What are the "Essentials" line Adventure Path adventures?

[Dungeoneer]

What makes an adventure an 'Essentials' adventure, other than being published in a book that says 'essentials' on the cover?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Nothing really, you can use any adventure with either rules set. So yeah, it just means it came in an Essentials product basically.

 

[UnknownAtThisTime]

Right, my curiosity was more about collecting and trying to tie together the products that were released 'as' or 'near' Essentials. Nothing more intended.

 

[Locutus Zero]

The MV adventure suggests a hook if your group did the DM Kit adventure, but beyond the hook and the setting there is no connection.

 

[Dungeoneer]

Right, my curiosity was more about collecting and trying to tie together the products that were released 'as' or 'near' Essentials. Nothing more intended.

OK, just curious if there was some new formatting or whatever that set them apart. Haven't plunked down money for any Essentials products yet.

 

[UnknownAtThisTime]

OK, just curious if there was some new formatting or whatever that set them apart. Haven't plunked down money for any Essentials products yet.

For what it is worth, we have not and do not plan on playing "essentials style" characters, but all the Essentials products I bought have been good to very good.

 

[Locutus Zero]

I would say there is a very small amount of hand holding in the Harkenwold adventure. Things like "this is the first skill check of the adventure, so if you have never done a skill check before you should probably read up on them on page XX of the book that was included in this set". Also, I'd say the two adventures I have from DM Kit and MM are probably just better laid out and more user friendly than other adventures.

 

[Dave0047]

Okay, so I'm performing some slight thread necromancy, but I had to say something. Sorry, but a THANK YOU goes to the OP. I'm glad you spent the effort putting that list together, as it's nice to have some order to the chaos that is DDI + physical releases.

Much appreciated!

 

[vilani]

Thanks to the OP and other contributors for this list. I will be running my kids and wife through this as an introduction to "real" D&D over the Christmas break and this is exactly what I was looking for - an Adventure Path.

Did the OP or anyone else successfully run a mini-campaign with this list? If so how did it go? Any advice?

I also want to run the Ghostlight Fens with two my kids instead of a solo adventure and NPC. Any hook suggestions? One will be the person who got lost the other character will replace Sareth. Was thinking of putting the sword in the characters back-story to give them a reason to be there.

 

[Rune]

Has anyone played these adventures? I have the adventures from the DM Kit and the Monster Vault and I was wondering if they were good and if they should be started with the Red Box adventures.

Basically I have a group of mostly new players who I want to introduce to the game and we are doing this with just essentials classes and feats.

I condensed Reavers into three 2-hour sessions to run for complete RPG neophytes. It was a blast.