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I've been looking for a good first campaign for my returning 3.0 veteran group. I found the slumbering tsar campaign which looks interesting, but you need to be 7th level tobegin. My group agreed they didn't want to attempt 7th level characters after not playing for this long. In steps the crypt of the everflame and your podcast.

You saved me a lot of time, and backtracking by telling me everything I needed to know about the pitfalls of this module and the two after it. Being able to see the entire three module scope of the campaign has allowed me to customize it to a level I wouldn't have before. Knowing about the XP shortages really helped also, and I was able to tailor encounters that fit the game and covered those gaps.

Excellent details on those shows. I look forward to catching up on the rest of the podcasts as soon as possible.

My players are currently running a human barbarian, a dwarf cleric, an elf wizard and a human paladin. There is a rogue who would like to join us, but hasn't had time yet. I expect a TPK if they don't get a rogue going at some point. I gave them a choice between going with a 15 point buy and gentle "kid gloves" DMing, or a 25 point buy with higher encounter difficulty and they chose the 25 point buy. I didn't think it would overpower the PCs much anyway since the extra 10 points is often blown on just another +1 or +2 total ability scores trying to reach an 18.

I adjusted the module away from the somewhat insulting "you guys are kids and we're making a haunted house" to having the players encounter a dozen bandits with a highwayman (serving as leader, CR8 encounter I found out later btw). They were able to force the highwayman to surrender and negotiated the bandit problem away from the area which allowed the town to finally celebrate the everflame again. Though the party was a tad old, the town decided it should be them to kick things off again and go light the flame.

They made it to the entrance where I added some zombies tearing apart an almost survivor because I wanted a "things just got real" moment. The zombies gave them a lot of trouble surprisingly, they do hit hard. That's where the second session will pick up. The players loved it, thanks again for your podcast!

Welcome to the game & cast Hatch!

Steel & I were recently telling Mark Moreland, who oversees the 32 page module development, that they need to do another mini-arch in that line...

-Az