Best Playtesting Module

[Zaydos]

Ia! Ia! Playgrounthulu! I invoke ye great and ageless wisdom!

So I was thinking if one wants to test homebrew the best way would be an actual adventure, full-fledged and not designed as just a series of hoops or a solo quest. This got me thinking how to make one, which got me thinking that it'd be better to use something that wasn't custom designed for the task, but instead simulated something more baseline and general. Which made me think of modules. They're a sort of base line, a basic adventure not designed for a particular party.

So what module would you say is best to use for playtesting homebrew? My first thought was Red Hand of Doom because it's rather famous for quality, but I'm not particularly familiar with modules, so I'd like to hear some 2nd, 3rd, and even nth opinions.

[ngilop]

Red Hand of Doom

Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde

and for beginners the Scourge of the Howing Horde.

would be the three I select.

[bekeleven]

...Is this the evolution of the sinister spire?

[Zaydos]

Red Hand of Doom

Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde

and for beginners the Scourge of the Howing Horde.

would be the three I select.

See I've never even heard of two of those. I might have to look into them.


...Is this the evolution of the sinister spire?

After that fell apart (:smallsigh:), yes. As a note the aboleth encounter made it not a particularly good one (since it meant the 2nd encounter had a very high chance of derailing the whole adventure).

[bekeleven]

My group of sinister spire - Iteration 3, group A - wiped in the first encounter. You later commented it was "surprisingly hard" for 4 tier-4 classes. And I was like, how many times are you going to run it before you stop being surprised :smalltongue:

[Zaydos]

My group of sinister spire - Iteration 3, group A - wiped in the first encounter. You later commented it was "surprisingly hard" for 4 tier-4 classes. And I was like, how many times are you going to run it before you stop being surprised :smalltongue:

I will remain surprised at whoever (apparently Bruce R. Cordell who I have mixed opinions about) designed that encounter. Or decided to throw the aboleth in the next one.

[bekeleven]

Well, glad to hear you're still fighting the good fight.

[Saintheart]

Spoiling for those who haven't played it...

Red Hand of Doom I think would work for roadtesting homebrew that anticipates or simulates a classic, four-man party of meat/monkey/magician/mantra, provided that party resides at the sweet spot of levels 6-10. At 10 and upwards it is just a cakewalk. Below about level 5 it's probably a TPK. The encounters in it are not built out-of-the-box to handle very savvy optimisers, very experienced players, large parties, or heavy magic-users. It'll be harder to judge if you're roadtesting homebrewed magic against competing NPC magic: the opposition is almost entirely melee-based with some light buffs at the best of times, and doesn't have any serious spellcasting opponents (absent the Ghostlord, who is not meant to be a combat encounter, and who is woefully built on the book to oppose a half-competent party that's dealt with casters before.) The dragons are built more as bruisers and breathers than casters, and they're very young all round. Opponents' Will saves generally are fairly low. Even the authors of RHOD themselves admit that most of the army making up the titular Red Hand is composed of a lot of cannon fodder, and it's intended on their part.

That said, there are some sections of the adventure that regularly test parties, even ones with a bit of experience, and it's harder to clown encounters in FtF than PbP. A fair proportion of parties I've seen or heard about have a hard time when they pull a frontal assault on Rhest - it's a pretty strong combination of dragon + archer + greenspawn razorfiend + multiple ogres + hobgoblin regulars which a four-man party generally gets heavily taxed beating on its own. And the highest magic you're going to deal with is probably represented by the creatures and opponents in the Fane of Tiamat, part five of the adventure, since you get some extraplanar intervention with all that entails.

Hope some of that helps...