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

[Klaus]

Of the 4e adventures I've read, these are the ones that inspired me:

- The Slaying Stone: infiltrating a ruined city akin to Osgiliath in LotR, with floating encounters to sprinkle throughout!
- Reavers of Harkenwold: this is actuall an entire campaign, crammed into 3 levels! You could easily bump the levels and use this as a Heroic-tier capstone.
- Cairn of the Winter King: the opening is just so METAL!!!! \m/ \m/ Plus, the ending offers you a way to have a "travelling" campaign arc.
- Orcs of Stonefang Pass: I'd love to tie this one to the "travelling" arc I mentioned above, and the final encounter is appropriatedly epic, even in Heroic.
- Lord of the White Field: this one has all the despair of a "Dawn of the Dead"-type movie, and is appropriatedly disturbing.
- Dead by Dawn: a one-session adventure, with one of the best uses of skill challenges yet, a perfect epilogue for Lord of the White Field.

The "almost made it":
- Keep on the Shadowfell: this one needed just a bit of work, cutting some unnecessary encounters and adding a more dynamic final fight.
- Thunderspire Labyrinth: this is a mini-sandbox disguised as an adventure, not unlike The Village of Hommlett. Lots of places with potential, and the Chamber of Eyes is a very dynamic minidungeon.

 

[Incenjucar]

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?

 

[S'mon]

The Slaying Stone is not bad. Can't say about some of the other recommendations of good ones. But one of the things that makes The Slaying Stone fairly decent is that it can be run more like Keep on the Borderlands, if you want. It's obvious how to do it, from the module as presented.

I'm curious if any of the other modules recommended thus far have this characteristic, or is it something else that makes them good.

Slaying Stone would have gone from OK to Good in my book if the friendly quest-giver NPCs had had any sort of detailing or plausible motivation.

I recently acquired Sceptre Tower of Spellguard and it looks rather good, at least it seems to have decision points and roleplay opportunities; I very much like it having a rival adventuring party statted out. The tower encounters do look repetitive though.

 

[Klaus]

Scepter Tower is indeed good, specially if you combine some parts of it with Slaying Stone (specially the ruins map).

 

[S'mon]

Scepter Tower is indeed good, specially if you combine some parts of it with Slaying Stone (specially the ruins map).

Interesting idea, thanks! I'll take a look. I'm planning to start a Forgotten Realms 4e campaign around the end of this year/start 2012, getting to use at least part of Slaying Stone would be good.

 

[keterys]

I... thought Scepter Tower was one of the worst 4E modules. The second two thirds of it was basically scrappable, as full of retreaded combats, boring, more boring, and a little more boring, and almost no encounters were actually both challenging and interesting.

 

[Aegeri]

I... thought Scepter Tower was one of the worst 4E modules. The second two thirds of it was basically scrappable, as full of retreaded combats, boring, more boring, and a little more boring, and almost no encounters were actually both challenging and interesting.

I agree, I ran this and after a certain point I realized just how poor many of the encounters were. So I decided to start scrapping the majority of them and making my own. The premise and story are kind of cool, but the adventure itself is a dud.

 

[Colmarr]

the Chamber of Eyes is a very dynamic minidungeon.

What makes you say that? My overwhelming memory of the chamber of eyes is of long strings of 5' wide corridors and chokepoint doors.

That poor dire wolf never really got unsqueezed.

 

[Klaus]

I... thought Scepter Tower was one of the worst 4E modules. The second two thirds of it was basically scrappable, as full of retreaded combats, boring, more boring, and a little more boring, and almost no encounters were actually both challenging and interesting.

It surely needs some work, but I like that the adventure gives advice on how to handle a party that tries to enter the tower from the top, instead of sneaking in from the catacombs. I like the ruins encounters and the customisable tower map. I think I like the pieces of the adventure more than the finished thing.

 

[Klaus]

What makes you say that? My overwhelming memory of the chamber of eyes is of long strings of 5' wide corridors and chokepoint doors.

That poor dire wolf never really got unsqueezed.

The entire back of the Chamber was one big encounter, encompassing several rooms that could be navigated or circumvented, encouraging the PCs to maneuver the enemies into locales that put them at a disadvantage.