Eberron Adventures.

[Alexander123]

Has anyone played the three-part series of adventures by WoTC titled Shadows of the Last War, Whispers of the Vampire's Blade and Grasp of the Emerald Claw?

I just got them in the mail and I was reading through them and they seem like really good and fun adventures to run.

Edit: They take the players from level 1 (if you begin from the Forgotten Forge Adventure which is the prelude to this series printed in the Eberron Campaign Setting) to apprx. level 7-8.

All three are high quality adventures.

Highly recommended on my part.

Very well-written adventures, which lots of action, requiring intelligent decisions on the part of the PCs to avoid death which is a very real possibility.

The adventures are not a railroad which is the good part. (unless the DM makes them one.)

The plot is great, (won't spoil it) and it leaves room for the DM to create future adventures from them if he is up to the task.

It should be fun for both the PCs and the DM to play through.

 

[Jhaelen]

Has anyone played the three-part series of adventures by WoTC titled Shadows of the Last War, Whispers of the Vampire's Blade and Grasp of the Emerald Claw?

I ran the first one in an Earthdawn game after stripping the adventure down to its bare bones and modifying just about every aspect of it. It was not great, but okay.

Very well-written adventures, which lots of action, requiring intelligent decisions on the part of the PCs to avoid death which is a very real possibility.

The adventures are not a railroad which is the good part. (unless the DM makes them one.)

Umm, really? My impression of them wasn't nearly as favorable. And particularly the second adventure is one of the first examples I'm thinking of when I think about 'railroad'. I also remember it being not logical at all. It's not an adventure I'd ever consider running. It has some interesting encounter ideas, which I might steal, though.

The third one is better, but more traditional, being mostly site-based. It also features some very difficult encounters that I would probably replace if I was to run it.

All in all I felt this first batch of modules for Eberron wasn't very good. They succeeded in conveying the theme of the setting but not in much else.

Now, 'Voyage of the Golden Dragon', that was a module I really liked!

 

[Alexander123]

I haven't played Voyage of the Golden Dragon.

I'm curious why do say it was a railroad?

I don't have as much experience with published adventures so I might not be able to compare the quality of adventures that well.

I am pretty bad as writing adventures so that might have been my reason for my good evaluation of these published adventures since they are higher in quality than anything I could ever write.

 

[ValhallaGH]

Vampire's Blade is vicious, and highly railroad-y. In places, literally so.
The villain is (as soon as he stops being a moron) able to slaughter the party in a number of rounds equal to the number of PCs. The travel encounters are dangerously lethal.
The plot events don't match the character abilities. (Grappling monks get eaten by a vampire rogue? Really? How!? They're better wrestlers than he is.)
There are no alternative paths for the party to take. Some (but not enough) advice on handling their screw ups, bad rolls, and worse ideas does not an alternative make.

All that said, the adventure has style, tone, and a fair chunk of "cool". However, it's not great adventure design.