This module is great. My players had a ton of fun wandering around Candlekeep, and were incredibly suspicious of Inkpot immediately.

After heading off the the crypt, the players pulled out their wonderful obsidian steeds and were able to just pick and choose which rooms to explore inside. They fought some monsters, found some treasure, etc. It was really funny talking to them as Rhaugilath before meeting him, without them knowing who he is or why he cares.

The final boss fight was totally crazy, and my players were definitely not prepared for a certain lair action that the boss can do...

As for the boss itself, it is a ton of fun and absolutely insane. My only issue is that I wish the mechanics for it's smite were more clear. I'm not sure if it's supposed to just spend hit dice, or just hit points, or both.

Overall, lots of fun. Great if your players have a love/hate relationship with Alan Patrick modules as mine do.

There are so many things I love about this adventure 1) I recommend this as a DM's first T4. It's such an easy module to run, in person or online. There are built in mechanics for managing session time. It's not a T4 that will run for 6 hours. The combats are simple to run without having a dozen simultaneous effects to track. 2) The Dungeoncrawl and environmental effects there are super fun to run and very inspirational. Thank you Alan Patrick for the counterspelling lich dungeon, for building a lich lair for us to draw inspiration from, and for the 6ft high ceilings. Love everything about what you did here. 3) The final fight is a blast to run. I love smiting paladins. I REALLY love smiting paladin dragons.

Thank you for creating this wonderful adventure!

Pros:

• Official Adventurers League module.
• Solid dungeon design with a balanced mix of exploration, role-playing, and combat.
• Role-playing a Lich!
• Helpful DM notes and appendices for running the adventure (and DM-ing in general).

Cons:

• Almost no art.
• Full size dungeon map is a separate purchase.

THE VERDICT: “THOSE THAT CAME BEFORE” PROVIDES A SOLID TIER 3 DUNGEON CRAWL, CULMINATING WITH A QUEST-GIVING LICH AND A BOSS BATTLE WITH AN UNDEAD, WORM-INFESTED DRAGON.

Full review: https://roguewatson.com/2019/12/25/dms-guild-review-those-that-came-before-saga-of-the-worm-2/

Video review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNv-WxrYhEs

Great middle act, confusing ending.

I ran this adventure today, I found section 1 and 2 really fun and the players enjoyed it just as much. The 3rd act fell a little flat, the players felt extremely confused about what they were supposed to be doing with the Battery, what the battery was, the crystal and so on. I believe part of this stems from my lack of understanding and preparations of the ending, however act 3 didn't feel nearly as well fleshed out as act 2.

In short: Pretty standard Alan Patrick fare. Super deep in lore, an overall interesting concept, but incredibly poorly written and editted, and the prescribed 4 hours bares no resemblance to what you should expect, if you don't want to hand wave over things.

To put this out there, up front: Do not run this, if you do not also have DDAL00-01, and have read it. Just don't.

Notably bad editing/design: The entire final part. The objective is to destroy/deactivate the MacGuffin, within 10 rounds, before the MacGuffin Owner returns and wipes the players from the face of existence. Sure, that's fine, sounds reasonable. Problem is - there are no stats for the MacGuffin, nor any mechanics about it whatsoever. The defender of the MacGuffin has stats, and is a reasonably challenging encounter for T4 characters. Problem is - he's not the objective. There is one option listed as a suggestion as to how to destroy the MacGuffin - but absolutely nothing about how that works, why it works, or how effective any given thing attempting to take advantage of it may be.

There is an appendix that lists the former abilities of this MacGuffin - but those stats are for what it used to be - its already deactivated. Of course, the players, nor (apparently) the second oldest creature on Toril is aware of that, and are told repeatedly to focus on stopping it. Yeah, just... Seriously, get someone else to edit this. No one should ever be allowed to edit their own work for publication.

My first T4 adventure to DM and it really is easy to run because there are just handful of different kinds of monsters. Great back story and set-up. A lot of detail but kind of wasted because the party is not expected to investigate the whole dungeon. Also, the final fight has a lot of side rooms on the map that I can't see why the players would go there. My biggest complaint is that I didn't understand that the whole "investigate the scene" mission was not applicable because a major event happened off stage. Maybe I'm kind of dense but it just seemed like a hard fight for a reason I didn't understand until it hit me half-way through.

This module is simply incredible.

Fantastic lore, drawing on the story of Larloch and the fall of Netheril, the players actually interact with the complex lich Rhaugilath, and take on my ALL TIME favorite final boss, the mighty (and horrifying) Taemylyn'zakka!

Another wonderful installment of the Kyuss series (following off DDAL00-01), and fleshing out the iconic library of Candlekeep, this module has great potential for world-building and storytelling (if your players are unfamiliar of the history of Netheril and all that it lead to, this is a perfect opportunity to catch them up.

But my favorite thing about this module is how it ties into the higher-tier modules of season 7 (I will not spoil it further, but it is definitely going to blow your player's minds if you play this along with the tier 3 modules in season 7).

I like this adventure A LOT. But there are some more or less serious issues with it.

The entire lore behind and the plot itself is incredbily well written and very interesting to run and play. Greatly enjoyed Candlekeep and Rhaugilath playing a major role in this one.
The issues mostly lie in encounter balance. I ran this for an average strength Tier 3 group and they pretty much blazed thorugh the crypt encounter. The enemies could take a few hits and also potentially dish out a lot if they actually hapen to land a hit once every blue moon but mostly just fealt like a grind. Same for the BBEG. An Ancient Dragon Paladin is an awesome concept but I don't think it's a good idea to use the same boss for a T3 and T4 group. For my group he turned out to be increbily tanky and could dish out a lot of damage with smites as well if he wanted to (though it's kinda questionable that there's no limit on the number of hd he can expend to smite a target) but he still had the same problems as all solo mobs. The big hp pool bascially just turned the fight into a giant slog, if a dangerous one at that. The lair actions were kinda boring and mostly just annoying the players as they either shut them down completely or delayed the fight by making them unable to act in certain ways.

Overall I enjoyed this adventure, especially for the plot, but the actual combat encounters needed more work to be interesting.

I would consider this adventure to be a fairly ideal example of what a T4 should be.

It had some great RP elements, and plenty of lore throughout the adventure. Getting the players more invested by taking notes of their character’s experiences and feelings throughout the adventure was a great way to keep them more interested and made for a entertaining conclusion. There was plenty of opportunities to play off the character’s previous trauma from dealing with Kyuss’ minions in the prequel, but I did feel that it wouldn’t have been as enjoyable if there wasn’t someone who had played DDAL00-01.

The combat was first and foremost -challenging! There was a sense of danger and impending death at a few points in the final fight and it provided plenty of emphasis to just how dangerous their foes truly are at this level. The scaling was tricky to get right with a smaller party, especially one with fairly balanced characters. The suggestions in the mod were a great start to scaling (especially if some parties were a bit heavy in certain roles eg. casters). I did find that the damage in the final encounter was on the high side. That being said, it was a great overall, and with a little care, it wasn’t too hard to give them a real challenge.

I did find the formating of some of encounters a bit full on, and not the most user friendly format. It required fairly thorough preparation, and it does leave a lot of the detail and description to the DM which can be a bit of a struggle for some.

Traps and encounters are actually threatening for tier 4 players. If only more t4 modules were written this way.

Even better that the first part. The Lore about Larlock and the final boss is everything that D&D is about. Once again should only be tier 4 but everyone at my table loved it. I cant wait for the third part

Played through this mod with a group of T4 players all level 20. 1 melee, 1 ranged, 2 casters. The dungeon effect against casters pretty much shut them down for the whole mod. Good rolls meant they cast about 9 spells between the wto of them that actually went off. Beyond that, I highly suggest getting the full sized map as it's beautiful and really helps the dungeon. I know my part and they are very strong even with only 4 and this had a few of them worried as it should.

The powered up enemies got a bit repettitive though. sure they where able to survive a round or two against a group of level 20s but really only 2 of them could do anything. The only REAL threat was the boss and the knights (who I didn't have fall apart)

Having played the previous in the series, the scene was set for this adventure. Pot was great fun to RP and I made sure he knew things he souldn't have just to throw in that bit at the end of the guidance. When in the dungeon, I played a slow heartbeat and immediatley everyone was creeped out. I left it playing in the background for the whole session and it set just the right tone when no one was talking. Overall, I felt this was more of a dungeon crawl but not in a bad way. the setting and lore behind it made it fantastic. My fool of a party think they have killed a god. little do they know it was but a fragment.

I made an error and placed my initial review on the discussions page, so correcting that.

This is an important mod for several reasons.

1) It further expands Candlekeep as a point of learning and lore. 2) It gives the players a connection to an Ally who has been an enemy to the Realm's major villain for thousands of years. 3) It sets up a conflict which you will see reflected in the tier 3 and tier 4 mods for season 7 (or that is t least my guess) and one which is far more ranging than any we have seen in prior events.

The mod is well laid out, and it gives the DM hints on how to make things seem incredibly dangerous for a tier 4 mod party- I can not say enough on how important that is. Players at this level are typically going to toast most monsters, so the DM adding a sense of tension and fear is something they actually MISS.

The mod is fun, has substantial rewards, and will keep your players both paranoid and engaged.

I want to add in a few points as well:

The internal maps are very well designed, and add a real feeling of dread to the place. I highly recommend printing them out as part of the setting. The art, both on the cover and internal is well placed, and really makes things creepy (as it should be). The corrupting power of the Worm is evidenced, and the conflict between two legendary forces inside the forgotten realms will have real consequences for the players, letting them know that they are dealing with issues above even their exaluted paygrade is critical.

Without spoiling anything, and accounting for the higher price of the module - In many ways this adventure is a tease, always promising but rarely delivering.

Lore:

• There is a lot of good lore in this module, but a lot was also witheld and instead left for the dm to figure out or make up.
• A lot of information regarding certain NPCS was also explicitly left ambiguous.

Fun to run as a DM:

• There was a lot of handholding the module that didn't seem to matter. The DM is asked to make notes of incidents that have no matter in the story (maybe to make the DM look ominous?). -The author seems to assume the players will recognize a lot of things rather than telling which information the DM should impart.
• It is not clear when players should ignore warnings or why. There are a lot of warnings that the DM is to give the players. Some are very obvious and have no effect, some result in instant player death, and some are given with the expectation they will be ignored in order to continue the plot and story.

Player angency and chances for the players to shine:

• Many decisions are railroaded, which isn't bad except there is the illusion that the players have a choice on things they don't.
• Phrases like "Actual score is irrelevant", "(if the characters go off book) they are guaranteed to be swarmed and killed" are used.
• There are environmentals and effects that explicitly nerf player capabilities.
• This is a module that the best decision is to run away.

How well it ties in to past modules:

• Lore introduced in the previous module take a back seat to other aspects of lore.
• The people in Candlekeep actually aren't interested in the books from the first module that are listed as of interest to the people of Candlekeep.
• Overall this felt like a side story rather than a tie in to a three part arc.

Quality of Writing and communication:

• There was a lot that was just left open to the DM without suggestions which felt lazy
• Some things are left in the module via copy pasta from a previous adventure. Like a certain thanks for a certain sentient sword.
• There were a lot of dangling plot elements and hooks introduced in the introduction at Candlekeep that actually don't seem to matter or have any impact later in the book. Threats are not delivered if players fail to ignore warnings here. The adventurers could have just received an invitation to the dungeon by their factions and nothing would have been lost.
• I am most likely missing something, but reading this module it wasn't clear if the big bad in the previous module was subordinate or controlling the big bad in this module, nor what either of their plans were, or really other than they were somehow using and being used by each other until the adventureres show up. It felt messy and confusing to read.

Advertised, this adventure is for skilled exploreres. The characters are then led to a sabotage mission. In the final encounter neither of these matter and it's simply a matter of murder hobo.

It felt like this module really doesn't know what it wants to be and can't present a clear image. I think it would have been better off as a low tier module or a Call of Cthulu game. That way the threats could have been more visceral without the illusion of players actually being able to make a difference in the outcome of the story.

This is not a module for novice DMs, I had the joy of playing this as an AO at QCC2016 with the man the myth the wormy legend Alan Patrick. I think that if you don't set the right tone this module seems meh, the fights if take straight forward aren't that epic. But if you watch some select cuts of your favorite creeping horror movies and keep that tone it will rock your players socks. Its still the best module we as a group of dedicated players (all have multiple t3/t4 characters) have played. Also you HAVE to play smart with the final boss, too many people hold back because they feel it isn't fair or getting to meta whatever.... When dealing with creatures that are 10x older than your oldest character they have seen everything and corrupted or not they have a plan that has been vetted by the corpses of a 1000 slain heros. Also for running it to keep the tone and pace I've found doing single skill checks per room is ideal one rolls it, one offers assistance (if they are proficient in that skill) everyone else hopes it rolls high. Running this in a few weeks at a Con and I can't wait!