A night below or Temple of elemental evil

[teitan]

I ran Night Below, and loved it. My only experience with the Temple was the Return adventure in 3.0, which was basically a hack and slug fest for the two sessions I went. It wasn't very fun, because it seemed like one of those video games that pits one hero against an entire army.

Night Below had politics, settings, and some interesting setpiece battles.

Hey, so does RttTOEE.

Jason

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Hey, so does RttTOEE.

I'm currently in a 3.0 game and I'll vouch for this point. The problem is that early on, as within the first few encoutners, you get hit with a nasty fight. That sets a certain tone and it can lead the players to discard the diplomatic options in favor of combat.

Or at least this is the excuse I'm using to cover up my own stupidity.




.

 

[Brakkart]

I'll add my vote for Night Below. I've run that twice now, in both 2E and 3E and it rocked in both. Very well written campaign that combines a dungeon crawl with wilderness, intrigue (some very "interesting" alliances can be made) and some very cool battles.

The set itself is superb (one of the only 2e products I kept when I sold off most of my collection last year), with great handouts, maps and even counters for use with minis. Really wish Wizards would hire Carl Sargent to write another epic adventure.

 

[CZHorse]

Night gets another vote. We played it in 2ed, and loved it. The Shadow Dragon rocks. ToEE, although it is a clasic is too much of a crawl, and if you are already playing WLD then you've got your hands full.

 

[Agamon]

I'm currently in a 3.0 game and I'll vouch for this point. The problem is that early on, as within the first few encoutners, you get hit with a nasty fight. That sets a certain tone and it can lead the players to discard the diplomatic options in favor of combat.

Or at least this is the excuse I'm using to cover up my own stupidity.

I've heard that, but the group I'm running through it kicked that encounter's butt. It wasn't until the Mines that I started killing a PC per session for 7 straight sessions (they all survived last session). They've learned that diplomacy is helpful (and has been key to more than one session), but be ready for grand melee style fights, 'cause they definitely happen.

 

[Laman Stahros]

SPOILERS BELOW!





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.

Just to clarify, we only ran the first two books because to many of my players transferred (gotta hate that Navy life) away and the group fell apart. To bad too, they were looking forward to finding out what was in that HUGE cavern there.

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

I'm thinking about doing a new conversion and Lords of Madness will be just to scary to leave out! Far Realmsy Goodness (or is that EEVVIILLness!!!)!!!!

 

[Hammerhead]

In my mind, ToEE doesn't come close to the awesomeness of the Night Below. Go Night Below all the way. Although the 2nd book is repetitive, it is far less so than the Temple. I mean, the entire complex is pretty much staffed by the same orcs, bugbears and evil human priests. At least NB varies the opposition and environments.

 

[punkorange]

thanks for the answers. I am going to run night below. now all I have to do is become familiar enough that I can run it without the books That means I need notes

 

[punkorange]

How hard would night below be to convert to C&C?