I recently ran this adventure for a new AL group. The encounters reminded me of the opening scenes of Lost Mines of Phandelver and worked well to give the players a mix of exploration and combat. I loved the mechanics for the kobold ambushes and alchemist inventions. They really helped keep the players on their toes and move the adventure along.

Either the map or the area descriptions should have been more specific about where exactly the traps were or where the NPCs would stand. I had to wing it and guess.

For low levels, even after adjusting for the very weak party rules, the early and late encounters can be brutal.

Overall, little preparation is needed.

I enjoyed the small amounts of humor, especially the self-pit puddy.

The limited roleplaying was a good start for my mostly under 15-year old table.

This mod is great. Travis has written this with an obvious expertise that seriously shows. I am a HUGE fan of the format of the new adventures and Travis has excelled at using them correctly. The traps are clever, and the constant threat of the kobolds makes everything a fast-paced, extremely enjoyable adventure. The boss fight is also very enjoyable, containing lots of threats and also awesome moments. Finally, I love the magic item deception. It's quite funny.

Dungeons & Dragons Adventurers League Season 6 (Tales from the Yawning Portal) mostly consists of the hardcover by that name plus three DDAL adventures. All of these serve as lead-ins to one of the dungeons in the book (Forge of Fury, White Plume Mountain, and Against the Giants). In effect, they provide expanded hooks. DDAL06-01 A Thousand Tiny Deaths is thus the only Tier 1 adventure for Season 6 outside of the book. Warning: this review includes spoilers. If you’re going to play through the adventure, don’t read further.

This dungeon provides lots of challenge. The opening encounter can get really rough if the kobolds fight with any tactical ability, and they should. In one of the instances I ran this (with three level 3s and one level 1), one character dropped to 0 HP in the first round. A second one followed on the next round. While the adventurers still won the encounter, at no point did they feel like the kobolds were pushover enemies or XP fodder.

4e_kobolds.jpgOnce they get into the second part and enter the actual dungeon, they get reminded even more emphatically that kobolds fighting on their own terms present a real threat. I like seeing traditional low-end monsters used effectively in ways that emphasize their strengths, and this adventure does that as well as any I’ve seen.

ATTD does a good job of leading into FoF. It introduces the players to some of the ideas of the dungeon and leading them into one of several entries into the main dungeon. Players who go through this module will be well-prepared mentally for what lies ahead: you can’t necessarily take your time through the dungeon, and you definitely cannot underestimate enemies that might seem easier in other contexts.

In general, the module is much more readable than I expected. I have previously complained about the editing – or lack thereof – in DDAL/EX adventures in earlier seasons. Happily, ATTD does not have this issue (or at least not nearly to the same extent). I noticed a few small typos here and there, but nothing egregious. One of the best improvements is removing the four pages of useless boilerplate found at the beginning of these modules in earlier seasons and condensing it down to one. Improvements to layout and design also contributed to making this one a pleasure to read. That said…

I still had a few problems with the organization of the material. Specifically, the information on the various traps felt out of place and difficult to reference during play. More than once I had to flip around just to find what I needed to deal with specific threats. Additionally, it seemed to me and several other DMs that the design of the secondary tunnels holding kobold commoners lacked clarity. How many commoners are there? How often do they shoot their blowguns? Where do they shoot from? The adventure explains all of this, but in muddy fashion such that we weren’t always quite sure about the intent.

Like many other DDAL/EX adventures, the timing estimates are way off. I have run this twice now, and both times took over four hours for a module that claims a two-hour run time. While some of that might be due to the venue (games on Roll20 plus Discord just take a little longer), I really don’t see how the party can clear this thing out in less than 3 hours. Even that would seem like a breakneck pace.

One last thing: please stop giving us maps scaled to 10-foot squares. This makes conversion difficult even when sketching on a play mat. It effectively requires anyone using the map directly (printed or on a VTT) to take significant extra time in preparing a map.

DMs should consider using a third-party map. I used Zovya’s, and they look fantastic. Also spend some time deciding exactly how you want to handle the threat from the commoners in the walls. Maybe it will be clearer to you from the text than it was to several of us, but regardless you will want to have your plan well thought out in advance.

But taken together, I liked this adventure a lot. Unlike previous DDALXX-01 adventures of the “five 1-hour scenario” variety, this probably shouldn’t be used by a new AL DM, but that’s not a negative! It keeps the DM engaged with its own mechanics (e.g. the aforementioned blowguns plus the inventors’ lab) and makes the players work for their victory.

This review originally appeared on my blog.

A nice little introduction to The Forge of Fury. The mobs are interesting and could prove quite a challenge. For a group new to D&D it could be a bit of a challenge; the mobs behave intelligently, there's quite a few nasty traps and lots of interesting little features in the mini-dungeon. Recommended even if it's not outstandingly original or innovative.

This is a nice little module that leads into something bigger and more lucrative. Really helps set the scene for the forge of fury and I could tell my players were intrigued by this. a great way to introduce newer dnd players to the dungeon crawl. Has some interesting little quirks and its the mod ive run the most due to its versatility for any party size/composition. Love running it!

A short simple dungeon crawl. As it is designed to be a trigger for Forge of Fury it lacks a bit of plot itself. I played this twice and both times the party lacked motivation to follow the plot and found ourselves staring down the final encounter without the motivation to fight. My feeling is that the DM has to engineer a bit of motivation for the character and particularly highlight that they will need to travel this way again in the future, or at a minimum make the villainy of the kobolds clearer.

The Good: Challenging and interesting encounters that vary depending on how aggressive players are.

The Bad: The encounters can almost be too challenging for a very fresh group of level 1s, especially the last encounter, that can easily destroy parties in one shot. Definitely recommend bringing at least a couple level 2s if possible.

I have been a DM for 30+ years, and as modules go, this is one of the best, balanced modules I have ran, with regards to pacing, challenge, and fun! I would definitely suggest running the TYP mod the Sunless Citadel (either the HC or DDIA06, they are both the same), however, before running this module for a complete party of 1st level characters, as the mod is optimized for five characters of 3rd level. It is designed as a segway into the Forge of Fury module from the TYP HC, and does a great job of bridging the gap between the Sunless Citadel and the Forge of Fury, if you are running the TYP HC straight through. Without giving away any spoilers (as far as stats and plot) the inventors, as a mob, can be a very tough, but an extremely fun challenge for your players, if played correctly. A Thousand Tiny Deaths gives very decent XP, gold, and treasure, especially for a 2 hour module (if you are on time constraints at your FLGS and running organized AL events). I would definitely rate this as one of the best AL modules to date!

This is quickly becoming my go-to tier 1 adventure. I've even had a few people request it specifically.

PROS:

• More than most modules, it has the potential to be a different experience depending on the group playing it, which is especially nice for a tier 1 adventure that's likely to be run multiple times by a given DM and/or by players with multiple characters. A cautious/stealthy party will find a pretty standard one-room-at-a-time dungeon crawl, while a more aggressive, kick-in-the-door group can be in for a desperate, harrowing barrage -- and often it will start as the former and transition to the latter partway through.
• The rewards feel worthwhile. In particular, the permanent magic item is useful to anyone who picks it up.
• The kobold inventors are so much fun I wish I could include them in every adventure I run.

CONS:

• It's got something of a reputation as a "killer dungeon," and it definitely can be. Once the alarm is tripped, things can go sideways very, very fast, particularly for an underleveled group. And for a normal or strong group, the boss has an ability (fireball) that can take out the entire party in one turnif the DM isn't careful, though actually reading the module and playing it as written should prevent that.
• 10-foot map squares. I don't know why this is still a thing that's being done. I suppose if the antagonists are giants as they were though the previous AL season it's forgivable since they need extra space and only so many squares fit on a page, but for a map filled with smaller enemies like kobolds, there's no reason not to use the 5-foot squares that have been the battlemat standard scale for decades (and multiple editions of D&D) now. 10-foot squares just lead to either unnecessary difficulty in converting from one scale to another, or, if the DM doesn't catch it because it's easy to miss, a boss throwing a fireball that covers a much larger percentage of the encounter area than intended at a group that's more tightly-packed than they should have to be, leading to, again, a killer dungeon.
• As with most Adventurers League modules, the editing is pretty terrible. Obvious typos abound, but that's par for the course, so I can't really hold that against this module in particular. The front page lists two people as having handled "development and editing," but one is the author, and there's a reason writers are told to have someone else proofread their work instead of doing it themselves.
• I understand it's all standard, but replacing the nice, handy, at-your-fingertips downtime/renown/DM rewards in the text like older modules used with boilerplate "see the AL DM's Guide" language doesn't have a clear benefit. Being forced to look up certain rewards in a different document isn't a major complication, but it is an unnecessary one.

Overall this is a very solid module, and it sees a lot of use from me.

Good module, with just enough interesting things and encounters to do in a two-hour slot. One relatively quick encounter sets the players up to be led into a mini-dungeon crawl in some kobold warrens that conveniently lead into an area in the first floor of the Forge of Fury.

Pros:

• Kobolds
• Commoners actually being a nuisance to the party
• A unique mundane item that is pretty fun
• Actually runs in two hours, but can be expanded to include roleplay in the town of Blasingdell if being used as the hook into the Forge of Fury

Cons:

• The final encounter can easily result in a TPK if the party isn't rested or higher level, since the boss mob can cast heightened fireball
• The unique mundane item should be guaranteed an appearance
• It would be nice if there was more background information on the relationship between the kobolds and Nightscale

My players had a lot of fun with this one. Prep and running felt quite easy which made DMing that much more enjoyable. Overall the group did find the module fairly easy in terms of combat difficulty (granted 7 players and average level 3) so i recommend further tuning by prospective DMs of largee tables to create a bigger challenge.

So glad this mod helps me with how to run it. It's always great and makes mods easier to run cold. Wonderful!

I gotta say I really enjoyed this module. Classic kobolds: traps, and ambushes and pack tactics. The final fight was EPIC for this Tier of play. Even describing the magic item reward was fun to see the players faces sour at the description of a clearly useful items.

Great transistion from the kobolds in Sunless Citadel to the Forge of Fury.

Thumbs up for this fine 2 hour module!

I really enjoyed this adventure. Everything was fairly balanced, the encounters were fun and challenging, and my rogue is now officially traumatized by commoners. One suggestion to people running a group that doesn't set the alarm off: Remember to roll for random encounters. I had 13 commoners just hanging around int eh final room because the party never encountered them in the dungeon itself. The adventure also provides a very interesting backdoor into Forge of Fury, which was very fun. All in all, this was a fantastic lead-in into The Forge of Fury.