Customer Reviews

Expedition to the Demonweb Pits (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.5 Fantasy Roleplaying)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

First, some qualifiers. I am a novice DM and didn't play much as a kid. My dnd group is all over 30 year-olds, who did play a ton growing up.

We are about halfway through this campaign and we are having an awesome time. The encounters are challenging and well thought out without being overpowering. The encounter formats include stats and tactics that are easy to navigate and great to use on the fly without flipping through numerous books.

The art and layout of the book is great.

Other reviewers are saying this campaign is tough to follow. I agree that if you don't read the book, then it would be tough to follow, as the campaign can be complex. However, I am having no problem with it by simply reading the book.

This campaign has it all: tough encounters, some role play opportunities, allies for your party, legendary weapons to quest for, and an easy to follow format for DMs. I'm now looking for other high-level campaigns to take the party through next. Highly recommended.

I'm running this now (the party's near the end of Chapter 2), and so far it's quite a bit of fun... if you're in the right mindset.

If you're looking for a wacky jaunt across the planes, merrily killing drow and demons, this will probably work for you. If you're looking for an adventure with plot & complexity, you'd best look elsewhere. I was looking for a pretty brainless adventure I could run once a month for some gaming-deprived out-of-town friends. My prep time is somewhat minimal, so this seemed like a good buy.

The format of the adventure actually is pretty easy to use. You get all the material for a single encounter on one page, or two facing pages, along with full stat blocks. That layout makes my job as DM pretty easy while I'm running the game. It's somewhat annoying while I'm *preparing* for the game, but once I got used to it, it worked.

I'd give it 5 stars for the material and for the presentation, but the stat blocks are awful. I'm not talking about the new stat block format - I *love* the new stat blocks (top section is pre-encounter, second is player's turn, third is monster's turn, fourth is detail, fifth is exposition), but the stat blocks are full of errors. I don't know that anyone really did proofreading on this book. (Two Examples: Ratatosk damage assumes small-size weapons while the creature's size is listed as Medium. Rule-Of-Three's dagger attacks don't include the magic bonus.)

As a player and a DM for over 20 years,I was anxious to see this 3.5 update of the classic early gygax era modules,I read through the new adventure and was astounded that they suggest this module is suitable for a 9th level group,the first encounter alone states that even though it is highly challenging a fully empowered and rested group should prevail.This is the mind set throughout the book.Several Demon lord aspects abound in the module which I find that most characters would have difficulty defeating that were less than 14 th level.Although the book states these encounters may be avoided,most players will invariably face nearly every one.
I enjoy the flow of story but any player familiar with the game would laugh at the concept of 9th level characters "plane traveling" and surviving the rigors associated with dealing with the denizens of aforementioned alternate planes.This module should have been designated for 12th-16th level players which would be more in line with the game mechanics.

Having finally reviewed the Expedition to the Demonweb Pits, I must express some disappointment at the final work. Although the presentation and artwork are fantastic, the book does suffer from some of the drawbacks noted by the first reviewer. Additionally, the plot is rather contrived and difficult to follow (any plot that takes two or three read-throughs to digest, because of inconsistency and problems with clarity and not necessarily due to complexity is a problem). Several encounters are merely filler material (although the maps and stats are presented in an excellent visual manner). Anyone looking for a glorious return to the Sigil of the Planescape era will be disappointed, and Rule-Of-Three is pretty much a cardboard cutout.
Overall, with some major work on the DMs part (as I plan to do), this could be a great set of adventures. But in the current format it simply does not meld well.

I am co-DM in a campaign and we decided to go with the "quick" version of this setting. I'm not sure if it is better in the earlier stages but so far it seems like this book was rushed. There are some mobs on the maps that don't have a map key while others do, and the maps for the encounters in the pits are somewhat confusing. This is a fun campaign setting, our players are really enjoying it, but if you are going to DM it make sure you go over it thoroughly before each game. Some things that should quick to find are a bit tough to navigate for players that are into the role playing aspect more. They are in there, just spread out and seemingly disconnected. Not a good campaign to pick on spur of the moment, but it is fun to play and DM if you have the time for it.

I tried running this last week. The editing is horrible and the adventure is just designed poorly. It's not particularly challenging, and the story is really hard to follow. I, the DM, really had no idea Graz'zt's plot was supposed to be, and so I had a hard time making things coherent for the players. The first major leg of the adventure involves a long trek across the planes to retrieve a legendary item, which turns out to be not even that good. Tip: if you're running this adventure, and you don't like Legacy items, replace both of the Legacy items in the game with something else. I was really disappointed by this product because Wolfgang Baur is one of the great designers (don't know much about Kestrel, but I see her name everywhere, too) and it was dealing with some classic D&D themes.

As with all of the "Expedition" series, this is a new twist on a classic module. While not all of it worked for me, I still enjoyed this immensely both in terms of a read and in terms of useful material. This has a viable and interesting storyline if you enjoy the planehopping style of game. If not, rip out some of the content, and/or change the setting from Sigil to a city on your prime material plane, and with a few mods run as is.

I'm not a big fam of seperating the tactical combat entries from the storyline, but when you're trying to sell miniatures, I guess that works. Otherwise, well written, well thought out, not a lot of power creep common to high level games. Nicely done, all in all.

This thing sucks. I was expecting something really interesting and would involved politics of the Abyss, but got a hastily thrown together group of encounters. The plot line makes little sense. The hook to get the PCs involved makes little sense. The reasons for why most NPCs would assist the PCs makes little sense. From a combat perspective, it's probably decent as a dungeon crawl. (I haven't run/played it, so I can't say how balanced the encounters are) You'd have to totally ignore the plot and story to enjoy it, though. Unfortunately, this follows in line with almost all of the adventures that WOTC has put out in the last 4 years. They're great dungeon crawls if the PCs are okay with just being led along by a string of encounters. You're left in the end wondering what the hell the reasons for the adventure even were. They could have done sooooo much more with NPCs like Grazz't and Orcus and the interplay of politics between the demon lords. I'm very disappointed. The only plus side is the pages and printing and diagrams are visually nice and the encounter format is concise. I'd rather have the encounters placed back right into the main text, however, 'cuz I don't want to have to "refer to appendix C for monster and environment details" kind of junk.

I was hoping for so much more from this product and one of the last chances I gave to WOTC's 3.5e (4e is a joke - Pathfinder is my home now). The historical detail is okay, tons of maps which are great, but as with current trend of WOTC's D&D line...large fonts, large margins, but not nearly as bad as 4e books are.

I would save up for the 1e version and buy it off of eBay or hobby store.

Wow! This massively rich Dungeons & Dragons experience is a weaving of expert writing, deliciously devilish (or demonic)creativity and deadly challenges--sure to please any veteran or new explorer of the outer planes of existence.

Whether you are a DM wanting to take your players on a plane-spanning adventure, a hardened warrior seeking to right unthinkable evils, or spellcaster seeking to push the envelope on your powers, this is an adventure you don't want to miss! Playable over the course of a single weekend, I can't recommend a better mod for PCs of level 9-11.

Familiarity with extraplanar worlds is helpful, so check these books out also:

Planar Handbook (Dungeon & Dragons d20 3.5 Fantasy Roleplaying)
planar handbook

Good gaming,
Tyrskald