Beware! Spoilers for Keep on the Shadowfell below! Continue only if you do not intend to play this adventure!
Keep on the Shadowfell was my first experience playing 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons. Upon its release, I gathered together my regular D&D group and, using the pregenerated characters provided, we dived right in. Eight sessions later, or over twenty-four hours of gaming later, we finally finished the adventure. There is quite a bit of adventure in this module!
The bulk of the adventure revolves around the village of Winterhaven and the eponymous Keep. The early adventure is structured somewhat as a mystery: kobolds are raiding the village, but why? As the adventure progresses the PCs discover the Keep and find the cult of Orcus that is using it as its base. They then must work to stop them.
One of the good things about this adventure is how it has many opportunities for role-playing in the village; there are several important NPCs that the players will interact with as they attempt to discover what is going on. Personally, I would have liked even more material on the personalities in Winterhaven, and the cultist spy is not quite used to best effect, but the material here is far better than that found in two other classic introductory adventures: Keep on the Borderlands and The Sunless Citadel, the latter of which has almost no information on the base town of the adventurers.
When it comes to the actual encounters, there are many combat encounters, a few traps, and even a few opportunities for role-playing in the dungeon. The encounters are given in the tactical format introduced in late 3e adventures, but it works much better in this adventure. This is mostly because Keep eschews the "page-flipping" format where descriptions are in one section of the adventure and the tactical encounters are in the next. It's a lot cleaner design, and I hope that Wizards continue to improve on the format. Certainly, running combat encounters using this format is much easier.
The most infamous encounter in the adventure is the one against the leader of the kobolds, Irontooth. This encounter is notable for being extremely difficult, especially for those players who are playing 4th edition for the first time. It has been said that it takes three sessions to come to grips with 4th edition, and this encounter, which will normally take place in the first or second session, is just too difficult for those players.
Apart from Irontooth, my players had no undue difficulty with the rest of the adventure, although they certainly were challenged at times. Some of the encounters read better than they play; an encounter with zombies in a trapped maze was incredibly dull, but there were many entertaining combats.
One thing the designers have gotten absolutely right is in not overloading detail on the initial "boxed text" descriptions of the rooms. These are generally just a paragraph long, and read very well. However, after the encounter is over I would have preferred more descriptive passages to help describe the room when the PCs paid more attention to it.
Physically, the adventure is contained in two booklets (16 and 80 pages), within a cardboard folder, and with three double-sided poster-sized maps for use with miniatures. The quality of the paper is not as good as I would like, and there have been problems with the ink on the cover smudging. The artwork is of good quality, and the cartography is excellent.
The first booklet has the "Quick Start Rules" with five pregenerated 1st level 4E characters. I would not like to use these rules if I hadn't played D&D before; in the event, I had the 4e rulebooks before my first session of the game so I didn't need to. Completely new players would be better served with a copy of the "4th edition Starter Set". It should be stated the Quick Start Rules are actually aimed at experienced players.
The second booklet, the "Adventure Book", begins with an overview of the adventure and additional rules the DM needs to know, getting to the adventure proper on page 16.
In the final analysis, Keep on the Shadowfell does not scale the heights of adventure design, but it does serve its purpose as being a pretty good low-level adventure with room for the individual Dungeon Master to expand it as desired. The first half of the adventure works better than the second half, for there is more opportunity for roleplaying and the some of the encounters give the impression of the cult reacting to the PCs, but overall I am happy with the result: there are plenty of opportunities for heroics and entertaining play.
Keep on the Shadowfell was my first experience playing 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons. Upon its release, I gathered together my regular D&D group and, using the pregenerated characters provided, we dived right in. Eight sessions later, or over twenty-four hours of gaming later, we finally finished the adventure. There is quite a bit of adventure in this module!
The bulk of the adventure revolves around the village of Winterhaven and the eponymous Keep. The early adventure is structured somewhat as a mystery: kobolds are raiding the village, but why? As the adventure progresses the PCs discover the Keep and find the cult of Orcus that is using it as its base. They then must work to stop them.
One of the good things about this adventure is how it has many opportunities for role-playing in the village; there are several important NPCs that the players will interact with as they attempt to discover what is going on. Personally, I would have liked even more material on the personalities in Winterhaven, and the cultist spy is not quite used to best effect, but the material here is far better than that found in two other classic introductory adventures: Keep on the Borderlands and The Sunless Citadel, the latter of which has almost no information on the base town of the adventurers.
When it comes to the actual encounters, there are many combat encounters, a few traps, and even a few opportunities for role-playing in the dungeon. The encounters are given in the tactical format introduced in late 3e adventures, but it works much better in this adventure. This is mostly because Keep eschews the "page-flipping" format where descriptions are in one section of the adventure and the tactical encounters are in the next. It's a lot cleaner design, and I hope that Wizards continue to improve on the format. Certainly, running combat encounters using this format is much easier.
The most infamous encounter in the adventure is the one against the leader of the kobolds, Irontooth. This encounter is notable for being extremely difficult, especially for those players who are playing 4th edition for the first time. It has been said that it takes three sessions to come to grips with 4th edition, and this encounter, which will normally take place in the first or second session, is just too difficult for those players.
Apart from Irontooth, my players had no undue difficulty with the rest of the adventure, although they certainly were challenged at times. Some of the encounters read better than they play; an encounter with zombies in a trapped maze was incredibly dull, but there were many entertaining combats.
One thing the designers have gotten absolutely right is in not overloading detail on the initial "boxed text" descriptions of the rooms. These are generally just a paragraph long, and read very well. However, after the encounter is over I would have preferred more descriptive passages to help describe the room when the PCs paid more attention to it.
Physically, the adventure is contained in two booklets (16 and 80 pages), within a cardboard folder, and with three double-sided poster-sized maps for use with miniatures. The quality of the paper is not as good as I would like, and there have been problems with the ink on the cover smudging. The artwork is of good quality, and the cartography is excellent.
The first booklet has the "Quick Start Rules" with five pregenerated 1st level 4E characters. I would not like to use these rules if I hadn't played D&D before; in the event, I had the 4e rulebooks before my first session of the game so I didn't need to. Completely new players would be better served with a copy of the "4th edition Starter Set". It should be stated the Quick Start Rules are actually aimed at experienced players.
The second booklet, the "Adventure Book", begins with an overview of the adventure and additional rules the DM needs to know, getting to the adventure proper on page 16.
In the final analysis, Keep on the Shadowfell does not scale the heights of adventure design, but it does serve its purpose as being a pretty good low-level adventure with room for the individual Dungeon Master to expand it as desired. The first half of the adventure works better than the second half, for there is more opportunity for roleplaying and the some of the encounters give the impression of the cult reacting to the PCs, but overall I am happy with the result: there are plenty of opportunities for heroics and entertaining play.
