Temple of the Elemental Evil + Scourge of the Slave Lords + Qeeen of the Spiders

[mrjam]

I'm thinking to lauch a new D&D campaign, using some published module and after some reading on the web, I've found that this trilogy (Temple of the Elemental Evil + Scourge of the Slave Lords + Queen of the Spiders) received praise in many places.

Some questions:

- is there a main plot that begin with the first modules and end with the last part of the Queen of Spiders, or are the three modules unrelated?

- are they all dungeon crawl and hack'n'slash, or are there investigation, interaction, intrigue and plot twists?

- I think to run them using C&C (I don't own AD&D 1e). Perhaps are AD&D 2e or 3.5 (I own both) a better option?

- are there better published campaign for D&D? I seen some good review of the recent campaign "The Drow War" from Mongoose and it seems interesting. Is it a better campaign overall? Or perhaps Ptolus + Night of Dissolution + The Banewarrens?

 

[freyar]

Haven't read through all these old modules myself (I got them as PDFs back in Dec, but they're long!), but I do know there are conversions for many of them in the conversion library forums here. I also would like to know how to tie T1-4 into A1-4 and GDQ1-7.

 

[green slime]

I'm thinking to lauch a new D&D campaign, using some published module and after some reading on the web, I've found that this trilogy (Temple of the Elemental Evil + Scourge of the Slave Lords + Queen of the Spiders) received praise in many places.

good, good.

- is there a main plot that begin with the first modules and end with the last part of the Queen of Spiders, or are the three modules unrelated?

They were originally unrelated. I believe some minor effort of integration was made on the last time TSR published softback covers combining T1-4, A1-4, and GDQ. It was a while since I read them, but I don't recall being particularly impressed with their interconnectivity. T1-4, killed quite a few parties. Never played A1-4, as my players back then weren't too keen on its premise. I scrapped GDQ, and mined it for ideas more suited to my own purposes.

- are they all dungeon crawl and hack'n'slash, or are there investigation, interaction, intrigue and plot twists?

T1-4 is basically a big mega dungeon. A1-4 is interesting if players can get over being captured. I think you may need to work that out better than presented in the material. GDQ is back to a dungeon crawl. The possibility for plot twists exist, (rival factions, etc) but aren't well spellt out; remember at this stage of the game's development, these kind of considerations were far more in the hands of the DM.

- I think to run them using C&C (I don't own AD&D 1e). Perhaps are AD&D 2e or 3.5 (I own both) a better option?

Don't know C&C. You should get by fine with 2e. 3.5 may need more work, as Giants are tougher.

- are there better published campaign for D&D? I seen some good review of the recent campaign "The Drow War" from Mongoose and it seems interesting. Is it a better campaign overall? Or perhaps Ptolus + Night of Dissolution + The Banewarrens?

I own none of these, so I'll dawdle off here.

 

[carmachu]

Ptolus + NoD + BW goes together quite well, it was kinda made that way.

 

[Enkhidu]

I've thought about doing similar things (connecting the A series and GDQ), but never included the Temple - level wise it tops out a bit too high for a smooth transition to the A series, and the PCs might end up cake walking through it.

If I were to do it, I might break things up like this:

- Start the T series normally. The T series lends itself well to hit and run forays, so lots of trips to the surface are in order. About halfway through, use one of the existing factions as a connector to the A series. Maybe someone important from Hommlet or Nulb gets rounded up and shipped off to Highport or something, or the PCs find that one of the elemental cults has ties to the slavers. In any case, find some method to encourage the PCs to head in the slavers' direction, and...

- Run A1, followed immediately by A2. A3 has a great deal of funky in it, so you can shelve it and give the PCs a reason to head back to the Temple and finish it up.

- After doing their Temple of Elemental Evil thang, give the PCs a lead on the slavers' citadel, and run A3. But don't plan on running A4, especially if you are using 3.5 to run this (and I suggest it would be as good as any other) as certain feats will break this module like fine china. Instead, take a look at the slaver baddies at the end of A4, combine them with the slaver baddies in A3, and mix well. Drop some, keep others, and make sure that you keep the drow from A4. The drow, of course, with the addition of some documents on her person, will lead directly to...

-GDQ. You can run this straight through.

Hope you have fun!

 

[Quasqueton]

This thread may be of help:
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=167628&page=1&pp=40

Notice how the PC levels advance when playing the Temple of Elemental Evil straight out of the book. The PCs can reach level ~9 by the end of ToEE, and so will be too high for the Slavelords adventures, but will be ready for the Giants adventures.

Quasqueton

 

[jodyjohnson]

We ran it as a previous campaign.

T1 then Slavers then back to work farther into T1-4 then off to GDQ. If sufficiently levelled return to complete T1-4.

T1-4 is a bit much to handle continuously. Transitions can be getting captured or needing a McGuffin or even just being called away from leisurely exploration and assaults on the Temple.

 

[Treebore]

An excellent adventure path to be sure. Once you read them I think the possibilities for linking them together will be leaping out of your skull.

Using C&C is an option ( a darn good one, I am biased to say) but you may want to Google OSRIC and use that for your 1E rules base. You can even get it published via Lulu.

 

[meomwt]

Check out this campaign journal which runs through T1-4 and GDQ1-7 (and then onto Epic stuff).

The DM shows how a transition from Temple to Giants can be made as part of the ongoing story. He also has a couple of good bits of fore-shadowing (and nicks a sequence from Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil to make life very interesting for one of the PC's).

Most of the material you plan to use is in 2e, so you would have to do a fair bit of conversion to the sourcebooks to run them. I'm surprised Treebore didn't pimp C&C more, but hey - that's his call If you have 2e and enjoy using it (and your players aren't averse to using it), I'd go with that.

 

[IanB]

Running them in 3.5 will require extensive conversion that gets more difficult as you go on. My group ended T1-4 somewhere around level 11-12, rather than level 8 like 1e characters typically do, which means that the A series opponents will generally need serious buffing up.

There are also some definite logistical problems with the modules as written in 3e terms; G1, for example, contains a room that has far more giants in it than you can fit in the room using 3e combat!