Banewarrens

Rating:
Summary: The best 3E adventure that I have encountered, bar none
Review: The Banewarrens is the best 3E adventure that I have encountered, bar none. It's a wonderful blend of dungeon crawl, city encounters, factional intrigues, and planar travel. I am currently running it for two different groups (RL & PbP) and I would gladly run it again in the future.

Chapters, Events, Locations
Over the course of the story the party progresses from the outer rim of the legendary Banewarrens to its dark heart. Each chapter of the Banewarrens is a blend of events and locations. The events present the activities of other factions, along with a variety of places where the party might encounter them. Many of the individual locations (bane-filled vaults, occasional resting places, and the trap-filled halls that connect them) are fascinating, and could be borrowed for use in other adventures. Five of the chapters take the party out of the dungeon to investigate urban or extraplanar settings.

Monsters, NPCs, Factions
The monsters and NPCs in this adventure are well detailed, often including tactics, personality, and appearance. The party face quite a few monsters with character levels, along with a dozen new creatures. Some of the encounters are quite challenging (5+ encounter levels above the average party level), so the possibility of death is quite real. I have heard that Banewarrens is similar to Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil in this respect, although I have not read that adventure.

The use of multiple factions sets this adventure apart from other 3E products like the Adventure Path. There are two factions the party may work with (a church and a group of wizards) and two the party will certainly work against (evil humanoids and a noble house), but the all of the factions have hidden agendas which will sometimes help and sometimes hurt the characters. There are also plenty of neutral or independent NPC's who help the adventure come to life.

Bonus Material
One of the best aspects of the Banewarrens is the message board devoted to it on Monte Cook's website. Several handfuls of DMs have posted campaign reports detailing their experiences with the adventure. These reports are an excellent sources of tactics, reminders, answers, and adjustments. Posters also present ideas about placing the Banewarrens in specific campaign settings (Planescape, Al Quadim) or integrating it with other adventures (Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, Demon God's Fane).

I don't spend much time evaluating the artwork in 3E products, but I will mention one interesting aspect of the Banewarrens. The module includes about twenty individual scenes as an appendix. In the pdf version these appear one to a page, which makes it easy to print out visuals to show the players.

One drawback to the Banewarrens is that it uses a small amount of material (magic items, spells, variant classes) from the Books of Eldritch Might 1 & 2, also written by Monte Cook. The adventure gives suggestions for replacing the classes and spells with material from the core rulebooks, but it doesn't suggest alternate magic items.

Overall
The Banewarrens is an incredible value for DMs who enjoy running prewritten adventures, as well as those who like to tinker. There is plenty of flexibility in the events and locations, making the adventure suitable for a wide variety of parties. Add to that a compelling storyline, challenging encounters, and sizeable number of new magic items and monsters. I love it!