P2 - Demon Queen's Enclave - so this is the best WotC module, really?!

[Ktulu]

Reaver's of Harkenwold is easily my favorite. My players loved it and praised the story. They had no idea it was a module until I pulled out the map (near the end).

 

[Klaus]

I'll chime in with further support for Reavers of Harkenwold - I wrote up a review of my experience running it on my blog.

I was like many of you in that I had no interest in buying the DM Kit, but I wanted the adventure. Fortunately, I mentioned this to the owner of my friendly local game store, Enchanted Grounds, and he loaned me the copy of the adventure from the store copy of the DM Kit. Awesome!

Next up for that particular campaign will be Cairn of the Winter King from the Monster Vault. I agree that it doesn't seem as interesting as Reavers (it's a more traditional dungeon crawl from the looks of things), but I don't think my party will mind - they just want to kill bad guys and take their stuff.

Cairn of the Witch King opens with a pretty strong encounter, and the cairn itself has some roleplaying potential, with NPCs who recently awoke from frozen slumber. If you expand the scale of the place, you can turn it into something akin to a level of the ToEE.

 

[TheUltramark]

I'm putting in a second opinion that Reavers of Harkenwold is a great module. Stonefang Pass is also decent.

we just finished Slaying Stone and found it to be sort of "Dick and Jane" - ish...or remedial adventuring. We did all the adventures, because well, what else were gonna do, but after seeing the map and hearing some of the intel, it was clear where everything was and what was going on. Still the then DM did spice it up enough that when he handed me the pencil, (being DM) I hooked the party pretty seamlessly into my adventure, which is not stonefang, but rather an adventure loosley (some might say VERY loosly) based on Keep on the Shadowfell.

 

[Bold or Stupid]

I felt the best H-P-E adventurers were E1 and E2 but that may be because I tied them into my games plot quite heavily. They are fight fests but it seems right that they are (E2 being an assualt on the Abyss).

Slaying Stone (I played), Stonefang Pass (ran), and Caern of the Winter King (played) are all much better adventures.

 

[Jhaelen]

I felt the best H-P-E adventurers were E1 and E2 but that may be because I tied them into my games plot quite heavily.

I liked the storyline of E1 a lot. I think it's a great introduction into epic gameplay.
The execution unfortunately isn't as great but it's in my category of 'salvagable' modules.

E2 pales by comparison, especially because of its heavy-handed approach to deal with players thinking out of the box:

Batter the party with random encounters until they desist and tamely follow the railroad.

It has some cool encounter locations but you'd really have to rewrite the whole thing to turn it into something that really works.

 

[Bold or Stupid]

I liked the storyline of E1 a lot. I think it's a great introduction into epic gameplay.
The execution unfortunately isn't as great but it's in my category of 'salvagable' modules.

E2 pales by comparison, especially because of its heavy-handed approach to deal with players thinking out of the box:

Batter the party with random encounters until they desist and tamely follow the railroad.

It has some cool encounter locations but you'd really have to rewrite the whole thing to turn it into something that really works.

I never claimed they were perfect

The major out of the box I had in E2 was the party avoided sigil (and due to killing Eldar Aranthem weren't chasing after Timesus' body), so they went via the city of Brass and hired a boat to the Abyss, cue extra encounters. Once there they were happy to go on the straightest possible route (though they talked past at least 1 encounter...), I had them there rescuing an old friend.

 

[Ktulu]

I should also give nod to Stonefang Pass -- Scared the crap outta my group They lost 3 characters through that dungeon (a group of 6, even!) and felt the punishings of Stonefang. A great, great module.

 

[Zaran]

Er, yes! How could I mention Stonefang Pass and not Slaying Stone in the same breath? :S

I think with a higher page count, they could very well be a mini campaign arc all by themselves. They could have been the new H1-3 arc.

And now it looks like Reavers (with the recent article on Nerathi Legends) is shaping up to be another great Heroic arc. Reavers was nearly worth the price of the DM Kit all by itself!

Okay, not really, but it was pretty good, considering. If they'd replaced the DM book with dungeon tiles for the adventure, and fleshed it out a little more, and kept all the tokens, it probably would be.

It's a shame they stopped printing adventures after these two.

 

[DJINNIMAN]

Cairn of the Witch King opens with a pretty strong encounter, and the cairn itself has some roleplaying potential, with NPCs who recently awoke from frozen slumber. If you expand the scale of the place, you can turn it into something akin to a level of the ToEE.

I totally agree. The player who writes our campaign journal referred to the fight as a viking death metal video. Brilliant! I rather enjoyed RPing Ravide the Black, the slightly slimy transmuter, and he eventually tagged along with the party and will likely be my PC when our journalist steps up to be DM some day.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I think of the original 9 adventures I thought that the troll one (P1) was the most salvagable one.

Overall though - in each case it was an opportunity for Wizards to really pull out their 'A' game, and come out with brilliant showcase adventures that people would talk about for years.

Unfortunately people only still talk about them for the wrong reasons...