Where can you buy the Reavers of Harkenwold?
Keep on the Shadowfell vs Reavers of Harkenwold
It came with the Dungeon Master's Kit released as part of the Essentials cycle of 4e.
Thank you, just ordered mine off of ebay
The Fighter-Cricket
Explorer
I can only reiterate what the other said: Reavers was an enjoyable module indeed! I'm very happy to have it also in print and the nice monster and NPC tokens for it as well.
The observation that it could either be run as a sandbox or a straightforward adventure is spot on and one of the factors which make it so good. The party really can discuss what approach they want to go, which allies they want to get on their side, and what locale they want to visit in which order. I mean, the NPCs could have been fleshed out more with more memorable traits and maybe backstories that they share with the adventurers. But that's something a DM with a bit more experience can add easily. Overall, for new DMs and players alike the adventure is just great! All the others can tweak it and have a good time, too.
KotS is another thing. But it's the same as with all the other elements of 4e: The designers created such a great edition, without knowing how to use it properly. Sloggy combat, grindfest galore, two awkward skill challenges, almost no interesting spaces in the keep, no alternative routes to the finale.
I liked the second module Thunderspire Labyrinth so much more! That one was also much more sandboxy and free, the pacing was better, the locations were much more vibrant and fantastic.
I'm beginning to think, that all the adventures that were designed with sandbox elements were the best ones in 4e: for example Gardmore Abbey or Slaying Stone.
Also, I always wanted to take a second look at the Scales of War Adventure Path from Dungeon Magazine and see if those adventures had interesting ideas. (At least there was one where you had to convince kingdoms to unite against a threat from outside with a very big skill challenge, as far as I recall.)
The observation that it could either be run as a sandbox or a straightforward adventure is spot on and one of the factors which make it so good. The party really can discuss what approach they want to go, which allies they want to get on their side, and what locale they want to visit in which order. I mean, the NPCs could have been fleshed out more with more memorable traits and maybe backstories that they share with the adventurers. But that's something a DM with a bit more experience can add easily. Overall, for new DMs and players alike the adventure is just great! All the others can tweak it and have a good time, too.
KotS is another thing. But it's the same as with all the other elements of 4e: The designers created such a great edition, without knowing how to use it properly. Sloggy combat, grindfest galore, two awkward skill challenges, almost no interesting spaces in the keep, no alternative routes to the finale.
I liked the second module Thunderspire Labyrinth so much more! That one was also much more sandboxy and free, the pacing was better, the locations were much more vibrant and fantastic.
I'm beginning to think, that all the adventures that were designed with sandbox elements were the best ones in 4e: for example Gardmore Abbey or Slaying Stone.
Also, I always wanted to take a second look at the Scales of War Adventure Path from Dungeon Magazine and see if those adventures had interesting ideas. (At least there was one where you had to convince kingdoms to unite against a threat from outside with a very big skill challenge, as far as I recall.)
MoutonRustique
Explorer
That's a very good rule of thumb. Never really clicked on that before.
As to the 4e modules (from Dungeon), most that I've read and use can be made into really good adventures, but you kind of have to throw a good deal from each out completely. As many have stated time and again (and again!), 4e really shines when everything is part of the story, when you're moving at the "speed of plot". A big part of that is to make it so that encounters are never just combat encounters. Since, in most adventures I've read, the large amount of combat encounters (and they are presented as combat encounters
), is mostly there to satisfy an (I don't know where it comes from, but I wished it stayed there) amount of XP... I tend to throw out at least one in two.To keep hitting this nail with this dead horse - as a comparison, if you look at some of the highest ranked 5e adventures on the DM Guild, they are very often a few pages long. The "tutorial" presentation style of 4e adventures gets really bothersome very quickly...
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AbdulAlhazred
Legend
That's a very good rule of thumb. Never really clicked on that before.
As to the 4e modules (from Dungeon), most that I've read and use can be made into really good adventures, but you kind of have to throw a good deal from each out completely. As many have stated time and again (and again!), 4e really shines when everything is part of the story, when you're moving at the "speed of plot". A big part of that is to make it so that encounters are never just combat encounters. Since, in most adventures I've read, the large amount of combat encounters (and they are presented as combat encounters
To keep hitting this nail with this dead horse - as a comparison, if you look at some of the highest ranked 5e adventures on the DM Guild, they are very often a few pages long. The "tutorial" presentation style of 4e adventures gets really bothersome very quickly...
The problem with most Dungeon modules is that adventure design has focused for ages on subdividing the whole thing up into 'encounters' and 4e is of course really focused on this at first blush. The thing is, its a STORY focused game, and so what happens is the adventure designer comes up with a series of 'rooms and corridors' (notionally) and then plops encounters into each 'room'. This is a poor fit for the skill challenge paradigm, which actually works much better at a more 'operational' level (either with or without embedded encounters). So you end up with some very limited SCs that just fundamentally lack the situational fictional scope to allow for much plot.
I recall the Dark Heart of Mithrendain adventure. It isn't a BAD adventure in a conceptual sense. Some sort of 'cosmic power' (exact details are left open) thrusts the PCs into the city in such a way that they will almost surely become entangled in a plot. The problem is that the next scene is an elaborate SC wherein most of the plot has to be basically 'resolved' (because its stuck in encounter design paradigm, so you can't simply start down the path of resolving things by a long-running SC or something). This makes for an awkward and barely workable SC that will blow up and derail the whole adventure if the PCs don't play along exactly how it is envisaged. From there its all nothing but combat encounters which work out elements of this plot which BEG to include social and other similar interactions, but don't.
There are a lot of elements you can extract from these adventures, but usually there's a certain degree of reformulation that is required if you want to create something that is really high quality.
Zeromaru X
Arkhosian scholar and coffee lover
I guess that's why I never has any issues with KoS (I'm even fond of it). I never runed it as intended. I scrapped some battle encounters leaving only those I felt contributed to the plot I was creating at the moment. Yet, this also means I've had to put some effort to improve KotS.
For the other part I'm one of the few unlucky ones who never have run Reavers, as I got the DM's Kit only relatively recently (after was available at DM's Guild), when everyone I know who plays D&D is more intetested in 5e than in 4e. And the few friends who play 4e (for nostalgia's sake) are stuck with real life right now.
I wonder if making a conversion would have the same feeling as playing the original.
For the other part I'm one of the few unlucky ones who never have run Reavers, as I got the DM's Kit only relatively recently (after was available at DM's Guild), when everyone I know who plays D&D is more intetested in 5e than in 4e. And the few friends who play 4e (for nostalgia's sake) are stuck with real life right now.
I wonder if making a conversion would have the same feeling as playing the original.
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The Fighter-Cricket
Explorer
As to the 4e modules (from Dungeon), most that I've read and use can be made into really good adventures, but you kind of have to throw a good deal from each out completely. As many have stated time and again (and again!), 4e really shines when everything is part of the story, when you're moving at the "speed of plot". A big part of that is to make it so that encounters are never just combat encounters. Since, in most adventures I've read, the large amount of combat encounters (and they are presented as combat encounters
Yes, what I really like about many (not all of course) of those adventures is the fantastic locations they are in and the basic premise. I can't really put my finger on it, but somehow I thought that the designers at least got the grandeur or at least the fanstastic nature of the adventures right.
True, you have to throw out some elements to make the adventures more enjoyable, mostly the combat encounters. Let me beat another dead horse over ones head (that's how the saying goes, right?): The designers operated with the assumptions that a) 4e should be big in scope and heroism and b) 4e has a very good combat system. So what they did was, they put too much combat encounters into the adventures! Maybe because of the 8 encounters per level thing or because of attrition and resource management.
Hm, never really noticed that the 4e adventures had this kind of tutorial. Do you mean the exposition where the DM gets to know the context of the adventure?
I recently bought "Curtain Call", a 5e adventure set in Eberron, because I really love the setting and wanted to see how 5e adventures are generally structured and if they are better than the 3e or 4e adventures I know. So It was quite thin when ot comes to page count. About 13 pages adventure text, the rest illustrations, maps, and stat blocks. I liked the little detective case, the NPCs, and the focused but not too railroady design. And yes, it got to the core of the adventure very quickly. There was no big tutorial, just a page of adventure background and character hooks. And then the first scene of four started (which really reminded me of a 4e encounter design btw).
Hm, now that I think about it more, maybe I will open a new thread to discuss comparisons between 4e and 5e adventures and other questions I have about that.
The Fighter-Cricket
Explorer
Then you did it instinctively the right way! Your approach can be translated to many other 4e adventures: Just leave the interesting encounters.
I ran a couple of "dungeon crawls" in Heroic Tier 4e - not of the KotS variety, but scenarios where the action took place underground and the PCs move from room to room having stuff happen. Some of the ideas for those rooms came from Dungeon and other published modules, but it was a case of take an idea, cull the crud, and get rid of the filler.
Of the Scale of War modules, the only one I remember using was one which had a scene with big underground staircases. I used that map for a Paragon Tier encounter with nightstalkers and bodaks.
Of other Dungeon modules, I got value out of Heathen but again that involved embedding it in a bigger context, and getting rid of crud.
When I used elements of H2 I made some changes, described here, mostly to increase the "circular movement" (having just read DMG 2), and also to get rid of filler.
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