Your favorite 1st level module?

[Barendd Nobeard]

Here's another vote for U1 - The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh.

If your group likes it, there are two more in the series - U2 - Danger at Dunwater and U3 - The Final Enemy.

It's a 1st edition module, but there are conversions floating around on the web. Even if you can't find a conversion, most of the monsters were pretty vanilla, and you could use stats right out of the MM. Only a few NPCs/monsters had levels, so there's not a lot of work to convert this module.

WotC had all three of these up as free downloads (text, maps, and artwork) at one point.

 

[Morpheus]

Here's another vote for U1 - The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh.

The Sinister Secret was the investigation of a haunted house. After the PCs investigate the house, they get swept up in events that have a big effect on Saltmarsh and the surrounding environment. A very good module-if you can find the conversion for 3e. If you can't, The Crucible of Freya is solid.

 

[Roland Delacroix]

Of Sound Mind is tremendous fun: at DragonCon this weekend, I got to run a bunch of people through the first half of it. They gaped when the [details omitted] opened their mouths and [details omitted].

HAHA! That part was GREAT! Two of players wandered into the [details omitted] to check up on [details omitted]. When the first guy left the 2nd, a dwarf wizard, alone in the field. You should seen the dwarfs face when the [details omitted] all of a sudden gave him the 'evil eye' and he failed his save! Classic!

Hands down, Of Sound Mind is an excellent module. I played it then bought it and ran it, great fun both times. It can be scaled up to about 4th level too.

 

[Richards]

You can check out "Gorgoldand's Gauntlet" at the Dungeons and Dragons Adventures website here. The adventure is short on combat and long on puzzle-solving, but best of all, it's FREE!

You'll have to scroll down the page to find it, but while you're there, check out the other freebies on the site.

Johnathan

 

[Furn_Darkside]

Hmm, how about a tie-

Death in Freeport

and/or

The Longest Night

Of course, my goober players pulled off a tpk in the latter, but that is not the adventure's fault.

FD

 

[Hammerhead]

Of Sound Mind. I cannot stress this strongly enough. It has everything I could possibly want in an adventure, except for its length; only a few sessions. I, for one, cannot wait for a new campaign where I can my hapless players through it.

 

[Geoffrey]

B1: In Search of the Unknown, by Mike Carr

It's a classic dungeon perfect for beginners.

 

[rounser]

If you want an adventuring environment to explore, with a bit of elbow grease you could rename and remix the best bits from some or all of:

L1 Secret of Bone Hill (the detailed terrain around Restenford and Restenford itself)
T1 Village of Hommlet (the Moathouse and Hommlet)
N5 Under Illefarn (the quicky adventures, Daggerford and the ruins of Illefarn)
B2 Keep on the Borderlands (the Keep, the caves, the hermit)
DL1 Dragons of Despair (Solace, the wilderness encounters and Xak Tsaroth, draconians replaced with lizardfolk to tie in with Under Illefarn)
FRC1 Ruins of Adventure (the ruined city of Phlan and the wilderness lairs)

...into quite a stonking little campaign...perhaps throwing in Gorgoldand's Gauntlet for good measure. That lot would make a fine mini-setting for you with everything renamed, put within miles of each other, and the serial numbers shaved off.

On it's own, B10 Night's Dark Terror (high quality low level campaign adventure....review here) is worth a look.

 

[National Acrobat]

What's Your Favorite 1st Level Module?

Mine has to be the 'Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh'. It has it all, RP and frenzied combat, plus it is part mystery and part scary dungeon crawl. Heck, it even has a haunted house by the sea. You just can't beat that!

 

[Rune]

I'm going to have to vote "Of Sound Mind" as well. If you've ever read Piratecat's story hour and thought about what a rat-bastardly wonderful DM he is (and he is...he did just win best RPGA judge at GenCon for the second year in a row, ya know), you need to check this out. It has lots of P-kitty's creativity and evil all bundled into one great little package. Plus, it has counters done by Claudio Pozas.

Get it. Run it.

Then, write about it in the story hour forum.