Rappan Athuk Reloaded: Is it worth it?

[Monte At Home]

I spent the better part of last night going through the boxed set. I really like it. It's not without it's flaws (it's got some editing problems that are frequent but minor from what I can tell), but it's a nice package.

I like a lot of Necromancer stuff, but I was never tempted to run Rappan Athuk before. Now, seeing it all in a nice package, I'm already planning on doing just that. Somehow. It's a very, very cool dungeon. Plus, it's got new levels, and a context with stuff going on above ground that the originals lacked (although I understand you could get most of it as free downloads, which is cool).

Personally, I wouldn't pay money to have someone do 3.0 to 3.5 conversions for me. It's just not that hard. You can do it on the fly, in my opinion. On the other hand, having much, much better maps (and I think a dungeon pretty much lives or dies based on its maps), a good organization with all the stuff collected together in three handy books, and the additional material, this seems completely worth the price.

And you could easily--with virtually NO work--use this as a series of mini dungeons spread out in a campaign if you wanted, rather than one big mega dungeon. Each level is pretty much complete in and of itself, which is cool in a totally old school sort of way. Each mini-dungeon would be 1-3 sessions worth of gaming (and there are tons of them in here, with a wide level range). If you're a Ptolus fan, you could parse these out throughout Ghul's Labyrinth or other areas below the city, for example.

 

[Ghostwind]

Thanks, Monte. That sold me.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Now see, Monte needs to do a review of that on his website. It'll help move the copies on the shelves and sell PDF ones. Get to it Monte!

 

[Treebore]

And here I was going to say if you still have doubts you probably don't need to get it. Go figure.

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

I don't think I would have paid $75 for a glue bound book and two saddle stapled books, a cardboard box and non-gloss, copier quality printed pages within.

I was going to buy it at GenCon, but looking over the sample at the Necro booth, that was my reaction as well. My excitement evaporated rapidly when I looked at the three books. I already have the original, so I thought I would live without out RARe. (And in all fairness to RARe, I may have been expecting a Ptolus-like presentation, which is pretty darn hard to beat.)

However, the other thread about amazon.com made me pause. They're actually shipping it--at $47? And when I went to amazon.com and could get an additional $30 off the $47 price, well, it's definitely worth $17. Now, I'll just have to see if (1) amazon actually ships one to me, and (2) if the $30 credit for getting & using an amazon.com visa card comes through. If not, I'll console myself with my copy of Ptolus and my Ptolus map. If I do get RARe, well then, this was my best gaming year ever.