Good 3.5 Adventures

[Gorgondantess]

Well, a few of my friends are wanting to get into D&D. Normally my DMing style is erratic, very player-driven, more focused on messing around in an interesting world than, well, playing Dungeons & Dragons. I'm really not very good at a structured game, but I think that's really what someone new to the system really needs.
So, does anyone know of some good pre-made adventures? I'd really rather not do anything generic for the settings, or anything that would require much more than just a PHB for the players involved.
Additionally, I want something that runs smoothly- more interactions than big combats. They'll probably get bored rolling dice all day.
I'm going to be having 3 players, and I'd like to start at level 1 or 2, maybe 3.

[Vaynor]

The Sunless Citadel is always fun (plus, it has Meepo!). It's got your standard dungeon-delving, dragons, lots of puny kobolds, and I certainly enjoyed playing it (back when I first started D&D as well).

Edit: The Sunless Citadel is designed for 4 1st level characters who should advance to 2nd-3rd level at the end of the adventure (according to the module).

[hamishspence]

Faerun, Eberron, and "generic" (basically Greyhawk- but can be used elsewhere) all have published examples.

Of those, I'm told Red Hand of Doom (generic) is especially popular.

Dungeon Magazine has (I think) 3 separate arcs running from 1st to 20th level- one of which was later compiled into a thick book (Shackled City). The other two were Age of Worms, and Savage Tide. There were also plenty of shorter adventures.

[Gorgondantess]

Faerun, Eberron and Greyhawk are 3 settings I'm specifically not interested in using. I'd really prefer something like Planescape: these are all jaded teenagers, and I really don't think the standard high fantasy is going to keep their interest.

[hamishspence]

Expedition to the Demonweb Pits may qualify- it's mostly set in the Outer Planes (Sigil, the Abyss, etc) and more exotic planes like the Plane of Mirrors make appearences.

[Gorbash]

+1 for Shackled City, Savage Tide and Age of Worms.

Doesn't get more epic than killling Demon Lords, Demon Princes and Gods.

[Gorgondantess]

Hmmm... okay, those 3 look worth checking out. Does anyone know of any other good 1-20 adventures?

[Eldan]

Well, since you already started it with me as a DM once, why don't you get Desire and the Dead? It's fan-made, but if you invest a little work into it and keep adding more details to the interesting NPCs, it gets quite good. It has flaws, mainly that the ending isn't really all that great unless you more or less rewrite it, but it's a good starting point.

[herrhauptmann]

Sunless citadel and the following ones are specifically 3.0. In Sunless it doesn't much matter, but it does in later adventures where there are more casters and more varied monsters.

From the wizards site, I'd recommend "Something's cooking in the kitchen" (my players loved/hated the golem), and "A dark and stormy knight" (Though I believe the 'black knight' should be altered to something different. As written, he's rather lame with all the buildup given.)

[Thurbane]

I have played through Red Hand of Doom, Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde and Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk, and would recommend all of them. Especially RHoD - man, that was so awesome!

[jokey665]

+100 Age of Worms

[DarkEternal]

My party started at level 3, and this was my adventure "progression". Started off with the Forge of Fury, then went on to Speaker in Dreams, then Red Hand of Doom, then Shadowdale:Scouring of the land which they just finished(level 12-13 at the moment).

[Le-vante]

I played "Bastion of broken souls" a few years back it's for 18-20 lvl, but it should make one hell of a finale.

[Gorgondantess]

Okay, I'm leaning towards Shattered City myself, but I just have to ask- what is so incredibly awesome about RHoD? I've heard a lot of good things about it, but from what I've read it looks like just a random generic adventure.

[Irreverent Fool]

Okay, I'm leaning towards Shattered City myself, but I just have to ask- what is so incredibly awesome about RHoD? I've heard a lot of good things about it, but from what I've read it looks like just a random generic adventure.

There's a reason the "random generic adventure" always seems to have certain elements. They're not cliche, they're tropes!
I think your sig should read: "May he be eaten first". It's all any cultist can hope for.

[Greenish]

There's a reason the "random generic adventure" always seems to have certain elements. They're not cliche, they're tropes!

Yeah, and tropes are not bad, they're tools.

[Yora]

Faerun, Eberron and Greyhawk are 3 settings I'm specifically not interested in using. I'd really prefer something like Planescape: these are all jaded teenagers, and I really don't think the standard high fantasy is going to keep their interest.

In that case I really recommend you to take another close look at Eberron.

Just look at these cover images:

Spoiler

Show

You can play Eberron serious if you really want to. Probably. But it's a setting that is designed to be played completely over the top.

[Greenish]

In that case I really recommend you to take another close look at Eberron.

Hey, everyone knows and agrees that Eberron is a standard high fantasy setting!

[AslanCross]

Okay, I'm leaning towards Shattered City myself, but I just have to ask- what is so incredibly awesome about RHoD? I've heard a lot of good things about it, but from what I've read it looks like just a random generic adventure.

A random generic adventure I think would be a dungeon crawl, since that's what D&D adventurers are assumed to do.

RHOD is an epic war story. A horde of hobgoblins is bearing down on the region, and for the most part the human inhabitants can't do anything about it. It starts with random goblinoid raids that begin giving birth to rumors of wars. The PCs have to help the inhabitants of the vale first realize that there's a serious threat to their continued well-being, THEN help them fight off the horde.

The setting is really well-described and fleshed out---from a ruined keep on the edge of a wooded swamp to a sunken city to a lich's stronghold carved in the shape of a massive lion to a seriously deadly city siege to the temple of the cultists who are behind the invasion.

The enemies range from goblin and hobgoblin soldiers to an Aspect of Tiamat, with a wide variety of different types of warlords and dragons in between.

See the link in my sig for more ideas and for a taste of Eberron.

Really, Eberron isn't generic fantasy. That's why it's more than a little polarizing among D&D fans--some love it for its innovation, others hate it for being eclectic. I'm of the former type.

[Yora]

Even if there are several settings I would pick to play in favor of Eberron, I still think it's awsome.

Playing Iron Man is a completely regular character concept.

[molten_dragon]

Hmmm... okay, those 3 look worth checking out. Does anyone know of any other good 1-20 adventures?

The Pathfinder adventure paths published by Paizo are also really good. Most of them aren't the full 1-20, but they go from 1 to 15 or 16 ish. They've published 4 for the 3.5 ruleset (Rise of the Runelords, Curse of the Crimson Throne, Second Darkness, and Legacy of Fire), and 2 more (Council of Thieves and Kingmaker) using the Pathfinder rules, which can be used for 3.5 with only very minor modifications. I've personally played Legacy of fire, and am running Kingmaker right now, and can highly recommend both of them.

[Kaiyanwang]

Even if there are several settings I would pick to play in favor of Eberron, I still think it's awsome

For me is the same - I still prefer more classic fantasy or gritty settings, but I praise the authors for innovation.

I tried to heavily refluff most of it, once, for the purpose of a steampunk victorian set of my invention (as an example, dragonshard are a substance took from special plants of a special forest that happens to work like the Claudia in Last Exile).

[Gorgondantess]

Honestly, I love diverse settings like Dark Sun or Planescape (specifically Sigil) but Eberron just never did it for me. No idea why.
I'd look into the Pathfinder adventure paths, but I'd much prefer to use vanilla 3.5.

[molten_dragon]

Honestly, I love diverse settings like Dark Sun or Planescape (specifically Sigil) but Eberron just never did it for me. No idea why.
I'd look into the Pathfinder adventure paths, but I'd much prefer to use vanilla 3.5.

Well, like I said, the first 4 adventure paths I mentioned are written for vanilla 3.5, no changes necessary.

[herrhauptmann]

Faerun, Eberron and Greyhawk are 3 settings I'm specifically not interested in using. I'd really prefer something like Planescape: these are all jaded teenagers, and I really don't think the standard high fantasy is going to keep their interest.

Vanilla D&D: things like speaker in dreams and sunless citadel are technically in grayhawk you know. But the setting is so generic, the adventures can typically be transplanted a lot easier than say "Cormyr: Tearing of the weave"