Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Keep on the Shadowfell vs Reavers of Harkenwold
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7431817" data-attributes="member: 996"><p>KotSf wasn't a particularly bad adventure, by broad D&D standards. It just did fairly typical things - overleveled Big Bads, grindy room-clearing - that it didn't <em>need</em> to in 4e. It was metaphorically pumping it's anti-lock breaks.</p><p></p><p>D&D puts a good DM, or capable adventure-designer, into the habit if compensating for it's failings. You need to build some grind into your dungeons, to provide a sense of challenge without just overwhelming the party, and to enable the resource-stress that passes for class balance. You need to throw down a higher-HD/level threat, give it a home field advantage, and play it viciously so it'll last more than a round and register as memorable/challenging above the noise level of that grind.</p><p></p><p>KotS tried to be helpful by building those over-compensations in for new DMs, giving them a few points if failure. Irontooth & Kalarel didn't need to be over-engineered (really, the Elite designs of early 4e were already a little over-engineered, something MM2 tried to address, and MM3 managed better), so became potential TPKs. The dungeon didn't need an underpinning of attrition-based resource-management, so became a pointless/contrived slog. In 4e, if an adventure didn't call for a grueling series of combats, you just don't have a grueling series of combats, but a few important ones, it didn't require that attrition model to underpin class balance or provide challenge.</p><p></p><p> IIRC, he did Heart of Nightfang Spire, which I (and I may be distinctly in the minority in this) consider one of the better 3e modules, precisely because it does viciously punish the common abuses of that edition, and does have amped up, even 'gotchya' challenges. 3e needs the DM to step up and smack down the 5MWD and hammer the blindspots of unbalanced parties, and HoNS set that up for the DM, with actual reasons to do so built in. It was a great example of what it takes to preserve the play of the game in the presence of the 'build' meta-game.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 7431817, member: 996"] KotSf wasn't a particularly bad adventure, by broad D&D standards. It just did fairly typical things - overleveled Big Bads, grindy room-clearing - that it didn't [i]need[/i] to in 4e. It was metaphorically pumping it's anti-lock breaks. D&D puts a good DM, or capable adventure-designer, into the habit if compensating for it's failings. You need to build some grind into your dungeons, to provide a sense of challenge without just overwhelming the party, and to enable the resource-stress that passes for class balance. You need to throw down a higher-HD/level threat, give it a home field advantage, and play it viciously so it'll last more than a round and register as memorable/challenging above the noise level of that grind. KotS tried to be helpful by building those over-compensations in for new DMs, giving them a few points if failure. Irontooth & Kalarel didn't need to be over-engineered (really, the Elite designs of early 4e were already a little over-engineered, something MM2 tried to address, and MM3 managed better), so became potential TPKs. The dungeon didn't need an underpinning of attrition-based resource-management, so became a pointless/contrived slog. In 4e, if an adventure didn't call for a grueling series of combats, you just don't have a grueling series of combats, but a few important ones, it didn't require that attrition model to underpin class balance or provide challenge. IIRC, he did Heart of Nightfang Spire, which I (and I may be distinctly in the minority in this) consider one of the better 3e modules, precisely because it does viciously punish the common abuses of that edition, and does have amped up, even 'gotchya' challenges. 3e needs the DM to step up and smack down the 5MWD and hammer the blindspots of unbalanced parties, and HoNS set that up for the DM, with actual reasons to do so built in. It was a great example of what it takes to preserve the play of the game in the presence of the 'build' meta-game. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Keep on the Shadowfell vs Reavers of Harkenwold
Top