Pre-Mades: What ones do you like?

[TooManySecrets]

I've realized recently that a lot of my trouble DMing doesn't come from the actual DMing part or from lack of imagination, but simple fatigue with trying to make a compelling game. My current thought is that it would be better to get some decent pre-made adventures/campaigns and then modify them to fit an overarching campaign. All of which is just a build up to the following question:

Which pre-made adventures or campaigns for D&D 3.5 have you played and enjoyed?

I don't really care about what the setting is or anything else like that. The only thing I'm concerned about is adventures that people liked.

[Lord Il Palazzo]

I started my first (and current) campaign with A Dark and Stormy Knight followed by The Burning Plague (both from here[/here].) A Dark and Stormy Knight gives a good reason for a bunch of level 1 PCs to get together for an adventure without using the stereotypical "You're all in a bar. A guy comes in and gives you a job" set up, since it starts with a group of travellers taking shelter from a storm in a cave. It has a decent variety of fights, from a ton of rats to 2 NPC (Hobgoblin, I think) warriors to an undead bugbear.

The Burning Plague gave a good introduction to fighting large groups of NPCs, as there are at least two occasions when 6-9 kobolds would attack. The final boss (a level 5 cleric) can be touch if you're running the adventure with 1st level characters like they suggest, but I'd let my players advance to level 2 after an earlier fight so it wasn't too bad (though still a challenge.) The Burning Plague is also good since it gives two easy ways to connect to another adventure afterwards: the module says the plague is cured and the town's water purified when the boss dies. I said it wasn't and that the players had to go to the lost temple of Corellon to get the cure. There's also a good chance that at least one PC will be infected after the adventure. I had a merchant bargain with them, giving them a Wand of Remove Disease (which they used on themselves and then sold to the town at a tidy profit) in exchange for raiding a dungeon for him.

I've also run Bad Light (from the same page) for a different group. It's fine, but not great. The ghouls early on are just there for a fight and have nothing to do with the plot of the story and the [URL="http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/grick.htm"]grick (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20030530b&page=1) in the tower's first floor was a really hard fight*. I like the map and have used it again in a differnt game with different context, but I probably wouldn't use the adventure itself again.

*To be fair, this was out fault; we rolled up characters and grabbed basic equipment to start the game, not worrying about wealth by level or getting magic items besides a Cure potion or two each; the grick has only 2d8 HP, but DR 10/magic was a big problem with no magic weapons and a sorcerer more interested in summoning than using his magic missiles.

[Mcdt2]

Well, this one is less "work it into an over arching campaign" than actually being a full campaign, but I quite enjoy the Drow War, by Mongoose publishing. Be sure you're in this for the long haul though. It's a 3 part adventure that goes from level 1 up to epics and beyond. That being said, the first book has a valid cut off point at level 10, you can easily end it there should you not wish to continue any further. It's very well set up, open ended enough to account for PC's doing there own thing (as PC's are wont to do) and only feels like it's railroading the players once or twice (namely the very beginning, as a goddess basically drags the players to her holy ground and tells them to start the quest.) If you do go with this book, I have to suggest rebuilding the "endboss" NPC. she's supposed to be a powerful threat to a party of 4-6 level 10 PC's, yet she's built as a Fighter 4/Cleric 6. A cleric focused on summons and defensive spells, no less. Most of the other fights are solid, if not too challenging, however.

[DarkEternal]

Well, this one is less "work it into an over arching campaign" than actually being a full campaign, but I quite enjoy the Drow War, by Mongoose publishing. Be sure you're in this for the long haul though. It's a 3 part adventure that goes from level 1 up to epics and beyond. That being said, the first book has a valid cut off point at level 10, you can easily end it there should you not wish to continue any further. It's very well set up, open ended enough to account for PC's doing there own thing (as PC's are wont to do) and only feels like it's railroading the players once or twice (namely the very beginning, as a goddess basically drags the players to her holy ground and tells them to start the quest.) If you do go with this book, I have to suggest rebuilding the "endboss" NPC. she's supposed to be a powerful threat to a party of 4-6 level 10 PC's, yet she's built as a Fighter 4/Cleric 6. A cleric focused on summons and defensive spells, no less. Most of the other fights are solid, if not too challenging, however.

I'm actually DM-ing that campaign right now. Still have some trouble with signature items and what to give some of the party membrs(winging with giving extra spell slots to a spell book, though no idea what to do with a bard's lute).

It has a few rail road parts, and the fact that even when you are given "freedom" it sort of urges you where you need to go, and if the party wants to explore the world, you really don't know what to tell them since it's a different setting, and God knows in what kind of a state some of the countries are or what they look like-feel like if they decide to go there, and not follow the book. Still, pretty good adventure path(though I think I led that one massive battle pretty poorly).