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DDAL-ELW04 Jack of Daggers
Publisher: Dungeon Masters Guild
by Mike D. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 11/08/2018 12:08:19

"...intelligent, but not experienced. His pattern indicates two dimensional thinking." - Spock

Skip this one if you are running the series. This adventure is one of five Tier 1 adventures. PCs only need four (4) to reach 5th level. This is the least revelatory or interesting of the five. Move on to "DDAL-ELW05 Against the Lightning" and bask in the dynamics of that adventure.

My problem with this adventure and the last few in the series is the lack of... well... "verticalness" in them. This is the third adventure in a row with a building that features an "underground" element to a key building in the middle or upper neighborhoods in the "City of Towers". Sewers, basements and attics should not be common or even necessary. In the Cogs: sure!

I do my best to change layouts and give the flavor of Sharn bridges spanning gaps between buildings and the sky traffic that taxis around them. The stacked nature of always having something above and below any establishment. But these "Embers of the Last War" adventures feel like they were written for Waterdeep, not Sharn.

And for goodness sake, please give me a hook I can use. PLEASE! Objective: "(NPC the party has never met) needs to convince the characters to seek out the (established enemy) outpost in the Highhold Ward to infiltrate it in order to retrieve information that (NPC) believes could be valuable to (the NPC's interest)." HOW?!! If the writer can't come up with a reason, what makes them think I can? Blackmail won't work and gold isn't a thing in AL anymore. A favor owed [story award], maybe?!! A magic item at the beginning for use in the adventure and unlocked later?

And for the second adventure in a row, a bonus objective is "Hey! Kill someone for me. Because I want you to, that's why!" WTF?!! [In both cases, the party sent the target in a cage dressed as a girallon to Xendrick by sea. Thank you, Trading Places.]

This adventure is put together beautifully (which makes the poor maps stand out that much more) and has some interesting, though undeveloped ideas. I don't complain about the typos anymore - with AL adventures they're a given. "male rock forest", indeed.



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
DDAL-ELW04 Jack of Daggers
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DDAL-ELW00 What's Past is Prologue
Publisher: Dungeon Masters Guild
by A customer [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 09/24/2018 23:18:39

Great Adventure!

I love the idea that this established NPCs backstories in front of the players.

After reading through the adventure, I came here to compare notes. Disappointed to read the reaction. I agree that it's basically a railroad but thee are choices, and the third part is sandbox-y in the order. My players actually demanded to take out the villain by "interacting with the environment". And why not! They fled, ducked and dodged from pursuers. Generally all had a great time.

SPOILER ALERT <<<<

I am going to take issue with complaints about how the players interact with the Platinum Egret and vice versa.

The ship is written exactly correct. Check your premises. This IS a Cannith ship. Read page 17 carefully under "Bonus Objective A: What Have We Here?" This is NOT a House Lyrandar ship.

I love that Eberron metaknowledge players are going to get thrown a curve.

My compliments to the author!

Mike Daingerfield



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
DDAL-ELW00 What's Past is Prologue
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DDAL05-03 Uninvited Guests (5e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by A customer [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 10/16/2016 00:24:50

[Minor Vague Spoilers]

I loved the module, partly because of the respect for setting it engenders and partly because it is such a great follow-up to it's lead-in "The Black Road", which I also ran today. The mood of Parnast, of it's people and all the interactions there set a specific, sympathetic tone. These people need help. Fortunately, the party was as far from murderhobos as you could get. They even tolerated the red-shirt. They played Part Two perfectly with the best of all possible results and were almost perfect in Part Three (redshirt had to make a death save).

I lost players for this round (store-run scheduling) because the lead-in ran long. However this was just as egregiously off in the estimated running time. Total running time was three hours twenty minutes.

I'm grateful for how this adventure ties into Season One's first hardback. I wasn't sure it really did until I browsed through "Hoard of the Dragon Queen" in a bookstore. Having DM'd a player whose mind was completely blown in the STK hardbound campaign when the spirit of someone from Season One showed up and tied-up a loose story end, I really appreciate the kind of planning, follow-up and attention to detail this takes. Of course, I had to buy HOTDQ after seeing the Parnast map in there.

The party was WEAK with three PCs at APL 3.

Party was WAAAAAAY more excited about the Story Rewards than the magic item. What do you expect from elves?

Again, nothing but love for for the adventure. Especially as a double shot. If anything, add a little more meat to this and "The Black Road": THEN you can call both FOUR-HOUR ADVENTURES.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
DDAL05-03 Uninvited Guests (5e)
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DDAL05-02 The Black Road (5e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by A customer [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 10/15/2016 23:31:02

[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!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
DDAL05-02 The Black Road (5e)
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