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View Full Version : New DM solicits opinions on "H1 Keep on the Shadowfell"



Von Zinzer
2011-08-30, 10:42 AM
Long time lurker, first time poster here...

In brief, and having seen it mentioned in some other posts, do y'all have an opinion on "H1 Keep on the Shadowfell" and its sequels? I am an experienced 3.5/Pathfinder player and have DMed a couple of 4e one-shots, but never a more involved campaign. Is this a decent place to start as far as fun goes?

Thanks for your input! You've all been very helpful throughout my lurkdom.

Sipex
2011-08-30, 10:54 AM
I've played in it and it's a good start for a group who's not played D&D before.

However, it's fairly easy for an optimised group. It's also very combat oriented, which might sit wrong to those who are prejudiced against 4e as it is (or those coming from 3.5 who have only heard rumours).

That said, if you're playing with a group that doesn't mind combat (or enjoys it) then you just need to up the ante on some of the encounters depending on how well your group fares.

Emongnome777
2011-08-30, 10:59 AM
You'll probably find several people that don't like it, but I've DM'd over half of it and enjoy it fairly well. Here are my thoughts:

>> The price is right (it's free!).

>> It's a standard hack-n-slash adventure, pretty much par for the course for most WotC stuff going back previous editions.

>> Whether or not it's "fun" is dependent on what kind of playing style you and your group has. Like I said, it's a linear hack-fest mostly, so if you like that kind of adventure, then it'll be fun. If not, then you'll either have to make lots of changes or head a different direction.

>> It was written when 4E first came out, so there's lots of explanations in the adventure, which can be handy. The problem is that there's been lots of errata since then, so that stuff may be outdated.

>> Along the same lines as above, the combats can drag on. I fixed it by adding 33% to enemy damage and reducing their hit points by the same. Speedier combats, just as deadly.

>> It does spec out a town for you to use more often and it's based in the Nentir Vale (see DMG). There are plenty of hooks out there to let you create more adventures yourself.

>> It ties into Thunderspire Labyrinth, so check that one out if you want to go on after that (can't comment on it, not ran it yet).

>> If you need to spice up the encounters, I'd try to work in some interesting terrain. I'm not doing it very well myself, but I'd say it could be done easily.

Von Zinzer
2011-08-30, 11:14 AM
(Thanks for the quick replies!)

I got the impression that it was pretty hack-n-slash. I figured that'd be ok as the 3.5 game I'm in right now ("A Mosaic of Ashes") is pretty political and the group might prefer a straight fight to all this sneaking around.

@Sipex - The group is pretty experienced in 3.5 and will probably roll with a balanced/optimised party. I'm not worried about their 4e prejudices, really, they were all pretty cool with the one-shots. Some of the other active threads have provided me with ideas about "upping the ante" (see the "solo monsters" thread!). Thanks for the input!

@Emongnome777 - I like the idea of the specced out town that I can expand from, and the tie-in to Thunderspire is appealing too. I kind of hope to use this adventure as a jumping off point for the party. re: errata, how critical are the changes? (Kind of a noob question, sorry. :smallredface:)

INDYSTAR188
2011-08-30, 11:59 AM
I've ran through it as a player. We were all new to 4e and two of us had previous DnD experience (3.5). In my opinion it's a nice, easy way to introduce a campaign and the new 4e rules (keeping in mind that there are probably some errata replacing some of the old rules). There are a few highlight fights and I remember - the fight with Irontooth in the cave and the final fight w/Khalarel (spelling) being a lot of fun. I decided not to use it for my current campaign but will run the Thunderspire Labryth which I've heard is pretty awesome. It's almost definetly worth your time as you can take the story and refluff/change monsters to make it harder or fit your campaign ideas and it introduces your players to your new game.

Sipex
2011-08-30, 12:07 PM
Oh yeah, the dungeon layout is pretty cool, playing through it was very fun.

Question: Does the module include the battle under the shop, the battle at the excavation site, the kobold caves and an attack on the road? We had those in my game but I'm not sure if that was extra stuff the DM included or if it's part of the package.

edit: I ask because we had snazzy pre-made maps for each of the locations so I'm not sure if he took them from somewhere else or if they're included as part of the campaign.

ShaggyMarco
2011-08-30, 12:17 PM
I don't remember a battle under a shop, but the rest are definitely there (I played through it when 4ed first came out as a player. Gnoll Infernal-Lok ftw!)

Emongnome777
2011-08-30, 04:05 PM
There are two add-ons that came on in Dungeon (I think). One was a few extra encounters and the other one was a Forgotten Realms conversion. The FR conversion had the battle under the shop (Barawin). The other three Sipex mentioned were in the original adventure. The FR conversion battles can easily be made to fit into the adventure. Note that when you add encounters, the characters level up quicker than the adventure will account for. You may have to toughen up some encounters. Granted, that will also add unaccounted-for experience, creating something of a cycle, unless you toughen up some and leave others out.

As for the errata, nothing jumps out at me to fix the adventure, but it's free and it does fix some things, mostly for the good. Worth looking at unless it'll just add more stuff to worry about. If you don't use any errata, you probably won't see any problems unless your players are really high-op and spend a great deal of time reading about builds. One thing is the skill challenge (Sir Keegan). SCs have been updated for the better. Look up the errata there for the DMG.

Malek
2011-08-30, 04:25 PM
Keep on the Shadowfell is workable, but many people consider it one of the worse modules out there. You should probably check Dungeon magazien archive - I believe a few early 4e Dungeons still are free to view, and they should contain the first adventure or two from Scales of War adventure path, which got much warmer opinions.

If it's not an option (be it because they pulled the early dungeons behind the pay wall or because you're set on running KotS) one thing I'd recommend looking out for is the two-parted kobold cave encounter. First thing to remember is that you probably should disregard the note about slinger alerting the kobolds inside, as it can end up nasty, and the other and more important one - by all the gods in various D&D pantheons, be ready to wing it when the party goes to face Irontooth. That guy is a monster, even after they updated him, and it's still possible to get player characters killed there, especially if players didn't have any experience with 4e before :smalleek:

surfarcher
2011-08-30, 05:56 PM
If you want to run KotS give serious consideration to using one of it's rebuilds instead.

I'm quite partial to The Alexandrian's Remix (http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/keep-shadowfell/kots-remix.html) and The Orcus Conversion (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19921178/H1-H3:_Demon_Prince_of_Undeath_Conversion) myself.

The former is great for a new 4e DM because it explains what's wrong with the original and then explores how best to fix it.

The latter is cool because it actually threads H1-H3 and P3 into a series of interrelated modules (aka a campaign arc).

Drglenn
2011-08-30, 06:41 PM
Don't know if its been officially changed but some of the XP math was off in the original, for example the Kruthik encounter's XP was 1.5-2 times the the total XP for the monsters in the encounter

Snowbody
2011-08-30, 10:43 PM
I'm DMing Keep on the Shadowfell here on the forums as a PbP. Or at least I was until all my players went back to school or got married. Maybe it will pick up again in a few weeks.

Anyway, here are some of my impressions of it. The key seems to be, "Don't expect too much."
- Don't expect a sensible plot. The "Alexandrian" commentary on it very clearly points out how many of the BBEG's actions are nonsensical (though to balance things out, many of the good NPCs' actions don't make sense either). But as long as the players don't think too much about those sorts of things, it shouldn't be a problem.
- Don't expect much in the way of out-of-combat encounters. The module is designed to lead you from combat encounter to combat encounter, with minimal social interaction in between. The skill challenges are dull and poorly thought out, and the NPCs are mostly empty shells spouting preprogrammed lines. I think the Alexandrian calls them "CRPG quest-givers" (think Final Fantasy I or Legend of Zelda on the NES).
- Don't expect dungeon design to be anything resembling realistic. Don't ask "Why is the dungeon set up this way" unless you're prepared to redesign it yourself.

That brings me to another point. KotS is actually a good intro for a beginning DM...if he's creative. Start from the module as written and make a few changes that you think will make it more fun. (Remember, the goal is for you and the PCs to get involved and have fun-- not for the world to be completely compatible with reality.) Give the NPCs some personality. Come up with some interesting skill challenges. You can build up quite a superstructure around the module. A good DM will be inspired by the module to think up several other interesting things to happen to the PCs, both positive and negative. (The PCs get assigned one of the houses in town, but the first time they arrive, a bunch of assassins are waiting in the shadows and on the rooftop. A captured bad guy miraculously escapes from the town jail, but while searching for clues about his escape, the PCs discover what some of the BBEG's powers will be and can start to plan to deal with them. In my game the PCs got arrested and temporarily thrown in jail on trumped up charges, but made friends with the captain of the guard.) Pretty soon you might end up with something engaging even to someone who's read the module...and that's a good thing!

Malek
2011-08-31, 02:32 AM
Don't know if its been officially changed but some of the XP math was off in the original, for example the Kruthik encounter's XP was 1.5-2 times the the total XP for the monsters in the encounter

Actually the math in that encounter was correct from what I remember - you just had to remember there are several pit traps in it, which also add to XP :)

caden_varn
2011-08-31, 09:27 AM
Having played through it, I was not terribly impressed to be honest. Mostly as per other posters have already said, but one thing that did stand out was the Irontooth encounter, which led to a TPK in our group. I'd certainly suggest trying to lead your group away from that encounter until they hit level 2.

To put things into perspective, we only had 4 characters instead of 5, although we were level 2, and we were not exactly heavily optimised (not bad, you understand, but we weren't trying to get the maximum we could out of the numbers).
Also our DM did not read the adventure too well, so he may have made an error in the encounter - I know he made some mistakes in other areas.
I have heard many people complain about that encounter if they went right to it, instead of starting with one of the other gentler areas...

Tiki Snakes
2011-08-31, 11:08 AM
Well, I ran the published version, and as I understand the Free version is ironically much better. Go figure. :smallsmile:

I ended up wildly altering the entire latter half, actually. After running it for that long, I either needed to cut loose and make sweeping changes or go mad, as people have said there's basically no plot or character. Never read the modded versions, but from what's been said above, might be worth looking into them if you're interested.

Sipex
2011-08-31, 01:44 PM
The Alexandrian's version is incredible. I love the changes to trap implementation. I'm definitely using those.

TheEmerged
2011-08-31, 03:33 PM
Ran it myself at the start of the campaign. Talking points follow.

1> On the combat-heavy, roleplay-light side. This is not entirely a bad thing, you will probably have combat well under your belt when done -- which will free you up to run the roleplay encounters.

2> This was an early product, so make sure you're up on the errata. In particular, pay attention to the stealth changes and the changes to skill challenges.

3> There is a boss fight early in the module that's somewhat infamous -- somewhat undeservedly. In my experience having run this fight for 3 seperate parties now, the controller will make/break this fight. Make sure you (as DM) understand how minions work before going in.

4> I mentioned this being an early product? There are a couple of fights almost trivialized by some of the later class powers.

5> It's fairly linear, so break out your Railroading demotivators. It could really do with more branching and/or roleplay opportunities.

surfarcher
2011-08-31, 06:21 PM
Having played through it, I was not terribly impressed to be honest. Mostly as per other posters have already said, but one thing that did stand out was the Irontooth encounter, which led to a TPK in our group. I'd certainly suggest trying to lead your group away from that encounter until they hit level 2.

To put things into perspective, we only had 4 characters instead of 5, although we were level 2, and we were not exactly heavily optimised (not bad, you understand, but we weren't trying to get the maximum we could out of the numbers).
Also our DM did not read the adventure too well, so he may have made an error in the encounter - I know he made some mistakes in other areas.
I have heard many people complain about that encounter if they went right to it, instead of starting with one of the other gentler areas...
I ran a scaled up version of the Irontooth encounter against my group at level 3 and they wiped it in three rounds, they took two surges damage. My group is about 90% optimised and very tactical.


The Alexandrian's version is incredible. I love the changes to trap implementation. I'm definitely using those.
Ahmen! The Orcus mod shows a neat way of giving it ongoing story. If ever ran it again I'd probably merge the two. But I tend to do all my own stuff from scratch, only mixing in other bits and peices on a whim... Or out of time pressure :P