WotC's Epic Adventures

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I remember that a few people were wondering about the recent stat blocks on high level monsters and that they seemed to deal a lot of damage. I wonder if this is a sign they are seeing the issue?

 

[jbear]

This is exactly the advice I was hoping for when I started the thread. And this is why I'm taking three months to prep the adventure path for my group.

I started reading E1 in depth last night.

A major failure I noticed right away was the first section: The player's are advised to do some research to figure out what is going on. Instead of this being a number of minor quest skill challenges, each piece of knowledge is presented as a straight up skill check. IMHO this is a serious mistake and failure to take advantage of one of the best features of 4E (that being skill challenges). Too, the journey through Zvomarana and the tests should be skill challenges, IMO.

Scanning some of the encounter areas, I saw a few places that basically said "if the adventurers were clever enough to get to this point without combat, the antagonists are wise to them via some deus ex machina and will fight to the death". That's just unnecessary. Why did the authors feel they had to pull crap like that?

I think it's a good idea to read through any module and build upon what is there. In all fairness to the WotC modules, I have had to do this with Goodman Games Dungeon Crawl Modules for 4e as well. The stories are great, and loads of flavour to inspire you but they definitely have their major flaws as well. There are plenty of encounters where terrain isn-t even a factor, which is an error in encounter design for 4e. WotC often receives a lot of flack over their adventures, but are we really being as similarly critical of other companies adventure modules when they are flawed? I take modules as starting points from which to take off and let my imagination roam until I come up with stuff that I think will be awesome for my players. Don't always get there, but very often do! And it would be a lot more work without that starting point, I'm quite sure.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

Well, Jbear, if you're saying that the problem is with 4e epic tier math, that doesn't make WotC adventures good...it just adds a compounding problem onto all 4e adventures.


Goodman does do great 4e adventures, as far as I can tell.

 

[Wormwood]

Oddly, I haven't noticed this problem with the Epic tier of the Scales of War AP. We're just starting out, but so far it's pretty challenging stuff.

 

[TikkchikFenTikktikk]

I do really like the way WotC has presented these adventures.

Book one has high level overviews for the major areas and plot points. It also has DMG/MM-type info like new monster stat blocks, adventure hooks, artifact and magic item statblocks, and area-maps.

Book two has lower-level details. Each potential combat encounter location has it's info spread over two facing pages. Every encounter I've scanned has a good amount of info on what the area looks like, including lighting, some unique terrain, encounter-specific tactics for the monsters, and a detailed tactical map, and consequences of success.

The poster maps are all gorgeous. But whe is there only one sheet per adventure? This is especially a problem in E3 where Orcus's stronghold is HUGE but you only get a couple of areas on the poster.

Come on, WotC. You've already paid for the entire map, as demonstrated by the whole maps shown in book one and the tactical-level maps in book two. It can't add more than cents to the production price to add poster maps, and would massively increase the perceived value of these relatively expensive adventures.

 

[Netherstorm]

Oddly, I haven't noticed this problem with the Epic tier of the Scales of War AP. We're just starting out, but so far it's pretty challenging stuff.

Really? Did you run the hydra encounter in Betrayal at Monadhan? Or the desecration fight in the graveyard? That desecration was.. well, a desecration.

 

[Wormwood]

Really? Did you run the hydra encounter in Betrayal at Monadhan? Or the desecration fight in the graveyard? That desecration was.. well, a desecration.

To be fair, the hydra was intended to be a chance for the PCs to flex their newfound Epic Muscles. The Desecration was a bit of grind, but not a cakewalk.

Solos don't work so well in Epic, but that's fairly well known. I'm waiting for the final encounter before I render a final opinion.

 

[Jhaelen]

The poster maps are all gorgeous. But whe is there only one sheet per adventure? This is especially a problem in E3 where Orcus's stronghold is HUGE but you only get a couple of areas on the poster.

Yep! That's what I thought, too. Especially considering how difficult it would be to draw the maps.

I understand that more poster maps would make modules more expensive, though.

What I'm actually looking for are poster maps that have high reusability. E.g.the one in P1 was great. And apparently the one in the forthcoming HS1 will be very useful, too.

 

[Celebrim]

The stories are great, and loads of flavour to inspire you but they definitely have their major flaws as well. There are plenty of encounters where terrain isn-t even a factor, which is an error in encounter design for 4e.

In my opinion, it's an error in design for any edition; the 4e designers (correctly) highlighted this fact.

 

[Whimsical]

I think jbear means that lack of terrain elements is considered a design error by 4th ed. encounter design standards. The box for "terrain" is left unchecked in the 4th ed. encounter checklist.