So, there's a new Dungeon adventure up on the WOTC site. I'm sure glad they aren't charging for content yet. This lvl 20 adventure features a decent eater egg for Greyhawk grognards, but not much else. I just finished skimming through it, and as far as I can tell, it's one 'dungeon', a bunch of combat encounters (over half of which seem to be against solitary opponent), and a few random traps. There's absolutely no social encounters, set pieces, or anything that made me go 'wow, epic!'
“The Essence of Evil” is a Dungeons & Dragons® adventure
designed for four to six 20th-level characters. Player
characters who complete this climactic event should
advance to 21st level or higher. “The Essence of Evil” is
designed to be the conclusion of a long campaign—a
capstone to an excellent series of adventures. The plot is
broadly sketched to allow Dungeon Masters to link it to
nearly any campaign in any campaign setting. Alternatively,
this adventure can make for a brutal stand-alone
scenario, allowing players and DMs a deadly scenario
to explore high-level games.
The text goes on to give about a page of background on the story. In short, an elder evil has been loosed upon the world and good ol' Tharizdun is set to be freed from his prison. Only the heroic actions of the PCs can stop the END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT. Epic enough plot. However, the adventure itself feels like one of the dungeons my friends and I cobbled together on graph paper and loose-leaf when we were 11. Stock a random map with encounter after encounter of big, nasty looking monsters and set the players loose. I haven't played that kind of D&D for 20+ years.
It doesn't help that the work makes overuse of templated, obscure creatures from MM4 & MM5. There's even an opponent with class levels from a ToB (Book of 9 Swords?) class. There's a sidebar with the maneuvers information, but someone forgot to include the crunchy bits for the stances. Typical WOTC hack editing at its finest.
I'm still withholding judgment on 4E, but this digital initiative has now completely lost me. Only two of the five adventures would be something I'd consider buying if I had to pay for them. (Logue's, and Marmell's Innsmouth rip-off)
I found it odd that they included conversion notes for so many settings, including FR, Eberron, Dragonlance (!?), Ravenloft, Mystara (!?!), Dark Sun (!?!?), and Birthright (?????!!!!!?!!!?!?!?!?)
I plan on using it, but only because it actually will provide a capstone to my current campaign perfectly. I agree it is a very "thin" adventure, mostly killin' stuff. But I think with only a little bit of work it will work fine for me.
Greg
I only skimmed through it, but I also think that this was a weak one - a dungeon crawl to save the world? For a lvl 20 challenge, this is "meh".
And I really come to hate this delve format - paging back and forth is annoying.
This is rather weak and no comparison to the late paizo Dungeon stuff.
Stefan
Essence of Evil was clearly set up end a 3e campaign and justify the changes that take place in 4e.
Quoting from page 16 of the pdf
Whether or not Shothragot reaches his master is ultimately left to you, but such an event could reshape your world and prepare the way for something entirely new. Whatever you decide, the emergence and destruction of Shothragot is a signature event that can have sweeping change on your setting, making a fight with this monster a thrilling conclusion for your campaign.
Not a very subtle way of saying...
' Time to throw the old books on the fire and buy some new ones'.
Essence of Evil was clearly set up end a 3e campaign and justify the changes that take place in 4e...
Last time this was done was Fate of Istus to transition to 2/e.
You'd think lessons would be learned :/
Actually, the modules Die Vecna Die! and The Apocalypse Stone were made to transition from 2nd ed. to 3rd. As I recall neither was all that good. Maybe it's just plain hard to write about world-altering events?
While I was quite happy to see the nod to the Temple of Elemental Evil, it was still a pretty weak adventure. I agree that it seemed sad that you had to fly off to a dungeon crawl to save the world myself. Apparently no one read the Age of Worms adventure path or the Savage Tide to see what a fight to save the world should look like . . .
To be fair, a campaign-capping adventure is something you have to work up to over the course of many sessions. Just slapping a cap onto it like it was a bottle of Mountain Dew just isn't going to happen. The overuse of MM4 and MM5 monsters was a turn-off, as was the BoNS material. I don't own any of that stuff, so running all those monsters would be just that much more difficult for me, stat blocks or no.
Overall, meh.
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I don't have Elder Evil but doesn't Shothragot's Divine Madness ability seem a bit wrong?
And I'm not sure if I understand his Regeneration either:
Yawn.
Isn't any hit to creature with Regeneration considered non-lethal unless it is specified otherwise?
Like fire and acid on a troll.
So basically you need a lawful or good weapon or a lawful or good spell to avoid the regeneration kicking on.
And with regard to weapons you also really need an epic weapon.
The Divine Madness seems a bit nasty too with the Insanity effect, but that's just a Confusion which never wears off that could be removed with an appropriate spell... once out of the area of effect.
Fortunately, unless the PC's are demi-gods or greater, that will not affect them.
The no save thing is there to simply justify a bunch of mere mortals dealing with it rather than the gods thinking... 'Hmm. Real bad foe. Might threaten the world. Lets go kill it.'
This is a not to subtle way for WOTC to end your campaign. Read the intro to Elder Evils and it's the same deal. A world altering event to clear a path for 4E. It's going to smooth for Wizards to be all coincidence.
This is a not to subtle way for WOTC to end your campaign.
Actually, WotC is subtly ending their involvement in my campaign :)
Actually, WotC is subtly ending their involvement in my campaign :)
Hehe. Sounds to me like it's a bit less than subtle;-)
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Isn't any hit to creature with Regeneration considered non-lethal unless it is specified otherwise?
Like fire and acid on a troll.
So basically you need a lawful or good weapon or a lawful or good spell to avoid the regeneration kicking on.
And with regard to weapons you also really need an epic weapon.
The Divine Madness seems a bit nasty too with the Insanity effect, but that's just a Confusion which never wears off that could be removed with an appropriate spell... once out of the area of effect.
Fortunately, unless the PC's are demi-gods or greater, that will not affect them.
The no save thing is there to simply justify a bunch of mere mortals dealing with it rather than the gods thinking... 'Hmm. Real bad foe. Might threaten the world. Lets go kill it.'
Yeah, I should have re-read the regeneration rules again. The wording just came across weird...
I agree with your Divine Madness assessment. Something this bad should draw some divine intervention, but they can't. So all the gods decide to send in the PCs! (lame)
I agree with your Divine Madness assessment. Something this bad should draw some divine intervention, but they can't. So all the gods decide to send in the PCs! (lame)
I agree it's lame if one assumes that deities are simply transended humanoids/monsters. If that's the case, then something that affects deities should also affect PCs.
But what if you treat deities different. What if they are a "race" unto themselves. "Deity" is as different from "humanoid" as "humanoid" is from "ooze". Since the game already allows for effects that target only a certain class of creature (i.e. hold person vs. hold monster) wouldn't this kind of ability also be allowed?
Yeah, it's sole purpose to get the PCs involved in the game and giving a reason why gods don't interfere. But they have a game mechanic that allows it, so why not? Is it really that hard to come up with an imaginative reason as to why this power exists? And since one of the complaints of Elders of Evil is "Why don't the gods get involved?" this at least provides an out.
Greg
Last time this was done was Fate of Istus to transition to 2/e.You'd think lessons would be learned :/
Heh. Actually in 1999, they published a full blown adventure called "Apocalypse Stone". This adventure was designed to destroy your campaign world, giving open to your brand new 3.0 edition campaign. Amazingly the adventure wasn't half bad.
EDIT: Sorry didn't read far enough and see that someone else already explained this. Oops.
I didn't know that about Die Vecna Die! and The Apocalypse Stone. Nope, lessons are never learned.
I'm quite the Greyhawk fanboy, but when the Vecna adventure came out I got the distinct sense it wasn't worth the money.
