Ran this as a one-shot for some work friends who had never played before and had a blast! They are completely hooked. Thank you for basically doing all my prep work, lol!

Quick Dungeons #1 - The Hidden Tomb

Overview

The Hidden Tomb is the first entry in Patrick E. Pullen's Quick Dungeons series on the DM's Guild. As of this writing, there are 5 products in Patrick's Quick Dungeons series, and they all cost $1. Each has a Fantasy Grounds conversion product available as well.

It contains a complete dungeon for 4-6 PCs of 1st or 2nd level. Quick dungeons are intended to be run as low prep one-shots or as side quests inserted into an ongoing campaign. The Hidden Tomb includes a simple background and potential hook that you can use to get your group to the dungeon, but for the most part, concentrates solely on the dungeon and the encounters therein.

The Hidden Tomb is 10 pages long, with 1 and a half pages devoted to the cover and an introduction to the Quick Dungeons series, leaving 8 and a half pages for the actual dungeon. It has 2 really nice maps: one with keys for the DM and another for the players. There is no art and the layout is simple and utilitarian.

Pros

I always appreciate when a dungeon product includes both maps for the players and DM. It makes my life a lot easier as a DM since I can just throw the player map out on the table and use some pieces of paper or notecards to cover unexplored areas.

I like that the adventure emphasizes the tight quarters of the tomb and mentions that the PCs can make use of bottlenecks to their advantage. That's the sort of tip that the DM can share with the players if combat starts going against them, which is particularly useful since this is a low-level dungeon.

I liked the inclusion of something other than undead in the tomb. They had a solid reason to be in the tomb as well, instead of just being thrown in for a change of pace.

The final boss fight has some nice story elements that give it a very satisfying feel. It will be tough for most groups, but highly rewarding.

Cons

There are a few places where the wording is a bit awkward. There are a few grammatic errors, though nothing major.

Conclusion

The Hidden Tomb is an excellent dungeon for a low-level party. It should be extremely easy to drop into an ongoing campaign and will provide your PCs with a good challenge and some nice rewards. It's well-written, with really nice, useful maps. At just $1, it's a great value. I'd highly recommend it to any DM short on time who needs a quick dungeon to run.

Overall a pretty good dungeon to work into you campaign or as a quick fill without a ton of prep work.

Pros:

Good value for the price Encounter's theme well Great DM and Player's maps

Cons:

The dungeon contains as many rooms with descriptions/events as rooms without. With limited or zero prep new DMs or DMs that lack great extemparenous speech skills may find several awkward points in the adventure. Nothing kills immersion like multiple non-descript stone rooms with doors. A revised version that used those rooms to add either lore or story about the final encounter would make this a much better product. (minus half a star)

Encounter Balance is a major concern, inside the adventure it is described as a dungeon for a part of 4-6 players at first or second level. Without severe DM intervention a party of 4 level 1 players faces unbalanced ecounters and there are points that could generate multiple opportunities for TPK. Based on the DMG's daily adjusted XP values, any level 1 party (4, 5 or 6) characters exceeds the threshold, for a party of four that threshold is passed per character by 50% meaning in a five encounter dugeon, the players may need multiple short rests and even a long rest. That does not include several of the other goodies included throughout the dungeon that will tax player resources. A six PC level 2 party will find no challenge in this dungeon and the GM should probably just award the loot and have the move on to something worthy of their time. The adventure provides no scaling suggestions to make the encounters challenging to bring a good tension level without being unbalanced. (minus half a star)

Non-Spoiler Encounter Difficulty Descriptions (D - Deadly, H - Hard, M - Medium, E - Easy, N/A - Doesn't rate on the Ecounter Scale Chart in the DMG)

Level 1 Party
4 Players Enc 1 = H Enc 2 = H Enc 3 = D Enc 4 = D Enc 5 = D

5 Players Enc 1 = M Enc 2 = M Enc 3 = D Enc 4 = H Enc 5 = H

6 Players Enc 1 = E Enc 2 = E Enc 3 = H Enc 4 = M Enc 5 = E

Level 2 Party
4 Players Enc 1 = E Enc 2 = E Enc 3= H Enc 4 = M Enc 5 = M

5 Players Enc 1 = E Enc 2 = E Enc 3 = M Enc 4 = E Enc 5 = E

6 Players Enc 1 = N/A Enc 2 = N/A Enc 3 = E Enc 4 = E Enc 5 = N/A

Bottom Line - Great Layout for the dugeon with good resources, however, it is not a plug and play adventure it requies some DM prep work to include adjusting the descriptions of some of the rooms to balance the dungeon for you specific group. Unless you have a party of 6 level 1 players or 4 level 2 players, then plug and play away.

Quick Dungeons - one fully fleshed out dungeon, just add hooks. A brilliant idea well implemented. My full review here.

This is a terrific little adventure at a great price!

A very nice side-quest that can easily be dropped into any game.

I like this type of adventures. it is easy for me as a DM to put Quick Dungeons to use in a quick manner as stated. I look forward to more of this in the future.

this is a great dungeon. it is more than i was expecting. it's basically a full adventure with less fluff. interested in seeing more of these.