got my Expedition to the Demonweb Pits (mild spoilers)

[Felon]

Another oddity uncovered: The Demon-Quelling Sword is statted out as a large +3 evil-outsider-bane frost mighty-cleaving bastard sword. Now, that exceeds the +5 bonus limitation on non-epic weapons, but perhaps this is just an instance of dropping an epic-level weapon into players' hands way before they should get one (the exact sort of thing we recently got a "Save My Game" article about).

It's also described as if medium-sized non-proficient characters could wield it, which they couldn't. If you're not proficient with the bastard sword, it's treated as a two-hander, and medium-sized creature can't wield a large-sized two-hander.

And to top it all off, it's not listed as intelligent in its description, but during a later encounter it provides the party with information about opening portals (apparently it's evil).

Another noteworthy and questionable issue to its inclusion is that even taking into account the challenges most characters would have to overcome in order to wield it, it remains a far better weapon than Thaas, which is supposed to be a bigger-deal weapon. The mission to get the sword is basically a side quest.

 

[FireLance]

Another oddity uncovered: The Demon-Quelling Sword is statted out as a large +3 evil-outsider-bane frost mighty-cleaving bastard sword. Now, that exceeds the +5 bonus limitation on non-epic weapons, but perhaps this is just an instance of dropping an epic-level weapon into players' hands way before they should get one (the exact sort of thing we recently got a "Save My Game" article about).

The limit is actually +5 enhancement bonus, +10 effective bonus, so the sword is actually non-epic. However, with a total effective bonus of +6, the sword's market price is 72,000 gp, which is a good chunk of even a 12th-level character's expected wealth, so they are getting it a few levels earlier than they should.

What I would laugh at is the idea of a Demon-Quelling Sword with the frost property, since most demons have cold resistance 10.

As for wielding it, that can be arranged with some creative use of the enlarge person spell.

 

[Imruphel]

I've had this a few days and can't decide if it's really cool or a waste of time.

I'm feeling much the same way. I appreciate a couple of the new monsters (but not the cambions: bad development!) and the maps of the Demonweb (I'll definitely use those at some point) but I'm just not jazzed about the adventure (yet?).

Another oddity uncovered: The Demon-Quelling Sword is statted out as a large +3 evil-outsider-bane frost mighty-cleaving bastard sword. Now, that exceeds the +5 bonus limitation on non-epic weapons... (snip)

The frost property may as well be dropped as practically all evil outsiders have sufficient cold resistance to ignore the additional cold damage. A more logical choice would have been the screaming property to inflict sonic damage.

Edit: Sorry Firelance: you beat me to it.

 

[Obergnom]

Having the book for a couple of days now, here is my opinion:

I love this adventure, because of its style, the idea behind it, the setting, the story, stuff like that.

Execution is, as mentioned before, far from perfect. I think it is a great adventure for those DMs who are able to invest a bit into the development of their campaign. It is not a good choice for someone looking for something to run out of the box.
I think you should really get familiar with at least some Planescape stuff (Or Manual of the Planes, Planar Handbook) and consider to lenghten or shorten certain parts of it to make it fit your and your groups style of gaming.

Thats the reason why I would say it is "just" mediocre. It has everything for a great campaign (encounters, story, style) but you actually have to put work into it. Quite similar to older adventures, like Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil which needed a lot of work to not make it a hack fest.

This is what I am doing with this adventure:

I will be able to run a campaign for about 6 Month with my current group, before at least some of us have to leave. Thus I wanted a 6 level campaign and I wanted to do a modern version of GDQ.

I took the 2nd and 3rd Adventure of the Istivin - City in Shadows MiniAP from Dungeon Mag, lowerd their level by 4. (I needed to make weaker giants by removing 4hd to be able to do that). Using the alternate plot hooks and removing the whole Malgoth plot, this is what you will get:

1.Shadow of the Abyss: Go, find the Giant Stronghold, where a religios leader is uniting the giants to make war again. At the end of the adventure, the players learn that drow are behind all of this.

2.Wrath of the Abyss: Enter the Drow Hideout, find out what they are up to. At the end of this adventure the players will know that there is some kind of Drow invasion going on, and they will have a pointer to Sigil (This will replace the Drow Encounters at the beginning of EttDP, as I figured, it would be rather boring to raid two Drow Hideouts in a row.)

3. Expedition to the Demonweb Pits. I am thinking about enhancing the Frost Giant Quest a bit, to get more "Against the Giants" into the campaign.

 

[mattcolville]

Ok, got mine from Amazon. One question I have.

What's the goal of the adventure? What are the PCs trying to do/stop/kill? As far as I can tell, the adventure begins when some Drow attack, the PCs kill them, and then follow a lead to Sigil. But as far as I can tell, the PCs have no reason to follow that lead.

 

[teitan]

I got the book today, and this was the first thing I checked. As with the Preview, the "Cambions as Characters" block is really bad. Odd numbered stat modifiers, incorrect skill points given, huge numbers of things missed out.

This is really, really bad. And it's this sort of thing that actually could lead to me boycotting WotC product.

(I have not, as yet, had a chance to look at any of the rest of the book.)

So you are thinking of boycotting over a section that probably won't be used in your game?

 

[Wycen]

Ok, got mine from Amazon. One question I have.

What's the goal of the adventure? What are the PCs trying to do/stop/kill? As far as I can tell, the adventure begins when some Drow attack, the PCs kill them, and then follow a lead to Sigil. But as far as I can tell, the PCs have no reason to follow that lead.

I bought the adventure last weekend and have been flipping through it a little at a time. I finally read the intro last night.

Basically Grazz't wants more power. Define power as whatever you wish, enemies, layers, notoriety, influence... pretty much each of those would be the result of his whole plot.

Gotta go to lunch, but to make a long story short, he wants to get back at Lolth. Enter the characters who he decides will make good tools in doing that.

 

[mattcolville]

I bought the adventure last weekend and have been flipping through it a little at a time. I finally read the intro last night.

Basically Grazz't wants more power. Define power as whatever you wish, enemies, layers, notoriety, influence... pretty much each of those would be the result of his whole plot.

Gotta go to lunch, but to make a long story short, he wants to get back at Lolth. Enter the characters who he decides will make good tools in doing that.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's good that there's a bad guy who has clearly defined goals. My problem is; the PCs do not have clearly defined goals.

I don't yet understand A: why the players get involved in the first place. Some Drow attack, the players find a note from or to a guy in Sigil, but so what? What horrible thing will happen if the PCs don't pursue it?

B: When the adventure is done, what will the PCs have prevented, and how? They don't kill Lolth, I presume.

 

[delericho]

So you are thinking of boycotting over a section that probably won't be used in your game?

This was a huge mistake. When we saw the preview, it was also admitted as a mistake by WotC, but not corrected in the book. It is also not the first major mistake we've seen in recent WotC products - witness the page backgrounds in "Scourge of the Howling Horde".

I won't boycott over this one thing, obviously. But it's starting to look like a pattern, and if it is a pattern, then I might boycott over that. It strikes me as only being good sense to stop buying products if the quality isn't there.

 

[delericho]

The lead-in to Sigil is problematic. The players just get ambushed by some drow, and from there they are expected to just hop into the portal Sigil with little incentive to do so. And once they're in Sigil, they're expected to make a beeline for the Styx Oarsman, even though they just stepped into Oz on acid.

The major thing that bugs me about this is that a huge portion of the scenario hinges on the PCs doing a whole bunch of work for a particular NPC, but the very first encounter features

Spoiler

the PCs being emphatically warned off trusting this very NPC... and correctly, as well

! Surely that can't be a good idea?