City of the Spider Queen? Any good?

[Eccles]

I ran it for Brakkart, who posted above.

I have to say it's quite a lot of work. I spent more time prepping for this campaign than I generally do for homebrews... And it's not a heck of a lot of fun to be continually trying to kill the party. Especially when you want to play the villains smart enough.

It's very very deadly, and I'd strongly advise any healer in the group to take hefty ranks in Spellcraft (or was it Concentration?), as there's a terribly effective continual effect going on all the time.

If you do decide to run it, I'd strongly advise you to photocopy the villain stats and other bits from the back of the book, to minimise the flipping back and forwards. Otherwise, with about 2 to 3 combats on every page of the book, you'll spend almost all of your time turning the page...

It's an OK story, but just gets incredibly 'fighty', especially in the bits which my group never managed to reach before I had to move away... (Sorry, Brakkart!)

 

[Bryan898]

:Spoilers:

I ran the adventure at the beginning of 2004 and my party enjoyed it immensely. My parties rather combat heavy themselves, so they meshed quite well with the nature of the adventure. We don't run many drow adventures, as I generally dislike drow, so running through the underdark was a new adventure for my group.

I wouldn't necessarily agree that most of the campaign is "Roll" playing as opposed to Role-Playing. That always depends on how you run the module. There were plenty of parts where my PCs accomplished tasks through role-playing. They got the help of the Archmage in Szith Morcane to help overthrow Dorina. In the Lake of Shadow they managed to convince the giants to let them pass without having to clear out the temple. On the Wailing Cliff they opted to use Diplomacy and Barter their way past the cliff. In Maerimydra they found the secret rebel group and made a plan of attack with them, while at the same time convincing the big fire giant to attack the castle.

One of the big disappointments I found was the Castle Maerimydra, and the Undying Temple. The castle Maerimydra seems well written, but through some clever means my characters managed to sack it with little effort. The parties evil cleric cast Pesitlence from the BoVD on his goblin cohort, the party then made him silent and invisible and the little goblin moved in inflicting everyone with a horrible Con draining disease that spread by touch. Soon the entirety of the lower levels and drow forces were on quarantine and easy pickins for Kurgoth's forces. The party then flew to the top of the castle (after a near deadly encounter with the balor) and found an easy entrance. They went through maybe ten rooms of the castle before coming out. In the undying temple they made it to the room next to the giant orb of negative energy, and the good cleric had the wonderful idea to channel positive energy. Within a few rounds the temple was totalled, and the PCs were high-tailing it out of there. Irae T'ssaran is still a nemesis that lurks in the shadows hunting the PCs in the campaign as they never made it to her.

BTW: Irae T'ssarran looked to me to be a well-written/ devastating opponent. Her ability to spontaneously cast inflict spells, coupled with the Blast Infidel (negative energy maximized vs. non-Kiaransalee ability, and that her allies were undead makes for a powerful combination. My plan was to have her sit in an anti-life shell, using the maximized energy drain on the enemy caster, ranged touch harms, and csating her maximized mass inflicts when her allies needed healing. Coupled with the formidable abilities of the temple itself, I think it would have been a grand epic fight... unfortunately it never happened

 

[Endur]

Best High Level Module, but requires work from GM

This is the Best High Level Module for D&D 3.X in my opinion. However, it will require work from the GM.

First, GMing a high level adventure is hard work because of the zillions of options that PCs and NPCs have. Second, the adventure combat stats might need adjustment to 3.5 (your option to change or leave the same). Third, the adventure pages list the combat stats (why some people claim this is a combat heavy adventure), but leave the role-playing pieces to the GM to come up with. So, although there are descriptions of the motivations of the high level NPCs, you as the GM really need to flesh out the NPCs for encounters with the PCs.

You can make this a very role-playing intensive adventure if you want it to be.

I ran this adventure in 2003 and 2004. The group and I had a great time. We didn't fully finish the adventure (its huge), but we had a climatic battle where the party defeated one of the two major enemies (and most of the party died in the climatic battle).

I strongly recommend that the GM read the Drizzt/Menzoberanzan novels, have the Underdark source book, and other Drow resources as well. I made numerous changes to the Module to have it flow better for my campaign.

 

[diaglo]

Good module. Very detailed, very difficult---and a LOT of work to DM.

The difficulty is exacerbated by the task of updating it to 3.5

the major problem is the haste loophole that 3.11ed for WOrkgroups closed.

every single spellcaster in CotSQ has haste and casts it before encountering the PCs. therefore, they are casting 2 spells per round thereafter.

it gets pretty redundant.

they also buff themselves up before encountering the PCs. every single time. another fix you have to work on with the conversion.

also pretty Blah.

for most parties there just isn't a reason for them to even care until it is almost too late. the majority of parties will ignore the first 100 days of the adventure.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

If WotC had been smart, they would have:

2. not linked it to a series of novels that is still not finished four years later.

It doesn't have very strong ties to the novels - none of the characters or places from the books appear in the adventure. They just both have to do with Lolth's ongoing thing.

And if it didn't have that "tie" to the novels, it wouldnt' have been the module it is. Not at all.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

they also buff themselves up before encountering the PCs. every single time.

No, they don't. They only do if they're aware of the PC's presence. And then it is the sensible thing. If you know that there are intruders who are headed straight for you and should arrive any round now, you'd use that preparation time to good effect, wouldn't you?

 

[diaglo]

No, they don't. They only do if they're aware of the PC's presence. And then it is the sensible thing. If you know that there are intruders who are headed straight for you and should arrive any round now, you'd use that preparation time to good effect, wouldn't you?

yes, they do. and the DM already knows about the PC's presence.

mostly due to lighting. the encounters are so far spaced apart that the PCs spells won't be up by the time they run into the next one. so spells like Darkvision are down.


to me it reeks of wasted resources in a non-encounter kind of way.

there is no reason for monsters to be buffed up, except the DM knows the PCs are a threat.

 

[philreed]

Some other items that would have been fun to have would be: Goodman Games' Complete Guide to Beholders, Blue Devil Games' Poisoncraft, and Silverthorne Games' Template Troves Volume II.

All of which can be found in PDF.

Complete Guide to Beholders

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=2025&SRC=EnWorld


Poisoncraft

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=2718&SRC=EnWorld


Template Troves II (hey, I see my name!)

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=3935&SRC=EnWorld

 

[Wormwood]

for most parties there just isn't a reason for them to even care until it is almost too late. the majority of parties will ignore the first 100 days of the adventure.

Which is exactly what happened in my game.

After a couple of days getting beaten up in the Underdark, they just cast Wind Walk and zoomed directly to

Spoiler

the end (made you look)

.

Of course, they missed a whoe BUNCH of xp by bypassing 80 pages of module, and got their asses handed to them in a spectacular TPK, but that's another story.

Frankly we were all bored and decied that a good old fashioned Peckinpah ending would suit us just fine

 

[GlassJaw]

I ran about half the module and I didn't really like it. It's a beautiful book though, especially the maps.

It's unbelievable combat-heavy and I pretty much hate drow now. It's very frustrating for spellcasters because virtually everything has SR. It's also not that easy to run. The way the book is laid out makes it very difficult to run large battles. You almost have to transfer the stat blocks to another sheet so you don't have to keep flipping.

If you're looking for a large, published module that's easy to run, stay away from CotSQ. I recommend the Dungeon Adventure Path.