Zaq
2015-01-21, 02:49 PM
So, I want to get my friends involved in a game of Legend (http://www.ruleofcool.com/), of which I remain a loyal devotee (despite the fact that it hasn't really seen a lot of motion in, um, way the hell too long). It falls to me to GM it, because I'm the one who's most involved with the system—my friends are willing to learn a new system well enough to play it, but none of them want to learn the system well enough to GM the inaugural campaign. It's a reasonable sentiment overall, but it's slightly problematic in that I'm not actually that good at GMing. The hope is that this initial campaign will get people sufficiently acquainted with the system that we'll be able to revert to our old round-robin style of GMing, but one step at a time. First, I have to GM this campaign, and I'm not actually good at GMing.
Now, I can build monsters all day long (I actually turned the entire 3.5 MM1 into Legend stubs (http://www.ruleofcool.com/smf/index.php/topic,1369.0.html)), and in certain systems (especially 4e), I'm pretty good at coming up with engaging combat environments, but when it comes to creating a consistent narrative with a good reason for the party to be fighting those monsters in those environments? Eh, not my strong suit. My 3.5 campaigns have been riddled with problems that I won't go into here, and I just don't really feel confident in my ability to make a campaign that's more engaging than "here's a series of rooms with monsters to fight in them; go through them one by one, because reasons." Add in the fact that Legend doesn't have any actual premade monsters yet (so if the PCs go in a direction I don't expect, I can't just grab the Monster Manual and find something appropriate—I have to build it from scratch), and it seems to me that I'm going to have better luck with a canned adventure than with something I come up with myself.
Yeah, canned adventures tend to be kind of corny and predictable, but this way, when it's corny and predictable, that's WotC's fault (or Paizo's fault, or whatever), not my fault. Now, of course, there are no premade adventures for Legend, so I'm going to have to take a 3.5 adventure and update it myself. That's not hard for me to do (like I said, I can build monsters all day long), but I'm not actually that familiar with a lot of 3.5 adventures. I've played a couple premade 4e adventures, but since Legend is much more strongly based on 3.5 than 4e, I don't think it would be a great idea to try to update a 4e adventure—plus, most of the people in this putative Legend game were the very people I played through those 4e adventures with, so the ones I'm actually familiar with are too familiar to be any good. But the point is that I've never played a premade 3.5 adventure, so I'm not sure what to look for.
So, we come to the meat of the question: what are your favorite premade 3.5 adventures, and why? I'm looking for something probably in a mid-level range—levels in 3.5 do not map to levels in Legend, and I know better than to try to get a one-to-one ratio, but the point is that I'm not looking for anything really low-level or anything really high-level. Don't worry too much about how easy it would be to update the monsters—as I've said, I'm good at building monsters, and if I can't make any of them match perfectly, I'll just make a new monster to take its place. Plot elements can remain just that—plot elements, so even if a spell or an item or a specific ability doesn't exist in Legend, anything that's critical to the module can be presented as a plot element. (For example, there's no hard and fast rules for planar travel in Legend, but if the adventure calls for the party to get Plane Shifted somewhere, then I'll have an NPC Plane Shift them somewhere. Just because there aren't PC rules for it doesn't mean I can't make it happen.) What I really need more than anything else is a starting point and a premade structure on which to hang the new system.
So, whatcha got? Any modules you've had good luck with in the past? Any modules you've read and want to run, even if you've never actually played them? I'd prefer it if the adventure isn't spread across ten different issues of Dragon or something (I mean, I can probably find them on Amazon or something, but I'd rather not have to), but if you've got something that's really good, I want to hear it, even if it would be a little fussy to find. I'd prefer to stay away from Pathfinder stuff, because while I know 3.5 like the back of my hand, I haven't really kept up with Pathfinder, so I can't read the statblocks as easily or have as intuitive a feel for what something actually does (and thus it will be harder to convert). That said, it's all being converted one way or another anyway, so if you've got something really good from Pathfinder, I'm still willing to listen. Any and all suggestions are welcome at this point.
Now, I can build monsters all day long (I actually turned the entire 3.5 MM1 into Legend stubs (http://www.ruleofcool.com/smf/index.php/topic,1369.0.html)), and in certain systems (especially 4e), I'm pretty good at coming up with engaging combat environments, but when it comes to creating a consistent narrative with a good reason for the party to be fighting those monsters in those environments? Eh, not my strong suit. My 3.5 campaigns have been riddled with problems that I won't go into here, and I just don't really feel confident in my ability to make a campaign that's more engaging than "here's a series of rooms with monsters to fight in them; go through them one by one, because reasons." Add in the fact that Legend doesn't have any actual premade monsters yet (so if the PCs go in a direction I don't expect, I can't just grab the Monster Manual and find something appropriate—I have to build it from scratch), and it seems to me that I'm going to have better luck with a canned adventure than with something I come up with myself.
Yeah, canned adventures tend to be kind of corny and predictable, but this way, when it's corny and predictable, that's WotC's fault (or Paizo's fault, or whatever), not my fault. Now, of course, there are no premade adventures for Legend, so I'm going to have to take a 3.5 adventure and update it myself. That's not hard for me to do (like I said, I can build monsters all day long), but I'm not actually that familiar with a lot of 3.5 adventures. I've played a couple premade 4e adventures, but since Legend is much more strongly based on 3.5 than 4e, I don't think it would be a great idea to try to update a 4e adventure—plus, most of the people in this putative Legend game were the very people I played through those 4e adventures with, so the ones I'm actually familiar with are too familiar to be any good. But the point is that I've never played a premade 3.5 adventure, so I'm not sure what to look for.
So, we come to the meat of the question: what are your favorite premade 3.5 adventures, and why? I'm looking for something probably in a mid-level range—levels in 3.5 do not map to levels in Legend, and I know better than to try to get a one-to-one ratio, but the point is that I'm not looking for anything really low-level or anything really high-level. Don't worry too much about how easy it would be to update the monsters—as I've said, I'm good at building monsters, and if I can't make any of them match perfectly, I'll just make a new monster to take its place. Plot elements can remain just that—plot elements, so even if a spell or an item or a specific ability doesn't exist in Legend, anything that's critical to the module can be presented as a plot element. (For example, there's no hard and fast rules for planar travel in Legend, but if the adventure calls for the party to get Plane Shifted somewhere, then I'll have an NPC Plane Shift them somewhere. Just because there aren't PC rules for it doesn't mean I can't make it happen.) What I really need more than anything else is a starting point and a premade structure on which to hang the new system.
So, whatcha got? Any modules you've had good luck with in the past? Any modules you've read and want to run, even if you've never actually played them? I'd prefer it if the adventure isn't spread across ten different issues of Dragon or something (I mean, I can probably find them on Amazon or something, but I'd rather not have to), but if you've got something that's really good, I want to hear it, even if it would be a little fussy to find. I'd prefer to stay away from Pathfinder stuff, because while I know 3.5 like the back of my hand, I haven't really kept up with Pathfinder, so I can't read the statblocks as easily or have as intuitive a feel for what something actually does (and thus it will be harder to convert). That said, it's all being converted one way or another anyway, so if you've got something really good from Pathfinder, I'm still willing to listen. Any and all suggestions are welcome at this point.