Anybody do "Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk"?

[Vahktang]

I'm about to start it for my heroes in about 2-3 weeks.

If anyone has any suggestions, experiences, feedback, what to do or not do, etc, note me here or email me:

Vahktang@hotmail.com

For example, the text seems to suggest our heroes go from the 'orcs attacking the caravan' to the Tower of War, following the retreating forces.
If it was this easy, wouldn't they have been found out already?

And I'm thinking of taking bits from other dungeons and dropping them in some of the unexplored areas.
Should be fun.

Finally, are the rewards vs risks at a good level?

 

[Toben the Many]

All I can say is that it's one of my favorite modules, ever, so far. It's really too bad that it was released right when 4e was announced, because then we'd hear about it a lot more, I'm sure.

The encounter design in that module is totally awesome. There is something always going on in the encounters so that it's not just a straight up, knock-down, drag-out fight. Rooms like the room where the "steam-roller" is rolling around, or where the net is keeping a bunch of grell trapped in the cervasse? Those little encounters are simply great.

 

[grodog]

If anyone has any suggestions, experiences, feedback, what to do or not do, etc, note me here or email me:

I haven't run it yet, but you may get better response by posting to some Greyhawk boards like Canonfire! @ http://www.canonfire.com/cfhtml/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewforum&f=1

 

[Gailbraithe]

I'm playing in it right now, and I hate it.

The biggest issue for me is the guards at the Tower of War who take 25% of all your treasure. My character is a 9th level, but apparently these guards are too powerful for me to take in a fight, and the dwarf leading them totally outclasses me.

It's like the writer sat down and said to himself "What's the most obnoxious way to pointlessly annoy players I can think of? Oh, I know, unkillable uber-NPCs who steal their treasure!"

I don't even know or care why we're going into the Tower. I'm just waiting till I'm powerful enough to kill that stupid dwarf and his stupid men. I'll change alignment to chaotic evil if I have to, but I'm going to kill that dwarf.

The encounters are meh. I kind of hate how WOTC writes all of their encounters as if every player were a tactical expert and master character optimizer. My character is pretty optimized, and I'm pretty good with tactics, but the rest of the party is very suboptimal. My character is a 9th level human Knight optimized for meatshielding. The other characters are a 8th level human druid who is optimized but played incompetently, a 10th level human factotum who isn't optimized for anything but is played well, and the fourth is a 9th level ape-man (some race from oriental Adventures, starts with a V, sucks ass) wu-jen/spirit shaman/mystic theurge played by a stoner goofball, so he's useless to the power of inept.

At any rate, we basically get our ass kicked and use up all of our resources every single encounter, are forced to retreat, give a quarter of our treasure to the NPCs, and then have just enough money left to restock our healing potions before we go back in to get hammered some more.

Toben the Many mentioned the room with the grell. I survived that room. I didn't think it was awesome. I thought it was unbalanced, unfair, and nerve-wracking in a way that was totally not fun. Pretty much sums up the whole adventure.

We already finished Shattered Gates of Slaughtergard, which was the same nonsense. I don't think I've ran through an adventure WOTC has published yet that didn't seem heavily weighted towards completely unbalanced encounters that forced the 5-minute adventuring day.

 

[AtomicPope]

I haven't run it yet, but you may get better response by posting to some Greyhawk boards like Canonfire! @ http://www.canonfire.com/cfhtml/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewforum&f=1

Thee Grogdog? Wow! I've visited your site for many years now, going way back to the late 90's.

Thanks for keeping GH alive.

 

[grodog]

Thee Grogdog? Wow! I've visited your site for many years now, going way back to the late 90's.

I didn't know that I qualified for a the (or a thee ), but yes, it's me

Thanks for keeping GH alive.

I'm happy to do my part. Thanks for caring!

 

[Wycen]

I'm playing in it right now, and I hate it.

Lots of cut stuff

Thanks for your honest posting and I'm not being sarcastic. Reading your post made me laugh out loud! I suppose I shouldn't revel in the misery of others, but if you wanted to vent and find sympathy, you've done it.

I haven't played it, but I've read through most of it. I don't know if they are supposed to take 25%, in tithe, at the tower of war and I'm not sure if there is an "unbeatable" foe, but I can tell you it is probably not WoTC's fault if you are finding the encounters tough.

Erik Mona is a Paizo employee and if you are familiar with Dungeon magazine, before the 4E change, then you'd know that Paizo tends toward "cool" but in this case for you "annoying" encounters. I.e. tough battles. You can probably expect more.

Sorry your character group is sucky, I hope at least these are your friends your gaming with!