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<blockquote data-quote="Jefe Bergenstein" data-source="post: 6511142" data-attributes="member: 31506">Vecna Lives is pretty widely considered to be terrible. This review sums up its flaws, nicely, but the fact that it requires all the gods to be idiots and the players RP the Circle of Eight as complete boobs in order to get wiped out. How exactly did they reach such high levels when their plan of investigation consists of &quot;run into an unknown tomb with no preparation&quot;.<a href="http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/classic/rev_2525.phtml" target="_blank">http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/classic/rev_2525.phtml</a>For all its bright spots, 5th edition is pretty terrible at &quot;party vs one thing&quot; and really should have stolen more from 4E in terms of &quot;simulating stories&quot; of heroes vs. an epic evil. I guess give Vecna the lair power of &quot;Gains 2000 temporary HP&quot; or something, because 8 wizards vs anything is going to be a joke, as he'll be focus fired to death the first round. I'd personally skip the terrible intro and just flash to the actual PC's catching glimpses of their mentor's deaths, and run it with them around 7th level. Knowing the Circle was killed by the thing you now have to go against should be scary enough without them having to sit through the cheating and railroading required to kill them in game time. On the other hand, Return to White Plume Mountain is friggin amazing, superior to the original IMO. Drop the Keraptis virus spells an adventure or two earlier, let the casters rejoice at their new power, then freak out as they realize they've essentially memorized a Trojan horse designed to subsume their identity. The faction themes of the various false keraptis are fun, and most of the encounter pieces can be quite memorable. Our favorite was Mossmutter, where the monk got swallowed so he could spelunk through its body to tear up the moldy scroll at its heart. The bizarre Keraptis Resistance fighters were also pretty memorable, and restoring Nix (or Nox, whichever) to himself resulted in adding a pair of long term antagonists to the game.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Jefe Bergenstein, post: 6511142, member: 31506"] Vecna Lives is pretty widely considered to be terrible. This review sums up its flaws, nicely, but the fact that it requires all the gods to be idiots and the players RP the Circle of Eight as complete boobs in order to get wiped out. How exactly did they reach such high levels when their plan of investigation consists of "run into an unknown tomb with no preparation". [url]http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/classic/rev_2525.phtml[/url] For all its bright spots, 5th edition is pretty terrible at "party vs one thing" and really should have stolen more from 4E in terms of "simulating stories" of heroes vs. an epic evil. I guess give Vecna the lair power of "Gains 2000 temporary HP" or something, because 8 wizards vs anything is going to be a joke, as he'll be focus fired to death the first round. I'd personally skip the terrible intro and just flash to the actual PC's catching glimpses of their mentor's deaths, and run it with them around 7th level. Knowing the Circle was killed by the thing you now have to go against should be scary enough without them having to sit through the cheating and railroading required to kill them in game time. On the other hand, Return to White Plume Mountain is friggin amazing, superior to the original IMO. Drop the Keraptis virus spells an adventure or two earlier, let the casters rejoice at their new power, then freak out as they realize they've essentially memorized a Trojan horse designed to subsume their identity. The faction themes of the various false keraptis are fun, and most of the encounter pieces can be quite memorable. Our favorite was Mossmutter, where the monk got swallowed so he could spelunk through its body to tear up the moldy scroll at its heart. The bizarre Keraptis Resistance fighters were also pretty memorable, and restoring Nix (or Nox, whichever) to himself resulted in adding a pair of long term antagonists to the game. [/QUOTE]

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