One thing I thought was compelling from a GM standpoint is that it was very adaptable. Monte went into the specifics of each faction, listed the general characteristics that a replacing faction from your campaign might have, and pointed out salient figures in the book, so the GM didn't have to fish out this sort of stuff himself.
one more thing, i know it isn't as important to some people, but the art rocks.
conservative, b+w work. all but a few (excelent) illus are pushed to the back of the book where they are numbered and ready to show to your party. everyhting is in pencil, so it has a "fresh from the drawing board" look that i really like.
the single illo on page 11 is worth most rpg books whole art collection alone.
Did you fellas know that there's a brand spanking new SPOILER tag, now?
Simply use it like this: [*SPOILER]Hidden text[*/SPOILER] and don't use the asterisks.
For Example:
Darth Vader is really Luke Skywalker's Father!
As for the Banewarrens, it's got the hallmark of one of Monte's best qualities: flexibility. It allows you to customize it, and offers enough flavor that you can tailor it more or less to your individual needs as a DM. It's not great, as it suffers from the 'runs too long' problem of most mega-modules, but it's still got a great plot and is full of interesting characters and setting.
There are tons of traps and magical portals which a 10th lvl caster or high ranked rogue may not find too challenging. you may want to bump up a few levels on some of the factions too.
you might want to check out a campaign log in the banewarrens forum at montecook.com called the vaults of farsida [or some similar-sounding middle-eastern name] by a poster whose tag begins with v [sorry, too lazy to go back and forth between sites right now]. he's running it with high-level characters and has posted some of the conversions he's made. it's also a great story with rich characters and backdrop. i apologize again for the lack of precision in this post.
Did you fellas know that there's a brand spanking new
As for the Banewarrens, it's got the hallmark of one of Monte's best qualities: flexibility. It allows you to customize it, and offers enough flavor that you can tailor it more or less to your individual needs as a DM. It's not great, as it suffers from the 'runs too long' problem of most mega-modules, but it's still got a great plot and is full of interesting characters and setting.
I was able to adapt the factions in to factions for my game world, did not have to change too much to get things to fit.
What I find humorus is your comment of "Runs too long like other Mega-Modules." Well Duh ! It is a Mega-Module. It can be a campaing in its own right. With that in mind, there are natural breaks in the module that you can split up sections or re-write some parts. The main Dungeon itslef is huge. And It will take a long time to get though.
One thing that stands out is that most of the "traps" make sense considering the purpose of the dungeon. It was desing to keep things in as well as to keep people out from opening it.
It is a Mega-Module. It can be a campaing in its own right. With that in mind, there are natural breaks in the module that you can split up sections or re-write some parts. The main Dungeon itslef is huge. And It will take a long time to get though.
