I loved this jaunt around key memorable locations in DDHC-RotF. The encounters were incredibly enjoyable and sufficiently challenged the party. I particularly enjoyed how it ends: with the bomb + ritual Highly recommend playing this one

This is a long series of fetch quests, and ones that feel very similar to what just happened in 10-08. Overall it was not a very interesting adventure, but some of the exploration bits were interesting and I did enjoy the final combat.

This is an adventure that definitely struggles with middle adventure syndrome. In DDAL10-08 the adventurers start a plan to blow up Xorvintroth and bury it beneath the mountain. This adventure is the execution of the bomb building.

What I liked: For players that are playing through Rime of the Frostmaiden, this is a fun little "Best Hits" type adventure. Venturing back to Sunblight Citadel, The Chardalyn Dragon, and Lost Spire are fun opportunities. The encounters are a good mix of combat and puzzle solving to challenge the players.

What I didn't Like: The pacing of the adventure left a lot to be desired. We ended up spending 2.5 hours on one encounter, having to squeeze in the other 2 before the bomb assembly. Because the adventure isn't handwaving travel it's misleading to the players how much time should be spent on it.

Verdict: This was an ok AL adventure. I think the bits and pieces are fine, it's hard to squeeze into 4 hours and doesn't have a good individual payoff. Run as a part of a campaign it's stronger, but as part of the AL drop in drop out experience the stakes are hard to explain to the characters.

This adventure is a welcome break from the constant journeys back and forth along the Spine of the World... Oh wait, you do that again, but to another slightly different spot. The table picked up pretty quickly that this is a shopping list, but they were good sports about it. Overall, I dialed back the serious tone, and everyone had a great time. I had to lighten it a little because of the simple fact that the hippo-man rattled off a list of improbable ingredients: dragon bits recently abandoned nearby, a rare and dangerous magical crystal substance, and an illusion converter that would work perfectly with the holographic projector he got from... somewhere?

When you run this with a large group, it is up to you, the DM, to hurry things along, and I mean hurry. The area map, the first in the series, I think, has helpful travel times. Hand-wave 100% of the travel. You don't have time for that.

If any of the characters at the table have played through DDAL10-05 and defeated Feral Tongue, odds are good that someone either has a chardalyn breastplate or remembers a cave full of the stuff. Let them do this. It makes them feel resourceful, and the DM saves a bunch of time by cutting out a pointless combat and exposition about glacier nomads and about Ten Towns, which I guess got destroyed when no one was looking. Skip that particular apocalypse too.

The dwarven fortress section is really good combat with interesting environmental hazards. I appreciate the fact that the module told me which of the many doors on the map excerpt the party would be entering. The entryway gave some good tension as long as someone had adequate passive perception to allow the DM to communicate that tension. Blundering into it would kind of suck narratively. There isn't any time for anything not on the map. Hurry it up.

The lost spire is going to burn more time than you think. You have pop-up combats and environmental puzzles. You have a plot device that is either unexplaned and pure handwavium, or explaned and is obviously something that any party is going to try to abuse flagrantly. I told my table that they could come back to it later after they had dropped two oozes out of it. I also told them they could try to figure out the riddle later if they had time, otherwise they would get it by default. They don't have time to enjoy that fully. It's still a pretty fun sequence.

The climax is straightforward but satisfying with a full group near the recommended APL. Overall, it was fun for the players, hectic to run, and absolutely required a lot of streamlining to keep it down to four hours and change. If you have six hours available, then enjoy.

One of the really nice things about this was that the layout of the print friendly version worked nicely with two-sided prints, and didn't require flipping back and forth in a scene.

One of the really bad things about this was that all of the interesting things were interesting because of information from the RotF hardcover. Plan on plenty of prep time for this one. If you're trying to prep this without access to the book, you won't have much idea what's going on and why. I had to take a star off the rating because it's not self-contained. Aside from that's its challenging but enjoyable to run.

OVERALL: A fresh look at Season 10 AL which brings in new concepts for the players to contemplate. Crafting, fetch-quests and a "highlights" tour of three important locations from the Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign book create a new feeling that bridges across to the locations and themes of Icewind Dale in an enjoyable and satisfying way.

GAME EXPERIENCE:I ran this game last night with six players, all of whom had played at least several of the Season 10 Tier 2 adventures. Wyrmdoom Crag and LT Prook provided a familiar starting point for the crew. They chose the Lost Spire of Netheril first, aiming to collect the Chardalyn last. The encounter went well, and one player experienced with the hardcover used the replicator to create some interesting things. This created a diversion for the party which took up time unexpectedly. They were able to create the two potions using the recipes quite easily, and didn't even ask for any clues. Next was Sunblight and the Vestibule is quite a distraction. At this encounter I realised I was going to run out of time. I needed to cut short the fight in the third encounter, and abbreviate the final crafting scene using a shortcut in the fail safe procedure. In the end we ran over by 30 mins which was about the length of time added by extra fun with the replicator. I feel this could easily run to two or more hours over time. One thing that the players didn't like were the traps, which were sort of "ahah gotcha" type moments rather than hazards to be overcome. The players didn't mind the extension of the "are we still building that dumb bomb?" story arc (I was worried they might so I added some explanation of this). The game feels unusual and is certainly something very different to the others in this series.

PREPARATION: I created new maps for each of the three encounters, and also for the final workshop scene. I used existing maps of Icewind Dale and Wyrmdoom Crag. I struggled to understand some of the finer details such as traps and hazards. The Sunblight vestibule and the fail safe procedure are complex to understand. The Sunblight and Ambush encounters can be complicated with a range of features to consider. I found that preparation took a long time for this adventure, due to the complex details such as traps. The overall storyline and the concepts of each location were very clear to understand. Having some content split into the appendices was not helpful.

WHAT I LIKED: 1. Fresh approach to the storyline, 2. Tie in to RotFM, 3. Three interesting locations, 4. Potion recipe puzzle, 5. Final crafting challenge.

WHAT I DON'T LIKE: 1. Gotcha traps, 2. Overly long and difficult to manage the time, 3. Complexity in some elements takes time to prepare. The idea that blowing up an ancient city is a good idea is kind of sad, but let's see what happens in the final adventure.