D&D 4E Which of the Wizards 4e H-E adventure have you played or run?

[Korgoth]

So far, I rate the first six adventures as follows:

H1: Keep on the Shadowfell - a very good adventure. The initial stages of the adventure work really well, and you can become very attached to the townsfolk as you travel to and from the adventure areas. There's not enough development in the final section of the dungeon, though, and the final villain hasn't been foreshadowed enough. 7 out of 10.

Wow... that's astonishing, dude. I have read through H1 and find it one of the most pathetic, lazy, kindergarten-level modules I think I've come across! And the fact (at least by your ratings) that most of the others are actually worse than this steamer is quite disturbing.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I would have thought this one would merit a 2 or a 3 tops. But evidently it's close to the high end of 4e modules. What a colossal embarrassment!

 

[Obryn]

H1 has the seeds of a great module in it, but it runs afoul of the same problems that plague most 4e HPE adventures: Too much slog.

-O

 

[MerricB]

H1 has the seeds of a great module in it, but it runs afoul of the same problems that plague most 4e HPE adventures: Too much slog.

To be fair, most of the slog occurs just in the last section of the adventure. The first half of the module (or perhaps a little more) runs extremely well.

You have wilderness encounters and town interactions with the NPCs. You venture into the dungeon, and the Big Bad responds by attacking the town (and you). I was able to do a lot with the town section, and it was all building nicely until the final section had just a few too many encounters in it.

It should be noted that I enjoy combat. It's one of the things I enjoy in D&D. So, a combat-heavy adventure isn't a turn-off; I appreciate it when there's a strong narrative drive and places to explore as well.

To get a sense of how my ratings relate to other D&D adventures, I'll give this short guide:

10: Pharoah, Gary Gygax's Necropolis, Oasis of the White Palm
9: Keep on the Borderlands, Castle Zagyg: The Upper Levels, The Prince of Redhand
8: Vault of the Drow, Dragons of Despair, Sons of Gruumsh
7: Feast of Goblyns, White Plume Mountain
6: Vecna Lives!, Isle of Dread, Lost Tomb of Martek, The Shattered Citadel
5: Temple of Elemental Evil, Deep Horizon
4: Needle
3: Fate of Istus, Dragons of Fire, The Spire of Long Shadows
2: Castle Greyhawk, Gargoyle
1: Terrible Trouble at Tragidore
0: Usurpers of the Fell Axe

Cheers!

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

So far only Shadowfell, but we will play Trollhaunt and Spider Queen when the PCs reach sufficient level.

 

[Baumi]

I run H1 3 times as 4E Introductions and while it's a basic dungeon-crawl, it was always a very fun experience and a great help for new players.

I am plaing H2 and H3 and so far it is very interesting but a bit long, but I'm not sure if the adventures are to blame since we play both Adventures at the same time (the GM mixed both Adventures together).

I also used many adventures from Dungeon Delve (a GREAT Ressource for any GM) and run one Adventure from Tome of Horrors (which killed 4 Characters so far ).

All in all I really like the WOTC Adventures. I wish there would be more non-combat stuff in it, but the Encounters simply ROCK. I really don't understand why WOTC-Adventures are so infamous.

 

[Jhaelen]

I haven't run any of them yet.

I've bought H2, P1, and all three of the E modules.

I'd consider running H2, P1 and E1. The other two E modules are too bad to be considered.

I have started running the Eberron module which, so far, I liked.

I've also bought Revenge of the Giants. I might consider running parts of it.

Judging from reading the modules, H2 is probably the best of the bunch, at least it has the potential to be great.

RotG also reads nice, if you don't mind the constant railroading. I guess, you could transform it into a good adventure with some work.

I've also bought Hammerfast which I love(!) and HS1 which is very good for a level 1 module. Alas, I'm unlikely to use either in my game in the foreseeable future.

 

[Gort]

I ran H1, and as everyone else is saying, it's a complete slog. It's just room after room after room of encounters, often with the same types of monsters you JUST finished killing - so you don't even get the variety of a different type of opponent. Their only real point of interest in the entire dungeon was a "trap room", but it was designed so poorly! The traps only hit specific locations around the room, and only when players moved into them, and emanated from statues. My group just shot all the statues from safety, taking maybe two attacks total from the statues themselves. What a load of rubbish.

I briefly ran P1 as a test of what the game was like at paragon level, and we only made it about four or five encounters in. The adventure was of the exact same type as H1 - room after room of monsters.

It's a great shame, because the idea of having a whole pre-made massive adventure in a well-produced binder type thingy complete with high-quality maps is a great temptation to me.

They should take the format of the dungeon delves - three or so encounters in a row, then a big old plot development with maybe some skill challenges involved. Then another delve, then some more plot.

In H1, once you'd done the preamble encounters it was basically, "You must defeat Kalarel" as your objective, but he's hiding behind 25 encounters. It was just a combat slog, and I got tired of it.

As someone said earlier: Wizards really don't do the image of 4e any good if their modules - their very own suggestion of "this is how 4e should be played" - is just encounter after encounter after encounter with basically no actual roleplaying in sight.

All that said though, I recently played in a 4e campaign that was so shockingly bad that I wish the DM had just been using one of these modules. It was dreadful. He didn't prep anything, and even his world map was dotted with place names from Zelda and other crap JRPGs.

 

[wedgeski]

I've run the following:

H1 Keep on the Shadowfell - This turned into an okay adventure once I'd tuned it to the preferences of my group. This amounted to adding in a couple of extra plot threads (for example, Eilian was Sir Keegan's only surviving descendent and he wanted him killed to free himself from limbo) and threading in the introduction of ongoing NPC's from the campaign as I had planned it.

The slog of the final few dungeon levels was alleviated simply by weaving in the completion of minor plot threads as a pre-requisite to getting any further.

It worked in the end, and we have some good memories of that place, but the adventure as written I can't give more than a 5.

H2 Thunderspire Labyrinth - I ran a heavily modified version of this so I can't really give it a fair score. But, I played several of the encounters as written, and the Seven-Pillared Hall threw up lots of interesting roleplaying. Many of the NPC's found themselves woven into the ongoing campaign as a result, and the SPH is now an unofficial home for the party, having become the heroes who freed the enclave from the yoke of the Samazar Splinter (my campaign name for the Mages of Saruun). I would give this 6.5/10

H3 Pyramid of Shadows - Running this now for my irregular second group. Again, I've layered on a heavily PC-specific storyline which involves the Pyramid actually being a reflection of the shattered mind of one of the character's parents, but otherwise I'm running the factions and encounters pretty much as-is.

This adventure must get kudos for presenting multiple factions, and ideas for how they might interact with the PC's other than just fighting to the death. The artifact allied with the PC's from the start is also a fun NPC, and as always the encounters taken individually are, for the most part, excellent.

But, as a whole, this adventure is simply too thick with combat, even though the combat itself is quite good. I would give it 7/10.

 

[Connorsrpg]

I have Dmed the following 2:

H1 - Thunderspire: set in home campaign (African-influenced). The players LOVED the whole idea of the Seven-Pillared Hall. We played some encs, but it ended with a TPK at the dwarven fortress. Pity - the players did like the place and had set up some good RP contacts in the 7PH. As we didn't finish, hard to rate, but I am sure the players would have rated it highly. Good locations.

P1 - Trollhaunt: Ran this in a Dark Age Fantasy Britain home brew. PCs really got into trying to kill the main villain. (They fought him 3 times). I must say, as written = too much of a slog vs same creatures. I included many variations of trolls in my encounters, including BBEG taking his troll son and their troll-hounds hunting. Used a lot of Medium trolls and others from a delve from Dungeon mag. When the PCs worked out how to follow their nemesis into Feywild they were happy and seemed to like their time there too. Our last session before group split, was defeating the BBEG. I think overall the players liked this module too...but as I said, I had modified a lot of the encs.

 

[Colmarr]

They should take the format of the dungeon delves - three or so encounters in a row, then a big old plot development with maybe some skill challenges involved. Then another delve, then some more plot.

I believe Revenge of the Giants adopts this structure or one like it (caveat: I'm repeating what I've heard - I haven't looked at the actual adventure because I'm soon to play in it).