In my review of DDAL05-19’s predecessor, DDAL05-18 “The Mysterious Isle,” I wrote that “Mysterious Isle” can be viewed as a trap, luring the players with a false sense of confidence and then crushing them in the follow up. “Eye of Xxiphu” is the tier 4 adventure you were waiting for. It has a little bit of everything, especially for players who want a good scrap. There are a few missteps, but forgivable ones, which a DM can easily work through or work around. SPOILERS AHEAD, OF COURSE.

Part 1.

The adventure does a good job of looping in players who may not have played in DDAL05-18. You get dropped right back in, and our old friend SEER gives a concise update on what the players need to do: “Recover the Eye of Xxiphu.” Boom. Go for it.

Part 2.

A. Honestly, as a DM, this was my favorite part of the adventure — and there shouldn’t be a single initiative roll during this part, just some fun roleplaying. Have fun with the rooms and the oddities contained within. With the “Red as Blood” room, I really went into how perfect this apple was. Over the top: In hindsight about how other apples have just disappointed you and how so few things in this world are perfect, BUT THIS APPLE! And so on. For “Tooth of the Damned,” the players had fun establishing a telepathic connection with Black Dougal in diamond. I made him a glum, Eeyore-type character, resigned to his fate. Don’t deny your players these interactions. Feel free to give them enough information (with the right rolls) to engage and have fun. The “Mad Dancers” were also entertaining. (I made one of the merfolk a little sad to have stopped dancing.) You don’t have to hit every room, but I’d make sure they don’t plow through this section. Also, “White as Snow,” the module text gives the players every indication that this apple is not right. (“There is something very unsettling about its lack of color.”) Don’t be a jerk. Give the players proper hints that this apple shouldn’t be consumed. It’s death without a save. That’s not fun for anyone.

B. I don’t like the corridor. Visually, it’s cool — and the ultimate effect is interesting. But reading the last paragraph of the section introduction is not entirely clear. The section about “if all characters resist or are freed…” I need this information clarified upfront and highlighted.

B1. The “fighting as golems” mechanic is interesting. I’m glad there’s a handout to give the players. However, it can make the overall adventure maybe a little too busy.

Encounter time: 1 hour? Um… no. Twice that, at least. The eight waves of cloud giants, merrows, scrags, and then Lord Dworkin is a beast encounter to run. It took up 80% of the adventure time, and I think my players were a little exhausted after a while, which is a shame because “Battle in the Sky” is really fun. By the time you get to it, you and the players are ready to call it a day. I would seriously suggest condensing this encounter or finding ways to speed it up, just a bit. Read the room.

C. Always fun when the players think they have beaten the “big bad,” and burn through all their reliable power moves — only for there to be much, much more left to contend with.

For the hidden treasure, remember that a Passive Investigation (of 13 or higher) will suffice if the active Investigation check is low.

Other side note: Keeping track of the golem rules, the magic disruption rules, the underwater combat rules AND all the quirks of tier 4 players can be overwhelming. I’d keep it all on a one-sheet near you for reference.

D. Battle in the Sky

Who doesn’t love airships, dragon mounts, and cloud castles? Fun! To me, the misstep of this adventure is allowing the players to fight Dworkin in B1 when you could have all this craziness in section D. Tier 4 players will see the railroading from a mile away, if you try too hard to force failure in B1.

Conclusion

I played this adventure once. I DM’d this adventure once. In both situations, the Eye went to the Lord’s Alliance. I don’t think the players realized they could insist on keeping it, which is a shame. It seems like an interesting item, which could lead to other Far Realm twists in the future.

Treasure: Lots of XP and lots of treasure. Life is good for the tier 4 adventurers. Another Staff of Power? There should be a rule that if you’re handing these things out in an epic (Reclamation of Phlan) you should retire the item for a while. I see so many casters with the staff of power. It’s a bit of an in-joke at this point. And yes, another Tome of Understanding. For players who also got a Tome of Understanding in PHLAN 1-2 “Enemy of My Enemy” and/or in Curse of Strahd — I’m pretty sure the Tome of Understanding doesn’t stack. Check your DMG to verify.

Overall, this adventure is fun, but keep your notes handy, plan for it to take much longer — and take several breaks to prevent Restless DM syndrome.

I really enjoyed this Tier 4 mod. My party, and I, thought the fights were a little lackluster, especially the end, but the flow of the adventure was well paced. I wish there were more (recent) tier 4 mods like this for AL.

The final fight is still too weak for good Tier 4 party but I have to admit it is much better than the 5-18 in regards to difficulty.

Ok, I'll admit the ending was amazing. The start, however was a bit slow going (especially after DDAL5-18, which we ran before breaking for lunch) and I want to say didn't accomplish anything-except it did: the Monk failed a Con save and got Mummy Rot! I can honestly say, no one excepted a giant mech robot (er, "golem") battle-so props on that. Part 1 of the final battle was relentless with wave after wave of enemies, once they seems to get that under control, then bang-Plot Hammer upside the head and the Eye is gone! Part 2 was an interesting idea with the chase, but the group was in mid-combat mode and all the other enemies just left, so they weren't very delayed heading into the chase. Part 3 was where the awesome happend for us, with the dragon mounted chase, and a T4 Sorcerer who really really was dying to try out his new Meteor Swarm spell and very happy to be outside of all the water so he could enjoy his new toy. Reading the module, it looks like Part 4 of that fight could have turned nasty if they let dude get back to his castle, but again-Meteor Swarm kind of avoided that, as he never got back to his castle.

On a side note: this is the first AL legal Meteor Swarm for us, the previous Meteor Swarm(s) were both the same week- Sunday night in a 1st Ed campaign I hit the group with it, and then that Wednesday the DND Next Playtest Dead in Thay has a Lich (I switched out spells) guarding the Doom Gate which hit 4 tables worth of PCs with it, killing 23/28 targets. Our sorcerer was very happy to have reached the apex of destruction with this spell, and it was a fitting end to the first T4 game.

From a player perspective, this module is one of the best AL opportunities you will ever get for "high-tier shenanigans." There are good opportunities for roleplay and exploration, and it finishes off with the single most epic encounter I've had a chance to play in 5e so far.

From a DM perspective, this adventure requires a lot of preparation. Again, be prepared to change things to deal with observed party power and don't rely solely on APL/party size guidelines - high level casters in 5e have a lot of ways to do the unexpected. That being said, this is a lot of fun from the DMs side of the table as well, and putting together a challenging and memorable experience for your players - which the module definitely gives you the tools to do - is very rewarding.

This mod has a fun dungeon crawl section ripe with opportunities to roleplay. The 'traps', rather than being boring mechanical constructs, are the actual contents of the rooms themselves -- opportunities to die, to heal, to explore and have fun. I don't normally enjoy dungeon crawls, as player or DM, but this one was surprisingly fun from both perspectives. I'd go ahead and minimize the combat in this section, to give players more time to enjoy the fun parts of it.

And once you get out of the dungeon crawl... you face a fight worthy of T4 characters. A battle that will be legend.

As I noted on the previous mod, depending on your players you may have to toss the scaling out the window and be prepared to rewrite the combat levels. While 5E has definitely helped close the power gap between min-maxed and roleplayed characters, the gap still exists, and is shockingly large at this level, and the major fights appear to be build towards the roleplay oriented characters. I wound up turning the last fight into waves of giants arriving at the end of every single round, and the players still managed to kill 20+ of them before I gave up and let the boss end it.

And then during the airship fight, they killed the boss before he had a chance to do a single thing. Even giving him a natural 20 on his initative roll and giving him maximum AL legal hit points, there were too many high-initiative characters going at 25+ to give him a chance.