Keep on the Shadowfell vs Reavers of Harkenwold

[Staffan]

I guess that's why I never has any issues with KoS (I'm even fond of it). I never runed it as intended. I scrapped some battle encounters leaving only those I felt contributed to the plot I was creating at the moment. Yet, this also means I've had to put some effort to improve KotS.

The problems with it can probably be traced to it being the first published adventure for 4e, so it was new territory for both designers (who wouldn't know how to best use 4e's features) and DMs (who would go "New game, let's see how the intro adventure works out." and run it pretty much as written).

Hmm. Now I kind of want to see how Keep on the Shadowfell would work if translated to 13th Age.

 

[Robyo]

I converted Reavers to 5e and my players loved it.

Reavers has such a great opening hook (save the farmers from arsonist ruffians) that I've used it (and the very good encounter map) for like 5 different groups and it's always been a hit. The rest of the module is pretty good too.

 

[Zeromaru X]

Then you did it instinctively the right way! Your approach can be translated to many other 4e adventures: Just leave the interesting encounters.

Cannot say it was instinctively. I was pretty inexperienced in 4e at the time, so I just simplified stuff to make my life easy. I just simplified in the sake of laziness.

The problems with it can probably be traced to it being the first published adventure for 4e, so it was new territory for both designers (who wouldn't know how to best use 4e's features) and DMs (who would go "New game, let's see how the intro adventure works out." and run it pretty much as written).

Hmm. Now I kind of want to see how Keep on the Shadowfell would work if translated to 13th Age.

Yeah, that was the problem with 4e adventures. I thank my laziness back them, because it encouraged me to look for ways to play these adventures in a less complex way.

 

[MartyW]

I think Reavers could really make a great low level 5e sandbox. I wrote about that very thing just the other day (which is what brought me to this post originally).

https://ragingowlbear.blogspot.com/2018/09/reavers-of-harkenwold-best-of-dnd-4e.html

If you only have a group that will play 5e, it might be worth it to see how challenging it will be to convert. Since it is relatively low level, you can probably swap most monsters out with the new stats as-is. You will probably need to tweak the "boss" monsters, but you can always use a standard 5e stat block and just add some "special maneuver" for those important combatants.

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http://ragingowlbear.blogspot.com/

 

[The Fighter-Cricket]

Hey, thanks for linking to your blog! I have read the article you mentioned, then some additional ones, and I'm liking what you are doing. I think I will be spending some time at the Raging Owlbear's from now on.

 

[Zeromaru X]

Same here. I'm starting to work on the conversion, so reading your post may help.

I've also liked some of your other posts as well. Consider me a regular of the owlbear as well