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I finally had a chance to run Palace of the Red Pasha. I’ll break down some of the bad and the good points, much of which is personal preference.
THE BAD
Art: I was not fond of a lot of the interior public domain art used in the adventure. It did not seem to flow smoothly with the text. It is hard to integrate public domain art in an adventure, and to do it right, you really need to blend the edges using fading or watercolors to help it meld with the page. Quickleaf’s adventure, The Beast of Graenseskov, is an excellent example of how to use full color public domain art in an adventure. I did like the front and back cover art, however.
Editing: There are a few punctuation and spelling errors in the adventure, and the prose can be a bit clunky at times. Having published adventures on the DMs Guild myself, I know how difficult it is to edit your own writing, so I can forgive this.
Encounters: Several of the smaller encounters were not sufficiently challenging for a 16th-level party. I realize not every encounter needs to be deadly, but some of them were far too easy and felt like they were simply there to fill the rooms on the map. I solved this problem by grouping some of the smaller encounters together.
Magic items: There were too many magic items in the adventure for my liking. I removed all but two.
THE GOOD
Exploration: While the adventure is very much a dungeon crawl, the author includes a healthy amount of information about the people who live and work in the Pasha’s palace. This makes roleplaying and exploring fun. My group had a good time visiting many of the locations in the palace compound.
Encounters: Yes, encounters get a mention under the good too! There are a number of interesting fights in the adventure that test the limits of a 16th-level party. In particular, my players really enjoyed final battle.
Ease of use: The premise of Palace of the Red Pasha is not complicated. The PCs are sent to stamp out the remnants of the Cult of the Dragon in Severin’s home town of Calimport. This may seem simplistic, and it is, but I appreciate simplicity—especially in a published adventure.
If I am reaching for a published adventure, it is probably because I do not have the time or desire to write something myself. Many of the Adventures League adventures I have ran are so complex that they required multiple reads to make sense of the plot. I read Palace of the Red Pasha one time, and it made perfect sense. As a DM, it is much easier for me to add complexity than it is to remove it.
Factions: There is not a tremendous faction presence in the adventure, but the PCs do get a chance to check in with their faction contacts and learn some additional information. I used factions heavily in Tyranny of Dragons, so it was nice to have this included. It helped the adventure feel like a true extension of the original story.
OVERALL
We ran the adventure over two 5-hour sessions, and the PCs each gained a level. When we were finished, all of the players agreed that it was a fun adventure. There are not a lot of high-level adventures on the DMs Guild, and finding one that lets your players revisit characters that they care about is a real treat.
I recommend Palace of the Red Pasha. In my opinion, its weaknesses do not overshadow its strengths, and I would love to see a similar 17th-level adventure that gives my players a chance to continue the Tyranny of Dragons story.
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