[Update] I've had to update my review, because even years later, the very mention of some of the monsters from this module will trigger hours of messages in my inbox. One of my players remembers this module so well, he can run it from memory in the manner I did and he won't let me buy him a gift copy.
Birds of A Feather is an interesting and amusing short adventure that wraps itself up neatly and can be a great addition to any ongoing adventure as a side or incidental quest. The price is reasonable, but its simplicity means it should not be run “out of the box”, and I recommend only experienced DM’s run this one. The style of adventure reminds me of old school dungeon crawling but taken in a series of short but sharp encounters and suits a combat orientated party.
I’ve had the pleasure to be running two groups through this adventure, and my players have enjoyed the puns, rolled with the punches, and been terrified of the creatures inside. The two groups have ranged from a small party at level 5, to a moderately large party at level 8, and the experiences have been quite different for both. Having said all that, there were moments of frustration, particularly with one of the most common monsters in the module.
Despite its low price, this adventure is not without flaws, and its simplicity means DM’s will have to put in a fair bit of elbow grease to get it running. The module itself has a few spelling errors, and DM’s will probably have to tweak some of the creature stats to match their players skill and character levels. Because of the low price the module also lacks a lot of art for the unique monsters within it, which is sorely missed since the Boarhawk art by Lluis Abadias is excellent, and the pun names of monsters are very evocative.
The module contains no battle maps or hand-outs for players or DMs, only a marked basic regional map with points labelled roughly where the module wants you to place encounters. It’s enough for you to get the idea and sketch your own battlemaps, but it will require a lot of extra set up if you like to use detailed maps. The descriptions of locations for players to explore and fight in are also very vague, and I would have loved to see longer descriptions of creatures or perhaps encounter details.
Overall, if you enjoy combat-centric encounters or if you want to distract your players for a couple of sessions while you work on your grand adventure, this module can be a lot of fun with pun-filled monsters and deadly encounters.
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