Revenge of the Giants - any thoughts?

[Lanefan]

Thanks for the input so far, all. I'll reply to this post as it seems to sum up what you've all said...

I agree that this module seems poorly written. The adventure lacks a comprehensive synopsis and it can be hard to get the big picture of the modules without reading the whole thing through. Even after several read throughs I am still finding things that I missed that effect the plot.

OK, if I end up getting it I'll keep that in mind; it sounds like a pretty unanimous response.

The modules is strange in that the opening is very linear and on the rails and after that it opens up to such a degree that the PCs can go virtually any direction. This can cause problems with the PCs running into encounters that are too high for their level. I have had to do some on the fly modifications to make some of the encounters level appropriate.

That sounds good. I don't at all mind if my PCs find themselves in over their heads; but then I'm running 1e, where getting in over your head is always possible and running away is (or should be) always one of your in-play options.

As for the opening, I likely wouldn't be using all of Revenge of the Giants anyway; and they'd be coming into it as part of the campaign's ongoing backstory, so I could probably skip all the railroady bits anyway.

The module does require some leg work on the part of the DM. I find this to be true with any module I run. This one takes a little more work because of the open ended nature of the way the characters can approach the later part of the module.

Well, as I'd be converting it anyway that shouldn't be much of an issue for me. And if it's too open-ended I can always cut bits out - and then use those bits later as an entirely different adventure.

As for converting, I can't really speak to that. I convert alot to 4e but nothing from 4e. Your ability to convert from 4e will be the deciding factor in that regard.

Converting monsters, traps, and maps is trivially easy, though time-consuming. What I found with KotS was that the tactics and terrain stuff didn't convert so well...things that were probably grand encounters in 4e just fell flat in 1e (the goblin mine being one example that immediately comes to mind), in part I think because KotS was written specifically to show off all the new 4e stuff; it was, after all, the edition's first module.

As a side note, I've just started a party into 3e's Forge of Fury; I'll probably be converting that pretty much on the fly, and so far it's been dirt easy in comparison to converting KotS mostly because I'm more familiar with 3e than 4e as a starting point.

Lanefan

 

[TarionzCousin]

My thoughts: let the giants win this time. They have suffered long enough.