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DDAL05-04 In Dire Need (5e) $3.99
Average Rating:4.5 / 5
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DDAL05-04 In Dire Need (5e)
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DDAL05-04 In Dire Need (5e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Daniel D. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 09/16/2019 22:17:38

A great adventure with some pleasant RP to start off, a bit of a travel montage, and ends with an impossible situation that needs some creative problem solving.

The magic item, mithral splint mail +1 is a perfectly cromulent item and not problematic in any way. It's finctionally equivalent to the uncommon item, mithral plate armor. It's a damn shame what those AL Admins did there.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL05-04 In Dire Need (5e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Chris E. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 02/13/2019 18:29:00

Just ran this two weeks ago. My players are those that dont like to hack and slash through every encounter. They came up with some innovative solutions, but settled on one of the solutions that was in the book, but put that together themselves. Even used a few of their backgrounds to establish how to get around some of the other issues and how their characters would use it. I like alot of the 5th season modules because of they present some good options and allow non-killing with the new S8 rules. They have fun doing so, and even more so, telling of their adventures later. It's great to hear veteran players who enjoy the challenges over the combat challenges.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL05-04 In Dire Need (5e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Eric B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 10/30/2018 14:50:05

Loved this adventure and have run it multiple times at different cons.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL05-04 In Dire Need (5e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by A customer [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 10/14/2018 23:35:09

The Season 5 Tier 2's,while not as exceptional as the Tier 1's, are still pretty solid.

This is a good, quick mod that can be easily slotted into a Storm King's Thunder hardcover campaign, given it's short length.

The initial infiltration can be a bit tricky, so drop hints to the party to ensure they don't try a head-on approach.

Prep a few personalities for the dwarven soldiers and NCO's so that any losses of or self- sacrifice by the dwarves are more meaningful.

The final encounter can be a satisfying final fight or an opportunity for some epic deceptive play against dumb opponents.

A solid mid, with a bit of extra prep can be very memorable.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL05-04 In Dire Need (5e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Brendan N. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/27/2018 15:50:03

This module is pretty good. I'm a fan of the nigh impossible threat that the camp itself imposes. This module forces players to use their noggins rather than charging headlong into combat. That always gets a big thumbs up from me. However, there is simply too much content for a two hour module. You almost have to throw out the roleplaying aspects of the adventure completely if you hope to fit it into that time constraint. That is my only complaint though.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL05-04 In Dire Need (5e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Jason R. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/27/2018 01:25:48

GOOD EVENING ADVENTURERS!! In Dire Need was super fun! I appreciate mods that are written with an abunbdance of plot options. The replay makes this effort very worthwhile. ESPECIALLY at the end. Players took the playing in the snow escape to heights that they will be telling other players about for the rest of thier decades of D&D! A rescue mission of dire neccesity. A camp full of towering foes. From Ogre wrassling to tabogoning. A must play for t2 goers! Pick it up and ENJOY! ALL THE ADVENTURE!!!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL05-04 In Dire Need (5e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Daniel W. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/21/2018 19:32:19

I have run this a few times, and each time the group has found a different way to deal with the dwarves. It has always been fun!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL05-04 In Dire Need (5e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Petrina H. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/19/2018 17:31:15

I do like the T1 mods and storyline for Season 5. It really does give the player a good sense of a multi-session campaign.

That said, this mod (as with most of the other T1 mods in Season 5) are decently written with good encounters and options for players. DMs should prep for unusual circumstances with the RP parts of the mod.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL05-04 In Dire Need (5e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Richard C. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/09/2018 19:27:05

This is a fun adventure that is open enough to allow the players to come up with creative solutions. It also has some options (such as the dwarves) in case they are stuck and don’t come up with something workable.

It also tends to blunt the impulse of some to just rush in and start hacking. The encampment requires some subtlety.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL05-04 In Dire Need (5e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Matthew D. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/07/2018 11:29:25

In Dire Need is a strong module, and one I and my players enjoyed running a lot. It provides a lot in the way of improvising and roleplaying frameworks, but doesn't insist one way or the other on the player's path to accomplishing their ultimate goal.

In line with the flexible nature of the module's presented options, this is a module which may be mediocre with DMs who don't take the time to fully read through in advance, and make notes about expected solutions on the module's and DM's part, travel distance and the party's options for travel speed, the thoughts and opinions on solutions that NPCs will have, and a full account of the module's major locale (in terms of dimensions of barriers and landmarks). To the DM who revels in 20+ NPC names, enemies who are content to mock and lounge about while waiting for the final climax, and whose players are comfortable coming up with their own solutions, this adventure is a lives up to its promise: a daring rescue mission, against deadly foes and even deadlier weather, to save the lives of many and return the mysteries of a lost form of magic to the world at large.

Some notes about the 2 hour timeframe for the module. Despite the meat of the module revelling in player discussion and agency, you'll quickly find yourself going over the 2 hour timeframe if you allow your players an excess of time in the starting town-- something thoroughly detailed for us, but still a time risk. Even while keeping my group on their toes, we found ourselves brushing up against a 4 hour timeframe by the end of the adventure. Additionally, you may feel it best to choose, instead of roll, to determine what of the middle chapter's encounters you'll go with during your session.

Thorough and well considered Story Awards are something very exciting here-- perhaps some of the best Story Awards I've seen. These have mechanical impacts on people the adventurers interact with going forward, and something powerful and impressive to both me as a DM and my players.

There is a line in the opening blurb, though, which rings oddly in my ears-- "They require immediate relief or they risk being destroyed to a dwarf." This seems like some kind of typo, which is unfortunate.

I look forward to seeing what the replacement Season 8 reward for this adventure will be going forward, too, now that it's to be removed from play.

In short, the adventure is a thorough framework and well-defined challenge without any expectation of any one solution from the adventurers, featuring characters with individual warmth and ambition whom your party will be all the happier knowing-- and saving. Just be sure to do your reading beforehand, not during.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL05-04 In Dire Need (5e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Chris K. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/16/2018 23:07:19

See my review of 'In Dire Need' by Jay Africa on my D&D blog without spoilers to ruin the fun!

https://www.wizardslaboratory.com/review-of-ddal05-04-in-dire-need/

See my 'Running DDAL05-04 In Dire Need' with my regular D&D group, The Heroes of Neverwinter!

Yes, there be spoilers here...

https://www.wizardslaboratory.com/running-ddal04-05-in-dire-need/



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL05-04 In Dire Need (5e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Ronald L. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/15/2018 12:26:18

One of my favorite modules, ever. I don't typically like 2 hour mods. This one is the exception.

It's a giant sand box that players get to play in, and DMs are given awesome tools to handle anything they do. So long as they stay on-mission, the mod doesn't concern itself with how they might prevail, it just gives us tools to adjudicate whatever they might want to try. And if the players get stuck, it gives us some truly awesome ideas.

Bobsledding down a mountain, in a giant's sarcophogus, would be awesome. But no, that's not what we get. We get to SURF an AVALANCHE down the mountain. And rather than being given nitty-gritty mechanics to adjudicate it with no sense of fun, we're given general guidelines and told to adjust to what our table needs.

I cannot over-emphasize how good this module is. This mod, by itself, not only clears the threshold of awesome, it leaps over it to the point where it breaks my rating curve. I make it a policy to rate a mod that avoids errors a mere 4 stars. It's not enough to be 'good', if you want 5 stars for me -- you need to be great. To have that special spark of something special. Not only would this mod get my 5 star rating, it's so far past just great, past 'merely' exceptional, that I'd give it 6 stars if I could.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL05-04 In Dire Need (5e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Samuel S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 06/12/2018 22:36:19

Great mod, played it last year, DM'd it tonight.

Fairly straight forward, 1 combat encounter, 1 environmental encounter. Pressing the players for time is essential, but if they wanna take a long rest, let them, it just means more dwarves are killed. For the combat encounter, I had an barely average party take on a remorhaz. Welcome to Tier 2! With this mod, I feel you can throw an extra potent mob at the players, and use up resources because combat in the final, plot driven encounter should be discouraged.

The rescue encounter can be solved very easily with a druid/ranger spell (which, when I played, our druid got off first thing, and the infiltration was a cake walk) but when I DMd it, the PC druid did not have it memorized. They elected to go up, climb down, and infiltrate. They then got locked into some frivleous plans about distracting the horde of ogres, and one PC was bound and determined to cause a distraction, and then wanted to run through the camp while thunderwaving everything. That cheapens the threat, turns the danger of an armed camp full of lethal foes into a joke. I don't recommend that you, as a DM, allow that to happen without serious repercussions.

Part of this problem, I think, is that the players can spool the plan out into complete absurdity, like trying to use Prestidigitation to try and distract an entire camp of bloodthirsty ogres laying siege to a place, because they don't have a better idea. It also wastes a significant amount of time while the players spin their wheels. Use the NPC dwarves to point out some logical flaws. If you are pressed for time in the AL environment, try to encourage them to find a solution that will A) not waste any further time, and B) not lead them to their obvious and inevitable deaths. Combat is probably the worst option and if you have players bent on having combat with the ogre forces, you should pulverize them. Ice Spire Ogres are very potent, and there should be little to no chance of success against the entire camp.

Tier 2 for Storm King's Thunder is fantastic, with some really scary monsters for players to fight. It's my favorite season, and this module sets the tone for things to come. Highly recommended, but be prepared to put the hammer down.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL05-04 In Dire Need (5e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by GOH K. W. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 05/20/2018 10:08:09

Just finished running this module a couple of hours ago. The players were at first flabbergasted, and then delighted when they realized what was the "easiest" solution to get the dwarves and their cargo to safety. :D

If there's an issue I have with the module, it'd be that the open-endedness of the latter segment can bog things down for inexperienced DMs, especially if you have large numbers of players around. (Double especially if said players have summons.) The time constraints on the journey to the Birthright Stones makes that part snappy, but once the players actually get there, things can get confusing really fast. (And draggy. This 2 hour mod took us 3 and a half.)

That said, I find that this module does its job of portraying an epic rescue mission, and does it well. And "Tombstone Joyride" sounds like a kickass band name.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL05-04 In Dire Need (5e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Steve S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 05/13/2018 12:30:32

This adventure is short, sweet, to the point. It has a little of everything you would want in a table top game - a clear mission brief, urgency, exploration, some RP, and a problem that is pretty much sandbox. Players have a lot of leeway to be awesome in more ways than one. Lovely adventure. Just be warned you are very likely to overrun time lol.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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