Quasqueton
First Post
I wasn't answering your question in that post. My question was not a deflection, but a request for clarification. And hopefully you'll forgive me for not remembering the details of a thread from 9 months ago?
I'm sure we don't want to turn this thread into a T1-4 is good/T1-4 is bad argument, but...
The PCs do not watch the gods fight. Without rereading the section, I'll go off memory here: when the BBEGs are about to be defeated, they call for Iuz. When Iuz shows up, Cuthbert also shows up too. They both raise/heal their sides with a wave of their hands, and then vanish to settle their personal fight elsewhere. So, rather than the PCs having to watch others fight the fight, they have to fight it twice all by themselves. I thought this an interesting twist.
I liked the idea of a large, extended adventure like the multiple levels and nodes of the temple. I liked how there were several different factions within the temple, and the PCs could play one against the other instead of just hacking their way through. I liked how the confusion and hodge podge of mercenaries in the temple let the PCs use stealth and subterfuge to make their way through the temple instead of just hacking their way through. The sad fact that so many Players just mindlessly hacked their way through the temple doesn't mean that was the only way. [How many Players stormed the hill giant steading in hack and slash fashion even though it was written for a stealthy raid while the giants were distracted with their party?] But many DMs then (and now) only awarded xp for enemies defeated in combat. (In other words, the problems are from the DM and Players, not the material.)
I liked the concept of the temple being an historic place in the campaign setting. Heck, the WoG campaign setting books mention the ToEE even with a date on the world timeline. A couple of the PCs in our party had relatives who had been in the original battle against the temple. It's like the PCs get to be a part of the world's history. It was one of the rare adventures that "actually existed in the real WoG" rather than just being first a tournament module placed, after the fact, in the WoG.
It's like meeting Mordenkainen the Archmage versus meeting Mortimer the Archmage. The first has a feel of really being in the WoG. The second has no sense of belonging.
I never noticed many [editing?] errors in the module. It wasn't as well put together and polished up textually as adventure modules today, but it was no worse than the vast majority of adventure modules of it's day.
Quasqueton
