[SPOILER ALERT]
That being said, I will avoid as many specific spoilers as possible.
I loved the module, partly because of the variety of challenges and partly because of the whole-realms feel. I ran it as a double-shot with "Uninvited Guests", today.
I have some nitpicks. I'll address them first. One, there were a few typos (the important one "Very Strong Party: Add a bugbear chief, remove the worg." was mentioned on Discussions Tab). Two, lack of time and distance details for desert travel, was something I determined (incorrectly, turns out) on the fly. Third, caravan leave in four hours => caravan leaves pre-dawn? That meant to me: the party met, were interviewed and were hired at midnight. Is that right? Like I said, they're nitpicks. I would have liked more details on the wagons up front. I missed that they were tied-down, canvas-covered until it was mentioned at the end. The party thought the adventure should have mentioned that a SHATTER spell effects used on certain adversaries in "2D" should be spelled out for the DM. I call that one to be my fault. Last nitpick is timing for "2C": "The characters have a turn..." Should that be " The characters have a round..."? I used the "save yourself and one of three choices" guideline for this regardless how long it might take based on movement and the number of actions required to accomplish the chosen task.
PCs made hard choices. I had the PCs make all those skill checks on page 10 between paragraphs two and three in the boxed text as well as having PCs who succeeded the DC 13 Survival check follow that up with the History check on page 11. In the beginning, I named the drivers and had them interact with the PCs to make them more valuable during crunch-time. I gave one PC an extra "save choice" based on a spell cast while helping an NPC. Therefore, only a wagon and 2 camels were lost on the journey. The party didn't avoid or pay the toll.
There were player complaints about not detecting something that had a DC 15 check, but I rolled all those checks myself behind the screen without saying why. I'm convinced one player already knew what was up because he invisibly walked up to stare for ten minutes at the subject. I rolled for him with advantage: 3 & 5. The party figured it out eventually and reached their destination ("D2 option"). In Parnast, there was much rejoicing.
My only significant complaint: "The Black Road" IS NOT a two-hour adventure. I Cliff's-Noted "2B" (Persuasion check with advantage, because of 2nd PC help, for the information) because I felt it added flavor and valuable information. It couldn't have added ten minutes to the running time. It took three and a half total hours to run this adventure. The only way I COULD shorten the adventure would be to run it ALL as "theater of the mind" and NERF "2A" a little...but not down to two hours.
The party was STRONG with seven PCs at APL 3.
I love the adventure and will run it at least a couple more times in the next two months.
Oh! And we all loved the toenails! My compliments to the authors!
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