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City of the Spider Queen
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<blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2014161" data-attributes="member: 18387"><p>I'm running a party through City of the Spider Queen. First, I must confess that I've never run a module before. In my 25 years of gaming, I've always wanted to come up with my own adventure. But I wanted to see how the other half lives and (I'll admit) coming up with adventures for a high level party was getting more and more difficult. </p><p></p><p>The previous reviews that I've seen of the module focus on the playability of the encounters and the politics of the setting. For a casual observer (in other words, someone who hasn't yet run the thing), both of these seem solidly written and well thought out. In truth, however, I found that the politics don't really come into play (at least they haven't yet. The party doesn't really get much choice but to travel down the dark tunnel until they hit the next encounter. As for the encounters themselves, well, I found it difficult to keep my eye on the Monster Manual, the monster appendix, the map, and the monster description in the book. The abbreviated stat block is riddled with small mistakes. And even when it's not, you have to really work to bring a good encounter. </p><p></p><p>The monsters aren't, at least to my party, that tough. There are a few encounters that seem balanced. But others seem pretty much a waste of time. I thought, for example, that the new monster, the wraith spider, would make a nice opponent. The damn thing really doesn't seem to be worth a darn.</p><p></p><p>A particular annoyance to me is the allocation of feats. Rather than take a selection of feats that would impact the game, many monsters (particular the drow) take feats that have little or no impact on the game. I'm willing to throw a little energy into verisimilitude. But I would imagine that characters with scribe scroll and craft wand should, would have the occasional scroll or wand on their person. This particular example might come out of the module's rather scanty application of treasure (the treasure sphincter perhaps does tighten when dealing with high level characters). But I think the criticism is true in general. </p><p></p><p>The maps are also well thought out. Perhaps too well thought out. Some energy has been put into breaking with the standard 2 dimensional map. But given the strain of having to have 4-5 different pages out to run an encounter properly, the complexity of some of the maps isn't always a good thing.</p><p></p><p>It isn't that some love didn't go into this product. I really like a signifigant portion of it, particularly when I'm just reading it. </p><p></p><p>If I were to improve this product, I'd introduce a larger page count or a web supplement that puts each encountered monster onto its own page, spelling out potential strategies and defenses. I use a card based initiative. I found it very helpful to condense each monster's abilities and tactics to their initiative card. But it is a pretty time consuming activity (albeit, one that makes you study each monster and often one that reveals problems in the original stat block). </p><p></p><p>I'd also, and I by no means know exactly how to do this, spend some more energy creating some role-playing encounters. The module doesn't really focus on this, making it more of a high level "choose your own adventure" than a flesh and blood world. </p><p></p><p>I would be VERY curious to hear from other GMs to see if their experience is similar or different. And I'd love to learn how to better use this module, which my group still has about 24 hours of game play left in.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Messageboard Golem, post: 2014161, member: 18387"] I'm running a party through City of the Spider Queen. First, I must confess that I've never run a module before. In my 25 years of gaming, I've always wanted to come up with my own adventure. But I wanted to see how the other half lives and (I'll admit) coming up with adventures for a high level party was getting more and more difficult. The previous reviews that I've seen of the module focus on the playability of the encounters and the politics of the setting. For a casual observer (in other words, someone who hasn't yet run the thing), both of these seem solidly written and well thought out. In truth, however, I found that the politics don't really come into play (at least they haven't yet. The party doesn't really get much choice but to travel down the dark tunnel until they hit the next encounter. As for the encounters themselves, well, I found it difficult to keep my eye on the Monster Manual, the monster appendix, the map, and the monster description in the book. The abbreviated stat block is riddled with small mistakes. And even when it's not, you have to really work to bring a good encounter. The monsters aren't, at least to my party, that tough. There are a few encounters that seem balanced. But others seem pretty much a waste of time. I thought, for example, that the new monster, the wraith spider, would make a nice opponent. The damn thing really doesn't seem to be worth a darn. A particular annoyance to me is the allocation of feats. Rather than take a selection of feats that would impact the game, many monsters (particular the drow) take feats that have little or no impact on the game. I'm willing to throw a little energy into verisimilitude. But I would imagine that characters with scribe scroll and craft wand should, would have the occasional scroll or wand on their person. This particular example might come out of the module's rather scanty application of treasure (the treasure sphincter perhaps does tighten when dealing with high level characters). But I think the criticism is true in general. The maps are also well thought out. Perhaps too well thought out. Some energy has been put into breaking with the standard 2 dimensional map. But given the strain of having to have 4-5 different pages out to run an encounter properly, the complexity of some of the maps isn't always a good thing. It isn't that some love didn't go into this product. I really like a signifigant portion of it, particularly when I'm just reading it. If I were to improve this product, I'd introduce a larger page count or a web supplement that puts each encountered monster onto its own page, spelling out potential strategies and defenses. I use a card based initiative. I found it very helpful to condense each monster's abilities and tactics to their initiative card. But it is a pretty time consuming activity (albeit, one that makes you study each monster and often one that reveals problems in the original stat block). I'd also, and I by no means know exactly how to do this, spend some more energy creating some role-playing encounters. The module doesn't really focus on this, making it more of a high level "choose your own adventure" than a flesh and blood world. I would be VERY curious to hear from other GMs to see if their experience is similar or different. And I'd love to learn how to better use this module, which my group still has about 24 hours of game play left in. [/QUOTE]
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