Best Possible Adventure Path

RichGreen · Nov 17, 2002

Hi,

I've been running a 3e campaign for a couple of years, playing once per month and the characters are now 8th level and have just started The Standing Stone.

My campaign so far has gone/may go like this:

1. Death in Freeport
2. The Wizard's Amulet (Necromancer download)
3. The Sunless Citadel
4. The Crucible of Freya
5. Three Days to Kill
6. Maiden Voyage
7. Terror in Freeport
8. Holiday in the Sun (Freeport download)
9. Madness in Freeport
10. The Standing Stone
11. Porphyry House Horror (Dungeon #95)
12. Hell in Freeport

Looking back on it, I'm sure I missed out on a few really great low level adventures and know I missed out on The Banewarrens.

Since there are tons of published adventures available, which would make up the best possible "adventure path" from levels 1 to 20?

Cheers

Richard

green slime · Nov 17, 2002

What do you mean by "Best"?

"Best" for DM:least prep work?least difficult to run? Most easily adaptable?
"Best" for munchkins: lota of good items, Monty Haul
"Best" for Quizkids: Puzzles, problems, conundrums galore?
"Best" for Hack-n-Slash: Most monsters to kill, lots of battles, all the time, cinematic, and climatic everytime
"Best" for Role-players: Most interactive interesting NPCs?

There is no "Best". Only what is suitable for you and your group of players. I know neither.

The best adventure progression is what you get when you polish off your brain and use your experience to tailor an adventure for your players, by yourself, a story that you want to tell, that you know will engage your friends.

RichGreen · Nov 17, 2002

Hi greenslime,

Don't disagree with you. DMs using published adventures need to tailor them to fit their own style and their players, and also link them together in an overriding story arc.

I guess by "best", I'm looking for all-round high quality adventures that have a balanced combination of action, problem/mystery-solving and role-playing, interesting NPCs and/or monsters, and definitely originality. The three Freeport adventures fit the bill for me perfectly.

Cheers

Richard

green slime · Nov 17, 2002

Yes I saw your post on the other thread, after I posted the above comments and it made more sense. Silly me

In my view the effort of cobbling together a disparate series of adventures requires more long term effort that creating your own. Not only that, the effort of reading, making notes, and double-checking while preparing for a puchased adventure exceeds the time I would require to throw an adventure together myself, as I would remember which NPCs/events/items are important in my own creation, but fear to overlook in someone elses. However this does not prevent me from repeatedly trying what is really a doomed task in some forlorn hope of saving time "today".

That said, there are not many high level adventures I have seen that really grab me. Some of them have scenes I like, but on the whole, I feel they fall short.

I like:

Of Sound Mind
Three Days to Kill
Sunless Citadel

And that is really about it.

With a nod going to three days. Sunless Citadel is good for newbies, but not brilliant. More traditional; give em what they are expecting type. Of sound mind is Good. But I wouldn't run them in an "adventure path".

Kamard · Nov 17, 2002

I thought Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil was spectacular if you can find a place to duct tape it to your world, which admittedly might be difficult.

green slime · Nov 17, 2002

Kamard said:
I thought Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil was spectacular if you can find a place to duct tape it to your world, which admittedly might be difficult.

I running that right now (GH), I just find it frustrating that it is so huge. It's too big (IMO). It seems like it needs to go through the entire monster manual. Two weeks ago it was A for Athach, B for Barghest, C for Chimera, D for Dwarf, E for Elf...

Kamard · Nov 17, 2002

green slime said:
[/color]

I running that right now (GH), I just find it frustrating that it is so huge. It's too big (IMO). It seems like it needs to go through the entire monster manual. Two weeks ago it was A for Athach, B for Barghest, C for Chimera, D for Dwarf, E for Elf...

It is really, really big... I think to some extent it would be better as a much higher level adventure, perhaps venturing into epic, just because its so big and really begs to be the centerpiece of your campaign world.

I also found that I had to begin raising the levels of the NPC's in the temple after the first quarter of the book or so, but I am unsure why that is. Perhaps because my players didn't go in through the door they are expected to go in...

green slime · Nov 17, 2002

Kamard said:
It is really, really big... I think to some extent it would be better as a much higher level adventure, perhaps venturing into epic, just because its so big and really begs to be the centerpiece of your campaign world.

I also found that I had to begin raising the levels of the NPC's in the temple after the first quarter of the book or so, but I am unsure why that is. Perhaps because my players didn't go in through the door they are expected to go in...

I found the same after about 4-5 deaths, they have no gold or treasure, due to resurrection/raise dead costs, and that is not including 7-8 permanent deaths, and "inheriting" their hand-me downs...

Not only that, as a 8 character 7th level party, they've just made it past the Northern Bridge complex and are finding the going tough (but seem to be enjoying it nontheless) But it is a pain for me as I hate not having Monster stats with the room stat, so have printed them on a seperate peice of paper. Also, not all the possessions are listed with the stats, most noticeably KEYS... which I'm constantly forgetting to place on the corpses. Luckily the rogue is damn good at Open Lock...

RichGreen · Nov 17, 2002

Hi greenslime,

Know what you mean about the work involved in linking published adventures together but I still think I save time in the long run. This is even with not realising how much faster level progression would be in 3e, meaning that I had to keep bumping up the levels, hit dice etc on the enemies in the first few adventures I ran.

Linking the adventures together has been challenging but fun -- the villains who have survived the different adventures have returned a couple of times, in some cases teamed up with a villain from another previous adventure.

I bought RttToE and was going to run it. Then I realised that only playing once per month it might take two years to complete and the players might get bored. Although there are lots of different NPCs to interact with it also seemed like it might descend into a hackfest (like Night Below has a tendency to do).

After The Standing Stone, I was going to continue with the WotC adventure path and run Heart of Nightfang Spire but on a second read through wasn't so keen. Some good set pieces, but a bit too much of a dungeon crawl for my taste. As the PCs get high level I'm going to have to write my own stuff because they are starting (at last!) to come up with their own goals and motivations.

Cheers

Richard

Sanackranib · Nov 17, 2002

best

the best is the path that you and your player have fun along. You don't have to runn all the good stuff in 1 campaign. I'm using a lot of stuff that I downloaded as well and we hae all having a good time. I'm saving "banewarrens and sunless citadel" for a differn't game. And those two seem to be popular at the moment.