plunoir101
First Post
Hello, this is my first review of a published product so be nice 
. I see a lot of people asking about adventures and I think that detailed reviews can help these forum members in choosing an adventure for their own games.
Expedition to the Demonweb Pits is D&D 3.5 Adventure for 9th level characters that should bring them to atleast 12th level by the end.
I had 4 players of 9th level. 2 combat focused players, 1 Roleplaying style player, and 1 new player (ended up being a roleplayer).
The party loadout varied from the following:
Cleric;Rogue;Warlock;Fighter +Paladin NPC
Cleric;Rogue;Wizard/Master Specialist;Fighter +Paladin NPC
Cleric;Wizard;Wizard/Master Specialist;Fighter
The campaign took us about 8 sessions, each 8-10 hours long every week to complete.
I will split this review into detailed parts to further assess the entire experience.
Story - 8/10
The story behind the campaign was very intriguing and made for a good story in its own right. I don't want to spoil anything for anyone so I will not reveal any story info. There were a few hitches in the story but those came from lack of information to deeper elements of the story which were not provided. I understand that the DM (me) is supposed to add his own bits here and there and I did, yet it seemed like so much was missing from this story. Even with the lack of info, I was able to make it a memorable experience. I found that I had to create more interesting characters to keep the story relevant.
Look, Feel, and Layout - 7/10
Just flipping through the 167 pages of the campaign, 45 page appendix, and 8 pages of handouts made me want to give this campaign a shot. The encounter format is very nice as you have all of the encounter information on one or two pages and always in front of you. There are many non-monster manual picture of creatures that give a sort of texture to the book, make it come alive. These also help the DM to get an idea of how to portray a scene by giving him an emotion from the picture. I did have a problem of having to flip back and forth between the encounter section and story section of each chapter but that's more of a personal problem. I also have a long-lasting gripe about the decision to place DR (Damage Reduction) on the top of stat blocks instead of the "Defense" section because I miss it regularly. DR should be right next to SR and AC in my opinion.
Encounters 6/10
Man, there were a lot of these. On first glance you see a bunch of encounters and think this is going to take forever! But fear not, many of the encounters are able to be skipped, missed entirely, or are just there in the case of picking a fight. Since my party was a solid mix between combat and RPing, we expected a good amount of them, yet we skipped over ten encounters just because. Some of these encounters, such as the first one in Sigil (cranium rats), were brutal and almost ended up in party wipes. I fell that many of the encounters were overpowered and even with the help of an NPC (one of mine) they were far too challenging in some regards. The stat blocks had constant errors that had to be corrected and once again the location of DR caused problems on my end.
Leveling/Items/Gear 3/10
Ok, so first of all the one thing I remember was Legacy Items giving me a headache. There are two in this campaign and my party used neither as they forced my party to give up there character ideas to use them. I don't know why, but my players were all level 13-14 at the end of this campaign. so much for 9-12 huh? Many of the items were forgettable and generic. The fun items were ones I had to insert myself. Two of the top ones including a Top hat of opposite alignment and a rod of wonders (command word was rubber baby buggie bumpers). The item placement could have been better.
Flow 5/10
The flow of the game is a mixture of how the game ends up being paced and the immersion factor (the times when you forget you're playing a game). The pacing was pretty good for the published sections and immersion was OK, but it felt dry at times. For the section I created myself, like the Spiral Desert, the pacing was great and the players were talking all in character without realizing it.
Fun Factor 8/10
So how much fun did we have? Loads. This was mainly due to a constant change up of creatures and scenarios for the party to face. It was varied very well save the last part before the council chambers which felt repetative.
Final Score: 6.2 average
This campaign was great, but it could have fallen flat in a less experienced DMs hands. This is not for beginners. Much of the content had to be improved and modified. Many additional NPC needed to be made to keep the game moving and to keep it fun.
~If you are willign to put the work in, this is a great campaign. Not for out-of-box play IMO~
Hope you guys liked this!
Let me know what you thought of this and maybe Ill do another soon
. I see a lot of people asking about adventures and I think that detailed reviews can help these forum members in choosing an adventure for their own games.Expedition to the Demonweb Pits is D&D 3.5 Adventure for 9th level characters that should bring them to atleast 12th level by the end.
I had 4 players of 9th level. 2 combat focused players, 1 Roleplaying style player, and 1 new player (ended up being a roleplayer).
The party loadout varied from the following:
Cleric;Rogue;Warlock;Fighter +Paladin NPC
Cleric;Rogue;Wizard/Master Specialist;Fighter +Paladin NPC
Cleric;Wizard;Wizard/Master Specialist;Fighter
The campaign took us about 8 sessions, each 8-10 hours long every week to complete.
I will split this review into detailed parts to further assess the entire experience.
Story - 8/10
The story behind the campaign was very intriguing and made for a good story in its own right. I don't want to spoil anything for anyone so I will not reveal any story info. There were a few hitches in the story but those came from lack of information to deeper elements of the story which were not provided. I understand that the DM (me) is supposed to add his own bits here and there and I did, yet it seemed like so much was missing from this story. Even with the lack of info, I was able to make it a memorable experience. I found that I had to create more interesting characters to keep the story relevant.
Look, Feel, and Layout - 7/10
Just flipping through the 167 pages of the campaign, 45 page appendix, and 8 pages of handouts made me want to give this campaign a shot. The encounter format is very nice as you have all of the encounter information on one or two pages and always in front of you. There are many non-monster manual picture of creatures that give a sort of texture to the book, make it come alive. These also help the DM to get an idea of how to portray a scene by giving him an emotion from the picture. I did have a problem of having to flip back and forth between the encounter section and story section of each chapter but that's more of a personal problem. I also have a long-lasting gripe about the decision to place DR (Damage Reduction) on the top of stat blocks instead of the "Defense" section because I miss it regularly. DR should be right next to SR and AC in my opinion.
Encounters 6/10
Man, there were a lot of these. On first glance you see a bunch of encounters and think this is going to take forever! But fear not, many of the encounters are able to be skipped, missed entirely, or are just there in the case of picking a fight. Since my party was a solid mix between combat and RPing, we expected a good amount of them, yet we skipped over ten encounters just because. Some of these encounters, such as the first one in Sigil (cranium rats), were brutal and almost ended up in party wipes. I fell that many of the encounters were overpowered and even with the help of an NPC (one of mine) they were far too challenging in some regards. The stat blocks had constant errors that had to be corrected and once again the location of DR caused problems on my end.
Leveling/Items/Gear 3/10
Ok, so first of all the one thing I remember was Legacy Items giving me a headache. There are two in this campaign and my party used neither as they forced my party to give up there character ideas to use them. I don't know why, but my players were all level 13-14 at the end of this campaign. so much for 9-12 huh? Many of the items were forgettable and generic. The fun items were ones I had to insert myself. Two of the top ones including a Top hat of opposite alignment and a rod of wonders (command word was rubber baby buggie bumpers). The item placement could have been better.
Flow 5/10
The flow of the game is a mixture of how the game ends up being paced and the immersion factor (the times when you forget you're playing a game). The pacing was pretty good for the published sections and immersion was OK, but it felt dry at times. For the section I created myself, like the Spiral Desert, the pacing was great and the players were talking all in character without realizing it.
Fun Factor 8/10
So how much fun did we have? Loads. This was mainly due to a constant change up of creatures and scenarios for the party to face. It was varied very well save the last part before the council chambers which felt repetative.
Final Score: 6.2 average
This campaign was great, but it could have fallen flat in a less experienced DMs hands. This is not for beginners. Much of the content had to be improved and modified. Many additional NPC needed to be made to keep the game moving and to keep it fun.
~If you are willign to put the work in, this is a great campaign. Not for out-of-box play IMO~
Hope you guys liked this!
Let me know what you thought of this and maybe Ill do another soon
