Favorite vs. Best Adventure Modules

[Joshua Randall]

U1 Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh -- a favorite, and also extremely well designed, especially compared to its competition at the time.

Interestingly, both U2 and U3 have fatal design flaws. (But I still consider them "favorites" despite that.)

N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God -- an irrational favorite even though it's pretty crappily designed.

Having the entire adventure depend upon the uber-NPC protecting the party is exceedingly lame, but I absolutely love the menace of the town parts of the adventure. It's like Lovecraft's Shadow Over Innsmouth in D&D form (if you DM it that way, which I do).

The dungeon in N1? Meh. I could take it or leave it.

I2 Tomb of the Lizard King -- a favorite, and I can't decide if it's well designed or not.

It has some elements of sheer genius (the opening scene where the friendly NPC gets flame struck; the fact that Sakatha scries on the party repeatedly; the dragon encounter), and its villain Sakatha is well realized (he's powerful and scary but also deeply insane and a disorganized thinker).

It also has some really lame parts, none of which I can specifically remember, but enough that it didn't play out nearly as well as it read.

WG5 Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure -- another favorite despite iffy design. Reads much better than it plays, but there are some awesomely zany parts of the dungeon that I've stolen and used elsewhere. The Terrible Iron Golem is mega-cool. Eli Tomorast is a pretty good villain, although he's too passive as written. Kerzit the demon is nasty, although again, passive and cooped up.

The follow-up adventures during the 3e era of Dungeon magazine (Maure Castle, etc.) seem pretty solidly designed, although I've never run them. I did use the Maure Castle version of the Terrible Iron Golem encounter against some 3e PCs, and he was just as lethal as he was during the AD&D days. Heh heh.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Kingmaker. It's an excellent six level themed megadungeon most of the way through. But might as well have been designed to expose the weaknesses of Pathfinder. Fifteen minute adventuring day? Hexes are twelve miles across and it takes at least a day to properly explore one. Spellcaster dominance? A properly built caster provides strategic resources (don't get me started on the Lyre of Building and a setting like Kingmaker). A fighter doesn't. Underrating casters and creating railroads? From module 4 on there is supposedly strategic combat. At the start of module 4 (about 9th level), a rival army invades. This consists of about half a dozen trolls and a hundred troops with no magical support (the leader has a will save of +3). And the PCs are given a few hours warning and according to the module wait at home rather than head out to delay the invaders and turn the trolls into jerkey - or point them at the rest of their army. In module 5 (13-15th level) it's war. And apparently the only thing to stop an unsupported army is another army. You aren't officially allowed to look at the hundred (unsupported) trolls, fly out of rock range, and drop fire on them. And raising combined species armies is against the rules (whereas I'd use kobold skirmishers/slingers, human warriors, and centaur light cavalry in one army). Plus don't get me started on the numbers involved.

This isn't stopping me running it ... in 4e. (With the house rule that an extended rest is a long weekend somewhere actually safe).

 

[Joshua Randall]

I thought of another favorite that is badly designed. And I know I mention this adventure in all the threads like this, but I can't stop myself.

I12 Egg of the Phoenix. This thing is a mess, cobbled together from four tournament adventures. But it has two incredibly cool parts.

The first tasks the PCs with entering a vampire's lair to retrieve several potions of dragon control before said potions can be used against the PCs' dragon allies. What's cool about this is that the foray into the lair is timed. If the PCs dawdle, or just get bogged down in combat, then the vampires wake up and come looking for them. Eventually they'll use the potions, too!

The second cool part of I12 is the set-piece final battle. It takes place in a "pocket plane" on the surface of a mini-planet, small enough that you could walk around it in a few minutes. The mini-planet is in turn orbited by a sentient, evil moon (mini-moon?) with the utterly awesome name of Hurlothrumbo. It attacks the PCs as it hurtles past overhead, though the PCs can take cover behind various gravestones. (Oh, did I mention the planet is one big graveyard?)

Another cool part of the set-piece is that the "pocket plane" is unstable. Use too much magic and it explodes. (Tracked by counting up spell levels as they are cast / magic item levels as they are activated.) So, do the PCs use their magic and risk destruction? Or not use their magic and risk being overwhelmed by enemies? That's a neat dilemma to force upon them.

Anyway, when I ran I12 back in the day, we all agree it was ludicrous in many respects, but everyone loved these two parts of the adventure. So it's been a favorite of mine ever since.

 

[Tharian]

I've seen a couple of my favorites mentioned in the list already (Night Below among them), but I think my favorite one to read through has been Slayers of Lankhmar by Slade Hensen. It had the feel of a sandbox adventure before I knew what sandbox adventures were and dealt with a wrongly-accused person having the ability to get away.

I never got a chance to really play these adventures as the groups I've been in have never really lasted long enough to get to them (too high level) or fell apart due to other reasons. Would be nice to find out some day, though.