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DDAL07-18 Turn Back the Endless Night $3.99
Average Rating:4.3 / 5
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DDAL07-18 Turn Back the Endless Night
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DDAL07-18 Turn Back the Endless Night
Publisher: D&D Adventurers League
by Jordan L. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 11/17/2018 14:57:08

The end fight is a re-skin of the end fight in "Rise of Tiamat." With Dendar being a re-skin of Tiamat. Not terribly original, but felt epic enough, as I thought the Tiamat encounter and especially leading up to it was pretty epic. So run it with those who haven't done tyranny of dragons for best effect. The final encounter has some mechanical problems. Make the room taller. Dendars best ability, Hypnotic Pattern, is broken by the damage of the room, not sure if this was intentional. I would make it so if they're standing on a Teleporter and go unconcious they take no damage thus are still under the effect of hypnotic pattern. Its a pretty challenging module really. The group I ran it with had six mixed classes. They got to the end, ate a couple of meteor swarms, then healed to full with a wish spell, neutralized the archmage with feeblemind. Dendar came and the barbarian with eagle totem and boots of speed proceeded to chop her to bits. They did have a life cleric healing a lot. They were very very close to wiping but the hypnotic pattern on the barb was broken by the rooms effect. I like to play things as written and trust in the writers. But there were a few things that didn't make sense. Why is a god of nightmares not immune to psychic damage?... Oh well, it was nevertheless fun. Read it thoroughly and make some adjustments would be my suggestion.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL07-18 Turn Back the Endless Night
Publisher: D&D Adventurers League
by Chris P. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/28/2018 12:15:10

This was a great end to what I felt was otherwise a rather lackluster season. I like that they put so many possible encounters in this module, especially because I think it is one people will want to replay. I felt Dendar was a little underpowered for the final Tier 4 boss, my players killed her without taking hardly any damage even though I maxed out every NPC's HP in every encounter.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL07-18 Turn Back the Endless Night
Publisher: D&D Adventurers League
by Nathan B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/27/2018 07:43:14

great end to the story really makes players work for reward



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL07-18 Turn Back the Endless Night
Publisher: D&D Adventurers League
by Richard C. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/15/2018 12:11:56

The best part of the mod was the variety of encounters - there was something that tapped on each of the gameplay pillars, and it gives plenty of room for repeat play without feeling stale. A few rooms could have used better reasons for the characters to interact such as the pool room, but mostly good.

That said, the final battle was a good one that could actually threaten tier 4 parties (Radiant Meteor Swarm). It does take some serious preparation as there are so many spell effects on the NPCs that can become important in the later stages of the fight. It is also fairly likely that the PCs will face Dendar since they will likely have failures in the maze and each one advances the round count by one in the final fight.

The reward, however is very underwhelming. Considering what was at stake and what it took to get there, it feels like more of a letdown than it should have been.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL07-18 Turn Back the Endless Night
Publisher: D&D Adventurers League
by Robert N. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/11/2018 23:08:10

My favourite T4 yet. Provides a satifying conclusion to the S7 storyline and has some of the best stat blocks in dnd (Goat!!).

I especially like how replayable this whole mod is both for players and DMs, with 3/10 different encounters leading up to the final part. There's a pretty even spread between combat, exploration and social so there should be something for everyone. Only thing that bugs me a bit is that some of the "Lost in the Maze" Encounters" are way more interesting than the "Advancing the Maze" ones, which are only gonna get used sparingly, considering how many high INT/WIS chars there are in Tier 4. Some of the encounters are btter than others obviously and I'd recommend to choose which to use ahead of time. The tile puzzle is actually quite simple but there really need to be just a few more hints on what to do (like the fact that diagonal movement is not allowed).

The final combat is pretty well designed in my opinion, throwing the same kinda bs at players they themselves probably possess at that point. The added pressure of Dendar trying to break free adds another dimension to the fight as well. What bothered me in this section was that the maze curse is a bit too complicated and honestly, kind of unnecessary.

Overall a great adventure and one I'm looking forward to DMing again in the future (which is pretty rare)!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL07-18 Turn Back the Endless Night
Publisher: D&D Adventurers League
by Jake F. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/28/2018 01:27:06

Not a big fan of this one, too much risk for too little reward - the magic item manages to be an even worse version of an already bad DMG item. Likewise, the actual boss here is not Dendar, but the red wizards, who can open round one of combat with 3x radiant meteor swarms (my wizard survived only through a contengencied resilient sphere) and can take waaaaaaaaaaaay more damage than I think a party can reasonably deal out. The fact that Dendar auto-kills them all adds insult to injury as she's way easier to kill, but you've just burnt a ton of resources on basically nothing. Weirdly Dendar's legendary action hypnotic patterns gave us the most trouble, but we quickly figured out we could just close our eyes to render them useless. Likewise a mind blank and force cage on our sharpshooter rogue basically ended the fight - as she became immune to everything Dendar could do while blocking the exit to the room with the force cage. I'm pretty sure that after that round the fight was over as our rogue could have solo'ed Dendar, but we kept fighting anyway because why not?

The one redeeming aspect of this module is the flavor bits - the rooms leading up to the end were fun and flavorfull, though the one puzzle with the tile floor is paricularly badly designed, as we found multiple valid routes through it, some even shorter than the "correct" ones. If you run this, I'd suggest letting any valid path that works according to the rules of the puzzle let the party through - we just had to brute force it because several valid paths weren't "correct".



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL07-18 Turn Back the Endless Night
Publisher: D&D Adventurers League
by Timothy J. L. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/27/2018 12:42:38

The best part of the mod was the variety of encounters - there was something that tapped on each of the gameplay pillars, and it gives plenty of room for repeat DMings without feeling stale. A few rooms could have used a little more flair, or better reasons for the characters to interact, but mostly good. There were some nice call-outs to older content, too.

That said, the final battle was a little bit too hectic - it felt like it had too many moving parts. The reward, however is very underwhelming. Considering what was at stake and what it took to get there, it feels like more of a letdown than it should have been. Still, I think it was a decent wrap up for the season.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL07-18 Turn Back the Endless Night
Publisher: D&D Adventurers League
by Fiona M. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/24/2018 23:34:13

Like all T4 adventures that I've run so far, this needs to be adjusted depending on the power levels of the adventurers. But I appreciate the fact that it is already pretty dangerous, as written. I appreciate the amount of thought that went into the Thayan wizards' preparations in the final combat encounter (even though, with the power level of some of the T4s that I've had to DM, the mages in other modules already need to have that level of insane preparation just to present any sort of challenge for the adventurers). It's a module that really needs to present a challenge to the adventurers that play it, and the module does give you all the tools you need to present that challenge.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL07-18 Turn Back the Endless Night
Publisher: D&D Adventurers League
by Diana V. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/08/2018 12:13:52

An amazing conclusion to the Broken Chains storyline, that actually made sense, and felt like a proper conclusion to Chult. The maze itself is great, especially with the variety allowed by picking different rooms and letting them go through. I highly reccomend letting them roll all their checks at once, then picking the rooms necessary to weave a nicer story out of it.

As for the final battle, well... It's certainly something. The Thayan contingent is not a major threat to them as written, and can mostly be ignored by anyone who can fly right up to the Iron Doors. That being said, my party vastly overestimated the time they had to finish their task, and, after the assistance provided in the module, was in a truly massive battle that needs to be prepped. I made Dendar 40x40, basically able to hit whatever she wanted, which certainly terrified everyone. It's definitely a potential TPK scenario, as it should be when the gods get involved. The magic item is well... it's not great. The story award is similarly not good as a "you got used as a pawn by a lich, and now a much more powerful one hates you!". I would've liked for the players to get something nice for their troubles of, y'know, saving Realmspace, but I suppose this follows in the Rise of Tiamat AL tradition of "defeating gods gets you little-to-nothing".

There is an error in Dendar's stat block, which is a relic from Tiamat: "Innate Spellcasting (3/Day). Dendar can innately cast dream, hypnotic pattern and dissonant whispers (spell save DC 26)." First: her multiattack action includes casting of dissonant whispers, so that should be at will. Second: it's not clear why hypnotic pattern should be limited, as she uses it pre-combat and has a legendary action to use it as well. Finally, and this is a personal issue: dream is utterly useless here, as no characters are asleep, and it isn't really something Dendar would use normally anyway. I made the edit that dissonant whispers and hypnotic pattern can be cast at will, and added phantasmal killer 3/Day in place of dream 3/Day.

One other modification was to how the teleportation worked: it didn't seem very "otherworldly maze designed to keep people trapped forever" to have the teleportation symbols linked one-to-one, so I took a cue from WWII and labed the symbols A-Z on the map and set up a simulation of an enigma machine on my laptop to generate where they come out. Enigma machines never encipher a letter to itself, so teleportation always worked, and the players were always unsure of what was going to happen next, which I think helps the tone of the final battle. Highly recommend this.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL07-18 Turn Back the Endless Night
Publisher: D&D Adventurers League
by Robbie P. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/06/2018 20:11:11

Overall an enjoyable mod, with a few small hiccups.

First of all, I love the variety of options for the rooms players can encounter. It helps keep things fresh each time and lets the DM alternate between exploration, social, and combat as they see fit.

With that said, a few of the rooms were less than grand. I like the idea of the room with all the pools in them, but there's nothing that would possibly knock a player into one and no reason for them to touch any of them, just a bunch of floating rocks. Needs more of a hook.

As for the room with Ubtao's aspect of anger, he was a lot of fun to roleplay. Definitely enjoyed bringing him to life. But what if the players don't have any wishes, or they wish for something like a bunch of candy? It also needed to be made more clear that leaving there undoes all the wishes, otherwise jerk players may create some bad blood.

With that said, there were some great ones too. Elisande is back and trying to get a giant goat? Now that's a great one.

I also like how the previous adventures do come into play in providing the players with tools they need to succeed, and how the time they take has a clear effect. Making everything a step in a lich's plan was good, and I was tempted to have him reveal the facade early on just to taunt the players with the fact that they HAD to do it or else the world would end.

The final battle against the Red Wizards is way too crowded, though, between the wizards, their multiple zombies, all the different ongoing spell effects to remember, the teleporting sigils, and the damaging glow each round. It got bogged down by all the various things to track. (And I know the maps are really just there as a guideline for the DMs, but boy is this one just sketched out.)

Fighting Dendar is great, though, if the players don't seal the gate in time. It definitely made them struggle, moreso than previous challenges too. So even if they don't seal the gate in time, they're gonna have fun.

Lastly, I feel like there should have been a better reward. Best-case scenario, they get a magic item and a story reward that reminds them how they got used by a lich. Most parties will be permanently drained of at least a few hit dice too. There's a big sacrifice and they saved the world from ending, couldn't they get at least something more for their troubles?

With all that said, I did enjoy this adventure, in spite of all my critiques. It's imperfect, yes, but still provided a lot of entertainment for my players, and is a great conclusion to the season. So I hope my criticism feels constructive, as it's intended to be, because it's still good.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL07-18 Turn Back the Endless Night
Publisher: D&D Adventurers League
by richard p. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/05/2018 17:02:40

A fantastic finale to a great ongoing story. Loved the puzzles but definitely need to let the players know theres a reason certain things here dont fit the rules but if theyre willing to go with it, it can be amazing. Also the "affected if she wills it" stuff can definitely be worked around by players if you keep with the motif of think outside the box throughout the mod(s) and if you as a DM are more focused on making an awesome experience and memorable story it makes it that much easier. When gods get involved in things, it gets crazy, and this was out of this world.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL07-18 Turn Back the Endless Night
Publisher: D&D Adventurers League
by Kevin H. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/04/2018 14:29:51

The story was fantastic, the mechanics of the final encounter leave a lot to be deisred. There were several clear RAW violations in the final fight plan for the foes. My players were mature enough to accept it and move on, but this should not have happend in an adventurer's league module. That being said the encounters were both notstalgic and creative. The maze was well designed and the descriptions energizing. The ecnounter with the mount and its rider had my players on their feet. If the author fixes the mechanical problems in the final fight this might be one of the best AL modules out there (I liked the hand drawn maps).



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL07-18 Turn Back the Endless Night
Publisher: D&D Adventurers League
by Shane B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/01/2018 03:43:14

While an enjoyable adventure, the maps are ludicrous, and of amateur quality. I cannot help but feel disappointment.



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL07-18 Turn Back the Endless Night
Publisher: D&D Adventurers League
by Tim L. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 06/28/2018 21:03:35

I wanted to give this 4 1/2, but I decided on 4/5-maybe I'm just tired after running then entire Broken Chains today over 13h. So the last 3 parts were all leading to this, and the plot works, the references and results of 7-15, 7-16, 7-17 actually matter, which is awesome. The maze trap did get 1 character, but a trap like that being nullified with only a lv3 spell makes it rather pointless. I liked the living maze idea, which would add lots of replay value I guess (not that there's a whole lot of T4 going on anywhere to my knowledge). One reference to DDEX3-16 was tramatizing enough (the fight vs Mother did not go well), odd there was more than one reference to 3-16. With the little-to-no combat path (would have taken forever if more comabt) the party still had close to full resources for the finale, so even showing up 1 rd late, still had 8 uses to Divine Portent (3+dreamwalker, and simulacrum with same) and Meteor Swarm along with enough HP to take a Meteor Swarm (2 characters had evasion and 22 Dex for 0 damage) so that fight ended quickly leading to either a failure of {If I told you it wouldn't be secret} or the DM deciding the magic item can only be used once per combat round so What's-His-Face could at least show up before getting sneak attacked into oblivion.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL07-18 Turn Back the Endless Night
Publisher: D&D Adventurers League
by Wrich P. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 06/26/2018 18:58:02

This is overall a solid mod, presented in a logical fashion, with plenty of interesting challenges.

Yes, you should buy this mod.

That being said, I have two major problems with this mod and a few minor ones.

1) The possiblity of poor DMing, or angry DMing could wipe out your character and perma ban them from AL play. -- I honestly do not believe this should be a general, or open option. There are some great DMs in AL, and some really stinky ones....and I would hate to play this with one of the stinky ones.

2) There is an option inside the mod where ASI's and magic items can be perma removed from characters- while the average player could figure their way out of it in the end, I do not think this should have been included in a mod designed for public play. It can expedite bullying and aggressive behavior on the part of the players and should be dramatically modified by DM fiat when ran.

Minor issues. - The 3rd level spell Tongues does not grant, anywhere in it's description, someone polymorphed the ability to use their spells.

4th level polymorph does not allow folks to still use their spells. It does lower the persons IQ to the creature Int however, so even if it did, the DR would drop dramtatically.

There are several other poor rules interpretations justified in the mod which just bug me. I tend to favor "Be exact, or be magical"- the DM can do what they like, but do not try to make exact excuses/reasons to every single challenge the DM is going to present- it won't work. - It is best to do that when you want players to have a chance to up-end the magic, and if the reasons are not then exact, it will cause them to yell foul.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
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