Queen of the Demonweb Pits...anyone?

[Felon]

OK, just to clear folks, the cambion complaints are a tad overblown.

It's simply not that big a deal, because the errors are only in the section for creating a cambion PC. They don't affect the adeventure itself, and I don't know why discussion keeps returning to that as if it were some major indictment against EttDWP as a whole.

There's a lot of stuff that is harder to swallow, like the PC's blithely going along with Rule-of-Three's manipulations, or Rule-of-Three's confidence that screwing around with the PC's will yield some wonderful result.

I also don't know how much sense it makes for Graz to be screwing with Lolth when she's a goddess and he's a "mere" demon lord. They're not even playing in the same league, so unless he's got some really great scheme to usurp her power or deal her some vicious body blow, he should probably stick to scheming against Demogorgon, Orcus, and the rest of the gang.

I also gotta say that it annoys me that the "demon-quelling sword' and the lady's library are incuded in the prophecy, because they're both both pretty optional. Mentioning them in a prohecy gives the impression that they're vitally important.

 

[Felon]

Oh, one other thing. I am not a fan of the weapons of legacy rules and regret their centralness to the storyline.

I quite like them. Seeing as they've been in both Expedition to.... adventures so far, I expect we're going to them in Greyhawk and Undermountain too.

The Weapons of Legacy are a pretty concept, but I don't get why the guys design them always go overboard with the penalties while the benefits provided by the weapon are generally quite humble.

Just ignore the penalties. They aren't necessary.

 

[Psion]

Spoiler

Nothing to see here.

 

[daemonslye]

As a physical book, it's really gorgeous.

As an adventure, I just can't get past the "planescape flavor". Some folks love this, but for me, it is a bit of a different game if you know what I mean. The adventure starts at 9th level and characters very quickly hop into Sigil before some fairly serious Plane-hopping coming back to Sigil occasionally. So, if your campaign is set up where planar travel is relatively common, then it could be fun, if a bit comic-book (hey, just my opinion; I know it's a game). As the super-module itself says, "For some groups, it might be too much; p.7". The adventure takes some of the famous names from MM1/1E and MM2/1E (for example, Demogorgon, Yeenoghu, and Graz'zt) and converts them into "Aspects" killable by a party levels, 9-12. On the whole, the adventure is a little battle-heavy and, as mentioned before, the plot centers around the concept that the demon lords want some sort of pact with each other and the players are dupes of Orcus. My personal recommendation is to do some condensing and run it tournament style over a shorter RL period.

In terms of layout, it's nice - has particular support for using miniatures, showing the exact locations of all creatures in a battlemat style format with tactics for each. While it does cause some jumping, it's nothing that a few bookmarks won't solve.

SUMMARY: If you like the Planescape feel or you want to run a "one-shot", it's fine. That said, I HIGHLY prefer City of the Spider Queen by James Wyatt (or, for that matter, the progenitor super-module, Queen of Spiders by Gygax; Battle-heavy with style and some fun Cthulhu-esque flavor in parts).

~D

 

[Psion]

SUMMARY: If you like the Planescape feel or you want to run a "one-shot", it's fine. That said, I HIGHLY prefer City of the Spider Queen by James Wyatt'

Really?

FWIW, and as a point of reference, I alluded to the adventure looking like a combat slog.

I would have to say I perceive EttDWP as much less of a slog than CotSQ.

(or, for that matter, the progenitor super-module, Queen of Spiders by Gygax; Battle-heavy with style and some fun Cthulhu-esque flavor in parts).

There are Gygax-faithful for whom that wouldn't be much of a compliment (I understand it wasn't Gary's original plan, but brought on by the Blumes.)

That said, I dug the original. Particularly in the way that it had little side quest alternate worlds. That expanded the way I thought about D&D and was hoping for something of a reprise here.

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

Hmm.. Do I need to state "spoliers ahead"?

I'm still digesting the new encounter format; it may be helpful during actual play ( I dunno yet ) , but it sure makes reading through the encounters for the first time a little cumbersome.

Although definitely a planar romp, I'm not really getting the "Planescape feel" off of this one, despite the Sigil connection. The plot hooks and continuations seem a little contrived and less cohesive than the goodness I remember from the 2E books. IIRC, in that first EttDP thread, someone mentioned that this project was admittedly rushed ( second hand per Wolfgang? ) - That explanation would go along way to explaining the lack of plausability here.

The biggest problem I have with this one is the final set of encounters in the demon lord council chambers (A fair sized chunk of the book BTW). It basically reads as if the PC's can fight a half dozen demon lords aspect's one at a time while the others stand around and watch or continue talking amongst themselves. What? Um... Hello?

Perhaps this project bit off a bit more than it could chew as measured by the old Planescape ruler anyway. A great adventure could still have been had with less direct demon lord involvement but, as written, it seems unecessarily convoluted. Lolth definitely seems more like a plot device than a BBEG.

IMO, The good: There are some really great and creative encounters outside of what I mentioned above. Enough to use for a few levels worth of planar fun even if you choose not to run the entire thing as written.

edit: product acronym

 

[Ripzerai]

for Graz to be screwing with Lolth when she's a goddess and he's a "mere" demon lord. They're not even playing in the same league,.

They are most definitely in the same league. Gods and demon lords always interact as equals. Always.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

The biggest problem I have with this one is the final set of encounters in the demon lord council chambers (A fair sized chunk of the book BTW). It basically reads as if the PC's can fight a half dozen demon lords aspect's one at a time while the others stand around and watch or continue talking amongst themselves. What? Um... Hello?

Not quite one at a time: Their retinue will attack, too. Other than that, it makes sense: They are demon lords, and while they have agreed that they will not fight each other, fighting some puny mortals wasn't part of the agreement, and the agreement allows for you watching one of your hated enemies being torn to shreds.

As an adventure, I just can't get past the "planescape flavor".

It's a plane-hopping adventure, after all. If you don't like that sort of thing, the book clearly isn't for you, but it's not as if they snuck that fact in under the radar or anything.

The adventure takes some of the famous names from MM1/1E and MM2/1E (for example, Demogorgon, Yeenoghu, and Graz'zt) and converts them into "Aspects" killable by a party levels, 9-12.

Nah. Aspects have been around since before 3.5, they're meant to be mere shadows of a divine or godlike entity (gods, archfiends, celestial paragons....), and of course a shadow of something so powerful isn't exactly weak, but still manageable by a mid-level party.

On the whole, it's a lot better than adventures where you end up killing deities themselves. You just kill some sort of ambassador, a watered-down avatar.

In terms of layout, it's nice - has particular support for using miniatures, showing the exact locations of all creatures in a battlemat style format with tactics for each. While it does cause some jumping, it's nothing that a few bookmarks won't solve.

I don't understand that many seem to complain about the jumping. It isn't as if that wasn't there before: Many adventures list the stats for NPCs and the like in the end of the book.

In fact, I think the current format makes it easier: When combat starts, you just insert a bookmark on the old page (or just look browse back at the end, the encounter has the page number you need after), browse ahead to the encounter, and for the rest of the encounter, you need no further browsing back and forth. In fact, most of the time, all the stats are there, so you don't need to open 1-3 monster books to cross-reference!

SUMMARY: If you like the Planescape feel or you want to run a "one-shot", it's fine. That said, I HIGHLY prefer City of the Spider Queen

That was a meat-grinder. This module has a lot more diplomacy than City.

I think people are exaggerating that this is being exaggerated.

Yeah. I only mentioned it here because it was the only thing I remembered not liking at all, and I said so. I didn't say: "Yeah, overall, it may be nice, but the cambion was messed up, so I burned the book and am now sitting on the rooftop across from the Wizards building with a sniper rifle!!!" (I'm sitting inside the building, there's water dispenser here and it's clima controlled.)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Aspects first appeared in the Miniatures Handbook, which was 3.0, IIRC.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Aspects first appeared in the Miniatures Handbook, which was 3.0, IIRC.

Wait: It was in the Minis Handbook, that's true, but that is 3.5 (since they only started with minis after the revision). I remembered (incorrectly) that the Book of Vile Darkness had aspect stats (It had archfiend stats, but not their aspects).

Still, the concept has been around a while, it wasn't this adventure that introduced them.