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View Full Version : Published Adventures - Recommendations, Thoughts, Best Of



EccentricOwl
2010-05-17, 01:07 AM
Hey there. Let me be honest - I love published adventures. You can call them canned, call them premade, call them 'the easy way out', but I love them and to be honest, I run them all the time.

Hell, I'll admit that my GMing skills have suffered because of it. But that doesn't change how much fun I have.

In a way, they teach you how to play the game, and give you a good feel for the setting, flavor, and rulesets. I've become very reactionary as far as GMing goes, and I'm always ready to adjust the adventure to meet the choices of the PCs.


Regardless, what do you think of published adventures?

More importantly, do you have any personal favorites or recommendations? Which ones do you own, and which ones do you regret ever running?


I could tell you that my all-time favorite was Red Hand of Doom.

ninjaneer003
2010-05-17, 01:57 AM
i've never played it but i read through some of the Pathfinder Adventure Path #1-6 Rise of the Rune Lords and it looked really good! Pathfinder Adventure Path #19-24 Legacy of Fire also looks really good i think it has to do with a big Genie war and what's better than a was a war of people with UNLIMITED COSMIC POWER! little bitty living space

Infernum
2010-05-17, 02:09 AM
Best pre-made adventure of all time, in my opinion anyway is the AD&D 2nd edition Temple Of Elemental Evil. A truly fantastic adventure and so full of wonderful plot. I played through it, had characters who died but i still continued on and the ending is so worth it. Afterwords i worked on locating and buying myself a copy, plan to run it one day.

As far as published adventures go, i like the ones from the old days, that gave you room to tweak them to fit you setting and world along with tons of ideas for plot hooks. Then new ones are so so, with the best of the 3rd edition modules being the Shattered Gates of Slaughterguard. Haven't read the new 4th edition stuff as my group doesn't play it.

Altair_the_Vexed
2010-05-17, 02:37 AM
The Dungeon Crawl Classics series from Goodman Games is full of easily applied adventures. It doesn't take much to tweak them here and there to drop into your own setting and campaign arc.
In particular, look out for Interludes - it's got mini adventures for levels 1 to 14, all making a longer storyline.

Dungeon B2 The Keep on the Borderlands.
There's a 3.5 conversion out there. You'll still need to do a little work to pad out the keep and inject some character into the NPCs, but it's a solid set of short dungeon bashes strung together with a common theme. A defining work.

Satyr
2010-05-17, 03:15 AM
Prefabricated adventure modules are good to teach how to run a plot and all. I think they are an invaluable mean to introduce new GMs to the game, even though it is also necessary that one learns to act independantly from the script from time to time, or the adventures can become heavily railroaded.

In settings with a strong metaplot (or any relevant metaplot at all), they also offer a chance to include the group into the bigger picture and let them participate in the greater events or even influence them.

Unfortunately, good adventure modules are rare, and as a German player one is kind of spoiled in this regard: The most important German RPG, the dark eye, is heavily focused on its adventure modules (the setting is good, but the rules are just plain terrible), and the sheer volume of adventures makes it quite easy to find a few truly outstanding ones (even though there are also many mediocre ones and some which are truly terrible).
The best Dark Eye adventures are way better than anything I have ever seen for D&D (I have to admit though that I don't know that many D&D adventures), especially the earlier campaigns.

And then there is Jenseits des Lichts (Beyond the Light) which is just the best adventure ever written, I guess:

The beginning of the adventure is pure comedy: the PCs are in one big city, get involved with the local star actress of the local theatre, meet the gang of heirs of the great local merchant dynasties and get involved in loads of slapstick moments, like the epic battle between traditional "dark" artists and the new "rebel" artists who dare to paint optimistic, colorful pictures in grisly colours like spring green and pink.
Then they met one merchant (called the hamster behind his back) who has lost his fortune due to a war - and who had hidden most of his gold before he had to flee. Unfortunately in a city far away which is now occupied by a military dictatorship of demon worshippers.
The prospect of wealth lures the PCs to try and find that treasure which leads to the first major mood whiplash in the adventure - the funny introduction is then replaced with a paranoid horror atmosphere where you can't trust anybody, and the local rulers are a quite sadistic occupation force.
The whole thing ends with a riot, with the PCs and a centner of gold in the middle.
They can escape - and get the possibility to travel to a safe haven to return from the occupied lands, but before they have to sneak through the occupied lands. And for this, they need a disguise, namely as a travelling theatre troupe.
The next part of the overland travel is basically a lesson in improved theatre, which is just fun - until they meet another theatre group which challenges them to a "battle of the art" - and the PCs are suddenly trapped in a pocket dimension which effectively is a theatre play and follows the logic of one - including that all people think in loud, clearly spoken monologues, which nobody but the PCs can hear. The PCs than have to survive the play, manipulate it again and again (which is actually quite easy, because the world adapts to the needs of the play - if you are convincing enough, you can turn any sheet of paper into a letter, or any green fluid into deadly poison).
It is one of the most creative adventures I have ever seen, and the whole structure also requires and encourages the players to be as creative as they can be, coming up with weird solutions and effectively bend the world around their will. While they are in the middle of something that resembles a Shakespearean drama, only much more bloodthirsty.
The adventure relies strongly on the wits of the characters, in the first part mostly for fun and in situations which are embarrassing at best, in the second part to safe their lifes and very souls.
It is very hard to combine humor and horror, as these are two quite complementary emotions. This adventure manages to do just that.

AslanCross
2010-05-17, 04:34 AM
I agree that Red Hand of Doom is one of the best published adventures ever. It's not heavy on railroading (Note: I define railroading as the lack of relevant choices, not the presence of any plot whatsoever.), has interesting NPCs and villains, and paints a very vivid picture of the region it's set in.

My only complaints about it are that it's written for rather low optimization levels , has a rather anticlimactic final chapter, and has a few rather silly out-of-place details (The night hag cook in the final chapter and the Devil Beard Tea, to name a couple).

I own RHOD, Eyes of the Lich Queen, and Lord of the Iron Fortress.

EOTLQ is a quintessential Eberron adventure. It takes you all over the setting, has recurring Nazi Emerald Claw villains, and has a good mix of combat and interaction. The encounters have a lot of attention to detail, with a great deal of interactivity with the environment. As such, the dungeons aren't boring sequences of corridor after corridor; they're short, sweet and quite interesting.

Only downsides are:
1.Poor editing: There's one encounter that's almost unusable since the map and the key don't really match.
2. At some points it's a bit railroaded, but that's not really felt.
3. The last boss is a bit out of place.

Lord of the Iron Fortress is a 3.0 book. It's a high-level planar adventure that takes the PCs across Acheron. While the setting is interesting, the "Iron Fortress" seems surprisingly puny. I've never played it, but I'm not sure I want to. I find the old "wall of text" statblocks from 3.0 close to unusable.

I think premade adventures are great for both new and experienced DMs. For new DMs it gives them the feel of how to construct interactive experiences for players; for experienced DMs it gives them the opportunity to give the story their own twist.

ghost_warlock
2010-05-17, 05:44 AM
I usually rely on published adventures as campaign filler when I DM (thankfully rarely these days).

A few old AD&D 2e adventures from Dungeon Magazine will always have a special place in my heart: Felkovic's Cat, Melody, and the Bandits of Bunglewood. Felkovic's cat pits the party up against a minor dark lord in Ravenloft with the aid of a semi-sentient magical item. Melody involves rescuing a good-aligned harpy (raised by a human bard) from a ettin, who's been using her song to lure travelers to their doom. The Bandits of Bunglewood sends the PCs to investigate wildly discrepant rumors about a group of bandits preying on a major road; the PCs discover the bandits are a actually a handful of kobolds trained equipped with an assortment of magic items by a former adventurer - none of the people robbed want to admit they were bested by kobolds.

Pretty much whenever I'm being forced to DM at short notice I end up relying on an improvised adaption of the AD&D 2e Cleric's Challenge module.

For 3.5 D&D, the Shackled City Adventure Path from Dungeon magazine is highly recommended. I own the hardcover compiled version that I tried running once but the game died. :smallfrown: Looks like I might get to play through it as a PC here soon, though.

Powerfamiliar
2010-05-17, 08:44 AM
Rise of the Runelord by Paizo. It's a 6 module adventure path, and the whole tihng is great.

I also have to echo the reccomendation of Red Hand of Doom. The last chapter is a bit lacking after the one that preceeded it, but still a very good module.

I'm currently in the planning stages of a Kingmaker campaign, also by Paizo, and from reading the first 2 modules it seems awesome, but we'll see how it plays. First session next week!

Hendel
2010-05-17, 10:10 AM
I would have to agree with some of the opinions presented in this thread.

My all time favorite is probably T1-4 Temple of Elemental Evil. I can't tell you how many campaigns I had where I started the PC's off in the village of Homlett. I even took the time to convert aspects of the entire module over to 3.5 to allow a new generation of players the opportunity to adventure in the Temple.

The video game version also helped to bring the Temple to life and it felt strangely familiar as I played the game years ago like, "I know what is going to be behind that door" etc.

Other adventures that I liked include
Tomb of Horrors
White Plume Mountain
Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh
The Giants/Drow/Queen of the Demonweb Pits (individual and super module)
Dungeonland/Land Beyond the Magic Mirror
Isle of the Ape
Forge of Fury (3.5)
Bastion of Broken Souls (3.5)

Harperfan7
2010-05-17, 11:48 AM
I've heard bastion of broken souls is a great high level adventure.

Ruinix
2010-05-17, 12:18 PM
1- Red Hand of Doom. easy going, a lot of fun, a lot of party planing and the dead line time limit add a lot to the strategie.

2- Black Rose, dragonlance campaing. a lot of epic (not in level, just in flavor) plots. awesome final.

EccentricOwl
2010-05-17, 07:10 PM
[QUOTE=Infernum;8508593]Best pre-made adventure of all time, in my opinion anyway is the AD&D 2nd edition Temple Of Elemental Evil. A truly fantastic adventure and so full of wonderful plot. I played through it, had characters who died but i still continued on and the ending is so worth it. Afterwords i worked on locating and buying myself a copy, plan to run it one day.

QUOTE]

I was unaware that Temple of Elemntal Evil had, well, plot. I thought it was mostly a grind-fest.

EccentricOwl
2010-05-17, 07:18 PM
I would have to agree with some of the opinions presented in this thread.

My all time favorite is probably T1-4 Temple of Elemental Evil. I can't tell you how many campaigns I had where I started the PC's off in the village of Homlett. I even took the time to convert aspects of the entire module over to 3.5 to allow a new generation of players the opportunity to adventure in the Temple.

The video game version also helped to bring the Temple to life and it felt strangely familiar as I played the game years ago like, "I know what is going to be behind that door" etc.

Other adventures that I liked include
Tomb of Horrors
White Plume Mountain
Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh
The Giants/Drow/Queen of the Demonweb Pits (individual and super module)
Dungeonland/Land Beyond the Magic Mirror
Isle of the Ape
Forge of Fury (3.5)
Bastion of Broken Souls (3.5)

You still have that Temple of Elemental Evil conversion? =P

All I can seem to find is "Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil." Does anyone know if it's any good?

EccentricOwl
2010-05-17, 07:19 PM
Rise of the Runelord by Paizo. It's a 6 module adventure path, and the whole tihng is great.

I also have to echo the reccomendation of Red Hand of Doom. The last chapter is a bit lacking after the one that preceeded it, but still a very good module.

I'm currently in the planning stages of a Kingmaker campaign, also by Paizo, and from reading the first 2 modules it seems awesome, but we'll see how it plays. First session next week!

What is "Kingmaker?"

balistafreak
2010-05-17, 07:37 PM
In before Calzone Golem (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/Cooking.pdf). :smallbiggrin:

Powerfamiliar
2010-05-17, 07:41 PM
What is "Kingmaker?"

Current Paizo adventure path. Sandoxy-ish kingdom building campaign.

Vilyathas
2010-05-18, 01:28 AM
+1 for the Red Hand of Doom.

But most of my love is reserved for the Planescape campaigns. The Great Modron March, Dead Gods, Faction War, the Deva Spark, and Die Vecna Die.

Hendel
2010-05-18, 01:44 AM
You still have that Temple of Elemental Evil conversion? =P

All I can seem to find is "Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil." Does anyone know if it's any good?

I might have to look around but just stat up some of the clerics and the goons and the rest you can use monsters from the Monster Manual, etc.

I started to run Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil but that group sort of disbanded while they were somewhere in the big circular dungeon. It is good, but I still liked the original. Their plot lines did not have much to do with each other.

As for it just being a grind and not having much plot, it depends on how you run the adventure. I ran it on its own before and once as the first of the triliogy of super modules, including Scourge of the Slave Lords (the A series slave modules), and the Queen of Spiders (the GDQ Giants, Drow, Queen of the Demonweb Pit series). If you do that and link them all together, you can have a series that will take you from 1st level to the high teens and your adventures really feel like they have saved the world from a great plot that continues to get bigger and more global in scale.

Raging Gene Ray
2010-05-18, 01:56 AM
+1 for the Red Hand of Doom.

But most of my love is reserved for the Planescape campaigns. The Great Modron March, Dead Gods, Faction War, the Deva Spark, and Die Vecna Die.

You left out Harbinger House.

DarkEternal
2010-05-18, 05:45 AM
I'm currently playing Shadowdale:Scouring of the land and the continuation to that module, but am also interested in higher level premade adventures, from level 16 onwards. Not so much on the published material there, especially for longer campaigns....

Red Hand of Doom was excellent by the way. They sodded up some encounters by making them too easy(Hravek and Azar Kull, hell the Tiamat manifestation as well) but overall very enjoyable.

Amphetryon
2010-05-18, 06:14 AM
White Plume Mountain+1. One of the few published adventures I'll happily go through multiple times.

hamlet
2010-05-18, 07:19 AM
You left out Harbinger House.

And the Eternal Boundary. A great low level adventure equal parts investigation and role playing and bloody carnage.

I also recommend Harvest of Horror from the Dungeon Magazine back in the 90's I think. Great adventure.

JohnnyCancer
2010-05-18, 11:43 AM
Most of the Pathfinder adventure paths and modules are good. The Apocalypse Stone and Die Vecna Die! which I think were the last second edition modules were good. A Paladin in Hell is good if you like a lot of challenging combat, also for second edition. Five Coins for a Kingdom is an old Master edition adventure, it started off kind of sucky but has a spectacular finish. That's all I can think of at the moment.

EccentricOwl
2010-05-18, 11:43 AM
Ah, okay. I should make a list of all these fantastic adventures.. =P

Anyway, there seem to be quite a few utterly fantastic fantasy adventures.

Does anyone have any favorites for other systems or settings? A particularly enjoyable Traveller adventure, for example?

Callos_DeTerran
2010-05-18, 11:56 AM
My favorite adventure of all time...alright, it's actually like...twelve adventures put together, but that's not the point. My favorite adventure is undoubtedly the Savage Tide adventure path published by Paizo. It's full of exotic locales, an enemy/enemies(?) you'll love to hate and kill, and there's no way you can claim you haven't had a MAJOR impact on the multiverse itself if you succeed in your epic struggle. :smallwink:

Volos
2010-05-18, 01:51 PM
what's better than a was a war of people with UNLIMITED COSMIC POWER! little bitty living space

Great quote, I have to give you kudos for that one.

I love published adventures, even though I'm starting to use them less and less. They are a great learning tool and they can help new DMs with the akwardness of figuring out how to play the game. And they are a great help when an experienced DM has either run out of creative flow for the moment or has more pressing issues (Real life for example) and cannot custom make his adventures for the moment. I'm starting to go more and more completely custom but I still write out my notes in the style of a published adventure, just because it's what I'm used to.

Oh, and Red Hand of Doom is my favorite as well. My players just barely kept the advancing hordes from destroying everything... and they weren't quite able to keep Tiamat from... umm... rampaging... yeah. Akward. :smalleek:

EccentricOwl
2010-05-18, 02:42 PM
The consensus seems to be that the old "Temple of Elemental Evil / Giants/ Demonweb" series for 2nd ed was amazing and worth it.

Players also really seem to have enjoyed, well, ALL of Paizo Publishing's adventure paths.

cZak
2010-05-18, 07:26 PM
+1 RHoD.

Barrow of the Forgotten King: I like the premise, but seemed a little implausible.

I'm a sucker for the classics: pre 3.x... Plus you can probably find free pdf's online (WoTC) or cheap (Amazon, ebay, etc...)
They take a bit of retooling to adapt it for 3.x, but I generally use published adventures as a very lose background for games.


I really liked the Slave Lords 'A' series. Very good plot premise with potential for some real deep character interactions besides just 'kill it'. Except the last (A4). Capturing the PC's, stripping them naked and dumping them in a hole is the start of the adventure. Fun for some, not so much others...:smallmad:

Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun (WG4) had a great mix in that the first part was a big 'storm the castle' kind of grind, but the latter part was the puzzle/ trap set up. Who can gaze upon the body of an entombed god...

Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil was pretty good, having played/ ran both original and return.
There are a lot of plot arcs and potential RP interactions in the RttToEE if the DM wants to develop/ pursue them.

Keep on the Borderlands (B2) was a pretty good intro, but did not make much sense to me. This huge warren of monsters in close proximity to each other and civilization...

The 'L' series: Secret of Bone Hill (L1), Assasins Knot (L2) & Danger at Dunwater (L3) were a good set. Although you could probably develop/ play by ear the L2. Just read the premise online... how's your google-foo, grasshopper?

Akal Saris
2010-05-18, 10:10 PM
UNLIMITED COSMIC POWER! little bitty living space

Oi! Ten thousand years will give you SUCH a crick in the neck!


In before Calzone Golem (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/Cooking.pdf). :smallbiggrin:

So far my players have sworn that was the best published adventure I've ever ran for them. Granted, I added in ninjas, Thayan necromancers, and zombies, but the Calzone golem pretty much was the highlight of the whole thing.

My favorite published adventures:

D&D 2E
-The Undermountain series was a lot of fun for me, it was the first module that I ran

D&D 3.5
-What's Cookin? (Calzone Golem!) and the Frost Giant Fortress are 2 free short adventures from WoTC's website that I ran and had a blast with.
-Tome of Horrors v3.5 was a lot of fun for me as the DM at least :smallbiggrin:
-So far the Rise of the Runelords and the Curse of the Crimson Throne module series have both been excellent games to run, very well-written. My main quibble is that there is WAY too much backstory on the villains' motivations that the PCs will never learn about and is kind of extraneous to the adventure. I'm only in the 1st module of each of them, but the 2nd module for each looks like it will be amazing.

Zombimode
2010-05-19, 06:19 AM
White Plume Mountain

I will give it a go within the next two months.
Ruleswise I will have to make a conversion to my own "2.5" rules, but from the style I plan to leave it as original as possible.

Maybe I will post a campaign journal here then, if there is interesst :-)

hamlet
2010-05-19, 07:27 AM
The consensus seems to be that the old "Temple of Elemental Evil / Giants/ Demonweb" series for 2nd ed was amazing and worth it.

Players also really seem to have enjoyed, well, ALL of Paizo Publishing's adventure paths.

The TAGDQ sequence was for first edition AD&D. For the most part, identical, but once you get into the G range, the differences are significant enough that you'll either need to make a few fudges to allow for the overtly more powerful 2nd edition giants and dragons and demons, or simply use 1st edition equivalents. Either way, they work out.

It is an important distinction in this case even though 95%+ of 2nd edition is 1st edition. The differences are most marked in the giants, dragons, and demons/devils. If you try to run this in 3.x, well, I'm pretty sure you'll have a stroke.

Zombimode
2010-05-19, 08:24 AM
Ugh, if 2e giants are more powerful then 1e giants I dont want to know how weak they were in 1e.
2e giants are pushovers. Until I made some changes concerning the action economy as well as damage calculations for giants they were just over exp'ed hit point punching bags.

One of the problems of older (read: 1e and early 2e) modules is, that the authors didnt had a firm grasp of how monsters and combat works in the system. Lets take the aforementioned White Plume Mountain: the final encounter are two efreets, both coming from one direction in a narrow coridor.
There is almost no way to utilize their impressive array of special abilities for good effect, and so they are forced to act as medicore melee monsters.

EccentricOwl
2010-05-20, 01:03 AM
The TAGDQ sequence was for first edition AD&D. For the most part, identical, but once you get into the G range, the differences are significant enough that you'll either need to make a few fudges to allow for the overtly more powerful 2nd edition giants and dragons and demons, or simply use 1st edition equivalents. Either way, they work out.

It is an important distinction in this case even though 95%+ of 2nd edition is 1st edition. The differences are most marked in the giants, dragons, and demons/devils. If you try to run this in 3.x, well, I'm pretty sure you'll have a stroke.

So... that whole thing... does it actually work as a coherent campaign / adventure path?

hamlet
2010-05-20, 07:35 AM
So... that whole thing... does it actually work as a coherent campaign / adventure path?

Yes, it does.

You will likely have to stick in a few side quests and extras to bolster XP gain to account for either PC death, or a large group, but for the most part you really can just run TAGDQ uninterrupted with crafty players as a first to about fifteenth level campaign in the Greyhawk world. Or for that matter, a generic world.

There are a few add ins to the G series that have been published by OSR writers that you would probably be wise to check out if that's your plan. Dragonsfoot has the skinny on it.

If you run it in AD&D 1e/2e, you'll want to keep a few things in mind and make a few decisions. First, realize that there's a LOT of treasure in the published modules, more than the players will ever be able to haul out. It'll boost their XP totals very quickly if the players are clever enough to realize there's more profit in robbing the bad guys blind than slaughtering them wholesale.

Second, if you use AD&D 2e, you'd probably do better to just use the stats listed in the module rather than trying to "update" them to 2nd edition stats. It'll just work better.

Third, if you really want to do this, I recommend that you avoid the supermodules where possible and grab the individual modules themselves from ebay or amazon or nobleknight instead. When they were condensed into the supermodules, some things got mashed or lost in the translation. Frequently, they're less expensive that way too.

Fourth, customize. The modules arent' written in stone. If you dont' like the way something works in a module, CHANGE IT!

Fifth, and most important, have fun!

Matthew
2010-05-21, 01:23 PM
Ugh, if 2e giants are more powerful then 1e giants I don't want to know how weak they were in 1e.
2e giants are pushovers. Until I made some changes concerning the action economy as well as damage calculations for giants they were just over exp'ed hit point punching bags.

One of the problems of older (read: 1e and early 2e) modules is, that the authors didn't had a firm grasp of how monsters and combat works in the system. Lets take the aforementioned White Plume Mountain: the final encounter are two efreets, both coming from one direction in a narrow corridor.
There is almost no way to utilize their impressive array of special abilities for good effect, and so they are forced to act as medicore melee monsters.

The efficacy of monsters depends on a number of factors, the capabilities of the player characters being the foremost concern. Whilst I have never done so myself, I am told that the grappling rules make giants formidable, even overwhelming, opponents in first edition.

EccentricOwl
2010-06-05, 01:57 PM
I read the new hardcover "Revenge of the Giants" for 4th edition.

Let's be honest; sometimes you don't want something groundbreaking. Sometimes you and your players want a romp across a generic-ish fantasy world, slaying monsters, solving crimes (with really rather little roleplaying, admittedly) and having epic confrontations.

If your players don't mind a rather generic-feeling campaign (at least in my opinion) the new hardcover 4th edition book is a rare delight.

Lots of full-color images and handouts, lots of really cool maps and battlefields. Even a bunch of full-color maps for your most epic battles! I hope you like using mins. A lot.

Os1ris09
2010-06-05, 04:32 PM
Best I ever played was the Drow War's campaign.

Its a three book campaign that takes characters from level 1 to 30 and has an amazing plot.

Best series I have ever had the privilage of playing. :smallbiggrin:

ken-do-nim
2010-06-05, 08:35 PM
Just for fun, I'll list what I think the top 2 modules are for each system, keeping in mind there are so many I haven't read.

OD&D - Caverns of Thracia (Paul Jaquays), City State of the Invincible Overlord (Bob Bledsaw)
AD&D 1E - Dark Tower (Paul Jaquays), Hall of the Fire Giant King (Gary Gygax)
Holmes Basic - B2 Keep on the Borderlands
Moldvay B/X - B4 Lost City, X1 Isle of Dread
Mentzer BECMI - B10 Night's Dark Terror, X10 Red Arrow Black Shield
AD&D 2E - Gates of Firestorm Peak, Greyhawk Ruins
AD&D 3.0E - Standing Stones, Speaker in Dreams
AD&D 3.5E - Rappan Athuk Reloaded, Citadel of Fire*

*I normally wouldn't list an older edition conversion - after all I could list Dark Tower and Caverns of Thracia again for 3.5 - but Citadel of Fire was pretty much rewritten

I'm not saying an adventure like Red Hand of Doom isn't as good as the two I listed - I just haven't read it.

Dyllan
2010-06-06, 09:50 AM
You still have that Temple of Elemental Evil conversion? =P

All I can seem to find is "Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil." Does anyone know if it's any good?

Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil is great. If you DO decide to run it, I strongly suggest you read up on Monte Cook's message boards for it - http://okayyourturn.yuku.com/forums/12/t/Return-to-the-Temple-of-Elemental-Evil.html

My first campaign was Sunless Citadel as a precursor to Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. Nearly a decade later, that campaign is still having effects on my current campaign world. Yes, it's a dungeon crawl, but there are so many things the PCs can do... join one temple against another... make a deal with the dragon... impersonate cultists... make peace with the orc village... those are just a handful of things that happened in my campaign, apart from the dungeon crawl. And they even convinced the vampire to commit suicide so he could later be true ressed and regain his former political position.

Great module that can make for a great campaign - but you do need to do your homework if you really want to make the PCs actions have wide ranging effects (which they should).

Fax Celestis
2010-06-06, 11:04 AM
War of the Burning Sky is quite possibly the closest thing I've ever seen to a series of published modules that plays out like Final Fantasy Tactics' "absurdly complex and freakishly convoluted web of intrigue with war sprinkles on top" plot. It is freaking amazing.

Chrono22
2010-06-06, 11:09 AM
Gotta give props to Paizo for Savage Tide.

Togo
2010-06-06, 12:42 PM
My personal favourite is Castle Amber. As far I as know it was never converted to AD&D from D&D, but it's not hard to convert yourself, and the setting is excellent. There simply aren't any encounters I would class as not interesting in and of themselves.

The whole GDQ series is very good, but I found G1-3 and D1 actually quite missable. Nothing much happens, except rooms full of monsters to kill. I'd suggest dropping these mods, or at least rewriting them to give them some kind of internal plot. The overall plot of the series is excellent, but the individual mods have almost no plot to speak of, and you need as DM to fill in your own player's motivations and goals to keep the series going. Even the most famous sections are largely silent as to why you're there and what you intend to accomplish, and the style is to present the players with a situation and see what they want to do about it. That's not a bad thing, but it's good to be aware of it before you start, so you can customise appropriately.