An almost exclusively combat adventure that allows the players to fight across the entirety of Salvation. Ultimately it felt like there wasn't as huge a reason for my players to explore the nooks and crannies of the town, prefering to just attack the enemies head-on after defeating the first one.

[spoilers] I've run all of the adventures up to and including this one. I'd say this one has me kind of doubting going forward with the players.

The last two adventures have been really heavy on the combat, not much in the way of negotiations, interesting NPCs or mysteries/puzzles. The players basically spend the entire 3-4 hours in combat. This adventure has some nice-ish descriptions of buildings and what's inside but nothing stands out as a "larger arc" or anything that would really stick in someones memory.

I did have fun with this adventure because I really tried to give life to the priest and villagers in the chapel after I had the oracle suggest they go there. A fun combat with a large snake and ogre was good but I soon realized that defeating 5-6 of these "boss" NPCs is just not possible in the time I had. I'm not sure how a DM would be able to do that without the game feeling entirely bogged down by combat (6 rounds of combat and you have people surfing garabge on their phones).

It all comes down to the players and the DM. This adventure can be fun (and it was reasonably fun to DM) but I'd classify this one more as a "gathering of short ideas with a rough, albit typical, goal"

Fun in theory, but quite counter-intuitive to run. 6 stars for the awesome setting establishment and idea, but -2 stars because motivational and mechanical problems obstruct the ability to get the most out of this content.

The Good: This adventure provides a creative group of villains that are fun to play against your PCs. It also adds more intrigue to the Oracle of War, and it further develops the setting and inhabitants of the Salvation outpost. In a proper run, PCs should be able to establish new connections with the townsfolk, receiving resources and aid in kind.

The Bad: The module advertises "a game of cat and mouse" the party must play with the assassins, attempting to remain mobile while skirting across town and taking them out one by one. In practice, this did not play as advertised. My players stayed in the streets, controlling the assassins with Web as they centered in on the party, with the party eventually finishing everyone but Saal without ever having to reroll initiative. While doable for this group, this also meant the majority of the town content (and the resources/rewards they could have encountered) was skipped entirely. And unfortunately, the adventure setting provides too many conflicting motivations to convincingly direct players to approach the challenge as advertised. Between the Oracle's constant malfunctioning cries and the ongoing threat that hostages will be killed, Belaluur's advice may not be nearly enough to persuade the players along such a counter-intuitive path. Additionally, this adventure creates another rest-limited battle of attrition which mirrors the modules immediately before and after it (if running EBEP-01 in intended order).

Advice to future GMs: Both EB-03 and EBEP-01 are also very combat-heavy, light on actual roleplay, and limited in ability to rest. In isolation, this works well for each adventure, but after running them all together, many of my players were seriously doubting the fit of some of their character choices and were ready to remake new characters. Your players may just need a break here, and that probably requires a deep retooling for this adventure. At the very least, I don't think the assassins should announce their target to the town and threaten hostages. If I ran this again, I would give them more subtlety instead, acting as undercover spies seeking to urgently--but far more covertly--re-acquire the Oracle and terminate its current owners through their gradually closing investigation. It may provide more opportunities for the party to engage with the Salvation inhabitants a bit more.

A rare adventure type, well executed. Will definitely use the concepts even if I never get to run it.

(Spoilers ahead)

This is a fun and creative adventure - basically a four hour Western movie style battle through the streets of Salvation, where resource management becomes the order of the day.

A few comments:

• Given that the party meets assassins randomly and that reinforcement times are random, this adventure can be really swingy.

• Ghanji Sabrehands is a LOT more dangerous than his four comrades. When you put all his features (movement, advantage, flurry together), he can often literally kill a player on his first round, because (a) flurry is defined as only working on a single opponent, and (b) since he can't use his remaining attacks against anyone else and he's a villain, there's really no reason for him not to double tap a player every time he uses the flurry. It might be a little better if he were able to attack multiple people with the flurry, or if he started without it charged and had to roll for it on Round 1.

Hi all! I ran this adventure at its premiere and my players had a blast. I am a big fan of the Oracle of War as a creative artifact. No need to hink twice about adding htis one to your collection! Your Eberron players will be happy you did!