next part.  

Part 2: The Oubliette

This section of the adventure is a much longer dungeon crawling experience.  It’s a classic dungeon crawl in the sense that there are traps to manage, secrets to find, and monsters to overcome.  This is a very enjoyable dungeon crawling experience that provides a couple of different challenges that offer multiple ways of solving them.  Take your time and enjoy the experience of the dungeon crawl.  Concluding this portion of the adventure (and the adventure itself) can put the adventurers in possession of an unusual magical item that they will have to decide what to do with.  Once they’ve made this decision, (if necessary), the adventure concludes and it’s time to count up the treasure and loot.

Aftermath:

So as a character in the adventurer’s league, you have three primary rewards you’re aiming for, and the occasional extra bit of stuff.  Let’s go over your Downtime Days, your Experience Points, Your Gold Pieces, and your renown.    If you’re not playing in an Adventurer’s League group, you don’t need to track these on your log sheet, but keep an eye on your numbers.

·         Experience Points:  For completing this adventure, your character will gain anywhere between 225 and 300 experience points, depending on how things end up going and how many people are playing.  If this is your first adventure in your Adventurer’s League career, you are still likely level 1, but a good play experience could get you enough to get to level 2.  If you’re continuing from DDEX 2-10, you’ll end up with between 4,750 and 6,200 experience points.  This puts you firmly in the middle of level 4.  Level 4 gives you the option of using the catching up usage of Downtime that will let you trade downtime days to get to level 5.  

·         Gold Pieces:  This one’s a little trickier, because GP is calculated based off of the number of players at a table.  There’s enough treasure available that you should certainly be able to pick up some extra supplies or replace ones that you expended during the adventure.  Keep an eye out for any handy magical items that may show up.  

·         Downtime Days:  This one’s easy.  Everyone gets 5 downtime days for playing through this adventure.  If you are continuing from Cloaks and Shadows, you should end up with 80 Downtime Days.  

·         Renown: All faction members receive 1 point of renown for participating in this adventure.  If the adventure hook was a faction assignment from either the Lord’s Alliance or the Emerald Enclave, members of that faction can earn an additional point of renown.

Favor/Enmity: Depending on what the characters decide to do with the item at the conclusion of the adventure, a character may end up with the Seed of Fel Earth.  

So now that you’ve completed Oubliette at Fort Iron check your character, level up if you need to, pick up additional gear and get ready for the next adventure.

DDEX 2-12 Dark Rites at Fort Dalton

All right Game Fans, Season 2 of Adventurer”s League (The Elemental Evil Story Arc) continues with a mystery. Fort Dalton suffered a disastrous fate long ago, but rumors circulate that the old complex is active again.  Someone must investigate these rumors and deal with the denizens of Fort Dalton.

DDEX 2-12: Cloaks and Shadows, is designed for 1st thru 4th level characters, with an average party size of 5 suggested.  For Adventurer’s League play, the level range is a hard ceiling, and characters of 5th level or higher are not playable in this adventure.  This specific adventure is built to run in three parts.  There is a short introduction that brings the characters to Fort Dalton.  Remember to bring your D & D Survival Kit with you when you show up to game.  

Part 1:  Exploring Fort Dalton

Once the adventure begins, the characters have to explore the ruins of the old structure at Fort Dalton.  There are several ways to explore this area, and both treasures and troubles to be found.  Ultimately, the investigation will bring the characters into another location, which kicks off part 2 of this adventure.  There are several intelligent enemies in this adventure that are both capable of thinking independently and working together to deal with interlopers, so keep your thinking caps on.

Part 2: The Bathhouse

Basically the only structure left standing, the Bathhouse is a location that is at the heart of the rumored cult activity.  There are cultists banging around the ruins causing mischief.  The area itself is fairly small, but contains the entrance to the next part of the adventure.  Keep your thinking caps on, there are a lot of potential trickery from the cultists in this area, and they have some potentially violent friends.  This part flows naturally into Part 3

Part 3:  Into the Maelstrom

The finale of this adventure takes place inside an elemental node.  This might be the first time the adventurers have encountered one, but if they’ve been playing since the start of the season, then this should be a different experience, not a new one.  There’s a rescue that needs to be made, and an evil priestess to overcome.  Like most of the villains we’ve seen so far today, there are bad guys lurking about in case of outbreaks of heroic deeds.  You’re going to have to earn your victory today, heroes.  Once the rescue has been completed, the adventurers can conclude this adventure.  

Aftermath:

So as a character in the adventurer’s league, you have three primary rewards you’re aiming for, and the occasional extra bit of stuff.  Let’s go over your Downtime Days, your Experience Points, Your Gold Pieces, and your renown.    If you’re not playing in an Adventurer’s League group, you don’t need to track these on your log sheet, but keep an eye on your numbers.

·         Experience Points:  This adventure rewards between 225 and 300 experience points for completing it, depending on how things went.  If this is your first night at Adventurer’s League, you are probably still 1st level, though you might have made it to 2nd level.  If you’re playing this adventure after you’ve completed Oubliette of Fort Iron, you’re going to have between 4,975 and 6,500 experience points.  Your character is definitely 4th level at this point, and you might have made it to level 5..  Level 4 gives you the option of using the catching up usage of Downtime that will let you trade downtime days to get to level 5

·         Gold Pieces:  This one’s a little trickier, because GP is calculated based off of the number of players at a table.  There’s enough treasure available that you should certainly be able to pick up some extra supplies or replace ones that you expended during the adventure.  Keep an eye out for any handy magical items that may show up.

·         Downtime Days:  This one’s easy.  Everyone gets 10 downtime days for playing through this adventure.  If you are continuing from Oubliette of Fort Iron you should have 85 downtime days.

·         Renown:  Each player completing this adventure earns a point of renown with their faction.  

Optional Downtime Use:  This adventure has several optional usages for downtime that can only be used following the conclusion of this adventure.  This costs the character 10 downtime days, and can have a variety of effects, depending on the selection made.  

Favor/Enmity: The characters can also pick up a new favor involving finding a missing loved one or family member, depending on how they arrived at Fort Dalton.  

So now that you’ve completed Dark Rites at Fort Dalton, check your character, level up if you need to, pick up additional gear and get ready for the next adventure.

All right Game Fans, that’s our review of these two adventures.  Next week we’ll be back to finish up our look at the Lower Level Experience Point Track for Season 2 with DDEX 2-16: Boltsmelter’s Book  If you need to check back on the rest of our season 2 write up, you can find it here: http://zardozgames.blogspot.com/p/adventurers-league-season-2-compilation.html

Game on, Game Fans, we’ll see you next week