Directly inspired by the "Worst Modules" thread. I want to know the best ones out there, the most fun you had, and whether or not I can still get them!
My group really enjoyed The Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil.
I never had any good experience with TSR or WotC adventures.
As a matter of fact, the more famous they were, the more disappointed i was.
But i have good memories of some Dungeon modules : The Green Lady's Sorrow, House of Cards and Ex Libris.
And some others, but these three come to my mind first.
Edit : Wait... The topic is about the best 3.0 or 3,5 modules. And these were 2nd edition.
Oh, well, then for 3.0/3.5 modules my answer is easy : None.
I didn't see anything interesting in WotC modules, and although some Dungeon campaigns seem nice (Istivin and Savage Tide and of couuuuurse the Pathfinder stuff), i didn't play/run them.
The Dungeon adventure paths are pretty darn good! There were 3 completed before Dungeon was put to rest: Shackled City, Age of Worms, and Savage Tide. All 3 were very good, but can be expensive to acquire(due to needing 12 issues of dungeon for each AP) with the exception of the Shackled City, which is sold as a hardcover compilation on the website here.
You can do searches on the website here for any of the APs and get a listing of which dungeon magazines are needed to run the AP.
Other good adventures
Easy to acquire: Red Hand of Doom, Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk, Castle Whiterock
Tough to find in print(though PDFs are available): Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, Ptolus.
Additionally, all of the Pathfinder modules and the one completed adventure path - Rise of the Runelords are exceptional and also available on the site. I haven't had a chance to play the adventures yet, but I have read through them. So far my favorite stand-alone adventure of the pathfinder series is 'Entombed with the Pharaohs'.
Pathfinder, of course. Red Hand of Doom. Rappan Athuk and Tomb of Abysthor from Necromancer. Banewarrens by Monte Cook.
Hmmm....I can't say that I used anything in 3.0/3,5 other than Dungeon goodness, but here's my list -
3.0:
Porphyry House Horror and Razing of Redshore (because I ran these back-to-back and seriously freaked out my PCs, and because Tyralandi and Urlkathoon were just cool) :)
3.5:
The Savage Tide Adventure Path (because of Rowyn Kellani and one of the coolest groups of PCs I've yet to run. 'Nuff said) ;)
And for the sake of completeness (and to actually reference some modules) -
1st Edition:
The Bloodstone Series of adventures (because it forever changed and personalized my Forgotten Realms campaigns as a kid)
2nd Edition:
The Gates of Firestorm Peak (because it was the only adventure built around the 'Player's Option' books, and for the look on my player's face when I almost TPK'ed his party at the entrance to the caves)
Pathfinder/Golarion:
Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path (because I haven't gotten any of the stand-alone modules yet, and it quite simply rocks) :P
Your Friendly Neighborhood Dalesman
"Bringing Big D**n Justice to the Bad Guys Since 1369 DR"
We had an awful lot of fun with "The Thunder Below," by Paizo's own James Jacobs, which was previously available for free on the WotC site. It's a great example of how a higher-level adventure can extend the much-lauded mid-level "sweet spot."
With a few minor fixes, my group really enjoyed Aberrations, a third party adventure - cant remember publisher though.
Bastion of broken souls was fun too...and led to a TPK at the BBEG.
Age of worms and the other two AP's were awesome.
if you wanna go retro, ruins of the undermountain and night below were truly incredible boxed sets from 2nd ed.
Of the ones I actually ran (which are mostly Dungeon adventures)-
Whispering Cairn was one of the most fun adventures I've ever played as a DM. Lots of memorable moments, great balance. One of the best out there.
Tammeraut's Fate by Greg Vaughan. Great horror movie type adventure.
The Styes by Richard Pett. The adventure that spawned a campaign, for me and my players.
Chimes At Midnight by Nicolas Logue; the sequels are okay, but the cast of characters and the action in the first one are great.
Shut In had so much going for it and so much room for a DM to improvise, yet still had a great meaty center.
Champion's Belt was a lot of fun for my players. I divided up the opposing teams among the players and had them run most of the fight during the team match-up. Lot of fun; it's just too bad they practically TPKed against the Apostle.
The three Scarred Lands modules, the Serpent Amphora Cycle, were a ton of fun, even though parts of it could have used a bit of work. The second one was probably the best, when the PCs got the opportunity to run a reverse dungeon against a mad druid and his team of trackers.
Of the ones I haven't run-
Seven Days to the Grave convinced me that I really, really want to run the Curse of the Crimson Throne. Edge of Anarchy was good, but Seven Days just knocked it out of the park for me.
Library of Last Resort- The Hand of Vecna. Team Fight. Awesome.
The whole section of Savage Tide that takes place on the Isle of Dread (especially under and above the plateau especially) made me really, really want to run Savage Tide. In fact, a lot of Savage Tide falls into this category. Much like Curse of the Crimson Throne, I had some doubts about it (namely the "pirate" theme, which was pretty subdued, thankfully) and then wound up loving it after a read.
The parts of AOW that I never got to run also fall into there. I wasn't thrilled with Shackled City, even if I don't regret getting the hard cover.
Shadowdale: The Scouring of the Land is the high point, in my opinion, of a mediocre at best series of Forgotten Realms adventures.
The Speaker in Dreams was outstanding, as a player and DM.
Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde is a well put together module. It includes everything needed to spawn a campaign. I wholeheartedly recommend it to an new DM. It's heavy on the dungeon crawl, but it does it right. Reminiscent of some of the old adventure boxed sets.
I've been running Age of Worms for the last couple of years, and while I've enjoyed the whole thing, Hall of Harsh Reflections was probably my favorite. Doppelgangers done right.
Red Hand of Doom was top quality. For being such a long adventure, it did an incredible job of presenting different types of encounters. It wasn't just room after room of monsters. I was most impressed by the transition of the pc's. After all of the events, the PC's go from guerilla raids against an indomitable foe, to defending a city and taking the army head on. I've never seen this fully realized in an adventure before.
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We had an awful lot of fun with "The Thunder Below," by Paizo's own James Jacobs, which was previously available for free on the WotC site. It's a great example of how a higher-level adventure can extend the much-lauded mid-level "sweet spot."
You can still download it along with some other (mediocre to good, some of the good may be outstanding like thunder below but I did not play too many of them). Go to the archives / d&d archives / downloads / adventures section on wotc page.
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 16, 2010 Top 4
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My group really enjoyed The Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil.
I'm going to have to second Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, and add Something's Cooking (a free adventure from the WotC site).
The adventure I most wanted to run/play but didn't get to would be Savage Tide, as I love Isle of Dread.
Something's Cooking is a real gem -- really kid friendly. I loved playing that with my daughter.
Reflex saves against spurting hot pizza sauce. It doesn't get any better than that!
Why Wotc didn't do more modules in that vein, I'll never know. Little people love to roleplay, too.
All the adventure paths were excellent, and only got better as they went on.
Personally, I really liked "The Styes" and it's sequel, though it's title has slipped from memory. The setting was superb.
And, of coarse, the best stand-alone adventure ever published in Dungeon:
"Tears for Twilight Hollow".
Hands down, best ever.
DogBone
Of the ones we've played I have to say I enjoyed running Forge of Fury. I've also been running Red Hand of Doom which is really good. I've been playing in Shattered Gates of Slaughtergaarde and that's been fun too.
Most of the rest of the gaming I've done with 3.x has either been playing the early WotC modules (the once after Forge of Fury) or conversions of older classic adventures (Horror on the Hill for example).
I have many issues of Dungeon, most of the Expedition modules and a lot of third party stuff like Freeport that looks really good but I have no playing/DMing experience with those to date.
L
From Dungeon: Mad God's Key (with a few modifiers for the groups level)
Salvage Operation (they almost took down the squid!)
Unfamiliar Ground (to the point, good layout)
From the original 3.0 series of adventures:
The Forge of Fury (my players still talk about the fight at the entrance to the dungeon after all these years)
The Speaker in Dreams (well written adventure that did not "railroad" the group. memorable bad guys)
Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil (the extra work done in this one to create memorable NPC's should be standard in all published adventure modules IMO)
From 3.5:
Expedition to Castle Greyhawk (again, great work done to create a memorable backdrop and NPC's. it makes the players truly believe in the adventure)
From Necromancer Games:
Rappan Athuk - The Dungeon of Graves (solid... and huge!)
I hope all the posters here on Paizo will chime in on their favorite
adventures. Good material should be shared! I have already written down several titles that some above posters recommend. Thanks!
-Roth
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Expedition to Castle Greyhawk (again, great work done to create a memorable backdrop and NPC's. it makes the players truly believe in the adventure)
I'm playing in this right now, and every week it is a struggle to show up and stay enthused. I have never played in an adventure that was more obnoxious and annoying. I hate all of the NPCs, all of the encounters are overpowered and designed for people who live on the character optimization boards, and the plot is so stupid it makes my brain hurt.
Seriously, I hate this adventure with a passion, and next week I am seriously going to try to convince my fellow players to say "f&*~ it" and move on to different pastures. It's utter crap.
Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk, Savage Tide AP, and Age of Worms AP.
Not necessarily in that order.
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It's utter crap.Okay, let me see if I have the gist of what you're saying correct...
You don't like this adventure? ;-p
I don't like it to the point where if we don't stop playing it soon, I'll have to quit my Tuesday night gaming group.
I didn't even know it had a plot. I thought it was just designed to piss off players. seriously, there's one entrance to the dungeon guarded by a bunch of glorified city guardsmen who are all somehow higher level than our party, and there's this orc army that's threatening everyone, and what do these jackasses do? steal a quarter of our treasure every time we leave! We are actually losing money by playing this adventure. We've been at for eight weeks now, and I have less gold than when I first entered the dungeon.
Who came up with that idea? Was this adventure written by SATAN?
Have those of you who are recommending it actually ran through it?
I gotta say that the best read I got from WotC was Expedition to the Demonweb Pits. Then again I've heard from others who think it's crap. I just liked that a surprising number of encounters in it could be solved wihtout violence, and I know that one of my players would love the "exploring the planes" theme.
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Rappan Athuk, Tomb of Abysthor and The Banewarrens are certainly up there for me as well. (The whole Ptolus book could be considered as a mega-AP. In this case, it should be counted here too with its companion, the Night of Dissolution.)
I really liked the Shackled City AP. And the Pathfinder APs so far. They are up here on the list too.
Expedition to Castle Ravenloft from WotC.
The Grey Citadel from Necromancer Games.
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I'm having a lot of fun running EN Publishing's War of the Burning Sky. There are some really memorable locations and NPCs, and I patricularly like the way the morality isn't black and white. I'm currently running adventure 7.
Its only in PDF at the moment. There are plans for a hardcover compilation next year, but I'm not 100% convinced it will ever come to fruition.
Also, they are behind schedule and the final adventure of the 12 isn't out yet. If I was a new customer I think I'd probably wait until 12 was out.
I would also vote for Ptolus' adventures, especially Night of Dissolution.
Also, the Fifth Age Trilogy for Dragonlance 3.5 (Key of Destiny, Spectre of Sorrows, Price of Courage) was a really great surprise, given the lackluster quality of many DL adventures. Especially Price of Courage gives a good example of how to design an enticing module for very high level PCs.
Best Run:
Siege of the Spider Eaters (Tim and Eileen Connors): Simply wonderful little dungeon with vertical and horizontal elements, good reveal of who the good guys are, great campaign starter, AND a moral dilemma!
The Hero Snare (Ari Marmell) was great fun. Stuck in a dungeon with kobolds and you are frantic to get out!
Salvage Operation (Mike Mearls): awesome back story, memorably disgusting villain, the dungeon starts to sink before the end of the crawl!
The Whispering Cairn: great town, solid adventure.
Burnt Offerings (James Jacobs): great starter town and those wonderful Paizo goblins changed my campaign.
The Dragonfiend Pact (Chris Doyle): You get to be tiny!
DCC 0: Legends are Made, Not Born (Chris Doyle) The first adventure for my 1 PC campaign, as she marshaled the pre-gens and brought them to glory.
Hollow's Last Hope (Jason Bulmahn and F. Wesley Schneider): it's the ticking clock that does it, really.
Best to be run:
Ari Marmell's Last Breaths of Ashenport (free WotC)
Tim Hitchcock and Nic Logue's Carnival of Tears
Nic Logue's Crown of the Kobold King
Wolfgang Bauer's Crucible of Chaos
The Grey Citadel from Necromancer Games.It looks good, but I've never had a chance to run it.
Have you been a player or a DM in it? What did you like about it?
I was the DM.
Necromancer Games have put out a lot of great adventures, but Grey Citadel stands out by the great and tight plot. It features both detective-style investigations and a really cool dungeon with some really flavorful locations and memorable foes and villains. Plus the Citadel itself is a useful campaign resource with interesting NPCs.
There is a great sadness among gamers regarding the fate of the sequel, The Eamonvale Incursion, which got snagged in the edition shift and has yet to appear.
How could I forget: Cage of Delirium!
Wesley Schneider gives a great back story not primarily revealed through journals, an interactive dungeon with many RP elements and nonviolent solutions, genuine tragedy, a great ghost story and a soundtrack that contains clues!
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The Grey Citadel from Necromancer Games.It looks good, but I've never had a chance to run it.
Have you been a player or a DM in it? What did you like about it?
I was the DM.
Necromancer Games have put out a lot of great adventures, but Grey Citadel stands out by the great and tight plot. It features both detective-style investigations and a really cool dungeon with some really flavorful locations and memorable foes and villains. Plus the Citadel itself is a useful campaign resource with interesting NPCs.
There is a great sadness among gamers regarding the fate of the sequel, The Eamonvale Incursion, which got snagged in the edition shift and has yet to appear.
Thanks for the reply. I'll definitely have to try and work this into my next campaign.
The Grey Citadel from Necromancer Games.It looks good, but I've never had a chance to run it.
Have you been a player or a DM in it? What did you like about it?
When I think about it, I think what really struck me was the utter lack of railroading. That's what makes it unique. The party can approach it in several different ways, both metaphorically and literally. While I love the APs there is always a certain amount of railroading involved.
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When I think about it, I think what really struck me was the utter lack of railroading. That's what makes it unique. The party can approach it in several different ways, both metaphorically and literally.
Funnily enough, that's what has been putting me off running the loosely organised "Necromancer" campaign I've been planning.
My players actually prefer it if there is a certain amount of railroading.
Best I've run so far:
1. Entombed w/ the Pharoahs. I think running this module actually made me a little bit smarter.
2.Carnival of Tears. My players were just riveted. It was mighty twisted.
3.Burnt Offerings. Those goblins are one of the best things ever to happen to D&D.
4.Red Hand of Doom. The first module I ever ran. In my previous 15 years of DMing, I never ran an adventure that someone else wrote.I felt like it was "cheating". This module totally made me change my mind about all that.
5.Beast of Burden. Maybe the most original idea for an adventure's location ever. Certainly the most original I've ever seen.
It's utter crap.Okay, let me see if I have the gist of what you're saying correct...
You don't like this adventure? ;-p
I don't like it to the point where if we don't stop playing it soon, I'll have to quit my Tuesday night gaming group.
I didn't even know it had a plot. I thought it was just designed to piss off players. seriously, there's one entrance to the dungeon guarded by a bunch of glorified city guardsmen who are all somehow higher level than our party, and there's this orc army that's threatening everyone, and what do these jackasses do? steal a quarter of our treasure every time we leave! We are actually losing money by playing this adventure. We've been at for eight weeks now, and I have less gold than when I first entered the dungeon.
Who came up with that idea? Was this adventure written by SATAN?
Have those of you who are recommending it actually ran through it?
hang on are you talking about Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk the 3.5 dungeon book - which as I understand it is all plot little dungeon crawl OR the AD&D module Greyhawk Ruins which is big dungeon crawl but difficult to decipher plot.(or the Castle greyhawk thing which is all silly parody.)
I always reckon if the players cant really figure out why they are doing something- they should stop.
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hang on are you talking about Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk the 3.5 dungeon book - which as I understand it is all plot little dungeon crawl OR the AD&D module Greyhawk Ruins which is big dungeon crawl but difficult to decipher plot.(or the Castle greyhawk thing which is all silly parody.)
I always reckon if the players cant really figure out why they are doing something- they should stop.
I'm talking about the 3.5 Expedition to Castle Greyhawk, the one that came out rather recently. I haven't read it, I've been trying to find a copy so that I could read it myself (because I am frustrated enough by this point to cheat).
For the last three weeks we were held prisoner by some guy called "The General", with no real chance of escape. We got caught because the DM is constantly doing thinsg like having every monster in the dungeon be awae of our presence, so once we get in one fight, we're basically forced to fight everything on the level. Our APL is 8th, and we're regualring facing ECL 30 battles.
Eventually the General just let us go with all of our stuff, mostly I think because after two weeks of it I and the other players were like "This is b&!*@%&#, we want to quit." The DM put our entire fate in the hands of this little kid who tags along with us, so in addition to being completely humiliated by the encounters, we get the joy of being rescued by a ten year old. That's so very confidence inspiring.
I have no idea why we're trying to save this town, why the orcs are attacking, or what the point of the adventure is. It's been nothing but room after room of nonsensical encounters, including a room of undead that respawn everytime we leave, so we keep having to waste craploads of resources fighting our way through the same pack of undead.
I seriously cannot stand this adventure, and it has only confirmed my belief that WOTC published the crappiest adventures available for the game. Before this we ran through Shattered Gates of Slaughtergard, which I thought was boring, stupid and far too difficult (it killed my first three characters). That adventure also had respawning undead at the entrance to the dungeon that forced us to waste s@@~loads of resources on enemies that leave no treasure at all.
After running through Shattered Gates and now Castle Greyhawk, my character (a 9th level Knight) is about 15,000 gold short of what is expected for her level.
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I have a lot of modules that I haven't run yet but look hella awesome.
Of the ones that I've run...
1)Tears for Twilight Hollow (Dungeon ??)
2)Spiral of Manzessine (Dungeon ??)
I ran this with the PCs starting out as prisoners..Somehow they survived......Awesome run.
3)Skinsaw Murders (the mystery, the haunts in Misgivings, the ghoul battle in the farmlands, the clock tower...)
4)Forge of Fury
these are the ones I recall off the top of my head.
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Said a lot of shocking stuff
Wow. Just wow. I was riveted when I read that adventure. I haven't been able to run it yet, and it was a year since I read the story... but wow. Honestly, I think your DM is flubbing a lot of the rules, and the fact that you haven't hit a plot means that I think he's running it badly.
I think I'm going to go re-read the now, just to double check what's happening. I'd say that if he can't run a game that myself (and others) have either enjoyed reading or playing, then perhaps he shouldn't run APs.
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I just realized that the adventure was written by Jason Bulmahn, James Jacobs and Erik Mona. That's shocking. Then again, I've never actually run an adventure written by any of these guys (I find the APs don't mesh with my GMing style at all, too much stuff to memorize, way way too many NPCs to keep track of, very railroady, etc.), so maybe I just don't like the way they write adventures.
I just read some reviews of it, and it appears there is supposed to be a whole bunch of stuff involving the Free City, but since this campaign isn't set in the World of Greyhawk, the DM must have thrown out everything but the dungeon parts.
I dunno. Maybe the DM just sucks horribly, and that's why both of the adventures he's run have been so awful.
It's hard to compare. I myself run DCC adventures almost exclusively, for the same group, and the players LOVE them and have a really good time. The other DM and I switch off each week, one week his Castle Greyhawk 3.5 game, then my Castle Whiterock PRPG Alpha/Beta Playtest campaign. Everyone likes the DCCs I run, everyone is frustrated and annoyed by the WOTC adventures he runs. I had assumed this was because the DCCs were better written and better balanced than the WOTC adventures, but maybe I'm just a much better DM than he is.