[Green Ronin] Bleeding Edge modules - how are they?

[GlassJaw]

I placed an order for some Green Ronin stuff from Paizo but I didn't grab any of the Bleeding Edge. I'm wondering if I should go back and grab them but I haven't heard much about them. Are they any good? Even if I don't run them as-is (or ever run them), I'm always looking for decent modules to steal ideas, storylines, maps, etc from.

Are they worth picking up at $2 each?

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I placed an order for some Green Ronin stuff from Paizo but I didn't grab any of the Bleeding Edge. I'm wondering if I should go back and grab them but I haven't heard much about them. Are they any good? Even if I don't run them as-is (or ever run them), I'm always looking for decent modules to steal ideas, storylines, maps, etc from.

Are they worth picking up at $2 each?

I haven't played or ran any of them. I did pick up all 5 at the Paizo sale though. I figured that for $2 they should be easy enough to get my money's worth out of.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Rafael Ceurdepyr]

I ran Mansion of Shadows at the beginning of a campaign, and it went pretty well. The PCs didn't do what the module expected they would (wander around the mansion and get into trouble), but that's often the case. The adventure provided a strong dose of horror, which my players generally enjoy, and an experience with massed combat that we usually don't do.

I picked up Beyond the Towers next, got about halfway through it and had a disaster. I didn't find out until I was running the adventure that there are some serious problems with the main map. I don't remember the details, but I think it had to do with entrances not being correctly spelled out. At the time it seemed like a huge deal, and I ended up scrapping and retconning what had happened in the campaign so far and moving on to Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde (which went REALLY well).

I bought a couple of others in the series, but that experience kinda burned me on them. But for $2.00, I'd say they're worth picking up.

 

[Psion]

They're nice and have a decent amount of well-written backstory. I only have Mansion of Shadows, Beyond the Gates, and Temple of the Death Goddess. Mansion of Shadows seems a bit further off the beaten path than the other two, though they all some some curve balls at you.

I did run Temple of the Death Goddess; I found that the early Troll encounter was too powerful for the party.

 

[BadMojo]

I'm running "Dreadful Dawn" right now. The premise is a bit like Diehard in a Tavern. It's fairly unremarkable so far, but I wasn't really expecting anything earth shattering.

 

[Pinotage]

I've read through the first two (Mansion of Shadows and Beyond the Towers) and reviewed them both over on RPGNow. My impression was that they were decent, but they had their share of little problems. Good quality adventures, but not outstanding. If somebody asked me to recommend an adventure, I'd probably pick others from other publishers than these ones. Of the two Mansion of Shadows is far better than Beyond the Towers, but even that's a PC killer if not played right. I haven't seen them release any more, but I suspect that's to do with 4e rather than whether they're doing well or not.

Pinotage

 

[Walt C]

I own them all and just completed running the second one.

Mansion of Shadows was dripping with atmosphere. Unfortunately, it can be a TPK if you aren't careful. Like an above poster said, there's little reason to investigate the house if the PCs were invited (there's only an hour until the dinner scene, and after, little reason to wander aimlessly). Two in my group wandered off just out of curiosity and got killed (luckily, I was able to work in replacements through the "village option").

I expected Beyond the Towers to be a simple dungeon crawl, and it started off rather atmospheric as well. Unfortunately, as has been noted, the map and key missed an editorial pass. My group entered through the lowest level, which meant that they encountered the most interesting stuff first. I was able to get a lot of fun mileage out of the bandit group.

Overall, I was happy with Mansion and satisfied with Towers. I do plan on running through the others as part of my Freeport/Bleeding Edge campaign.

Walt

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

No one has run the one set in a conquered wizards' university? That one sounds the most interesting to me.