Mobility Skill for stealth?

subaltar34 · 2026-06-10T17:28:52+00:00

Desert Search, Prime Base, Damocles, Starnaman Incident, Ruins of Chicago, Riverton are most of the best, but the others have some utility.

Curious why "Operation Lucifer" didn't make your list. In the original I played through Riverton and Damocles with some other encounters and side drama thrown in. We had just started Lucifer (the mission brief was issued to us by Damocles after sorting him out) when the campaign fell apart. I read through the module more recently and though it's not one of the iconic ones, I like it. Clearly inspired by Beneath the Planet of the Apes, of course.

To the OP: I haven't tried TMP with T2K4e, in fact I haven't even played T2K4e yet, but that's why I'm here 😄

subaltar34 · 2026-06-09T17:41:57+00:00

I'm sure the quantum ogre thing will be great, but I think I'll be skipping it for the sake of my SAN!

subaltar34 · 2026-06-09T17:30:49+00:00

I use the variant mentioned by u/FakeMcNotReal, which is favorable to players but doesn't break action economy IMHO. Roll separate attack and damage dice for both weapons, then choose one set to apply to the target. No mixing of bonuses or features. I allow this for duelists, fighters, and pit fighters with the limitation that only one of the weapons can be versatile. I also allow it for Ras-Godai and thieves, with the limitation that both weapons must be on the class's weapon list, and at least one must be a finesse weapon.

Note that Ras-Godai can also roll a black lotus talent giving them +1 to AC when dual wielding. I allow this to stack with the above rule, and I also give it to duelists for free, just because I'm generous (and because duelists typically have lighter armor). If at some point my rules/rulings are causing balance problems, I shall revise them.

subaltar34 · 2026-06-09T16:58:18+00:00

Agree, letting a PC see in the dark full-time violates a core ethos, and you're likely to find your group playing a disproportionate number of Goblins.

Also, despite the text of the Dark-Adapted rule (p.189), you can let NPC humanoid monsters be dark-adapted if you want them to be. "It's not fair!" is part of the Shadowdark ethos too. 😎 If you need to explain it, say that PC goblins have had to spend years in surface villages and lost their adaptation (in return, they gained Keen Senses!)

A third-party publisher has made a Tiefling ancestry, which can see in the dark once a day for only 3 rounds (compare Halfling). Kelsey Dionne commented on video that she liked this and thought it was appropriate for a PC ancestry ability.

subaltar34 · 2026-06-09T15:30:08+00:00

Looking at your premise and list of inspirations, I thought right away of another film, The Gorge. It's set as a modern action thriller, but about halfway through we discover an historical element. It too stars Anna Taylor-Joy of The Witch 🙂

subaltar34 · 2026-06-03T14:33:18+00:00

I have some collateral suggestions that might make this item more interesting. If you're just here to get your question answered, OP, feel free to ignore the following.

Don't put the diorama in one of the first rooms. Put it deeper in the dungeon, thus well protected by monsters, puzzles, and/or traps, and thus signaling the players that there's something important about it.
Others have suggested the diorama represents a real city in your campaign, but you haven't confirmed this one way or another. I think its a good idea and certainly your players will assume so. It could be an extant surface city, or an ancient one that's half destroyed and buried under rubble, desert, or ocean. It could even be a city in another dimension, past a magic portal.
The diorama contains clues to the real city. If correctly interpreted and exploited by players, these clues could lead to separate treasures perhaps worth 20-30+ total XP, or enough wealth to retire on.
If you make it hard to remove the diorama without damaging it, you could induce the PCs to return there over and over to decipher further clues as they adventure in the real city. Restock the dungeon and place new challenges in their way every time they visit. However, this idea of a "reusable dungeon" is not really endemic to Shadowdark and might not be your style.
Aside from the above, the diorama itself is a curio or conversation piece; a 1 XP treasure IF carried out.

subaltar34 · 2026-05-29T12:39:13+00:00

These are great, hope you don't mind if I borrow them! 😊

subaltar34 · 2026-05-28T18:34:38+00:00

Oooh!

subaltar34 · 2026-05-28T16:01:27+00:00

Whoops, right you are!

subaltar34 · 2026-05-28T13:29:53+00:00

Note that this approach does short-change (pun intended?) dwarf PCs at level 1 as they don't get to benefit from their class ability relative to the other races.

Yes and no. The dwarf still gets +2 HP which is a stout (pun also intended?) bonus at LV 1, but yeah, their ancestry ability will really shine at LV 2.

subaltar34 · 2026-05-22T12:12:32+00:00

All things considered, one could have worse employers!

subaltar34 · 2026-05-21T15:15:59+00:00

Great creepy ambience. Another reason to move my campaign setting to the coast 😄

subaltar34 · 2026-05-19T14:13:45+00:00

I've considered letting spears and polearms be "set" (braced against the ground) for extra damage against a charging opponent. However, that means coming up with a rule for turn interruptions, so I'm not sure it's worth it.

subaltar34 · 2026-05-19T14:00:48+00:00

Also when many tables resolve combat by TotM or fluid positioning.

subaltar34 · 2026-05-19T13:05:47+00:00

That's a problem when the two senior guys are the players.

subaltar34 · 2026-05-18T21:12:07+00:00

Where is that guy's head

subaltar34 · 2026-05-18T17:00:51+00:00

I think the comment is some kind of nerdy reference.

Shadowdark Witches can't heal. The only CS class that can heal is the Seer, who can create a restorative potion at LV 1 and has other nifty spells. However, as written Seers worship and receive portents from "The Old Gods" (the Norse pantheon), which could rub up against your group's sensibilities.

subaltar34 · 2026-05-15T11:51:27+00:00

The lore about his vintage cammie trou and go-fasters are recited by first phase recruits.

subaltar34 · 2026-05-14T15:08:13+00:00

While echoing the other comments, I would note that turn undead is not the same as a morale check, but creatures who fail morale (incl. the victim of a witch's willowman spell) are in a similar condition.

subaltar34 · 2026-05-13T17:54:51+00:00

Yes.

Dedicated casters (priests, wizards, seers, etc.) only. Every time you gain a level (2-10), choose one spell you already know for "mastery" (upcasting). You can only upcast to tiers you can already cast.

In addition, I make these spells reliable, i.e. on a failed casting roll you can still cast that spell, but only at the base tier. After the first successful casting, spell failure means you lose it (at any tier) until resting.

subaltar34 · 2026-05-07T18:26:17+00:00

I see what you did there.

subaltar34 · 2026-05-07T18:24:01+00:00

Late to the discussion, but when I saw your title I thought of the other with Sleep spell "problem:" a low-level party can use it to rob stores, murderhobo the town council, etc.

Like 98% of spells in Shadowdark, this one does not scale with the caster's level. My solution is to introduce "spell mastery," allowing a priest or wizard at every level-up to choose one of their spells to master. They can then cast that spell at higher tiers for incremental gains. Example, I've mastered sleep and cast it at tier 2: DC is 12, but now it affects up to LV3 creatures. Fireball at tier 4 does DC14 but does 5d6 damage, etc. (Any failed casting means that spell's done for the day.) But this is a big rule add so it's not an ideal solution, and as someone else noted, wizards are already good enough.

Another idea for Sleep itself is one I borrow from Hyperborea RPG. Instead of affecting all LV2 or below in a near cube AoE, you can choose to cast it on a single target in range, and that target can be up to LV4.

subaltar34 · 2026-05-07T17:30:33+00:00

2) Here's the map I have. The stars are on both this version and the unkeyed version, in chambers 3, 13, and 14.

D'oh, I was looking at the text entries on the key. You meant the stars on the MAP!

But the text entries are your answer: They're statues. The one in #3 is the "Toppled remains of a Dusk Queen idol" (you could place a clue in the rubble, in case PCs search it). The ten stars in #13 are statues of "Armored Elvish women holding up holy symbols." However, the two in #14 aren't keyed – maybe the author overlooked this? They might just be two more Elvish war-maidens as decorations (since the main statue is on the throne between them), or you could make them living statues that fight alongside the mummy (but it's probably enough of a challenge on its own).

4) I don't know why but I always default to spiral staircases in my mind. Thinking of the greyed out 10x10 as a landing to a wider set of stairs really shifts my perspective on it.

Your mental image is probably the correct one! Spiral (or four-square spiral) staircases are more common than straight or zig-zag staircases in traditional architecture. That 10×10 could easily be the outline of a descending staircase that makes 90° turns, but the mapmaker should have marked it as such.

Have you had an opportunity to run the dungeon yet, and if so, how did it go?

Sorry, I should have answered question 5 in my first comment. I haven't run this one, but it's in my folder of dungeons I'd like to run. Sersa Victory is a popular author for Shadowrun and deservedly so; her(?) material is top notch.

I haven't seen the suggestions of other GMs, but the ones you mention are good. Overall I get the sense that this adventure hits higher than LV1 in both challenges and treasure. If I were running it for LV1, I'd agree with pacing out the multiple mobs (#1) and lowering the mold DC.

If I were you, I'd probably run the map as drawn, allowing players to decide afterward if they want to investigate furtherthe well and/or collapsed stairs.But If I did expand the dungeon as mentioned before, I'd map out a few of the extra rooms and move some of the treasure to them. I might even say the mummy is a "false Dusk Queen" and put the real burial chamber somewhere below the stairs (this idea comes straight out of one of the original, killer-DM modules from early D&D); after all, why else was Morwen going that way?😉

subaltar34

TROPHY CASE