SJ Module Review & Conversion: The Burning Plague (updated repost)

SJ Module Review & Conversion:  The Burning Plague

This free adventure can be found at:
http://wizards.com/dnd/article1.asp?x=dnd/oa/oa20000801a,3

Fix:
It is glaringly obvious that Jakk has no domain spells or powers
listed.  Grant him the evil and strength domains including attendant
powers.  Jakk's complete spell list is:  0th level:  create water,
purify food and water, guidance, resistance,  mending; 1st level:
cause fear, doom, sanctuary, summon monster I + protection from good;
2nd level: bull's strength, darkness, hold person + desecrate; 3rd
level:  create food and water, cure serious wounds + magic vestment.
Jakk has run out of gems for use with animate dead spells and never had
the components for glyph of warding with him.  Make certain he uses
spells like summon monster I, protection from good, sanctuary, magic
vestment (or magic circle against law if using the saboteur
conversion), and bull's strength in addition to his potion of bane if
warned of the PCs.  It is logical for him to try to reinforce the
undead in area 6 if he hears a fight, beginning by casting desecrate.
He will use his potion of invisibility, potion of cure light wounds,
and scroll only if he has too (he doesn't expect this to be the last
assault on his position and so is conserving his resources).  In
addition to everything else, a continual flame spell illuminates area 7
(which is why Jakk has to cast darkness).
M'dok's hps are too high for his listed HD.  Make his hps 7.  He also
has a chance of arcane spell failure for wearing leather armor that is
not listed.  Note that M'dok has not summoned his familiar.  This is
either because he fears it will be a liability (i.e., get killed and so
harm him) or because he doesn't want to reveal his powers as a sorcerer
(particularly appropriate for the saboteur conversion presented).  A DM
choosing to use the dwarven citadel conversion might even grant him a
familiar, one that's being held by the scro to ensure his cooperation^Å

The Town:
The town presented is probably according to 3e standards but SJ has a
much higher level of adventurer classed individuals (due to the
constant danger from raiders, pirates, slavers, and monsters) and a
much higher level of spellcasters (due to the need for helmsman) than a
standard campaign.  As such the town's numbers in these areas should
probably be increased.  Alternately the DM can decide the recent influx
of people looking to get rich from the mine has created a more usual
level of class and level mix but a higher number of thieves might still
be appropriate.  Ultimately, however, the DM has to be very careful to
balance the adventure.  A cleric or druid of 5th level (or 7th level if
the poison option is used) could negate much of the threat of the
plague (however, a single one could likely not cope with it all, thus
destroying the source is essential to allowing such a person to
eventually cure the entire populace).  More importantly a single cleric
or druid of high enough level could ensure a healthy team was able to
enter the mines and root out the problem, thus negating the need for
adventurers.  A large number of low level spell caster able to use
purify food and water could likewise defeat the plague once its source
has been discovered (or at least make slaying Jakk a useless gesture).
So the DM must arrange to keep spell caster levels low and spell
casters with access to the appropriate spells, rare.  This is a
particular issue in a dwarven citadel as even the smallest citadel will
probably have a number of high level individuals.  Even if the plague
overwhelms the citadel's healing power and incapacitates most of its
warriors, the highest level individuals should be able to arrange for
enough dwarves to handle the situation (possibly by going in
themselves).  As such the DM will have to come up with a reason why the
PCs are the ones chosen to undertake the cleansing of the plague and
its source or why the citadel is so low powered (perhaps the trained
warriors and priests are all away, leaving only craftsmen and a few low
level defenders and priests for some reason).

Plague Conversion:
        Poison:  In this conversion Jakk is actually brewing poison to put in
the water.  This scenario has several benefits and adjustments.  If
Jakk dies, the poison is no longer present and everyone soon returns to
health.  However, the module has to be adjusted for lethality as the
contagious creatures and food/bodies are not found in the mines (since
they were poisoned and not diseased they are not disease carriers).
Instead have the weapons of the enemies found in the mine coated in the
poison (this will not effect the animals and lasts for only one hit per
weapon).  The stats of [intelligent] enemies encountered would also be
returned to normal as they aren't suffering from the plague
(constitution and everything it affects-hp, fort save, etc.-will
increase, assume Jakk normally has a 12 constitution so his hps will
rise to 37, his fort save will be +7, and his concentration skill will
be +5) which also helps restore some of the module's lethality.  Of
course, PCs may think there is a plague and not a poison and so have
been sent to cast purify food and water spells on the headwaters of the
town's water supply (on an asteroid the water probably comes from a
minor elemental gate or perhaps a decanter of endless water).  Under
this scenario PCs with their own water supply or purification spells
would probably be immune to catching the plague's effects but the
immunity of a paladin and a paladin's ability to remove disease in
other PCs would be useless.
        Disease:  In this conversion Jakk has made a potion that is the
opposite of a potion of remove disease (in 2e it is somewhat the
opposite of a potion of sweet water) that pollutes the water with
disease germs.  Now the burning plague operates as normal but killing
Jakk will not stop its spread.  Perhaps the DM decides the disease is
not powerful enough to be effective on its own.  Perhaps it is flawed
in some way.  Or perhaps it only survives a few generations before
dying out and thus requires constant replenishment.  In this case the
slaying of Jakk eventually does aid the townspeople but the effect is
not immediate and more will die before the disease is brought under
control.  Finally, perhaps priests have come to aid the town but have
sent the PCs in to deal with the disease's source even as they are
ministering to the townsfolk (divinations would have revealed the fact
that someone was in the mine and behind it all).  Under this scenario,
paladins will have a cakewalk and other PCs may choose to hang back and
use missiles and spells (including healing spells) to support any
paladins in the party-a perfectly reasonable approach.

SJ Adaption:
The most obvious thing to do in SJ is to set the module on an asteroid.
 This works well in SJ, as the plague becomes all the more powerful.
An entire mining colony could be wiped out by it, a bastion of
civilization completely destroyed, and there is no way for anyone to
escape.  The question then becomes, why are there humanoids here?  If
the scro are active in the campaign then it is possible they sent the
humanoids to kill the settlers, but why didn't they just attack?  Such
a small town wouldn't slow a single fully loaded scro warship, so why
would they send a sabotage mission?  If the town was large and powerful
(like Bral) the PCs wouldn't be needed, as the local forces would take
care of things.  I have examined two possibilities for conversion along
these lines.  Note that in both conversions there are no children in
the mine (unless, in the saboteur option, the DM decides the henchman
brought his young child/niece/brother-however the unrepentent evil and
tactics of the NPC will then change drastically).
        Dwarven Citadel:  A dwarven settlement, more than any other, is likely
to be trouble for scro.  Dwarves are well known as excellent fighters,
they produce excellent weapons and armor, they have close clan ties,
they gain bonuses to hit orcs (and scro), and they have powerful
citadels that can easily defeat most scro vessels (a simple ramming
attack can destroy many lesser vessels).  As such the scro have sent an
orc, supported by kobolds, to sabotage an important dwarven citadel (or
possibly an actual outpost or mining settlement).  The humanoids
managed to get aboard the citadel (perhaps a scro mosquito approached
the unwatched underside of the citadel while it was stationary in an
asteroid cluster and landed the commando team).  They snuck into the
citadel's water supply (an otherwise undefended room in the heart of
the citadel where a decanter of endless water continually operates, of
course Jakk's meld into stone spells and a supply of potions of
invisibility may have helped).  By the time the dwarves realized what
was happening, too many of their number had been incapacitated to
handle the situation.  The PCs have stopped by and the dwarves recruit
them for help (a particularly good mission for elven and dwarven PCs to
undertake and paladins of any sort should be unable to turn the dwarves
down).  If the PCs succeed they now have dwarven friends and among
dwarves, word gets around (if the dwarves have poor relations with the
elves a party with Elven Fleet affiliation or an elf or half-elf may
help generate good will by completing this mission).  Two additional
adjustments should be made:  1) The town is gone and replaced by a DM
designed dwarven settlement or citadel (a dwarven settlement might also
include some giff, gnomes, humans, and so on but will be mainly
dwarves-that's the point).  2) The kobolds are working with Jakk and
are subservient to him.  If the disease option is used, however, they
have broken with him since they became diseased and are now on their
own.  Note that Jakk and his team expected to be able to take over the
citadel quickly and easily but dwarven hardiness has hurt their plans
and is now disrupting morale.  The kobolds may even have been forced
onto the mission against their will and would gladly bargain for safe
passage to an asteroid they can survive on without interference from
others-a deal dwarves are unlikely to make.  The kobolds are willing to
tell everything they know about the scro in addition to backing the PCs
up with spells and missiles against the undead and Jakk if things come
to this.  At the DM's option the dire weasel is a dwarven guardian or
pet driven mad by the poison/disease.  As a trained guardian or pet,
however, it will respond well to a ranger's animal empathy or an animal
friendship spell (perhaps assign a penalty to the attempt or a bonus to
the weasel's save).  Also a paladin that manages to cure the animal (if
the disease option is used) will be able to restore it to a normal
state of mind.  It will then fight the humanoids as per its training
even if it doesn't befriend the party (in this case it will be a wary
ally that the PC shouldn't approach too closely-except dwarves who are
always safe in its presence).  The cloak in area 5a is worn by M'dok.
The zombies are as given.  Note that this scenario requires the enemies
to have arrived with a store of their own food (though this may be
gone-spoiled by rats, perhaps) as they will have prepared for being
unable to get at supplies.  Also the DM must decide if there is any ore
down here or if the dwarves travel about and mine other asteroids (or,
in the Astromundi Cluster, they act as mercenaries just as most dwarven
clans do there).
        Saboteur:  In this scenario the humanoids are replaced by a different
problem:  a saboteur.  The mining colony has an unknown enemy and its
one of their own.  A local colonist has secretly been a worshipper of
the planar church of the Abyss for a long time (alternately you could
use a recent arrival but the betrayal angle makes things all the more
interesting-unless the strangers were hired by locals^Å).  The colonist
may just want power, want to seed chaos and evil in the region, or may
want revenge for some past event (real or imagined).  Replace the
kobolds with more undead animated by the saboteur (each kobold should
be replaced by a skeleton the saboteur animated from the local
graveyard (family crypt?) or perhaps has been keeping on hand for a
while, the skeletons were used to help him take over the mine quickly.
The kobold zombies are replaced by 4 more miner zombies.  M'dok should
be replaced by a henchman of the saboteur's, a fellow member of the
planar church of the Abyss.  The henchman controls the skeletons and
will retreat to warn his boss of any intrusion (after firing crossbow
bolts and casting spells in support of the undead).  Either the
henchman or the boss (or both) were miners before they decided to take
over the mine.  They may have made a living at it or they may have just
taken the job for a limited time to learn the lay of the mine (perhaps
one was a recent but unlikely recruit).  As locals, the race of the
NPCs should be altered to something fitting with the local populace
(probably human).  The animals in the mines are trapped there by the
undead.  The weasel may have even been a pet or guardian or the miners'
mascot (though it may be a pet of one of the saboteurs).  It may be
befriended like the weasel in the dwarven citadel conversion above
(assuming it's not a pet of one of the saboteur) but has no particular
fondness for any race.  It is not inclined to destroy the undead and
intruders if aided (though if made an animal friend it will aid its new
friend).  So all this leaves is the question of who are these two.
Perhaps one is Jacen Tungstan, the chief mine engineer.  Then the
question of further involvement comes up.  Are Cristofar Sendars,
Arianna Tungstan, or Stefan Doverspeak involved?  Are they Abyssal
cultists or just using the cult as mercenaries to gain some sort of
advantage, power, or revenge?  For this conversion make Jakk's domains
chaos and evil and change his chosen 3rd level domain spell to magic
circle against law.  Note that this conversion can be combined with the
dwarven citadel conversion for an even more interesting adventure.

Continuing the Adventure:
In addition to the suggestions above for longer lasting ties to the
campaign and further adventures, the magical potion placed in the water
supply may spawn mudmen some time in the future at the DM's option.

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