ASC3 Review - The Sanctuary of the Black Buddha
Adventure Site Contest 3 review
This adventure was submitted for consideration in Adventure Site Contest 3 being run by Ben Gibson at Coldlight Press. This is an unofficial review, which was written prior to reading (or watching) any of the official judges’ reviews. Links to the official reviews are at the bottom of the review.
* Failing grade. The adventure doesn’t meet minimum standards of playability.
** I could see running this, but it fails to inspire me or has significant playability issues.
*** I would consider running this.
**** I am considering running this.
***** I want to run this. Now.
The
Sanctuary of the Black Buddha
By Seb
Howell
For
AD&D
Levels
5-7 (7-9 characters)
Play
testing group detailed
Time to grok the adventure: 20 min
Set-up:
A rogue general, Tak Shimin, has begun taxing trade with a band of 150 men (presumably, ex-soldiers). The party is likely getting involved either to rob the robber or to exterminate a thorn in the side of the local nobility, though I like the third rumour best:
“An august cleric of law came from the Capital to command Tak Shimin to return to his post, he was stoned to death by the loyal lieutenants of the General, and the bejewelled cudgel, symbol of his office, now lies pride of place in the bandit’s horde.”
Specific treasure sells adventure hooks.
Things I like:
The scenario could play out as a straightforward assault on the bandit’s fort, but the fort isn’t mapped or given much detail, so this might present a challenge for the GM. The expectation is that the party will sneak past the fort and head to an old Buddhist sanctuary, where the treasure is kept.
The sanctuary itself is given sufficient detail including an obvious guard (a LE hill giant), a derelict neighbouring building (the party will get punished for dilly-dallying), and a secret bandit camp (the party will get punished for not scouting).
The sanctuary has interesting protective effects, which will punish those players who chose Chaotic alignments because they don’t want their character to have morals. This gets a thumb’s-up from this GM.
The adventure assumes that the assault on the sanctuary will be relatively easily, but then the clock starts ticking if the alarm bell has been wrung and then there is either a race to collect treasure (much of which is very heavy) or a large pitched battle with some heavily artillery in the form of a 7th level magic-user, whose spells seem well-chosen for this type of fight, for example, they have slotted magic missile, charm person, darkness 15’ radius, pyrotechnics, lightning bolt, dispel magic, hold person, and my favourite, plant growth, which could serious hinder the escape of a party holed up in the sanctuary.
Things to note:
The main bad guys sleep in the sanctuary at night with minimal protection. Based on this, I would have expected either the protective powers of the Sanctuary to be more powerful, or there to be more guards (or patrols who could then summon more guards). This could be seen to reward an intelligent part with good scouting, but likely, the party would try to sneak in and attack at night whether or not they scouted well. (An easy way to rectify this would be to have the main bad guys sleep there during the day.)
There is a stat block for Xiu Qi Di, fighter 6. As this is the highest-level fighter, this is presumably General Tak Shimin.
There is a reference to the magic-user having magical devices, but none are mentioned, and there is no stat block for the magic-user.
There are references to other locations, such as a shrine, a pilgrimage route and a cavern mouth. GMs should welcome the openings for interconnections but should be close them up if they are not needed.
There are few moving parts and different maps which took a while to understand, but I think it holds up.
Rating:
***1/2 A solid adventure featuring an underserviced scenario type and a cool piece of treasure
Link to official judges’ reviews:
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