![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jcfialaWay back in 2002, someone I knew in the local D&D scene posted, saying that he wanted to try running through 'Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil' entire, and was looking for a judge and players. I happened to have a copy, so I agreed to judge it.
Saturday night, we finished, after several years of meeting once a month, and sometimes once every two months. Wow. It's so cool to have wrapped it up.
RttToEE is a mega-module - half an inch thick, it was one of the few modules that Wizards of the Coast released with the new 3rd Edition of D&D. They had just started up the D20 license, and they were expecting other companies to write the modules, while they got to publish the juicy money-making core books. (See, a GM is the only guy who buys modules - approximately 15%-20% of the market - and everybody buys books that contain feats and prestigue classes - which is approximately 100% of the market.) But to prime the pump they released about eight normal sized modules, and this monster, which goes from about 4th level up to 14th at the end.
It was huge when it was released, and it has it's weaknesses. There's a huge dungeon crawl (well, it's almost all dungeon crawl, but this is a big chunk of it) in the middle that tends to kill the momentum of the roleplaying of the group. There's a lot of treasure in the book that gets repeatitive - at one point, we all agreed not to keep track of arrows anymore. I figured they would just have enough, really. And it's got some inconsistancies - if all they have to do is dig up the four elemental nodes to get at these evil princes, why are they busy expanding the upper levels and not digging up the other nodes?
There's also a lot of the imbalance of 3rd edition that's really gotten me to appreciate 3.5's changes. Skill bonuses were too easy to get in the original ruleset, which lead to the archer having about a +25 or +30 on his Search skill. Since he was an Elf, he basically just had to walk past the walls to find any secret doors. (He also had a similarly huge hide and move silently skill.) The archer also had some seriously hideous damage bonuses on his arrows, to the point where he would sometimes crit for about 72 points of damage. If I ever run a game with these characters, we're going to convert to 3.5, and I'm going to be willing to be draconic about this sort of thing.
But I'm due a break, so I'm taking it. :)
Done! Done!
Saturday night, we finished, after several years of meeting once a month, and sometimes once every two months. Wow. It's so cool to have wrapped it up.
RttToEE is a mega-module - half an inch thick, it was one of the few modules that Wizards of the Coast released with the new 3rd Edition of D&D. They had just started up the D20 license, and they were expecting other companies to write the modules, while they got to publish the juicy money-making core books. (See, a GM is the only guy who buys modules - approximately 15%-20% of the market - and everybody buys books that contain feats and prestigue classes - which is approximately 100% of the market.) But to prime the pump they released about eight normal sized modules, and this monster, which goes from about 4th level up to 14th at the end.
It was huge when it was released, and it has it's weaknesses. There's a huge dungeon crawl (well, it's almost all dungeon crawl, but this is a big chunk of it) in the middle that tends to kill the momentum of the roleplaying of the group. There's a lot of treasure in the book that gets repeatitive - at one point, we all agreed not to keep track of arrows anymore. I figured they would just have enough, really. And it's got some inconsistancies - if all they have to do is dig up the four elemental nodes to get at these evil princes, why are they busy expanding the upper levels and not digging up the other nodes?
There's also a lot of the imbalance of 3rd edition that's really gotten me to appreciate 3.5's changes. Skill bonuses were too easy to get in the original ruleset, which lead to the archer having about a +25 or +30 on his Search skill. Since he was an Elf, he basically just had to walk past the walls to find any secret doors. (He also had a similarly huge hide and move silently skill.) The archer also had some seriously hideous damage bonuses on his arrows, to the point where he would sometimes crit for about 72 points of damage. If I ever run a game with these characters, we're going to convert to 3.5, and I'm going to be willing to be draconic about this sort of thing.
But I'm due a break, so I'm taking it. :)
Done! Done!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-10-19 09:23 pm (UTC)The arrival of the island became part of the metaplot for the next campaign.
Which we started at 2nd level.
Evilhalfling/Jon
resident of enworld/denver
no subject
Date: 2005-10-20 12:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-20 12:42 am (UTC)I'd say just shorten it, but then you're going to have to deal with the EL of the rooms in the Inner and outer Fanes, as well as at the end. (However, with some of the twinking they'd done, my characters were only 12th level when they went up against the EL18 final encounter. :)
You might be able to deal with the swing of the difference between character progression as assumed and what you get with a shorter CRM by allowing players to buy whatever magic items they want vs a more limited selection: that's part of what I suspect caused the power growth in my game.
But I'd also suggest heading over to Monte Cook's forums, where he's got a large selection of information: errata, 3.5 conversions, and more.