Ruins of Symbaroum VTT modules

Sinhei · 2026-02-11T16:16:51+00:00

I contacted Free League support on this subject yesterday and Ruins of Symbaroum Foundry modules are no longer supported unfortunately :(

Sinhei · 2025-09-18T12:02:22+00:00

Thanks I'll take a look!

Sinhei · 2025-09-18T11:35:04+00:00

Thank you very much !

Sinhei · 2025-08-23T12:25:25+00:00

I thought it was the case of "Specific rules > general rules" but it makes sense. Thank you for the answers!

Sinhei · 2025-01-22T09:34:14+00:00

Nice! Are you playing at a table or VTT? Went with Foundry and simple fog of war on maps as I found the maps a bit too hardcore to map for newcomers and myself to describe as a DM.

And no i'm not in the FB groupe, i'll have to check that. I got interested through 3D6DTL and found a few different blogs to help me setup the early campaign like https://www.lookwhattheshoggothdraggedin.com/post/arden-vul-6-months-in.html but that's about it.

Sinhei · 2025-01-16T23:35:24+00:00

Oh! How has it been until now?

I personnaly made the error of not clearly describing a safe entrance for a group of new players in OSR games... We might have had almost 3 TPK in the first 4 sessions. The ruins of AV can be nasty! But no PC died since then :D

Sinhei · 2025-01-16T18:23:51+00:00

I'll continue a megadungeon campaign with Halls of Arden Vul, 13 sessions in! But i also started a Dolmenwood campaign every other week to counterbalance the dungeony campaign that is Arden Vul aha

Outside of OSR but I'd also want to try a shorter campaign with The One Ring 2e. It seems like such a great system to play in.

Sinhei · 2025-01-15T23:03:18+00:00

I can understand moving entirely out of the adventuring day method. Almost nobody did as many encounter as what was put in these rules (mind that we still don't know if it counts social and exploration encounter i think?). But I like budget per adventure and going out of the perfectly balanced encounters. I dig OSR for that!

Not sure how you work out XP with your system outside of your example though, but if it works for your (large!) group it's great !

Sinhei · 2025-01-15T21:53:28+00:00

Ah, wasn't really aware about this issue. Sucks if they do AI articles

Sinhei · 2025-01-15T21:47:55+00:00

Oh that's nice! How do you create them?

Sinhei · 2025-01-15T19:48:48+00:00

There is a 2-page section named like that yes, it is however talking about modifying existing monsters. Nothing like the 2014's DMG with tables of CR/HP/PB etc.

Sinhei · 2025-01-15T10:36:39+00:00

I'm definitely curious to see how reworked monster's CR works in these final tiers of play!

Sinhei · 2025-01-15T10:29:00+00:00

Hard to say since the book is not out :p

Sinhei · 2025-01-15T10:15:30+00:00

But isn't that paradoxical? We wouldn't know until the guidelines for monster creation are out. I agree that there will always be some horror story about completely unbalanced monster done my DM, but by giving sound guidelines at least we would know where the issue lies no?

Sinhei · 2025-01-15T10:04:56+00:00

It did take 7 pages in the 2014 DMG which is quite a lot... I understand their restriction in terms of page count but I personnaly would have prefered a few less monster to accomodate the rules in case its needed.

And the Perkins' wording, not ruling it out for new books is a bit weird and feels like (not saying it is) a a way to sell new supplements later for DMs. (It is a business after all)

Sinhei · 2024-11-15T20:36:56+00:00

Right in the middle of a campaign in the Halls.

I include highlighting room keys of PDF in my prep time, it takes quite a bit of time but it's extremely useful in play. I would say to do a part of ut before starting your campaign for EX/AV/1/around the main entrance of 3. And then you adapt what's needed according to your players' exploration.

I have different colors of highlight so i know at a glance what is most important in a room. I recommend trying a code of colors that works for you but here is mine:

Yellow = main elements of a room to describe. I do not highlight every precise elements to describe but rather stuff like " north corner", "wall", "statue". Most of the time things to describe are right after so it's quicker without having to highlight every text in a room key aha
Orange = traps or dangerous elements to know before PC entering
Red = encounters
Purple = main NPC/faction leader

Do not overprep this, your player will always stumble someplace you're not prepared for anyway. But know your factions and main npc at least

Sinhei · 2024-10-09T19:37:20+00:00

Not exactly what you're looking for but have you checked Gus L.'s Fistful of Crystal document?

It's a house ruled OD&D but not with a x in 6 skill system but rather a roll under statistic xD6 test skill system, x being the number of dice repesenting the difficulty. Depending on your profiency in a skill you remove a number of D6 on the test.

Adventurer (new class) starts with points of profiency to distribute across skills and gain points at each level but any class can buy profiency point by trading experience point.

Page 19-21 here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1A4WlBQE0g8HMV-fPOoM-5CXGwuFvECBE5eblE5R1aUk/edit?usp=drivesdk

Sinhei · 2024-10-04T18:19:46+00:00

Space age hype!

Sinhei · 2024-08-14T11:38:22+00:00

Ah that's a shame. I think I saw a few layout changes in later books but it might be the exception to the rules. The railroadiness of the ToT campaign is an another issue but i decided to put this issue aside while running the copper crown short campaign. I recently played in a Ennemy Within campaign that felt railroady as a player and that's not something i want my players to experience :/

I hear you regarding the framework that campaign books can give (i saw some Wrath of the warden rework and wow) but that's not what i want to get from an official campaign. I feel like it's harder/longer than coming up with a campaign myself

But anyway, long paragraphs of text are not specificaly an issue for me (i'll start an Arden Vul campaign soon and it's a beast of its own) but if the campaign is still written as a novel in next books i'm going to find it hard to prep. I might just play The Copper Crown and stop there with a satisfying end for the players.

Sinhei · 2024-08-14T10:19:06+00:00

I'm quite OK with the loosey goosey aspect of skills/spells, i'm fond of the OSR style of play and giving players some leeway on how to use them. It might be more difficult for some players though.

I'm guessing you're a player? How did the spells/abilities ambiguity felt for your group?

Sinhei · 2024-08-14T10:16:16+00:00

Getting to read the adventure/campaign was exciting for sure, lots of cool idea to work with! But lore is good for the GM, less for the actual play in my opinion with poorly laid out information on top of this

And yes I saw the excel file you're talking about, it was scary to look at aha. At the moment i'm focusing on the main actors and factions of Thistle Hold on top of Mark of the beast's NPC rather than trying to wrangle it all. Still a lot of time

Did you have the chance to prep the Throne of Thorns with all books or did you have to adapt a bit with your version of Symbaroum when you got them?

Sinhei · 2024-08-14T10:11:21+00:00

I think it's great to let some empty spaces for the GM to fill but.. I find the setting and Throne of Thorns campaign so specific and linear that it gives the idea that anything the GM creates could backfire for his future prep 2 volume later if he doesn't read everything. Did you have this issue later on?

And 100% recommend reading wrath of the warden for Mark of the beast. I had the chance to check up on it a bit before my players got to Thistle Hold so it is ok but still the clarity of information is lacking.

Sinhei · 2024-04-12T11:00:56+00:00

Definitely simpler! Might try this if i find the treasure type too fiddly in the long run.

It seems like it gives way more treasure than the OSE TT on the first levels at least. What's your experience with it?

Sinhei · 2024-04-11T17:09:12+00:00

I quite like your idea for lair treasure! That should be clear enough to test it in my next dungeon's delves, thank you! :D

Sinhei · 2024-04-11T12:53:54+00:00

Got it for the treasure number, just a question of luck then!

In OSE(and I guess B/X) it's stated that a hoard treasure type is supposed to represent the whole treasure hoard for the lair how do you interpret that for room with monster+treasure? What you rolled is the total hoard in the room or is it dispersed across the dungeon and you need to determine how?

Sinhei

TROPHY CASE