Good 3.x adventure

[kolikeos]

What would you recommend as a good 3.0/3.5 adventure?
I've run The Sunless Citadel, White Plume Mountain and a few of the adventures on the WOTC site, but I'm now looking for something longer, not just 2-3 levels.
I have the Return to Temple of Elemental Evil handy, is it any good?
Thanks in advance.

 

[Numion]

What would you recommend as a good 3.0/3.5 adventure?
I've run The Sunless Citadel, White Plume Mountain and a few of the adventures on the WOTC site, but I'm now looking for something longer, not just 2-3 levels.
I have the Return to Temple of Elemental Evil handy, is it any good?
Thanks in advance.

I’ve run RttToEE. IMO it’s a good campaign, but it’s also a meatgrinder of a highest degree. In the end I think I killed around 35 player characters during it. So if your players are old school and up to the challenge, go for it. As a DM I enjoyed running it very much, but some of my players didn’t like the high fatalities and the sheer size of the dungeons. Some of my players liked it though – it is an epic undertaking, and some players are better at keeping their characters alive. Then there’s always the possibility of making it easier (lot of work) or boosting the PCs (less work).

The best D&D adventure I’ve played is Banewarrens, hands down. Interesting plot, varying locales, a combination of city and dungeon adventuring, problem solving. There’s also tons of info on running it on montecook.com’s forums.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

RttToEE is good, particularly early on, but it is a bit long and a bit too much of the same thing due to the size of the dungeon complex.

Might I recommend Red Hand of Doom? It's an excellent long adventure. So is Malhavoc's Banewarrens, Necromancer's The Grey Citadel, the Paizo Adventure Paths, Expedition to Ravenloft ...

What sort of adventure are you looking for?

 

[Kae'Yoss]

You want big? Get the Shackled City Adventure Path. It's something like 60 bucks, but for that you'll get a complete campaign that will take the characters all the way from 1 to 20, maybe more. It's from Paizo, and their adventures are universally praised. It was originally a Dungeon Adventure path (each Dungeon issue had a new Adventure, for a dozen issues or so), but has been compiled into one massive book (400 pages or something like that, with many pages about character creation in the campaign, plus a booklet with handouts, and a poster with a map of the city, with legend on one side, without on the other)

 

[Obergnom]

Hmm,

I would recommend both Lost City of Barakus and Vault of Larrin Karr by Necromancer Games, if you like to play less linear adventures.

 

[meomwt]

Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil can be fairly unforgiving: I was in a campaign where we completed a couple of sections (Nulb, the Moathouse) before hitting the first dungeon and only just escaping with our asses intact.

Indeed, two of the party were captured and sacrificed to the Elder Elemental God.

Recommendations for an adventure depend, I guess, on what level your party are at.

Starting levels: Lost City of Barakus - has a large mix of urban, wilderness and dungeon adventure. The main dungeon is vast - the first level has a stack of encounter sites with kobolds, bandits, ghouls and a - ah, but that would be telling. As players head deeper into the complex, they discover that the city is a huge trap.

There's also Wizard's Amulet (free download from Necromancer Games) - Crucible of Freya - Tomb of Abysthor if you want linked - and deadly - adventures against the Cult of Orcus.

I'd also recommend The Whispering Cairn in Dungeon 124 - first part of the AoW Adventure Path (12 adventures taking brave PC's from novice adventurers to Epic-level heroes) which I consider to be the best first level adventure I've seen in a long while. It will finish with PC's at about 3rd Level, IIRC.

4th-Level or so: Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil isn't bad, having played in it, but there is a lot of material to assimilate. I haven't got Red Hand of Doom but it seems to be universally well-regarded.

The Grey Citadel is a good pick, there's urban adventure, investigation and a mammoth dungeon to explore. I'll just mention the supplementary adventure available here for free which I wrote - it adds a little to the way of life (and death!) in The Grey Citadel and expands on the nefarious activities of one of the original work's villains.

6th-8th Level or so: The Banewarrens wins here. All the material needed to run it is included in the book (you don't need Ptolus to run it - thankfully) and it has a number of difficult challenges. I'm already foreshadowing this one in the new Barakus campaign I'm running (and the PC's are only at L2).

Hope this helps.

 

[Crysmalon]

Lost City of Barakus by Necromancer Games.

 

[TerraDave]

Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil has got a lot going for it with some very cool encounters, and can be nice if your players already have some familiarity with the 1st ed Village of Hommlet, Temple of Elemental Evil, or the Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun. But all the caveats noted above hold.

 

[Schmoe]

You want big? Get the Shackled City Adventure Path. It's something like 60 bucks, but for that you'll get a complete campaign that will take the characters all the way from 1 to 20, maybe more. It's from Paizo, and their adventures are universally praised. It was originally a Dungeon Adventure path (each Dungeon issue had a new Adventure, for a dozen issues or so), but has been compiled into one massive book (400 pages or something like that, with many pages about character creation in the campaign, plus a booklet with handouts, and a poster with a map of the city, with legend on one side, without on the other)

Shackled City is great. I started running it a few months ago, and it really has a ton of potential. Considering the campaign will probably take a year or more to complete, the money is very well spent.

Some other long adventures that I would highly recommend are the Tomb of Abysthor, and the Caverns of Thracia, both from Necromancer. Both have a very "old-school" feel, both are large dungeon/cavern complexes with various factions and interesting storylines, and both are excellent value.

 

[Numion]

Hmm,

I would recommend both Lost City of Barakus and Vault of Larrin Karr by Necromancer Games, if you like to play less linear adventures.

Larrin Karr would also get my vote - I'll have to admit I haven't played it though, just own it.