Pathfinder 1E WotC desperately needs to learn from Paizo and Privateer Press

[Snoweel]

That makes WotC adventures easier to fit into homebrew campaigns, while Paizo's require a lot more work to fit into a world that is not Golarion.

So true.

Golarion is excellent but I just can't use anything form it without extensive re-writing (beyond mechanical conversion).

Points of Light, while uninspiring in itself (though there are kernels of inspiration coming out with the newer splatbooks) is the perfect template for homebrewing.

 

[avin]

3. Fluff in the 4e Monster manuals
Actually, the 4e MM contains about the same amount of fluff as a non 2e source. It's simply split between the beginning entry and the lore section.

I really can't understand people defending 4E Monster Manuals. Even less people claiming there's so much fluff as 3E, but I'm not post yet other topic showing this is a flase claim. Except for some good exceptions (fomorians) 4E Monster fluss is less and inferior to 2E and 3E.

DDI subscriber and 4E DM here, so I'm not an edition warrior, just poitning that 4E monster fluff is thrash.

 

[delericho]

The Monster Manuals are far more disappointing. I'm one of those DMs who feels that 4E is actually a very elegant system, and I applaud the forward thinking put into how 4E has improved running D&D for DMs. But so we get this great system...and a complete dearth of good fluff. The Monster books are nothing more than boring lists of stats.

I think this is probably an intentional choice - WotC have decided to provide the DM with tools, and leave it to them to use those tools as they see fit. It is the DM's job to make the adventures memorable. It is the DM's job to 'skin' the monsters for his campaign.

It's not the model I would have used, but it seems an entirely sensible way to go about things.

As far as monster books go, the standard - besides the 2E Monstrous Compendiums, which were awesome - needs to be Privateer Press' Monsternomicons. Those books are jam-packed with great fluff.

One of the great things about fluff is that it's portable. If you like Pathfinder's Goblins, they'll work just fine with 4e stats. If you really like Golarion, set your 4e campaign there. And so on.

WotC needs to step up its game. Other companies have truly raised the bar with campaign, adventure and monster design, and I think 4E players would enthusiastically embrace an improvement in products to come.

Well, as long as 4e sells well enough for the needs of Hasbro, WotC don't really need to do anything. That said, if there are lessons that they can to improve the product they are offering, then that would be all to the good.

The one thing that disappoints me is that there aren't the same range of 3rd party publishers doing good adventures for 4e. Necromancer, Green Ronin and Paizo are all out of the game, leaving only Goodman and EN Publishing of the 'big names' doing adventures. Since WotC adventures have been very uneven in quality for a long time, that loss of variety is costly.

(Also, I would really like to see someone do a 'campaign in a box' product, comparable to "Castle Whiterock" or the old "Night Below" set. But maybe that's just me.)

1. Were there any good noncampaign specific modules for 2e?

The only ones I know people recommend are Night Below and Gates of Firestorm Peak.

I really liked "The Shattered Circle", and I heard good things about "Axe of the Dwarvish Lords". There were also a couple of "Return to..." adventures late in the edition that I thought I heard good things about, but I may be misremembering.

 

[Starsunder]

I think the issue you're finding here is that products like the 4e Monster Manuals are designed to be used. They are put together with the expectation that they will serve as tools for the DM in designing and running adventures. They are not meant to be read like a novel. If you buy one with the intent of opening it up and reading through from the beginning to enjoy some nice story, you'll probably be disappointed. That's not what it's for. If you buy one with the intent of flipping through it for ideas on how to challenge your PCs with interesting opponents and create memorable combat encounters, you will get a lot of use out of it.

Im sorry, but this makes no sense to me. Why cant I have both ,meaning stats and plentiful, evocative fluff. I see no reason why having lots of fluff would hinder me in designing and running adventures and challenging my PCs with interesting opponents. In fact, I would advocate that it would help in doing that, by providing more inspiration to draw from (whether you use said inspiration or not would of course be up to you).

 

[Dannager]

Im sorry, but this makes no sense to me. Why cant I have both ,meaning stats and plentiful, evocative fluff. I see no reason why having lots of fluff would hinder me in designing and running adventures and challenging my PCs with interesting opponents. In fact, I would advocate that it would help in doing that, by providing more inspiration to draw from (whether you use said inspiration or not would of course be up to you).

Because space in books is not cheap, stat blocks are useful to everyone no matter what setting they play in because you can reskin them, inspiration can be found in thousands of different places, lots of people love to create their own fluff and some are even okay at it, and almost everyone is terrible at creating new crunch.

That's why.

 

[Starsunder]

Because space in books is not cheap, stat blocks are useful to everyone no matter what setting they play in because you can reskin them, inspiration can be found in thousands of different places, lots of people love to create their own fluff and some are even okay at it, and almost everyone is terrible at creating new crunch.

That's why.

Lol guess we'll just have to agree to disagree then, cause really those arent reasons at all to me. Again, you can do any of that stuff and have great fluff in the book. Think I cant reskin a monster because it has fluff? Just because inspiration can be found lots of places means it cant be in the MM itself? People who love to create fluff cant do so if there is already fluff there? The only one that holds water with me is the space issue, but if WotC would actually make a book with more than 224 pages then perhaps they could fit more monsters in along with the fluff.

Anyways, clearly the amount of fluff is good enough for you, and lots of other people. And thats great! Its just not enough for me.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Night below...

level 1-15... ADnD 2nd edition... easily transopsitioned to 3rd edition and 3.5

worked great!

Book 2 and 3 are a bit combat heavy... the first book is a great example of a PoL...

 

[Sunderstone]

1. Were there any good noncampaign specific modules for 2e?

The only ones I know people recommend are Night Below and Gates of Firestorm Peak.

Not a fan of Firestorm here.

I did like Night Below, Labyrinth of Madness, The Beholder and Sahuagin trilogies of adventures, and the Return to the Tomb of Horrors box. In general, Generic 2E modules were too few. 2E's strong suit was setting based. Campaign specific modules like Planescape and Ravenloft were excellent for the most part.

As for 3E/3.5 ...
Sunless Citadel and Forge of Fury were good.
Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde was ok (dont hurt me ).

Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, City of the Spider Queen, Red Hand of Doom, Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, and Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk were all excellent. With the exception of Red Hand of Doom, the above list is mostly campaign specific in flavor and/or history.

Also taking a look at the creators of the above 3E/3.5 list, only a few are still doing WotC stuff.

I definately agree that WotC doesnt really do modules as well as Paizo, Goodman, Necromancer (when they did do them), etc. I cant speak for the 4E stuff, but from what I hear, it hasnt changed. YMMV.

 

[delericho]

As for 3E/3.5 ...
Sunless Citadel and Forge of Fury were good.

Thought "Sunless Citadel" was great. "Forge of Fury" was okay.

Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde

I liked this one too. Not a classic, but good, IMO.

Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil

I hated this. The concept was good, but it turned into page after page after page of dungeon crawl and combat encounters, with no plot to speak of. And I know that that was the intent, but still...

No, not a fan.

Red Hand of Doom

A classic. Probably the best WotC adventure ever.

Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk

I can't help but feel this was over-rated. It felt like the core of a pretty good campaign arc, but I did feel it rode a bit too far on a nostalgia that I just missed (not being familiar with Greyhawk in general).

I felt that "Expedition to the Demonweb Pits" was much the same - it had the core of a very good campaign, but had been rushed out the door and edited into a form that didn't really work. Also, they made the critical mistake of hinging a big segment of the adventure on the PCs trusting a given NPC, and in giving the PCs a warning not to trust this NPC immediately before meeting the NPC in question. Oops!

I also enjoyed the "DD" trilogy of adventures: "Barrow of the Forgotten King", "The Sinister Spire" (especially), and "Fortress of the Yuan-ti".

 

[Hjorimir]

I'm one of those who is perfectly happy with the 4e Monster Manuals. As far as monster fluff goes, you can find some of that within Dragon articles, but I really prefer to season everything to my own tastes anyway.

That being said, I would like to see some (actually good) fluff prodcuts from WotC. Things that I can drop into my homebrewed setting. I have high hopes for prodcuts like Vor Rukoth and Hammerfast.

As far as adventrues go...meh, no real desire for big published dungeons. If they'd put out a small adventure site products with maybe five or so linked encounters (bundled with a battlemap) I'd be interested. My campaigns are always driven by the PC actions and metaplots of the setting and big dungeons don't really fit in to those (generally speaking), but things that I can drop in here and there (and fall back to when the PCs surprise me) would be welcome.