Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.0 Fantasy Roleplaying Adventure, 4th to 14th Levels)
“Return To” products are tremendously popular adventures that revisit the most infamous dungeons from the early days of the D&D game. Seasoned D&D veterans will enjoy the nostalgia of returning to the games they played years ago, while newer players will appreciate the chance to play in these legendary settings.
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars Definitely Worth The Time
I recently finished the original 1985 version of the Temple of Elemental Evil. For a DM who only plays for about 10 days total per year, this took years for us to complete. Near the end, we were like, man, when is this going to be over!? HOWEVER… this was definitely the coolest adventure I’ve ever been involved with. If you love solving puzzles, exploring rooms, killing weird monsters, and finding excellent treasure, this is without a doubt the greatest adventure you could possibly get. It’s not too bad on a DM, either, since everything is well laid out and explained in marvelous detail. Keep in mind, this adventure will take you from low level way up the ladder, so there won’t be much room for side adventures, although you might want to make a couple side adventures anyway to break some of the monotony, which may occur at times. Overall, assuming the new adventure is basically the same thing as the original (which I’ll bet it is), I think you will be very pleased.
5 Stars Excellent product, but be careful
First of all, let me say that this is easily the best module I have ever gotten my hands on for Dungeons and Dragons. It is very well written, provides everything in great detail, and is a hell of a lot of fun to run. As the DM of my home campaign, i must issue a few warnings to those who want to use this adventure. My campaign is set in the Forgotten Realms and thus I needed to do a fair bit of conversion to set the adventure in Faerun, but in the end it was well worth it.
DMs should remember before running this adventure that it is intended to be the backbone of an entire campaign, and if you run the entire thing, it most certainly will be just that. After conquering the Temple, your PCs will have saved the world (hope I’m not spoiling this for anybody), and the question for the DM is simply: Where do I go from here? Frankly my PCs are a bit disenchanted with the entire “Save the world, um, again” theme. I’ll still give it five stars since it is the best module available as far as content is concerned, just make sure you want your campaign to be remembered as “When we did the Temple of Elemental Evil”.
5 Stars An excellent adventure.
This is definitely the most enjoyable store bought module I’ve adventured in. Our group has had a lot of fun going through this one.
There are two main features to this module that I enjoy the most:
1. Encounters are challenging.
There appear to be very few of what I call “fluff” encounters. Most of them fully challenge the abilities of our group. In this respect, it gives everyone a chance to contribute to the success of the encounter, not just the fighter type characters. Rouges, wizards, clerics and bards can all play an important role. (Our bard has been especially helpful.)
2. Role playing opportunities.
This adventure is not just a dungeon crawl with only combat. There are a number of encounters that can give the player characters a chance to practice role playing.
I’d rather not say much more, because I don’t want to spoil any surprises. I’ll just add that there appear to be some plot lines that could extend beyond this adventure. Perhaps WotC is planning a sequel?
5 Stars an adventure all nighter
Of all the 3rd edition adventures, i must say this is simply the best!
I just got this book and it kept the players wide awake all night long.
The enemy encounters are real challenging and you should be well prepared.
The plots, items, spells, and new templets are great.
This will get you WAY up after you have finished.
This book, its worth EVERY cent!
regards,
A satisfied costumer
4 Stars Great Adventure, Spotty campaign
Although I agree with most of the feedback that this is a great module (the dungeon levels are excellent and well-documented). I would point out that the overland maps, while beautiful, are NOT TO SCALE and DO NOT MESH with the Living Grayhawk material. Also the maps and sketch of Hommlet DO NOT MATCH the old AD&D module (esp regarding terrain). Unfortunately this is typical of the Dungeons and Dragons product line. For example, the text says it’s 30 miles to Verbobonc, but the overland map shows 90. There are no details about the river that flows past Hommlet, nor the one that flows past the moathouse. Nor are there any roads shown for the route to Rastor. While this is fine for hack and slash GMs who don’t care about realistic whole-world detail, the more discerning GM will spend hours remapping and/or rescaling all the overland areas. Because there are no published detail maps for the world of Grayhawk, the GM must make his own maps, and face the prospect of reworking them later to fit future modules into the campaign. All-in-all, this is really just a case of poor editing. I would suggest dropping this module into your own campaign world and forgetting the World of Grayhawk altogether, since it so inconsistent and patchy. You may have to redo one or both of the two overland maps, but at least you can make it mesh.
Filed under: Dungeons and Dragons Book Reviews
