Favorite / Least Favorite Modules


Age of Worms Adventure Path


I'm running the Adventure Arc with two groups (Vets/Newbies) and they are still in WC and TFoE respectively. I was wondering which modules are the peoples (Player/DM diferentiation would be interesting too) favorite and least favorite. Say top three and bottom three?

Scarab Sages

I know most people will probably put The temple of elemental evil down as their favs and it was good but I actually enjoyed running Castle Amber years ago, also The night below mega adventure was really good and The red hand of doom was fun in a non-linear way with its race against time. Least favs are tough because they tend not to be memorable Return to the temple of elemental evil was a letdown I thought maybe because I expected more.I think anybody could have written a better return to adventure than that. Maybe Dragon Mountain was a bit of a letdown. The extras were nice and it had a lot of material but basically I thought it was a box of kobolds.


Within the context of the Age of Worms Adventure Path, my favorites have been:

1: Three Faces of Evil
2: Kings of the Rift
3: Dawn of a New Age

As for my players, their general consensus is that their favorites are (I hope I'm accurately speaking for them):

1: The Champion's Belt
2: Kings of the Rift
3: Spire of Long Shadows

As for my least favorite's it would be tough. I've really enjoyed the whole campaign. But if I had to highlight areas where I found my players encountered the most stumbling blocks/baffled expressions/misdirection, I would say:

1: A Gathering of Winds
2: Hall of Harsh Reflections
3: Into Wormcrawl Fissure


From most to least:
1)Kings of the Rift
2)Library of Last Resort
3)Champions's Belt
4)Prince of Redhand
5)Hall of Harsh Reflections
6)Into the Wormcrawl Fissure
7)Dawn of a New Age
8)A Gathering of Winds
9)Spire of Long Shadows
10) The Whispering Cairn
11) Three faces of Evil
12)Encounter at Blackwall Keep

Dark Archive

We are halfway through PoRH right now...

My top 3

1: The Whispering Cairn (one of the best low level adventures of all time)
2: Spire of Long Shadows
3: Three Faces of Evil

The player's top 3

1: Spire of Long Shadows (we are an old school combat group that took about ten years off before getting back together for the AoW, this has been some of the best hack and slashing the group has ever experienced)
2: The Whispering Cairn
3: Three Faces of Evil

We have enjoyed them all so far, but the OP demands the bad list as well...

1: Prince of Redhand (blasphemy, I know! The group just doesn't like to socialize)
2: Hall of Harsh Reflections
3: Encounter at Blackwall Keep


Spire of Long Shadows is definitely my favorite. After that would probably come Three Faces of Evil and Library of Last Resort. However, this AP has several stellar adventures. The Whispering Cairn is beyond reproach as an introductory adventure, and although not the best adventure in the series, I have to say it is the best adventure I have ever seen for 1st level characters. Into the Wormcrawl Fissure is elegant in the way it handles high-level PCs and for that I give it very high marks. Encounter at Blackwall Keep is also particularly well-written and stylish. It is an excellent example of a wilderness adventure. Finally, the Champion's Belt deserves an honorable mention simply because it is difficult to run a gladiator adventure so well.

I was either unimpressed or disappointed with the rest. A Gathering of Winds was trite, although the flavorful weapons at the end were redeeming. The Hall of Harsh Reflections, while possessing ingenuity in the doppleganger plot, was not the challenge it should have been. The Prince of Redhand was good, but that is all I can say about it; it was difficult for the PCs to connect with what were otherwise very intriguing characters. I wish others like Shag Solomon had had earlier roles in the campaign to make things more interesting. Kings of the Rift is just a dragon slaughter-fest, although the fights are respectably challenging. And I feel like Dawn of a New Age is somewhat disappointing in its climax. I just feel as if killing a god should not be the goal of a campaign and I have been percolating ideas about in my head trying to come up with something else. The Shackled City finale was much better.


I've only played up to "Hall of Harsh Reflections." The first four modules are excellent in my opinion. I'll be making some changes soon, though:

I'm removing "A Gathering of Winds" and replacing it with the DL module "Dragons of Despair." It will serve as Illthane's lair in the Lizardmarsh.

I'm replacing "Prince of Redhand" with a heavily augmented Expedition to Castle Ravenloft (Lashonna's "retreat").

I'd also like to slip in "Vampires of Waterdeep" somewhere in there, which might lead to changes in "Library of Last Resort."

I imagine I'll leave "Kings of the Rift" and "Dawn of a New Age" relatively untouched. They are incredible modules, and I'm excited to get there!

I'm also very excited to run through "Champion's Belt." The gladiator matches are eagerly anticipated by everyone at the table. "Spire of Long Shadows" will allow me to take the group to Chult, which is an experience we've never had.


We are currently playing "Hall of Harsh Reflections." I will say that "The Spire of Long Shadows" was the adventure I read that made me say, "My next campaign will be Age of Worms!" I particularly enjoyed "The Whispering Cairn", found "The Three Faces of Evil" to go on and on with little respite for a low-level group, and "Encounter at Blackwall Keep" (Cromm's Hold in our FR version) was much easier than the ELs would lead you to believe. The pit trap down in the lower level of Sodden Hold in front of the fake double doors ("Hall of Harsh Reflections") is one of the most devious I've seen in a while. Although a PC with the fly spell ruined a lot of my fun, it was still a great trap and gave the party fits. Great stuff!


Our group only reached as far as Champion's Belt.

My favorites up to that point, having DMed them are:
1. Whispering Cairn
2. Champion's Belt
3. Three Faces of Evil

Least Favorites would be
1. Hall of Harsh Reflections
2. Encounter at Blackwall Keep

Hall of Harsh Reflections was just too much pointless dungeon crawling for me and mine. Dopplegangers should be smarter than to just hang around in their lair, waiting for heroes to mash them. But it is my own fault for not messing with it to suit my own opinions. Encounter at Blackwall Keep was hands down too darn easy as written.

Running the Champion's Games is a ton of fun if you write up all the other teams, take one for yourself and let the players run their own team and the other groups against themselves, thus reducing the amount of DM die rolling/description to PC action ratio. Whispering Cairn was also simply amazing for a 1st level adventure.

Adventures I was looking forward to running:
1. Library of Last Resort
2. Kings of the Rift
3. Prince of Redhand


I am about to launch into Kings of the Rift, and so far I think both players and I have found Library of Last Resort to be the overall worst adventure, even when I adjusted the beginning piece to make it less forced. It just seemed like an excuse to set the PC's against about 5 really tough encounters in order to get them lots of XP - one of the players even said early on it sounded like a computer game with the "four quests" thing. I could only really defend it by saying it was a good warm-up for the kinds of tough challenges yet to come. I'm sure Kings will be better, especially as I used the Istivin series as a side-treck some time back, so it should be a really good case of deja vu with all the giants (and again, I'll be changing the set-up so the dragons arrive after the PC's, so they get a chance to interact with the giants before all hell breaks loose).

Best would be hard to say, we've enjoyed all the rest really, very close to a tie for all the others before the Library, they are quite diverse in various ways so it's kind of apples and oranges etc; the best part is that together they all make for a really tasty fruit salad.


I haven't started to run AoW, yet, but hope to do so soon.
I think in order of preference (most, at top, to least, at bottom):

1) Prince of Redhand - Lots of RP potential and very little fighting. Yayy!
2) Champions's Belt - A duel stadium & investigation based adventure, awesome.
3) The Whispering Cairn - A good well-rounded adventure.
4) Spire of Long Shadows - Flashbacks make a change, and I do love spellweavers.
5) A Gathering of Winds - The Occulus demon makes me tingle, as does that last platform chamber.
6) Kings of the Rift - So many dragons, so many distractions, so much blood to spill.
7) Hall of Harsh Reflections - I'll like it. The players won't.
8) Dawn of a New Age - Too many pointless big crunchy fights. I just want the creamy Lashonna and Kyuss filled centers.
9) Into the Wormcrawl Fissure - It would be boring if it wasn't for Dragotha.
10) Library of Last Resort - The Hand of Vecna is cool, and the intro for it's possessor, but that's all.
11) Three faces of Evil - I like the Aspect, and Vecna's maze, but little else.
12) Encounter at Blackwall Keep - Dull fluff, barely neccessary.

RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32

We're just about to begin HoHR, so this is just my personal faves as a DM:
1) Spire of Long Shadows - great blend of storytelling and creepy setting.
2) Into the Wormcrawl Fissure - Dragotha, 'nuff said!
3) Dawn of a New Age - I'm a sucker for epic level stuff.

Least favorites:
1) A Gathering of Winds - love what happens to Diamond Lake, but too many artifacts and my players will hate no dragon hoard from Ilthane.
2) Prince of Redhand - too much of one style of play and I'm not big on Lashonna's character.
3) Kings of the Rift - they say too much of a good thing can kill you, it can also kill an adventure.

I'll admit I wasn't too excited to play "The Champion's Belt" that much until I saw the model someone made of the arena on another thread. That inspired me to make one, which I've just finished and after watching Galdiator a few times I'm totally looking forward to it. Should be a lot of fun.

Sovereign Court

I'm currently beginning Three Faces of Evil. So far the Whispering Cairn was very enjoyable, both for myself and my players. From what I've read, all the adventures strike me as good, but my favourites and least favourites are:

Favourites:

1) Champion's Belt
2) Prince of Redhand
3) Library of Last Resorts

Least Favourites:

1) A Gathering of Winds
2) Three Faces of Evil
3) Into the Wormcrawl Fissure


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Just wrapped up my campaign yesterday, so I thought I'd bring this thread back:

1) Kings of the Rift - it was the most complicated to run, very chaotic, and open enough that I had to stay on my toes, but when it worked, it really worked.
2) The Whispering Cairn - even ignoring the excellence that is Diamond Lake, it's an incredibly solid start to the campaign, a great dungeon crawl, and I love how the sidequest of Filge is the real hook.
3) The Library of Last Resort - it manages to cram so much high quality content into the adventure. Darl and Krathanos were two of the most memorable NPCs in the campaign.
4) The Champion's Belt - this was the third or fourth time my group has had an arena session, and rather than groans, they were excited and had a lot of fun because the adventure is so well put together.
5) The Hall of Harsh Reflections - two solid dungeon crawls, a good setting, and a villain (Zyrxog) that evolved into a long-term nemesis.
6) The Three Faces of Evil - it had some flaws, but the interplay between the three groups led to a lot of interesting roleplaying, and the encounters were uniformly excellent.
7) The Prince of Redhand - Alhaster made for a great setting, and the party was fun but not earth shattering.
8) Dawn of a New Age - a good conclusion that keeps everything moving quickly. Satisfying, but not outstanding.
9) The Spire of Long Shadows - an incredibly tough, enjoyable dungeon crawl with a lot of interesting new monsters. Engaging enough to keep the PCs coming back after all those deaths, but felt like it could have been a lot better.
10) Into the Wormcrawl Fissure - Dragotha was excellent, and Zulshyn made for an interesting break from all the combat, but otherwise there wasn't too much memorable about this adventure.
11) Encounter at Blackwall Keep - it was merely okay. The siege was surprisingly easy, the trek through the swamp lacked development, and the lizardfolk's lair was brief for a party that didn't fight their way through.
N/A) A Gathering of Winds - this one didn't really grab me, and since the party failed to stop the Ulgurstasta in The Champion's Belt, so I skipped it to run a few sessions of them cleaning up the mess.


I DMed the first four modules so far and for my group I had to rewrite some of it.
In particular encounter at BW keep: the lizardmen encounter around the keep: I piled them up to make them feel like an army, but as my players are very good at crowd control (glitterdust, entangle, grease) I had them hiding in long reeds, bringing in pet giant frogs and only then it felt like a challenge.
The second problem I have with this module, is the fact that it hardly advances the main plot line: you do not feel like the forces of chaos are gathering, threatening to take over the world if you do not hurry. So I added a village that the adventurers pass through on the way to blackwell, which is a nice, normal village, good people, and on the way back it is deserted and spawns roam the streets. My players now consider it one of their favorite parts. I would like to make this add-on material available, but do not know what would be a good place where you can post PDFs.


I modified almost every adventure in some way and inserted a number of homebrew and other modules to extend the AoW campaign to 26th level (3.5 rules).

From most to least:

1) The Whispering Cairn - I did the least modification here. My players also enjoyed this one a great deal.

2) Champions's Belt - The player's enjoyed the arena combat. This is also one of the modules where I felt I needed to do very little modifications to make it fit for me.

3) Spire of Long Shadows - The flashbacks were a big hit with the players. The Radiant Servant of Pelor player was able to chew up a great deal of the low level Spawn making the encounters less deadly than I anticipated. Despite the ease once combat began, the sheer number of undead had the players sweating bullets.

4) Three faces of Evil - I changed everything about the Caves but left the rest as is.

5) A Gathering of Winds - I place this as high as I do because I made the Rod of 7 Parts a big time Macguffin in my campaign. Otherwise I may have skipped this one altogether.

6) Kings of the Rift - I made significant changes here but the combats were stellar and the players really enjoyed them.

7) Prince of Redhand - I liked this one, even though I modified it almost 100%, because it was not combat heavy and was a nice change of pace.

8) Into the Wormcrawl Fissure - I modified this one heavily and threw out at least 2/3rds of the module. Dragotha was a terrific villain otherwise I may have rated this last.

9) Dawn of a New Age - I heavily modified this as well. Again, Kyuss encounter was amazing or I would have rated this second to last.

10) Hall of Harsh Reflections - The doppleganger plots gave the characters fits. A decent offbeat dungeon crawl but not as good as some of the other modules.

11) Encounter at Blackwall Keep - I had to modify this almost completely to save it from being too easy. I skipped the siege altogether.

12) Library of Last Resort - I used the overview and very little else here.

Overall, my player's loved this adventure path.

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