Barrow of the Forgotten King (review)

[Wraith Form]

While I found Barrow to be exceptionally....bland...I will re-iterate what I said in the other thread(s): As much as I might complain, I'd rather WotC release a lackluster adventure than none at all.

 

[Soel]

My only real gripe is that the encounter section should have been in its own book.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

While I found Barrow to be exceptionally....bland...I will re-iterate what I said in the other thread(s): As much as I might complain, I'd rather WotC release a lackluster adventure than none at all.

Oh, no argument there. Of recent adventures, in my opinion BotFK is better than Howling Horde, worse than Slaughtergarde, and pales next to the awesomeness that are Red Hand of Doom and Expedition to Castle Ravenloft. That's more hits than misses, I think.

 

[Frostmarrow]

Oh, no argument there. Of recent adventures, in my opinion BotFK is better than Howling Horde, worse than Slaughtergarde, and pales next to the awesomeness that are Red Hand of Doom and Expedition to Castle Ravenloft. That's more hits than misses, I think.

This makes me want to look at Slaughtergarde...

 

[Zaukrie]

I like this adventure. The only two weaknesses are the one way through the dungeon, and the lack of notations on where the monsters are found.

The lack of one way through is pretty easy to fix, if you want to. The map has plenty of room to add another way through or two. I'd probably not let them get to the end too fast, but I can see other ways to add more hallways and rooms. However, I'm not sure that is necessary. Why does there have to be more than 1 way through? Why can't a few dungeon crawls only have one way through? I do agree the "maze" or whatever it was called seemed a little weak also

As for the monster notations, it hardly makes the adventure more/less playable. You can look up the monsters on the WotC site in about 15 minutes if you want to.

I'd say that this is not as good as red hand of doom, but it also was a smaller item. I would recommend this strongly to anyone that likes the DCC modules from Goodman, and would recommend it as an above average dungeon crawl, but it is a crawl.

 

[Prince of Happiness]

The lack of one way through is pretty easy to fix, if you want to. The map has plenty of room to add another way through or two. I'd probably not let them get to the end too fast, but I can see other ways to add more hallways and rooms. However, I'm not sure that is necessary. Why does there have to be more than 1 way through? Why can't a few dungeon crawls only have one way through? I do agree the "maze" or whatever it was called seemed a little weak also

I do like the advice in DMGII, that if you do use a published module, take some time to add some extra rooms that are set up for your PCs to use their skills, abilities, etc.

 

[DM_Jeff]

I'm aware I'm too easy, apparently. As an experienced DM with a wife, house, full time job and two kids, I enjoy and relish 90% of the work done for me. If a module does 100% of the work, then I can't customize it for my players and excercise my creative right. If it's 50% or less I find myself doing too much work...I might have well written it myself.

I liked this adventure. I spent all of about 3 minutes looking up the monster's sources on the WotC monster index page. I rewrote the hook I'd use on the fly based off knowing my players. I saw a couple fight encounters I could tweak to roleplaying and made notes on stickies. What do I have now? A good mix of neat fights in intetrestingly detailed and designed rooms. I got my money's worth.

I guess I'm too darn appreciative.

-DM Jeff

 

[Nightfall]

Olgar,

Compare this adventure to say Green Ronin's Bleeding Edge. (If you have read that series) What are you thoughts on this one compared to that?

 

[meomwt]

- Pacing. Although the party can certainly rest, I think there should have been more below-CR encounters, or empty exploratory areas ... gaining 2-3 levels, from 1st to 3rd level spells, in 23 rooms is far too fast a pace to be gaining experience if you award at the standard rate. Depending on your game session length, this one would go pretty quick.

Sounds to me that anyone running this should consider handing out 50% XP (as per Lost City of Barakus from Necromancer Games) to prevent levels being gained too quickly - PC's would come out around mid 2nd Level, which would be about right for an introductory adventure in my book.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Olgar,

Compare this adventure to say Green Ronin's Bleeding Edge. (If you have read that series) What are you thoughts on this one compared to that?

I'm not familiar with that, sorry.


Re: 50% XP. You could do that, and it would help the pacing, so long as you also scale the latter encounters, which rise to ~CR7. I think that's a good solution.