WotC's Classic Downloads--Are these modules any good?

[Li Shenron]

I have downloaded several of those free oldies. Although IMHO they are not among the best adventures (and I agree this is possibly the reason why they are free...), they are still decent sources of inspirations for your custom work. I wish that in the future WotC would provide more of these, at least those that are out of print and difficult to buy at fair prices.

 

[glass]

Feast of Goblyns (Grand Conjunction #1)
Ship of Horror (Grand Conjunction #2)
Touch of Death (Grand Conjunction #3)
Night of the Walking Dead (Grand Conjunction #4)
From the Shadows (Grand Conjunction #5)
Root of Evil (Grand Conjunction #6)

I have run Ship of Horrors, From the Shadows and Roots of Evil.

IMO, Ship of Horrors was a great little adventure. I still have it and firmly plan on running it again some day.

From the Shadows and Roots of Evil were great fun too, but VERY railroady. I would like to run them again, bu tI'd have to do some serious reworking to give the player more (or some ) freedom.


glass.


glass.

 

[S'mon]

B3 was the first big thing I ran in 3e! I had conversion problems - didn't realise how tough eg bears were in 3e - but generally it worked very well & I enjoyed it a lot. Despite showing the "Illusion of the Decapus" pic to the players without realising it had the subtitle visible... *blush*

 

[the Jester]

Very fun little dungeon crawl, but it'll need some work to convert to 3.5e, since it uses a few unique critters.

Actually most of them have been converted.

The spectator is in Lords of Madness.

The skelter and zombire are essentially bone and corpse creatures (from the Book of Vile Darkness- that was my first thought when I read those templates).

Even the ghoulstirge is in, hmm, I believe it is Tome of Horrors?

Edit: the big'un missing, of course, is the stone guardian. :\

 

[Echohawk]

Edit: the big'un missing, of course, is the stone guardian. :\

The Stone Guardian also appears in the Tome of Horrors, on page 152.

 

[VirgilCaine]

These are part of a series that didn't quite go according to plan. It was supposed to be a big world-changing event for Ravenloft, but plans changed and the order of adventures was shuffled a bit. Which explains why the actual level progression... isn't progressive. NotWD is the 1st level adventure, for instance.

FoG is okay, playable in most worlds. Lots of "city crawling."

SoH is very nice, if you have a coastal area you want to play in. Some good combat, a few railroady bits, but some good chances to do a bit of roleplay.

ToD is a desert adventure, so it's not as good if you aren't playing near an Egypt-style region. Not to mention it's going to end in a TPK if your players decide to stay for the end bit.

NotWD is my favorite of the set. Great low-level adventure, easily set in any swampy area (though you can cut out the swamp entirely if you want). Some great moments for the DM to set the mood, lots of little spots for fun combat, and you can use the prophecy to whatever ends you want.

The final two modules are really too tied into Ravenloft to pull of anywhere else. It's possible, but it'd be a helluva lot of work. Haven't played or run, but I've heard they're incredibly rail-roady.

Thanks!

NotWD, FoG, SoH--three good modules out of six, this could be worse.

I can easily use Touch of Death--I've got loads of desert in my homebrew.

The last two I might could use anyway--no reason Ravenloft can't exist in my world if I ever decide to use 'em.


I had the whole batch of adventures, including L2, but something kept screwing up Windows Explorer whenever I went into the folders, so I had to download all of them again, and I missed L2. Thank you.

Personally, I think B3 is a pretty poorly-designed adventure (in either version). The whole "dungeon" level doesn't make any sense, and it makes even less sense when you consider that the only way out of the palace is via the dungeon ....

I'm a DM, not an automaton. I can fix the latter. What about the former?

 

[TerraDave]

From what I hear, some are good, but it might be worth spending the $5 for something better that you are also more likely to find a conversion for.

 

[radferth]

I11 is a bit weird for my taste. I remember scratching my head a lot when I read through it. The old orange B3 they have is a bit odd. I remember the regular green version being fun as long as you didn't think about it too hard. I would never run the orange version as written, especially with the weird 3-headed guys, but its great fixer-upper at the price.

 

[VirgilCaine]

I11 is a bit weird for my taste. I remember scratching my head a lot when I read through it. The old orange B3 they have is a bit odd. I remember the regular green version being fun as long as you didn't think about it too hard. I would never run the orange version as written, especially with the weird 3-headed guys, but its great fixer-upper at the price.

Hey! I LIKE those three headed guys!