Reavers of Harkenwold

Neurotrash · Jun 1, 2011

i.e. the adventure from the Essentials DM's Kit.

Has anyone run this or played it? I'm thinking of running it for my group, and wanted to know if anyone had any advice, reviews, good experiences, bad experiences, things you had to change, etc.

Lindeloef · Jun 1, 2011

It's a pretty good adventure. Watch out for the giant frogs. They are kinda broken at that level.

Locutus Zero · Jun 1, 2011

Here is what I said in another thread:

Locutus Zero said:
This was my first adventure as DM. The biggest problem I had was with the Battle of Albridge. By the time the battle was set to start, the players had built it up, expecting a really cool battle and to hopefully finish off the Iron Circle.

I modified two of the encounters, threw one out, and added in a skill challenge to make the fight seem more epic. I drew out a map of where all the friendly forces were set up to show the players and kept them informed as to what was going on in the battle. First they had to go close a flank and save some soldiers that were being taken out by a group of tar devils, assassins, and an adept. Second, they had to defend a hill from an army of minions that had broken through (made a special hill map with special rules for fighting). After that they heard that the main bad guy was on the other side of the main battleground, so they had to do a special skill challenge to make it through the battle swiftly without losing healing surges. Lastly they fought the big bad, pretty much as the encounter is described (only on a different map, that same farm was getting tiring at that point).

It felt cheap to have him just run away, like what was the point of all that? So I had him escape but leave his horse behind. On his horse were maps and other documents that the players found useful (supply schedules, recruitment posters, various ideas for ways to get into the keep).

That was the biggest thing I changed. I played up Dar as a really cool guy, friend of the PCs, and hero of Harken. Then I put him with the PCs in the final confrontation with the teifling, who killed him right in front of the characters.

I didn't know how good I had it back when I ran this. It's a very well put together adventure, and gives the players some interesting things to do. Vhennyk and the Iron Circle have played heavily in my ongoing campaign.

OnlineDM · Jun 1, 2011

I ran this adventure earlier this year and wrote up a review of it over on my blog. I put up later posts with my versions of the maps as well as a complete MapTool file.

I thought it was a really good adventure, basically. It hit the right balance of providing enough background information for the DM to make Harkenwold seem like a living place with freedom for the PCs and interesting characters, but not so much as to be overwhelming.

As for the Giant Frogs, I've previously written about them, and I agree that they should be used very sparingly at low level, if at all. At the very least, allow the swallowed character to attack the Giant Frog from inside. I also recommend allowing other PCs to attack the Frog and, if they hit, allow them to grant the swallowed PC a saving throw to get out rather than dealing damage to the Frog (punching him in the gut to make him cough up the PC).

DJINNIMAN · Jun 1, 2011

I ran this adventure earlier this year. As a DM who hadn't run a game for almost 20 years, I found it was fairly difficult to keep all the NPCs straight. The sandbox nature of the module is very appealing, but can be tough to deal with as an inexperienced DM.

That said, I really enjoyed running it, and my players loved it too. I wrote about the experience extensively at my blog. You might want to check it out.

Iron Circle 1
Iron Circle 2
Mass combat rules for the Battle of Albridge
The Die is Cast

Nemesis Destiny · Jun 1, 2011

I've heard the fight with the glimmerweb spider can get a little grindy as well. I am on the cusp of running this module, though I've altered it extensively to fit my campaign world, and I don't know how it will turn out yet, but at a glance, this looks like one of the best low-level modules WotC has ever produced.

Riastlin · Jun 2, 2011

I'm currently running through it as a player. We have probably one more session to get through it as we are definitely in the end phase (being vague for spoiler reasons).

As a player, I think that this has been a great adventure. The battle with the spider was very grindy for us. Basically, it couldn't do much, if any, damage to us and we couldn't damage it. Admittedly we didn't quite figure out everything that we could have tried, but it certainly does have the potential for a substantial grindfest. I also thought that the frogs were a bit tough, though we made it through without too much in the way of problems. It made for difficult encounters, but still very doable.

All in all, I have been pretty impressed with it. It certainly seems to have enough material from which to build a decent campaign arc. Hard to say for sure of course since I'm just a player and have not read it, but I certainly have not been lacking for information.