Preps and Props

A couple of days ago, I talked about running "The Last Breaths of Ashenport" in one of my current campaigns. The adventure, as written, is scaled for a party of 6th level PCs. Since my party consists of two 12th level PCs, I've had to do a few modifications.

First thing I did was scale up the fish-men of Dagon, who form the backbone of the PCs opposition. As written, they are CR 3 opponents. Since they've got AC 18 and 16 hp each, these poor bastards are gonna go down fast and hard unless I beef them up (the Paladin in my campaign often deals in excess of 70 damage when charging on his hippogriff... he lovingly calls this an Orbital Strike).

Using this awesome generator courtesy of Dingle's Games, I made the fish men 5th level fighters instead of 1st level rogues. Updated, they now stack in at 50hp a pop and AC 24. Hopefully they'll stick around a little longer when it comes to blows.

After scaling some other encounters, next up on the list was to come up with a couple of props. As stated in the Yax's illustrious campaign builder, props can really make a game feel special, and I try to use them as often as possible. Since everybody loves maps, that became my first order of business. I printscreened the map out of my Last Breaths of Ashenport pdf and opened it in Paint. It took me a little while, but I eventually got rid of all the tags. I printed it out and mounted it on the cardboard backing of an old yellow notepad. The result was a sturdy, simple map for the PCs to enjoy.

Since everyone is away for spring break, I'll have to wait a few days before we game next; but this should give me some time to do a little more prep.

The map of Ashenport above is, aside from my minor alterations, the work of cartographer Mike Schley.