Skulljaw Hill is a weak follow-up to the quite weak module, Tharaera Lost. Whereas in that module, amusing NPC character development somewhat counterbalanced the extremely poorly balanced combat encounters, in this piece, NPCs are rendered in the text who the PCs never even get to interact with, and plot points are assumed, yielding a tightly railroaded structure that is nevertheless easy for PCs to avoid altogether simply by asking the wrong questions or making the wrong decisions in the beginning...
The consistent issue with this CCC-GHC series though is a complete lack of understanding of D&D 5e combat scaling. Enemies are extremely vanilla, often solo, and very underpowered for a Tier 2 party. There is even an encounter in this module that consists of a trio of CR 1/8 bandits, a rather poor encounter for a 1st level party, but an absolute embarassment as an obstacle for a party of Level 7-8 characters. Given D&D's emphasis on combat, scaling and challenge are very important in developing a story, and the emphasis should be on interesting encounters featuring spells, monsters with unique or creative abilities, inclement weather, odd terrain or traps, etc. Players like to be challenged, and by Tier 2, they usually know their characters' abilities quite well and have developed synergistic tendancies that make them even more resourceful and capable than their raw abilities encompass. This adventure and the one that precedes it make a mockery of player abilities. They are just very poor contributions to public play.
Rating: [1 of 5 Stars!] |