D&D 4E Which of the Wizards 4e H-E adventure have you played or run?

[Stumblewyk]

A friend of mine showed me the RPGA reward version of Tomb of Horrors, and it looks great! It's a definite dungeon crawl, but all of the traps are imaginative and there're tons of puzzles. The plot is garbage, of course (mad wizard makes dungeon just to mess with adventurers) but as an adventure it looks fantastic. I will be back with a trip report later.

I'm going to refrain from *headdesking* and just ask the question: do you not know that the RPGA reward Tomb of Horrors is a 4e update of an old Gary Gygax-penned 1e module, and the 2e update/expansion that was added to it?

It is strongly implied that the Demilich Acererak draws life energy from the adventurers who are slain in the Tomb, and the Bleak Academy that has sprung up around the Tomb encourages adventurers to enter the dungeon in the hopes that their life energies, once captured will help bring Acererak back.

 

[TerraDave]

A friend of mine showed me the RPGA reward version of Tomb of Horrors, and it looks great! It's a definite dungeon crawl, but all of the traps are imaginative and there're tons of puzzles. The plot is garbage, of course (mad wizard makes dungeon just to mess with adventurers) but as an adventure it looks fantastic. I will be back with a trip report later.

This is somewhat confusing. As the hardback book I was of course refering to is named "Tomb of Horrors". Even though it really is an update of the 2E Return to the Tomb of Horrors. And it contains a different version of Tomb of Horrors then the one to which you refer, also called "Tomb of Horrors". All 4E of course.

In any case, I would love to get that Tomb of Horrors, and put it in this other Tomb of Horrors. Maybe on Ebay.

 

[napoleonbuff]

My party is just wrapping up P1.

I think the biggest single issue with all these adventures is that they're far too long. Instead of covering 3-4 levels, most should be 1-2.

Toward this end, I've switched to removing all but the most interesting or important encounters and filling level gaps with other short adventures.

 

[Roland55]

I did H1 and H2, then ran out of steam (and players) mid-way through H3.

 

[Wrathamon]

I ran H1 3 times with 3 different groups... the first time I like the first half of the module... till you get to the dungeon portion. Then it bogs down into a grind.

I ran it for another group and only left in the most interesting rooms and cutting out a lot of the 2nd level and it ran a lot better.

The third time I used the free update on the website and kept trimmed dungeon from the 2nd pass with a few tweaks.

Overall, its an okay adventure and is was fun for 1st timers with the tweaks. We had some fun RP during the 1st half.

I also ran p1 and p2

I enjoyed p1 but I needed to start tweaking it heavily as my group wasnt setup for Trolls. They enjoyed the first part of the adventure but after awhile the encounters would take a very long time... but my group was very strategic and figured out how to sneak around and avoid some of the encounters. Once they started roleplaying and thinking about how to avoid trolls, they got into it and it became very fun. The feywild portion was also interesting as it mixed things up. I cut out one of the encounters there to speed things along.

P2 is by far the best of the published 4e adventures I have ran. It could play out differently every time I run it. The sandbox style layout of the town and the faction based nature of the encounters makes for some great RP and non-combat tactical choices for the player. Its really up to the DM to figure out how best to run this. It isnt just a linear adventure that you can coast on. The only failing is that its very easy to miss huge portions of this adventure by being too straight forward. The last portion is epic but my group by this point avoided most of the combats by being diplomatic and RP and it worked out very well.

I am currently playing through portions of P3 and the encounters are decent. The DM has changed the story and flow so I cant really comment more.

 

[Gort]

I'm going to refrain from *headdesking* and just ask the question: do you not know that the RPGA reward Tomb of Horrors is a 4e update of an old Gary Gygax-penned 1e module, and the 2e update/expansion that was added to it?

Yep, I know. It's still a 4e module, and a good one at that. I just ran the first bit, and my players are liking all the puzzles and traps (well, maybe they like the puzzles more than the traps ) and I'm having a blast. I dunno, maybe I just prefer the "deathtrap dungeon" approach.

 

[Pickles JG]

I started H1 when it was preview & ran it & H2 then skipped H3 as it looked v awful. We are just finishing my intervening story arc & will start P1 hopefully in October (We play monthly & often skip, 3 of the players are using the pregens ...).

H1 was fun up to the Dungeon which was a bit arbitary & too long. 6/10.

H2 I liked a lot but I did not run it was well as I could have - our long gaps broke continuity & so the development around the 7 Pillared Hall was lacking. The PCs seemed to be tracking lost slaves for about a year. I like the sub dungeons & the fact they were the same type of monster as they were variations on the theme. The Green Dragon was one of the most fun solo encounters I have seen - the traps made it so. Anyway its 7.5 out of 10

H3 looked really annoying - lots of hostile untrustworthy factions & a "lock in". I did not long consider running it.

P1 looks qute fun if grindy. I plan to slim it & let the characters get to the point faster. Needs more RP in it I feel. I do not use XP so I can easily level them at the right rate (ie even faster - it's still a lot of player weeks at a level even if it's not a lot of adventure time ). It reads like a 5-7

P2 looks great. It the reason I want to keep going. I must prep it properly to get the full RP benefits of allying &c. I plan to stop after this as it will be late 2012 - almost 4 years of play. ooks 9/10 ish.

I have been going through reducing the amount of enemy controllers & MM3 ing the monsters (lower defences on elites, more damage, revised attack bonuses & lower levels where the changes make them look much tougher.)

My party is just wrapping up P1.

I think the biggest single issue with all these adventures is that they're far too long. Instead of covering 3-4 levels, most should be 1-2.

Toward this end, I've switched to removing all but the most interesting or important encounters and filling level gaps with other short adventures.

This really. 2 levels per adventure works for me & but I do not need filler as I just level people when I want to - not a probelm given my slow rate of play.