Your favorite (published) Adventure?

[Yael]

I was thinking on how cool is to run a printed adventure, as you can actually get some nice ideas from it, and the more I read (especially the web enhancement adventures), the more I found I like running these, so here I am, asking which of the D&D 3.5 is your favorite adventure. I'm staying off Pathfinder, as I haven't read any of its adventure paths, but feel free to comment your favorite from that system as well. This is not about difficulty, but enjoyment.

Mine so far is Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, as it has pretty nice references to Ben Stoker's Dracula, and the setting is unnerving. The difficulty is a bit high if Strahd is roleplayed well, but it rewards exploration and not rushing the events, as weakening the vampire is pretty satisfying whenever you fight him afterwards. I played this twice (DM'd it once), and it's very tempting to have it using the Taint Rules (HoH) as the roleplaying can easily deviate into a horror narrative, which is awesome!

[Seharvepernfan]

Everybody says Red Hand of Doom is good

[Mike Miller]

I enjoy the three Dungeon adventure paths: Shackled City, Age of Worms, and Savage Tide. I also like the Sunless Citadel "adventure path," although it takes a bit of work to make the 8 Sunless Citadel AP books work as a campaign.

[BowStreetRunner]

I haven't used published adventures for a long time. But now that I have young kids it's much harder to find the time to work on my own campaigns. So I came to this thread to read what others liked and was hoping for a little more - like why it is that each of you like a particular adventure. There is a good chance that I will need to go this route eventually, unless I just want to give up gaming. (Not!) So I'm really interested in hearing beforehand how others felt about these.

@Yael: I remember the original 1st edition Ravenloft module was fun to play, so am happy to hear that the 3.5 version is enjoyable too. I've never been drawn to the lure of Taint rules - although there was a mechanic in a Cthulhu LARP that we used which seems similar and it wasn't bad to play. I'll definitely keep it in mind.

[Venger]

Since you mentioned ravenloft already, eberrons' "eyes of the lich queen" is pretty fun.

[DwarvenWarCorgi]

Everybody says Red Hand of Doom is good

I enjoyed running RHoD as a GM quite a bit. Enjoyed playing Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil as a PC as well. Both go into detail of the "living ecology of the (valley/dungeon)" quite a bit. Helps the printed adventure feel more organic.

[Mike Miller]

I came to this thread to read what others liked and was hoping for a little more - like why it is that each of you like a particular adventure. There is a good chance that I will need to go this route eventually, unless I just want to give up gaming. (Not!) So I'm really interested in hearing beforehand how others felt about these.

To go in to more detail, I like the Dungeon APs because they are detailed. There is still room for me to add my own touches, but I don't really need to. They aren't the kind of module where it takes longer to prepare than creating something from scratch. They are useful, fun, and memorable. These campaigns also provide a good challenge for my players, which isn't always the case with modules.

As for the Sunless Citadel AP, I enjoy it because it is just the skeleton of a campaign. There isn't much holding it together, so I can do more with it to make it my own. There isn't as much of a railroad feeling. The reasons I like these two groups are somewhat opposite (little prep vs lots of prep) but it depends on what kind of a mood I'm in. Sometimes I can go a few months with tons of creativity and prepare lots ahead of time. Other times, I am hit with writer's block, basically.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Yael
I'm staying off Pathfinder, as I haven't read any of its adventure paths, but feel free to comment your favorite from that system as well.

Some of the best gaming fun I’ve had in years was playing in Rise of the Runelords, which is a classic Pathfinder AP. I played a knowledge/healer support character, who also served as party face, and it balanced well with the other characters.

Much of this AP, or at least the sections I played in, was very dungeon-crawly, but there was a driving energy to it that made it tons of fun. Sadly, the group I was playing with decided to switch over to a Kingmaker campaign, and the momentum was utterly lost.


Originally Posted by Mike Miller
I also like the Sunless Citadel "adventure path," although it takes a bit of work to make the 8 Sunless Citadel AP books work as a campaign.

Sunless Citadel and Forge of Fury were the classic entry points to 3.5 gaming for a lot of groups, including mine. There’s a common thread running through several of them, so it’s actually not too difficult for a creative DM to string them all together.

[Mike Miller]

Sunless Citadel and Forge of Fury were the classic entry points to 3.5 gaming for a lot of groups, including mine. There’s a common thread running through several of them, so it’s actually not too difficult for a creative DM to string them all together.

By "common thread" you mean ashardalon being mentioned in passing in two or three books before the 8th and the vampire in the 5th book being mentioned in passing in the 1st book. That's about it. The 6th book in particular has nothing in common with the rest. It can be done, though. It is the skeleton of a campaign, but a good skeleton. It can work out well.

[Andor13]

While it's not the edition you asked for, I have a fondness for an ancient AD&D module called "Beyond the Crystal Cave." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_the_Crystal_Cave) (Apparently also released for 4e.)

What I liked was the well thought out nature of the module, which also rewarded thoughtful play. A polite 1st level party might easily do better than "boot the door" style party of 4th or 5th level.

[Malimar]

Of the several I've played through, my favorite has been PF's Wrath of the Righteous. The army-combat and city-building bits feel a bit tacked on, and it's got the usual Paizo problem of an asston of NPCs you're supposed to somehow care about, but I like the part where characters pick a campaign trait and a bit of backstory and then over the course of the campaign each character in turn gets the spotlight to expand on their backstory a couple times.

Which is basically to say that my favorite adventure path is the one that makes an effort to do the thing that non-AP games can easily do natively.

[Quertus]

Well, my answer(s) are going to contain my typical level of, well, me-taint.

My favorite module to play through was probably Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. I haven't actually read the module, so I can't say for sure that the GM played it 100% by the book. However, my reasons for enjoying that module are completely party-specific. That party was epic! And not entirely heroic, either, with such morally questionable quotes as, "we waded through them like they were humans," and "We'd like to interrogate this prisoner. Can you cast Heal? No? <slits throat> How about Speak with Dead?" Good times.

My favorite module that I've heard of (but neither played nor read) was _________(I don't know the name), because it involves killing a god, which is pretty much the best thing to do in D&D.

My least favorite module that I've played through was intended for epic level characters, that the GM tried to run 1st level characters through. But that's not the module's fault.