The Best & Worst of 3rd Edition: WotC Adventures and Locations (Winners Announced)

[Psion]

With the Book of Challenges making both lists.

Heh. Go figure.

I like it. But then, I like piecing together my own adventures more than published adventures, and find it a great product; I never get why some people don't like it.

(In fact, I missed it on first pass. I was SO put off by Stronghold Builder's Guide that I stopped buying WotC material for a while. Guess what the next book out was.)

 

[Shemeska]

FC:I stands out in my mind as one of the best books produced during 3rd edition's tenure. I'd also place it as one of the best planar themed D&D books ever produced, in a league with Faces of Evil, Hellbound, and Uncaged.

It's unfortunate for my opinion of FC:II that FC:I was as spectacular as it was, because FC:II falls far short by comparison, despite being a really good book.

I'm conflicted about Expedition to the Demonweb Pits, because I think it would have been a much better book if WotC hadn't forced the use of the "delve" format, which I find awkward to use and disruptive to the flow of the adventure. And the book also suffers from the horrible editing that many late 3.5 products had (it's like they stopped caring about QC once 4e was decided upon). I like it, but it suffers from a lot of drawbacks that hurt it, even if they're flaws that weren't the authors' fault.

And for the flip side of my opinions, i though that the fantastic location series was a needless waste of trees.

 

[Glyfair]

And the book also suffers from the horrible editing that many late 3.5 products had (it's like they stopped caring about QC once 4e was decided upon). I like it, but it suffers from a lot of drawbacks that hurt it, even if they're flaws that weren't the authors' fault.

I feel the same way about Eyes of the Lich Queen. Some comments from one of the authors lead me to believe that communications were at fault. Changes were made late in development and somewhere along the way certain maps didn't match up with encounter descriptions. At least one encounter where this happened was very different from the original intent of the author. Changes like they make are to be expected, but they should make sure the new encounter makes sense.

 

[haakon1]

Interesting. I agree with the top -- from what I own, Red Hand of Doom, Sunless Citadel, Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk, and Forge of Fury were among the products I most admire from 3.x.

But towards the bottom of the list, The Standing Stone appears. It's my favorite adventure in a LONG time, the only "mystery" adventure I've ever seen that works -- worked both when I was a player and as a DM later.

I guess it depends on what you're looking for from an adventure.

This is the adventures and locations ranked on the % of those that had an opinion on the product who liked the product

Top and bottom ten in bold.

Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss I LIKED 0.8990826
Red Hand of Doom I LIKED 0.8804348
Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells I LIKED 0.8514851
Sunless Citadel, The I LIKED 0.8490566
Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk I LIKED 0.8051948
Forge of Fury, The I LIKED 0.7959184
. . .
Standing Stone, The I LIKED 0.3529412
Twilight Tomb, The I LIKED 0.3333333
Fantastic Locations: Hellspike Prison I LIKED 0.3064516
Fantastic Locations: Fields of Ruin I LIKED 0.2962963
Fantastic Locations: Dragondown Grotto I LIKED 0.2941176
Fantastic Locations: The Frostfell Rift I LIKED 0.2909091
Anauroch: The Empire of Shade I LIKED 0.28125
Fantastic Locations: City of Peril I LIKED 0.2765957
Fantastic Locations: Fane of the Drow I LIKED 0.2727273
Expedition to Undermountain I LIKED 0.265625
Deep Horizon I LIKED 0.1451613

 

[Jhaelen]

But towards the bottom of the list, The Standing Stone appears. It's my favorite adventure in a LONG time, the only "mystery" adventure I've ever seen that works -- worked both when I was a player and as a DM later.

I guess it depends on what you're looking for from an adventure.

Having just DMed the module, I have to agree. My players seemed to have a good time with it (even during the labyrinth part, which I had feared might be a bit boring). I guess, for this kind of adventure to be successful depends a lot on the DMs style and the work put into preparing the adventure. I've also overhauled all of the encounters / npcs which might have helped.

It's a problem I experienced with the Call of Cthulhu RPG: The CoC adventures are pretty much all of the 'mystery' kind and they can be terrible with a bad DM and absolutely terrific with a good DM.

 

[TerraDave]

lets see if we can get some more votes before the next round...

 

[Derulbaskul]

I'm really intrigued that some people actually liked Ruins of Undermountain. I would love to hear why? Is there something good in there that I am missing?

 

[Psion]

But towards the bottom of the list, The Standing Stone appears. It's my favorite adventure in a LONG time, the only "mystery" adventure I've ever seen that works -- worked both when I was a player and as a DM later.

I like mystery adventures, but hated The Standing Stone. I felt the adventure was, for lack of a better term, rigged.

Mysteries are difficult enough as it is to run in RPG adventures. Seemingly obvious clues that you would assume a player would get are often passed by. This is not helped by deliberately obstructing reasonable attempts by players to solve the problem. Standing Stone does this. It admonishes the DM to evade attempts by the players to cut through the smokescreen and solve the problem, and the author pats himself on the back for this railroading by proxy.

Mystery adventures are great, but Standing Stone is not a great example of a mystery adventure.

 

[haakon1]

Mystery adventures are great, but Standing Stone is not a great example of a mystery adventure.

I've never seen a better one. But perhaps it works better with tweaking. In my class, I couldn't make sense out of the main villain, who seemed to be using powers that are not given to his race, so I switched to something that could actually do what he does. <shrug>

I also agree the labyrith had the potential to be boring, but I spiced it up a bit with additional monsters, and moved it along relatively quickly. When I did it early as a player, I remember thinking it was scary, not tedious, the way my DM ran it. Also, the coolness or not coolness of the conclusion helps. As a player, I saw it with an altered ending with traps at the center. As a DM, I made Saithnar cool, and had him duel a PC. They became sort of friends.

 

[TerraDave]

While the poll is still open, I am calling it:

The best adventure or location is Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss. However, the best "pure" adventure is Red Hand of Doom.

The top 12 below. The first number is raw votes for like. The second is the % that liked the product of total expressing an opinion on it. They are pretty closely correlated.

Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss 123| 0.9044118
Red Hand of Doom 100|0.8695652
Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells 104| 0.8595041
Sunless Citadel, The 115| 0.858209
Forge of Fury, The 98| 0.8099174
Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk 77| 0.7857143
Frostburn 97| 0.7637795
Expedition to Castle Ravenloft 72| 0.75
Stormwrack 89| 0.7177419
Sandstorm 84| 0.7
Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil 77| 0.6260163
Dungeonscape 67| 0.6146789

And the worst? Deep Horizon.

The bottom 12 are listed below. The first number is votes for disliked, the second the % that did not like that had an opinion on the product.

Deep Horizon 65| 0.833333
Fantastic Locations: Fane of the Drow 56| 0.708861
Fantastic Locations: Dragondown Grotto 43| 0.693548
Fantastic Locations: The Frostfell Rift I 45| 0.692308
Twilight Tomb, The 33| 0.6875
Fantastic Locations: Hellspike Prison 49| 0.680556
Fantastic Locations: Fields of Ruin 45| 0.671642
Standing Stone, The 56| 0.651163
Whispers of the Vampire's Blade 48| 0.607595
Scourge of the Howling Horde 39| 0.590909
Speaker in Dreams, The 55| 0.578947
Voyage of the Golden Dragon 37| 0.569231

Round 2 is on its way.