Has WotC hit its stride?

[delericho]

I could go on, picking product by product. Like, how MerricB called P2 the finest D&D adventure ever

I thought that was P1 ("King of the Trollhaunt Warrens")? I'm sure that that review was why I went out and bought that module, only to find it was definitely unworthy of the label.

Which brings us to Gardmore Abbey. I have it, I like the deck of many things as a play aid, but it is, let me tell you, 100% pedestrian. It's a solid effort, it contains nice bits here and there, but it is not the revolution that some isolated reviewers try you to sell it as. It's not even the best mega-adventure for 4E WotC has released, not by a far shot.

Wow. What other mega-adventures have WotC done for 4e?

"Revenge of the Giants" might count, but my understanding was that it was not terribly good. "Tomb of Horrors" probably counts, but that one fell to pieces after a really strong start (shame really - that first chapter is excellent).

 

[UngeheuerLich]

After reading gadmore abbey:

It is a megadungeon. Not so much to my taste, but:

I like the quests, I like the skill challenges, I like, that all foes are given motivations, and behaviours if the players don´t want to fight.

So instead of hacking through the dungeon, it seems as if making treats and only some attacks will gve you a better result.

So it should counter the common believe, that 4e is all abot combat!

 

[TerraDave]

I see it more "recovering" then "hitting their stride".

After all, in the summer of 2010 they had Tomb of Horrors, Darksun, MM3, Demonicon...

But this paralleled the errata explosion, and was then followed by an underwhelming redbox, the confusion of essentials (though there is good stuff within), fortune cards (sadly still here)and the online character builder; these in turn were followed by a non-functioning monster builder, dropping a bunch of products (some of which were restored), heroes of shadow....

Like I said, recovery.

 

[Ratinyourwalls]

Why no mention of Monster Vault: Threats to Nentir Vale? That book is one of the top five books in 4E for me and it's rather recent.

Unfortunately it's about the only book in the past year that I've managed to get excited about. 4E has been downgraded from "MUST BUY EVERYTHING IMMEDIATELY UNLESS ITS A MODULE!" to "Wait a month and see what happens."

The last year has been horrible for content and I'm going to wait a good 4-5 more excellent supplements before claiming the drought is over.