D&D 4E Is it me or are 4E modules just not...exciting?

[keterys]

I think the whole Chaos Scar thing was intended to be their sandlot.

A big big map with dozens of "dungeons" on it, with a trend of getting harder as you head deeper in, so players can tackle as hard as they want, learn as much as they want. Or something.

 

[Aegeri]

Except nearly every adventure is from like, 1-4 or something.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

well, there are 3 each for levels 1-4 and 5 adventures that go from 5-10. So, basically you can run a low level sandbox. The PCs may miss one or two of the early adventures, but they'll basically be around level 6-7 when they hit the last adventure, so you can use those as a sort of sandbox for levels 1-7. The last couple can be handled as hooks into a more difficult area leading up to something else you can use in Paragon. But yeah, they're a pretty limited scope sandbox. So far at least.

 

[S'mon]

There are a couple issues that I see with 4e and sandbox though. It has a MUCH narrower tolerance for off-level encounters. I recall in a 2e game a few years back throwing a Hill Giant at a level 3 party. It was fun and challenging for them. One character IIRC ended up squished flat, but the players loved it. I don't think you could run that encounter in 4e out-of-the-box. I'm sure you COULD do it, but you'd have to specifically design the whole encounter to work with low level PCs. In 2e it was just a regular encounter in my sandbox that the party happened to blunder into even after they saw the warnings about not going there.

I once had 4th level PCs ambushed by a MM3 hill giant (11th level brute) and his goblin allies; it worked very well. I've consistently found that high level Brutes make perfectly good foes for low level PCs, due to their L+12 defenses being hittable; it doesn't matter much that the brute will rarely miss. High level Soldiers though don't work well as their 16+Level AC can rapidly become unhittable.

 

[S'mon]

I actually think 4e is much better for off-level encounters than was 3e. In 4e you can set 3rd level PCs vs an 11th level hill giant brute and they'll probably survive. In 3e if you set 3rd level PCs vs a CR 7 hill giant, or even a CR 5 troll, the monster will be killing at least one PC per round and will probably TPK them. Until you get 10+ levels above the (low level) PCs the usual problem in 4e is monsters that can't be hurt, not monsters guaranteed to kill the party. So, use plenty of high level brutes in your random encounter table & you should be fine.

 

[vagabundo]

The secret passa ge was there already.

Good call in putting in a beholder. With MM3, you could even put in multiple beholderkin.

Another part of H2 I liked was thr Horned Hold. Not the encounters themselves, but the map for the Hold was very good, and a good example of an underground dwarven fortress.

Me, I wish WotC would do a conversion of the Forge of Fury.

Yeah the horned hold was pretty good too. I had a disgruntled Duergar drinking at that half-orc's tavern in the SPH. The Lads solved a little problem for him and he left the main gate open and drugged the Orc guards.

The hold itself had a lot of potential. If I ran it again I'd have the Duergar more like Psionic Nazis and play up that angle and redo all the encounters.

I loved the little stories in the random encounters in H2 and the fact there there were several areas that were left for the DM to flesh out. There is lots of potential in H2 for great fun, if a DM uses it as a skeleton for his own ideas.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I actually think 4e is much better for off-level encounters than was 3e. In 4e you can set 3rd level PCs vs an 11th level hill giant brute and they'll probably survive. In 3e if you set 3rd level PCs vs a CR 7 hill giant, or even a CR 5 troll, the monster will be killing at least one PC per round and will probably TPK them. Until you get 10+ levels above the (low level) PCs the usual problem in 4e is monsters that can't be hurt, not monsters guaranteed to kill the party. So, use plenty of high level brutes in your random encounter table & you should be fine.

Eh, that fight is sloggy though. The giant has basically one trick, move to melee range and thump with club. Meanwhile AC25 (reflex is 23) means you've got PCs hitting on around a 17, maybe 15 at the very best. It will be a long slow process. If the PCs play fairly optimum tactics you're looking at around 4 rounds of full up everyone aiming at the giant to kill. I agree, you can make a successful encounter out of that, but it is far from ideal. It has a club doing 3d10+11 damage (average 27.5 per hit and with a +11 it will be getting in some hits).

I've argued this from both sides at different times, and experience has shown that it is true that off level encounters in some cases can be less risky in 4e only a small subset of them will be fun. The question is if in a sandbox you'll run into the fun ones or the dull ones. The hill giant example is also peculiar, it isn't a higher level encounter in either game, and you'd also want to look at mismatched encounters at other play levels.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I actually think 4e is much better for off-level encounters than was 3e. In 4e you can set 3rd level PCs vs an 11th level hill giant brute and they'll probably survive. In 3e if you set 3rd level PCs vs a CR 7 hill giant, or even a CR 5 troll, the monster will be killing at least one PC per round and will probably TPK them. Until you get 10+ levels above the (low level) PCs the usual problem in 4e is monsters that can't be hurt, not monsters guaranteed to kill the party. So, use plenty of high level brutes in your random encounter table & you should be fine.

I see it as important how well the system handles the "questionable" bands. Stuff right around the party level, they can handle. Things way off the scale, they know aren't worth it, or they can't. So that gets right back to what sandboxes have always done, which is make information a prime currency. You don't go into the Pointy Mountains at 4th level, because everyone knows that Supercalifragilistic the Venerable Red Dragon lives there. Or if you do, it is sneaking, not to fight, and even then it is a huge risk. (I'm not opposed to risks. )

But where you need system help is on the margins. There ends up being two or three times as many lizard men in the Foggy Swamp, as the party thought, and a few of them are tougher than the party wants to attempt right now. This is the kind of situation that, if played straight, no fudging on mechanics or information gathering, can easily mislead the party into thinking they are doing just fine, right up until a key fight.

The more a system allows for escape from borderline fights, the more it allows the DM to handle information in a more naturalistic, in-game fashion, rather than using implicit mechanical clues or explicit metagaming--while still pushing the players hard. This, in turn, means that the ridiculously easy fights--avoided for a long time due to caution, get handled at a more engaging time in the partys power level.

Of course, not all sandboxes are run in that manner, but it is in the ballpark of what Keep on the Borderlands encouraged. Sandbox to me means that the party is allowed to make lots of choices, including the ones that may hang them. I want to give them rope, but I want them to see it for the rope it is.

 

[WizarDru]

What elements would make an adventure more exciting than another? What is missing or wrong in those adventures that fall flat? The primary common element I see is linearity and "obligatory" content. Is there anything else?

Speaking only for myself? A lack of depth. Most of the 4E modules I've encountered so far are very shallow. That's not intended as a criticism, per se. It's meant that those modules are in service to a different goal than what I want.

For example, one of the 4E modules in a recent dungeon had a great setup. A giant floating stone head (think Zardoz, I'm sure the author did) is coming crashing to the ground. Several suggestions are made as to why the players might get involved (the wizard who lives there asks for help from atop the head as it is being pulled earthwards, curiosity, greed), but that's the sum total of any kind of story.

The module is basically an excuse to have three or four combats, quickly. Yes, this is meant as more of a side-trek and yes, this is more of a fun idea than a full-fledged story...but it is the extreme example that illustrates the focus I'm unimpressed with. The module's plot is this: follow the head, fight some monsters that attack the head, go inside the head and capture or kill the elementals that power it before they escape and then go find and kill the dudes who forced it out of the sky. The end. The only decision points for the players are: Get Involved or Don't Get Involved? Steal the Head or not?

And in answer to someone's earlier question about what order the players encounter things? Yes, it is important. At least to me. Many modules have played out very differently depending on the players choice of attack or direction. It is, to me, a major player input. Saying that any door they take will always lead to the trap or any chest they open will always have the loot they're looking for or the mcguffin? It's not nearly as interesting, to me. I don't want a sandbox, but I DO want an environment. A flowchart adventure isn't a bad thing, though...I LOVE adventures that act as a flowchart. But NOT if the flowchart is a SINGLE LINE, which most 4E adventures feel like.

On a related note: whoever recommended Revenge of the Iron Lich, the fourthcore adventure? Kudos to you, sir or madam. It is KICK. ASS.

 

[keterys]

I've been running Curse of the Crimson Throne in 4e lately - one adventure was basically on rails as PCs did task 1, then 2, then 3, then 4, so they could get what they wanted.

The next one was a sprawling 60 room keep they could approach in any way they wanted, in any order they wanted... both worked fine in 4e, so I think it's just a matter of people generating the adventures you'd like.