Sunless Citidel vs. Keep on the Shadowfell

[Klaus]

I've been a DM for both (played in neither).

I think that KotS is a superior adventure to the Sunless citadel from my DM point of view.

1) There is a lot more detail and character to the starting village, including a variety of NPCs which my players have enjoyed interacting with.

2) There are several adventure sites (kobold ambushes, kobold caves, digs) as well as the keep itself - rather than just one dungeon.

3) Nicer range of opponents and challenges in KotS to my mind.

On the other hand there were three aspects which I think were a win for SC

a) the imagery of a citadel swallowed up in the earth was great - even if it didn't actually come into play.

b) I prefer the SC situation with two competing forces (kobolds and goblins) in the dungeon - it automatically opened up possibilities for negotiation and subterfuge which are not there to the same extend when the dungeon is filled with 'one big happy family'.

c) There was a dragon to fight in it! (Calcryx).

I liked the way that 3e modules 1 & 2 had dragons to fight in them from the word go - pretty nice in 'Dungeons and Dragons'


So my judgement:

KotS wins on 'outside the dungeon NPCs', non-linearity, general encounter design

SC wins on 'inside the dungeon NPCs - rival communities', including dragon foes.

Cheers

Well, KotS has four guard drakes...

I'm thinking of replacing Splug with Meepo in KotS, but my PCs are hating kobolds so much right now...

 

[amethal]

Keep on the Shadowfell is a railroad into a static dungeon setting that features, among other things, an encounter with infinite enemies and a fight with rats.

In fairness there are also a few rat encounters in Sunless Citadel.

 

[Lord Sessadore]

I DM'd Sunless Citadel, but have only played one session of Keep on the Shadowfell, so I can't really comment on the differences/similarities between the two yet. I anticipate I'll be running KotS for my group come fall though.

I remember the Sunless Citidel as an okay adventure with some game mechanic problems. I also remember it as a character churner. At least with us it was.

That's interesting - I don't think we lost a single character in Sunless Citadel. Forge of Fury however ... that one was a meat grinder. Of course, it doesn't help when the fighter decides to go for a naked swim by himself in a big underground lake, and then goes for the big pile of treasure, not thinking that there might be something to which the big pile of treasure belongs ... Would've been my first TPK as a DM if the wizard hadn't used spider climb and invisibility to get away

 

[Nebulous]

I haven't run SC, but so far i'm enjoying running KotS. I'm switching some things up and making the NPCs different than the book, or at least changed somewhat, and the group seems to be enjoying that aspect of roleplaying. Reading the adventure over, it seems to have a nice mix of indoor and outdoor encounters, varied enemies, and several big surprises. I don't think that the main villain is interesting though, rather vanilla and generic, so i'll certainly be changing him somehow.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

KotS has none of these things and is way longer than it has any right to be. In fact, going with the MMO comparison, KotS is written to play out just like an instance in World of Warcraft, while SotHH emphasises the strengths of the tabletop RPG over a computer game.

I think this is a very valid criticism, as I'm running KotS. It really struck me how much of the place is illogical and artificial, not in a "good-old-day" kind of throw-back way, where dungeons were full of crazy inexplicable nonsense, but rather in that they'd tried to make it make sense, but always sacrificed sense for gameplay, and packaged up a lot of neat little encounters, encounters which by necessity are often quite tricky, yet equally are not likely to lead to other encounter occurring, because that would almost certainly wipe the group out - this is pretty WoW-tastic, I have to say.

It is also a lot longer than it needs to be, seemingly having a lot of content solely to let the PCs gain XP and level up.

It also has some bizarre WoW-ish elements, like PCs only get the 2000XP at the end for defeating Kalarel if they DM chose to use the appropriate "quest hook". I mean WHAT?! Is defeating that evil plot worth 2000XP or not? Given that the adventure is a railroad (using the term non-perjoratively), you're always working towards that the same amount whether you're "on the quest" or not. I mean just WHAT?! Why would you ever not get XP just because you "hadn't talked to the right NPC". Eugh. WoW go away. This is D&D.

It's certainly very true that KotS doesn't show up "Why TT RP is great", and that is a weakness. The whole thing gives off a vague "put together at the last minute" vibe, which is wierd, because I'm fairly sure that it wasn't. Also, yes VERY BAD quality paper. Smudgey-smudgey and tears easy.

I'm intrigued to know WHICH unpopular WoW dungeon the final encounter reminds NiTessine of, though. As a keen WoW player, I'm sure I'm familiar with it, but can't place it off the top of my head.

 

[Skizac]

The first half of the module is a railroad into a static dungeon setting that features, among other things, an encounter with infinite enemies and a fight with rats.

Where is there an encounter with infinite enemies? Are you referring to the one where Decrepit Skeletons emerge from sarcophagi each round? The encounter clearly states that they only emerge for 5 rounds and then stop coming.

 

[Zil]

The Sunless Citadel was a great starting point for 3E - at least our group found it that way. The idea of a keep sinking down into the earth was cool, and we really liked the different groups inhabiting the citadel plus the twisted vampire tree and druid. The only encounter that was a bit much for us was the dragon, but I think what went wrong there is that the DM changed the dragon type for coolness and almost wiped the floor with us.

We're currently playing Keep on the Shadowfell and it only gets a so-so mark. The outer encounters have been fine with the kobolds and such, but now that we are in the keep it's getting a bit tedious and nothing seems to quite make sense. For example, why are there all these "encounters" so close together, but nobody from encounter b ever responds to the noise from encounter a? The answer is obviously so that the players don't get trashed, but that is not a very satisfying reason. I also was very disappointed that there seems to be no keep - we're just wandering around in a standard dungeon crawl underneath the ruins that seems kind of bland.

I'd say that the Sunless Citadel was a much more interesting adventure (and by extension introduction into the latest edition of the game).

 

[NiTessine]

In fairness there are also a few rat encounters in Sunless Citadel.

Admittedly, though there was more of a point to that one.

I'm intrigued to know WHICH unpopular WoW dungeon the final encounter reminds NiTessine of, though. As a keen WoW player, I'm sure I'm familiar with it, but can't place it off the top of my head.

A generic unpopular WoW dungeon. It has arbitrary elements to it that remind me of certain Zul'Farrak bosses, for instance, or Arugal in Shadowfang Keep. (From what I've read, at least. Popularity may vary, but it is a fact that I've never managed to get a group to SFK.)

Where is there an encounter with infinite enemies? Are you referring to the one where Decrepit Skeletons emerge from sarcophagi each round? The encounter clearly states that they only emerge for 5 rounds and then stop coming.

As I recall, it states that new skeletons emerge every five rounds. If skeletons kept jumping out for five rounds, it'd quickly get crowded in there. I'd check, but I no longer possess a copy.

Sadly, it is not a feature unique to KotS. One of the Living Forgotten Realms preview modules has something similar.

 

[Plane Sailing]

It's certainly very true that KotS doesn't show up "Why TT RP is great", and that is a weakness. The whole thing gives off a vague "put together at the last minute" vibe,

Quite possibly a "put together while the rules were continually changing around it" vibe?

I definitely agree that it would have been the ideal opportunity to highlight what is great about tabletop roleplaying; I think the effort that went into providing the village and environs was a good step in that direction, but not enough effort went into the 'bad guy' side of it, since there is very little opportunity or expectation of role-playing with the bad guys - one of the things I love, both as DM and player.

Cheers

 

[Ander00]

I was a player in both (the same DM and almost the same group), and I'd have to give the edge to the Sunless Citadel, for the reasons that have already been mentioned, and maybe a hint of nostalgia.


cheers