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Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil
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<blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2009937" data-attributes="member: 18387"><p>Let me preface by saying, I have owned this product since it was released and have read it several times over. I have NOT playtested it. I usually don’t review non-playtested products and that I don’t review much here, so take this as you may. I have read the other reviews and do see the “love it” or “hate it” type relationship “The Return to The Temple of Elemental Evil” fosters.</p><p>This review contains SPOILERS so read at your own risk.</p><p></p><p>Title: Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil </p><p>"an adventure taking characters from 4th -14th level"</p><p></p><p>Author: Monte Cook</p><p></p><p>Appearance: A 192 perfect bound soft-cover book with excellent illustrations and a full set of perforated detailed color maps.</p><p></p><p>Overview: A Campaign module of epic size and scope chronicling the third rise of the Temple of Elemental Evil in the World of Greyhawk.</p><p></p><p>Synopsis: The book is broken down in 8 chapters each of which details a specific section of the three part story arc., There 4 detailed appendix detailing various, Items, NPC’s, Monsters, and Classes.</p><p></p><p>PART 1) The players have returned to the now renown Village, (now a small town) of Hommlet, ( The provided motivations of “why” they return here are weak, The best of those listed being the PC’s are essentially “bored” and there is always something going on in Hommlet, right?) Local inquiries soon lead adventures back to the old Moathouse, the now ghost town of Nulb and the ruins of the original Temple of Elemental Evil.</p><p></p><p>PRO’s: I found this first section of book to be excellent, Starting with a good background history of the area and how events came to be as they are in the 15 years since the original. Part 1 is filled with colorful NPC’s, past and present, exciting encounters which all accurately fall within the context of the new story.</p><p></p><p>CON’s There are silly errors that contridict other Greyhawk published matierials.</p><p>For instance both here and in the original, The Free City of Verbononc is listed as 10 leagues from Hommlet while in every published Greyhawk product (including maps within) It is plainly shown as being 30 leagues distant. While this isn’t a big deal, it is annoying and shows a lack of knowledge of the editors. Also clues given on reasons why or how to continue on to part 2 are tentative at best and will require some serious DM prodding and/or major hint giving to get players in the right direction.</p><p></p><p>PART 2) The players travel to Hamlet of Rastor in search of the Temple of All-Consumption, which is in a dormant Volcanic crater in the Lortmil mountians around 200 miles to east .There they find out what (or whom) is really behind the new rise of the Temple and somehow figure out how to put a stop to it.</p><p></p><p>CON’s: This is where things really go bad for this book. First of all, The Crater Ridge Mines are just too big and they are filled with too many overpowered encounters.</p><p>It’s suggested that players are supposed to come up with a way to play various factions against each other (as each section represents a temple of the four elemental nodes) However by the time the PC’s figure that out and they already have a good taste of what’s there, I would think any thinking PC’s would be headed to Veluna or Verbononc in order to solicit a small army to help finish the task.</p><p>Any DM will have a lot of work to do to make this area run smoothly, while it can done</p><p>(Namely by pulling out a lot of encounters, Dinosaurs???) Someone mentioned this plays out like a video game- I concur.</p><p></p><p>PRO’s: There are some excellent encounters here: The player’s discover the fate of Prince Thrommel, D’gran The Half Ogre/Half-Demon is a nice touch and the return of Zert is great if you played the original (and got some mileage out of him). I also like the story the players uncover. The secret cult of the evilest of evil god’s “Tharizdun” is the true culprit behind all this and that his minions are trying to free him from his eternal imprisonment to wreak havoc in the world. Finally the maps of these areas are well detailed and simply great.</p><p></p><p>PART 3) Players discover the Cult has re-excavated the fire node at the original Temple and must travel back 250 miles to the dungeon of the recovered temple and stop the cults evil plans.</p><p></p><p>PRO’s: Good synchronicity with the story, that prevents players from finding the re-excavated temple when the visit the upper temple the first time they are there.. (As it simply hasn’t happened yet). The players have plenty of opportunity to gain NPC allies for this assault. And I like the structuring and organizational detail of each area as well as the re-visiting if the original areas.</p><p></p><p>CON’s: First of all, the 500+ mile journey that players take to go to find the Temple of All-Consumption and then to travel back to the original is just too far and leaves the player’s way too much room to lose focus or get side tracked. Granted they should realize that this is a matter of great urgency and should Tharizdun actually be freed, it would literally mean the end of the world. That being said, as heroic as they surely are. This becomes a job for a small army. Not a job that a smart bunch of adventures would dare to risk failing. It is going to take a DM a lot of creativity to stifle the player’s correct assumptions and get them back to the Recovered Temple in a hurry, while only stopping in Hommlet to pick up a few NPC’s as muscle. As in part 2, there are too many creatures that just seem out of place within the context of the story environment. (Ex: The purple worm, no matter how creative the story to why its there, it is just silly). Finally the end game with Prince Imix, is pretty hard to swallow even with 4- 14th level PC’s and some powerful NPC’s. Chances of winning this fight would be near zero, If the DM plays Imix properly. Even a 14th level “buffed-up” fighter would be hard pressed to go head to head with him for more than round or two.</p><p></p><p>CONCLUSION: I don’t think trying to run this module “As Is”, is even remotely feasible. Even the most skilled DM, has not only an incredible amount of work to do in managing all the characters, monsters and environments, but has way too much PC hand-holding and hint dropping, all the while not working the players adversaries to their true potential is required. However,this book is an excellent source book for a classic style Greyhawk campaign and with some minor modifications can be easily be awesome “Return To” adventure/campaign.</p><p></p><p>If you are a fan of the source material this book is totally mandatory, </p><p>If not it’s still worth the read and quite usable if broken up into several small adventures or as part of any larger Greyhawk campaign. Finally as an adventure I would rate this book a “3”,As a source book I would rate it a “5”. For an overall score of “4”.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Messageboard Golem, post: 2009937, member: 18387"] Let me preface by saying, I have owned this product since it was released and have read it several times over. I have NOT playtested it. I usually don’t review non-playtested products and that I don’t review much here, so take this as you may. I have read the other reviews and do see the “love it” or “hate it” type relationship “The Return to The Temple of Elemental Evil” fosters. This review contains SPOILERS so read at your own risk. Title: Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil "an adventure taking characters from 4th -14th level" Author: Monte Cook Appearance: A 192 perfect bound soft-cover book with excellent illustrations and a full set of perforated detailed color maps. Overview: A Campaign module of epic size and scope chronicling the third rise of the Temple of Elemental Evil in the World of Greyhawk. Synopsis: The book is broken down in 8 chapters each of which details a specific section of the three part story arc., There 4 detailed appendix detailing various, Items, NPC’s, Monsters, and Classes. PART 1) The players have returned to the now renown Village, (now a small town) of Hommlet, ( The provided motivations of “why” they return here are weak, The best of those listed being the PC’s are essentially “bored” and there is always something going on in Hommlet, right?) Local inquiries soon lead adventures back to the old Moathouse, the now ghost town of Nulb and the ruins of the original Temple of Elemental Evil. PRO’s: I found this first section of book to be excellent, Starting with a good background history of the area and how events came to be as they are in the 15 years since the original. Part 1 is filled with colorful NPC’s, past and present, exciting encounters which all accurately fall within the context of the new story. CON’s There are silly errors that contridict other Greyhawk published matierials. For instance both here and in the original, The Free City of Verbononc is listed as 10 leagues from Hommlet while in every published Greyhawk product (including maps within) It is plainly shown as being 30 leagues distant. While this isn’t a big deal, it is annoying and shows a lack of knowledge of the editors. Also clues given on reasons why or how to continue on to part 2 are tentative at best and will require some serious DM prodding and/or major hint giving to get players in the right direction. PART 2) The players travel to Hamlet of Rastor in search of the Temple of All-Consumption, which is in a dormant Volcanic crater in the Lortmil mountians around 200 miles to east .There they find out what (or whom) is really behind the new rise of the Temple and somehow figure out how to put a stop to it. CON’s: This is where things really go bad for this book. First of all, The Crater Ridge Mines are just too big and they are filled with too many overpowered encounters. It’s suggested that players are supposed to come up with a way to play various factions against each other (as each section represents a temple of the four elemental nodes) However by the time the PC’s figure that out and they already have a good taste of what’s there, I would think any thinking PC’s would be headed to Veluna or Verbononc in order to solicit a small army to help finish the task. Any DM will have a lot of work to do to make this area run smoothly, while it can done (Namely by pulling out a lot of encounters, Dinosaurs???) Someone mentioned this plays out like a video game- I concur. PRO’s: There are some excellent encounters here: The player’s discover the fate of Prince Thrommel, D’gran The Half Ogre/Half-Demon is a nice touch and the return of Zert is great if you played the original (and got some mileage out of him). I also like the story the players uncover. The secret cult of the evilest of evil god’s “Tharizdun” is the true culprit behind all this and that his minions are trying to free him from his eternal imprisonment to wreak havoc in the world. Finally the maps of these areas are well detailed and simply great. PART 3) Players discover the Cult has re-excavated the fire node at the original Temple and must travel back 250 miles to the dungeon of the recovered temple and stop the cults evil plans. PRO’s: Good synchronicity with the story, that prevents players from finding the re-excavated temple when the visit the upper temple the first time they are there.. (As it simply hasn’t happened yet). The players have plenty of opportunity to gain NPC allies for this assault. And I like the structuring and organizational detail of each area as well as the re-visiting if the original areas. CON’s: First of all, the 500+ mile journey that players take to go to find the Temple of All-Consumption and then to travel back to the original is just too far and leaves the player’s way too much room to lose focus or get side tracked. Granted they should realize that this is a matter of great urgency and should Tharizdun actually be freed, it would literally mean the end of the world. That being said, as heroic as they surely are. This becomes a job for a small army. Not a job that a smart bunch of adventures would dare to risk failing. It is going to take a DM a lot of creativity to stifle the player’s correct assumptions and get them back to the Recovered Temple in a hurry, while only stopping in Hommlet to pick up a few NPC’s as muscle. As in part 2, there are too many creatures that just seem out of place within the context of the story environment. (Ex: The purple worm, no matter how creative the story to why its there, it is just silly). Finally the end game with Prince Imix, is pretty hard to swallow even with 4- 14th level PC’s and some powerful NPC’s. Chances of winning this fight would be near zero, If the DM plays Imix properly. Even a 14th level “buffed-up” fighter would be hard pressed to go head to head with him for more than round or two. CONCLUSION: I don’t think trying to run this module “As Is”, is even remotely feasible. Even the most skilled DM, has not only an incredible amount of work to do in managing all the characters, monsters and environments, but has way too much PC hand-holding and hint dropping, all the while not working the players adversaries to their true potential is required. However,this book is an excellent source book for a classic style Greyhawk campaign and with some minor modifications can be easily be awesome “Return To” adventure/campaign. If you are a fan of the source material this book is totally mandatory, If not it’s still worth the read and quite usable if broken up into several small adventures or as part of any larger Greyhawk campaign. Finally as an adventure I would rate this book a “3”,As a source book I would rate it a “5”. For an overall score of “4”. [/QUOTE]
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