The Adventure Path modules by WotC

[Drawmack]

I recomend skipping Bastion of Unborn Souls (or somthing like that is it's title). It's not an adventure it's a training manual for killing an 18th level party.

 

[Grayhawk]

Thanks for all your replies so far.

As both a player and as a DM I prefer lower level play (1st to 12th level) in a lower magic level world, so obviously I'll be modifying the magic level in these modules.

Also, I believe 3e is too generous with the XP, so I'll modify that as well. This way the first 4 modules in the AP series will see me through at least a year worth of playing time, when I intersect some other modules, like I'm planning, in between.
(This is why I'm presently only interested in the first 4.)

"Speaker" would have been too twinkish for my particular campaign (Birthright).

What do you mean by 'too twinkish'?

 

[Kugar]

I recomend skipping Bastion of Unborn Souls (or somthing like that is it's title). It's not an adventure it's a training manual for killing an 18th level party.

Unless they have a vorpal weapon. Rasafrazen vorpal ... grumble ... never .... grumble .... heavy fortification .....

 

[Nail]

Have you read the "Story Hours" that feature the Adventure Path series? They give some excellent, in-depth, unique ways of running the modules.

Try an ENBoards favorite: Wulf Ratbane's story hour. It's a good read.

Try starting right here.....

 

[VorpalBunny]

I recomend skipping Bastion of Unborn Souls (or somthing like that is it's title). It's not an adventure it's a training manual for killing an 18th level party.

Bah. If you want to see a "How to" manual for TPK's pick up Necromancer Games' Necropolis. Makes Bastion of Broken Souls look like D&D day care.

 

[WizarDru]

Wulf's is certainly one of the best story hours on the boards, and uses the modules well. However, you'll note that Wulf himself basically points out that they never really figured out the plot of 'Speaker in Dreams', just piled up the dead bad guys.

My Story Hour (here) uses the first two core modules, then the town map and a few things from 'Speaker', and I abruptly dropped 'Standing Stone', which is, IMHO, features the worst plot of any AP series (lots of logical fallacies to be compensated for, poor plot design, mcguffins placed in the module purely to irritate the players, and so forth). 'Speaker' has an adequate plot, but the players really have very little input into it, when all is said and done. It's really just a collection of set pieces, unless the DM puts a lot of work into it.

Sunless Citadel is a good module to cut a group's teeth on, and has lots of good hooks and design. It can accomadate a variety of play and design styles. Forge of Fury, IMHO, is even better, as it rewards clever play, allows different PC classes to showcase their abilities and makes sense as a dungeon.

"Heart of Nightfang Spire" is a meatgrinder that is just arbitrary and mean-spirited. It makes for a good read, and starts strong...but then it just gets foul. In Wulf's story hour, you'll see that essentially the PCs got twinked to win it, and in my story hour, the PCs abandoned it angrily, after the third PC insta-death. There are some good ideas here, but some things are just plain mean, and unlike many of the AP modules, this one virtually requires a specific class in the party, a major design no-no, in my opinion.

"Deep Horizon" is just a set of stuff that you can explore, with little motivation or interest in doing so. It's a little better than just randomly rolling up a dungeon out of the DMG, but it has little flavor.

"Lord of the Iron Fortress" is a good extraplanar romp, that considers players' abilities at that level, details how to handle them for novice DMs (and emphasizes not punishing them for having them), and offers an interesting plot and many good, challenging encounters. Like Sunless Citadel and Forge of Fury, the Iron Fortress is an interesting place to go, and like those modules, it accomadates being dropped into a campaign with little fuss.

"Bastion of Broken Souls" is the only module I ever started using, and then actually terminated after two sessions. It makes "heart of Nightfang Spire" look like a wet kiss to the players. The very first encounter to start the module is basically a way to overwhelm the PCs with a CR 23 creature, then use a CR 21 NPC to pull their fat from the fire. The module is dedicated to shutting down half of the players abilities, such as high-level divination magic and the like. Like HoNS, the only way to get a party through the module is to play the monsters/NPCs as stupid, pull your punches, or alter it to be survivable. A battle in which players are essentially goaded into fighting a creature who can, unhasted, take 26 attacks per round doing 2d6+12? Yeah, sure.

They can be strung together using purely material in the modules themselves, as many contain little clues you could build upon to make a cohesive whole...but it's very threadbare in that respect. A nice touch in the NWN adaption of the modules is that while in "Forge of Fury' you find that the Duergar are, in fact, working for Imperagon, who is the afore-mentioned "Lord of the Iron Fortress."

 

[Oghma]

I've done (and am doing) the connect-the-modules style of campaign management, and I've come up with some things that really help make the campaign tie together.

Go through the modules you will use, and make a list of all the NPC's and important events that occur before each module. Figure out ahead of time where each module will (or *can*) take place.

Have the players meet NPC's from module #3 during module #1. Drop hints about events or history from module #4 during module #2. Even better, have an NPC from a later module become a friend to the characters, so that later on, when bad things happen to the NPC, the characters get involved to help out a character they know well.

Even better, have several modules of similar EL or level available, and leave hints for all of them. This gives the players more choice in where their characters go. You can always re-orient them to a later module if you need to.

Sometimes a location from a module can become the players main base, which is great if the location is detailed enough in the module.

Hope these ideas help!

 

[Shadowdancer]

I agree with Oghma, introduce hints and NPCs from later modules in the early modules. We have been running through the Adventure Path modules, and that's basically what I've been doing as DM.

For example, the main villian behind all of the problems in "Speaker in Dreams," I introduced off stage as the instigator of some plots in the PCs home city. When the PCs foiled his plots, he struck back, sending assassins after the PCs and the PCs families. I left enough evidence so that the PCs could figure out the name of who was behind all this, but they never encountered him -- only his minions and hirelings. So when they finally encountered him in "Speaker in Dreams," face to face, they wanted him -- badly. It made the outcome more satifsying and more meaningful to the PCs.

The way I've connected all the adventures so far (they're about to start on "Standing Stone") is that the PCs live in Greyhawk, or at least an alternate Greyhawk, a Greyhawk with a king. The king is old; he recently suffered a stroke, and is showing the beginning signs of Alzheimers. He has five children. He gets to name his own heir, but since he hasn't yet, the five children are all trying to gain support from various factions within the city and the kingdom to support their claims to the throne. The PCs are all friends with one of the King's sons. They have been going on little diplomatic missions with the prince to help him gain the support of important nobles and merchants.

 

[Kryndal Levik]

In my honest opinion, I think you'd probably get more bang for your buck out of some of the Necromancer Games "campaign" modules. I'm in the process of linking together Vault of Larin Karr with Hall of the Rainbow Mage, and I think it's going to turn out really well- granted, you need some filler between levels in some cases (especially in the beginning), but essentially those two adventures will take your party most of the way through to 10th level.

I'd be happy to share how I'm linking them, if you're interested...

 

[Grayhawk]

Thanks again for some great replies.

Have you read the "Story Hours" that feature the Adventure Path series? They give some excellent, in-depth, unique ways of running the modules.

Try an ENBoards favorite: Wulf Ratbane's story hour. It's a good read.

Thanks for pointing me to that. I read it up until The Heart of Nightfang Spire, and it was a good read.

My Story Hour (here) uses the first two core modules...

I'll check that out!

I've done (and am doing) the connect-the-modules style of campaign management, and I've come up with some things that really help make the campaign tie together.

Go through the modules you will use, and make a list of all the NPC's and important events that occur before each module. Figure out ahead of time where each module will (or *can*) take place.

Have the players meet NPC's from module #3 during module #1. Drop hints about events or history from module #4 during module #2. Even better, have an NPC from a later module become a friend to the characters, so that later on, when bad things happen to the NPC, the characters get involved to help out a character they know well.

Even better, have several modules of similar EL or level available, and leave hints for all of them. This gives the players more choice in where their characters go. You can always re-orient them to a later module if you need to.

Sometimes a location from a module can become the players main base, which is great if the location is detailed enough in the module.

Hope these ideas help!

That's excactly what I've been planning and currently am working on. Do you have any specifics you would want to share? (Like a NPC from a later module you introduced in an earlier one, and how.)

In my honest opinion, I think you'd probably get more bang for your buck out of some of the Necromancer Games "campaign" modules. I'm in the process of linking together Vault of Larin Karr with Hall of the Rainbow Mage, and I think it's going to turn out really well- granted, you need some filler between levels in some cases (especially in the beginning), but essentially those two adventures will take your party most of the way through to 10th level.

I'd be happy to share how I'm linking them, if you're interested...

Thanks for the offer, but I've already bought 3 of the Adventure Paths modules and have decided on using them. Maybe next time...

A nice touch in the NWN adaption of the modules is that while in "Forge of Fury' you find that the Duergar are, in fact, working for Imperagon, who is the afore-mentioned "Lord of the Iron Fortress."

I too played the NWN adaptions of the first two modules. These are still the only ones finished, right?