Same. I'm not sure why people cite similarities with the AtG series as a compliment. To me, that signifies illogical dungeon design and ecology. In other words, not something to strive towards as a designer.
I can see someone having a sense of nostalgia with those modules but I wouldn't use them as a template for good dungeon/module design.
While I loved playing 1e, most of the adventures of the time were pretty bad. The AtG series was definitely among the better adventures of the time, and with the sparse descriptions provided in the adventures all it took was a little creative DM storytelling to make the adventures pretty darn fun to play. (I did this by making the dungeons 'in motion' and not frozen with monsters and giants waiting for the party to come to them...if nearby rooms hear a commotion, then send the monsters in or raise the alarm and send the entire complex at the party! This kept my party on their toes and interested for sure.)
Also, this series was one of the more commonly ran published adventures so when you got together with other people who played D&D you could compare notes about shared experiences.
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As far as how I liked this particular adventure I'd rate it right along side the rest of the RotRL series so far - excellent.
I didn't think I'd like this one, but the siege of Sandpoint ran amazingly well (just finished it today--12 hours of play over two days, 28 combat rounds).
Probably more memorable combat moments than anything in the series so far. Highlights:
The hapless giant who got into a sleet storm and then kept rolling very low in his attempts to stand up. He ended up yelling "I've fallen and I can't get up" and freaking out the rest of his group....
Lel the halfling battlemage saving the cathedral by throwing a cyclone blast at the dragon, so that it overflew and breathed on him instead; and then doggedly pursuing it on foot, smoke pouring off him, while the other PCs tried to catch up and heal him.
Wren feebleminding the dragon, turning it into an enraged, mindless killing machine. Chevali and her cloud of mirror images playing tag with it, keeping it off the townsfolk as it shredded the images one by one, until Lel could arrive and freeze it solid with cone of cold. (I love the image of these three halflings beating a red dragon in the middle of the town. People will be talking about this for years.)
The casters putting confusion and glitterdust into a crowd of giants, and then the fighters playing them off against each other, so that much of the damage done was giant-on-giant. Teraktinus went down in a bitter melee with his own forces, screaming defiance.
Jal the cleric of Erastil dominating one of the great bears, using it to mop up two giants, and then having the spell run out at just the wrong moment so that it turned on him in a rage. (I thought he would die. I spent most of the fight sure that a PC would die any moment, but none did.)
Chevali turning into an eagle and flying across to Scarnetti House, then realizing she was basically out of spells and alone with three giants--she managed to hamper and distract them with her low-level spells for five long rounds until help could arrive.
Lel saying very calmly to Jal "Just make sure I don't die" and then casting the decisive spell against the Scarnetti giants when already at 0 hp. (In the course of the fight he went through 2.5 times his total hit points. Truly the Halfling of Wrath.)
The desperate town guardsmen, who were totally unable to hit the giants, seizing a brief moment when a dire bear was paralyzed to make the coup de grace.
Just nice stuff all around. We don't have fly spells, and the terrain interactions really made this interesting.
I hope the rest of the module can live up to it.
Mary
That did sound like a cool fight. Thanks for sharing.
Well I finally finished this one off, my distributer gave me 5 and 6 but had 4 in back order for half of forever - very annoying.
I really liked the siege battle in the beginning. Part of that would be the nice round by round design with significant interactions depending on what the players where doing. I both loved that dynamic and got a (quite possibly totally unjustified) ego boost as I was one of the people b@$%@ing and moaning on these boards that that the final battle in Tides of Dread was not better scripted - and all of a sudden we have a really well scripted and highly interactive big battle scene.
Beyond this I have to say that I'm concerned. The main adventure feels somewhat static. There is an army topside but they don't really seem to do anything. I'd like to have seen more done with that, some kind of a sub plot that involved the PCs distracting the giant army some how or blocking their access to the ruins or, alternatively, a situation where the PCs are pressed for time as giant patrols start coming down there looking for them. I see that there are some encounters where the villain will try and escape and come back for the PCs but that feels more of an after thought here then a big part of the theme. A final twist could have been having it so players where trying to stop warning from getting top side. Really what I'd have preferred to see here is something more interesting then a basic 'clear the dungeon'.
I also can't say that I'm all that happy with this dungeons layout. I don't really care about it being 'logical' that things are basically stacked levels of square rooms. Logical or not its not very exciting and, in a purchased product, interesting and unusual is pretty important. I can remake a basic dungeon pretty easily myself after all - I want you (James and the crew) to make me stop and say 'cool' when I see what they have done with the layout. I want the dungeon itself to either be unique in terms of lay out or to be interactive. This is a pretty static local.
The adventure could also have used something that made it more clear to the PCs what their goal should be. As others have pointed out - there does not seem to be any way for the PCs to deduce that they ought to behead the giant leadership for victory.
Suggestion for making Jorgenfist more interesting:
Mokmurian has taken an elder from each tribe hostage to insure the tribes' loyalty. The PCs get in contact with dissidents in the tribes who say that they can engineer a rebellion if the elders are released and the Cauldron, which the giants fear greatly, is destroyed.
Double to triple the number of giants in the upper levels and make them less static--moving around to tend the prisoners, change shifts, carry messages, work for Mokmurian, etc. As it stands many of the giants are described as being at their posts 24/7 which is illogical as well as dull. Shift changes give an opportunity for interesting tactics, after all.
Strip out some of the irrelevant monsters to make up for the extra giants. Or connect them in some way with what's going on. The scanderig seemed particularly unconnected, with the redcaps a close second.
Give the giants a few more spellcasters. As far as I can tell the entire giant army has two--Mokmurian and the leader of the Maidens--and this makes them unsatisfying opponents for a party of this level. My player demonstrated to me that the PC party could take out the whole army if Mokmurian didn't intervene, at almost zero risk to themselves: the giants are really unable to deal with improved invisibility and confusion.
Give Conna and the ghost something real to do. I didn't find a satisfactory solution to this. Also, make the giants really different from ogres--delete the eyeball candy and so forth, and have the giants stick closer to giantish culture as described. It's frustrating to read all about their unusual social organization, only to find that in this module they don't have it.
This wasn't as tough to run as #3 for us, but it was not particularly interesting except for the seige.
Mary
First, I should say that I agree with everything that has been posted so far regarding this adventure. It is not a very thrilling read for the DM and (apart from the attack on Sandpoint) doesn't have any of the "Gee, that's cool!" moments that the first three adventures in RotRL did. Many complaints about the static arrangement, layout of the dungeon, and lack of connection for some of the monsters therein can be (and have been) expressed.
Personally, I want to thank Mary for her help and suggestions as I prepared for tackling Jorgenfist, many of which I used. That said, it is important that you keep in mind that her changes (and those of other helpful posters) need not be used in all cases and might just end up confusing matters.
Case in point: My PCs are just about to enter the deathweb cave and find the "back door" to Jorgenfist. This party has no true arcane caster (duskblade, binder/sorcerer, and a bard) and thus sees the camps of giants circling the fortress as an impenetrable barrier (rightly so). There's no invisibility here. Second, and this is a comment about my players, it never occurred to them that Longtooth (who survived the raid on Sandpoint), the rocs, the harpies, or any other faction might not be firmly allied with Mokmurian and possibly used as an ally or turncoat (probably a result of other gaming experiences). Their one nod to finesse here was in charming the two ettin guards in the watchtower and pumping them for info, thus discovering the river caves and an alternate entry. Although I had written up all sorts of political intrigue and factions, I should have known that my players would ignore it and simply see the fortress as a huge bank vault to be broken into. Ultimately, my point is ... know your players. Don't spend a lot of time adding complexity that will never be realized and don't increase the challenge of the fortress (with additional giants, for example) if your players aren't equipped and strategic enough to overcome the challenge.
I just wanted to post this to help other DMs steer clear of my waste of time and also to point out that the adventure is just fine as is for the right set of players. Personally, I wish they were a little different, but I'm outnumbered. :)
O
PS I did take out the redcaps and the scanderig and the trolls, though. Thanks again, Mary.