A night below or Temple of elemental evil
- Thread starter punkorange
- Start date
Waylander the Slayer
Explorer
Having Run both, "Night Below" is definitely the better of the two. It has more varied environments, variant good and bad factions; if the players decide to turn it into a hackfest, they can end up dead very fast. Some of my best memories involve the Night below including the following:
SPOILER ALERT:
The encounter with the shadow dragon, which the players thought was a "black dragon"
The complex negotiations with the Illithids, including an actual contract (which the players had a lawyer friend draw up, but had a LARGE loophole).
The eloping of the bard with one of the Eriyenes?
The attempted attack on "the ruined temple" which had the players running (paddling away) faster than i have ever seen.
The loss of Paladinhood of the paladin as he started to compromise himself in many ways
The final assault on the Aboleth, with the several factions involved and the excellent use of diplomacy on the part of the players.
SPOILER ALERT:
The encounter with the shadow dragon, which the players thought was a "black dragon"
The complex negotiations with the Illithids, including an actual contract (which the players had a lawyer friend draw up, but had a LARGE loophole).
The eloping of the bard with one of the Eriyenes?
The attempted attack on "the ruined temple" which had the players running (paddling away) faster than i have ever seen.
The loss of Paladinhood of the paladin as he started to compromise himself in many ways
The final assault on the Aboleth, with the several factions involved and the excellent use of diplomacy on the part of the players.
Kerrick
First Post
Having read (though never played) both, I'd go with Night Below. Like others have said, it's a lot more varied in terms of environments, foes, and just experience. ToEE is just a hackfest dungeon crawl, but Night Below is a real role-playing experience. Oh, and a couple folks on these boards have made a conversion of Night Below, if you ever want to run it in 3E format.
I would say depends on what you want. Night Below is more of a campaign, and probably my favorite adventure product. That being said, I have run various parts of it a couple of times, and always modify it to make it more open ended and to cut way down on the monitary tresure. IMHO, Its not particularly railroad-y for an underground adventure, but the way it is written makes it much more railroad-y than it needs to be based on the encounters presented. I guess that is to help novice DMs who might not know how to put all of it together, but the highly-skilled uber-DMs who hang out on ENWorld should be able to handle and more open-ended version without difficulty. Old ToEE is quite good, and has the added bonus of being integral to Greyhawk history, but it just a big dungeon crawl when all is said and done. If you have the time and desire to modify/improvise, I would suggest using Night Below. If you want more of a straight-up dungeon crawl, go with T0EE.
Invisible mild spoiler:
If a PC dies in ToEE at the right time, try letting that player play the big mercenary troll the party can negotiate with.
Invisible mild spoiler:
If a PC dies in ToEE at the right time, try letting that player play the big mercenary troll the party can negotiate with.
JoeGKushner
Adventurer
Both have great starting points but I think Night Below has a stronger middle point although the end can be kind of... harsh for those not ready for it.
Temple of Elemental Evil after the Moathouse and the party gets to the Temple, is pretty much a dungeon crawl.
Pick the one your group will enjoy more.
Temple of Elemental Evil after the Moathouse and the party gets to the Temple, is pretty much a dungeon crawl.
Pick the one your group will enjoy more.
punkorange
First Post
We are playing the world's largest dungeon in a 3.5 game, so that's enough dungeon crawl for us. I will go with night below.
It depends on you and your players. I like both. Read my description of the strengths and weaknesses of each and decide what you and your players enjoy the most.
SPOILERS BELOW!
Strengths of TOEE include the Village of Hommlet and Nulb, the broken tower bandits and the leaders of the tower on the 3rd level. These areas are well-suited to running dozens of side treks and I've easily created a full notebook of ideas of ways in which the PCs could adventure in those enclaves and the surrounding area (e.g. the bandits of the tower of the TOEE raid Hommlet's jeweler and the PCs are asked to form a posse with some of the badgers and npcs and hunt them down). I also loved the machinations between the various subtemples that is so well-illustrated in the CPRG that its almost worth buying just for that reason. The original TOEE has amazing potential for PCs to connive to their hearts content between the various factions, the troll chief, the various power centers in Hommlet and Nulb, etc.
On the weak side of TOEE, I found the Greater Temple and Elemental Nodes climax anticlimactic. Talk to the guys on the Dragonsfoot website about what Gygax intended to do and it is quite different from the actual product. I'd change part of the third and most of the fourth level of TOEE if I was dming it. It just isnt as interesting to me as the first two-thirds of the adventure.
Turning to Night Below, like another poster, I found the First Book of Night Below to be decent (particularly the start) and the Third Book of Night Below to be awesome (particularly if you buy Lords of Madness you could make Shabaoth a cool place!). On the weak side, Night Below can get pretty repetitious -- there is a reason so many previous posters only played two-thirds of it, etc. I thought the middle part with the endless trekking underground in the second book wasnt very strong and could probably be cut by 70% or so. In addition, in the third book, I loved Shabaoth, but I thought that the task of destroying all three towers got a little repetitious as well. Like a previous poster, Id strongly suggest adding a totally unrelated adventure in place of a good part of the Second Book, preferably outside or in a city or on another plane just for a change of scenery. In the third book, Id also suggest changing the number of towers to just one to make storming the tower a true climax.
In summary, both modules need some work by the dm to avoid defects. Both modules are pretty good about providing opportunities to engage evil factions diplomatically so there is no real edge there. TOEE has much better and more memorable npcs (and names of npcs!) and the npcs really come to life with the CPRG if you listen to the sniveling whining voices of some of the temple priests, as well as much better town settings allowing for more social interaction so if you and your players value that, you should lean towards TOEE. On the other hand, I thought the endgame for Night Below was much more satisfying (and creepier in a Lovecraftian way) than TOEE. Therefore, if you like Cthulhu-esque sorts of things, you could really go to town with Night Below in a way that you couldnt with TOEE.
Hope this helps
SPOILERS BELOW!
Strengths of TOEE include the Village of Hommlet and Nulb, the broken tower bandits and the leaders of the tower on the 3rd level. These areas are well-suited to running dozens of side treks and I've easily created a full notebook of ideas of ways in which the PCs could adventure in those enclaves and the surrounding area (e.g. the bandits of the tower of the TOEE raid Hommlet's jeweler and the PCs are asked to form a posse with some of the badgers and npcs and hunt them down). I also loved the machinations between the various subtemples that is so well-illustrated in the CPRG that its almost worth buying just for that reason. The original TOEE has amazing potential for PCs to connive to their hearts content between the various factions, the troll chief, the various power centers in Hommlet and Nulb, etc.
On the weak side of TOEE, I found the Greater Temple and Elemental Nodes climax anticlimactic. Talk to the guys on the Dragonsfoot website about what Gygax intended to do and it is quite different from the actual product. I'd change part of the third and most of the fourth level of TOEE if I was dming it. It just isnt as interesting to me as the first two-thirds of the adventure.
Turning to Night Below, like another poster, I found the First Book of Night Below to be decent (particularly the start) and the Third Book of Night Below to be awesome (particularly if you buy Lords of Madness you could make Shabaoth a cool place!). On the weak side, Night Below can get pretty repetitious -- there is a reason so many previous posters only played two-thirds of it, etc. I thought the middle part with the endless trekking underground in the second book wasnt very strong and could probably be cut by 70% or so. In addition, in the third book, I loved Shabaoth, but I thought that the task of destroying all three towers got a little repetitious as well. Like a previous poster, Id strongly suggest adding a totally unrelated adventure in place of a good part of the Second Book, preferably outside or in a city or on another plane just for a change of scenery. In the third book, Id also suggest changing the number of towers to just one to make storming the tower a true climax.
In summary, both modules need some work by the dm to avoid defects. Both modules are pretty good about providing opportunities to engage evil factions diplomatically so there is no real edge there. TOEE has much better and more memorable npcs (and names of npcs!) and the npcs really come to life with the CPRG if you listen to the sniveling whining voices of some of the temple priests, as well as much better town settings allowing for more social interaction so if you and your players value that, you should lean towards TOEE. On the other hand, I thought the endgame for Night Below was much more satisfying (and creepier in a Lovecraftian way) than TOEE. Therefore, if you like Cthulhu-esque sorts of things, you could really go to town with Night Below in a way that you couldnt with TOEE.
Hope this helps
dungeon blaster
First Post
Sejs said:Both!
The Night Below the Temple of Elemental Evil!
Edit: Honest answer - Temple. Temple rocks. Hard. Just remember to call for healing when you need it, stay away from anything that glows until you know what it does, never split the party, and take it one level at a time, kill everything, then move on. *nods*
I'm actually running (contact)'s adventure, using his DM's notes (albeit heavily modified). Only did the first session so far, but it's been fun!
Never played or read Night Below. Currently playing CRPG ToEE and starting a paper campaign with the T1-4 conversion. The CRPG adds a LOT of role-playing and some interesting side adventures. I'm basing my campaign off of that, though reading here, it sounds like a Night Below the Temple of Elemental Evil might also be interesting. Must research...
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