Defiance in Phlan is an outstanding introduction to both Adventurer's League play and to D&D in general for either new players or those who haven't yet played in this edition.

Each of the five 1-hour mini-adventures highlights a different aspect of the game and can be run separately and in any order. Each also introduces one of the 5 factions used in Adventure's League play. And they tie in well with the Horde of the Dragon Queen hardcover by introducing the Cult of the Dragon.

I used this to introduce a group of 7th graders to the game in what started as a 1-shot session but which as evolved into their starting along the path of the Horde of the Dragon Queen hardcover.

In "Meeting at Deepnight", the characters are approached by a Harper's agent to help intercept a stolen dragon egg and surrepticiously place a magical tracking device on the sellers. Heavy on role-playing, intrigue, and puzzle solving, it is possible to complete the mission without any combat. There is enough flexibility in the setup for the players to have real agency in determining the approach they want to take.

"The Screams at Dawn" is more of a typical short dungeon crawl with a timer adding to the tension. This one introduces the Zentarim faction via a rescued prisoner. Although the dungeon layout is by necessity simple, and includes a typical trap, it is not simply linear, and there are paths that the monsters can take to circle the party to attack from behind. The length and variety is perfect for the intended 1 hr playtime and builds nicely to an good boss fight for 1st level characters.

"The Dead at Highsun" is a bit tougher than "Screams" and involves undead. Time for the cleric to shine. The adventure starts off with an interesting puzzle trap. There are some important clues here that could be turned into hooks leading to the plotline in Horde of the Dragon Queen. Also, the environment takes a bit more of an active role in this mission, allowing clever characters to dramatically shorten the final fight if they are open to non-combat activities during a melee.

Mission 4, "A Chock at Evenfeast" is a complete departure from combat, focussing on exploration and investigation to solve a rapidly evolving threat taking place in the inn at which the adventurers are staying. I was most nervous about this mission prior to playing it, worried that the players wouldn't really know how to begin and wouldn't be able to figure out the puzzle without some intense clue dropping. I was very pleasantly surprised. This was one of the boys' favorite missions in this module, with some great comedic moments.

The final mission, "The Danger at Dusk" takes a bit darker turn as the party investigates a secret prison of the town guard, culminating with an encounter with a somewhat anticlimactic (at least for our group) encounter that in the reading seemed to promise more dynamic action due to environmental effects and the monster.

Overall, an outstanding module.

This is a solid set of intro adventures for the Tyranny of Dragons season. It does a good job of introducing the players to the city of Phlan, laying good groundwork for later adventures in that city. While the adventures aren't overly deep, for introducing new players to D&D over the course of an hour of play, they really shouldn't be. I also liked the subtle easter-egg details, like the colors of the five halflings' hair/hair accessories.

The only one of the five mini-adventures that I had issues with was the fourth one, A Shock at Evenfeast. While the concept was innovative, I've had a lot of newer players struggle to figure out what's going on in that one, and how to stop it. Veteran D&D players haven't had as many issues, but for an intro adventure for new players, I think the mission should have been more straightforward, like the others.

DDEX1-01 Defiance in Phlan (5e)

• PDF Printability: White background. Old-style wasted/boilerplate pages.
• Fantasy Grounds Module: yes
• Challenges: combat, role-playing, exploration
• Contains Maps: Yes
• Magic Item Rarity: no item
• Printable Certs: No cert for this module.
• Spellbook: No
• Crowdsourced Suggestions: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1g6wYyw972Thm0J2_wvOTDcdzmE02VLW6vfz7ttNIH_A/edit#heading=h.zh84rqa2ws4j

I had many nw players for this mission series of missions. It goes well as an introductory module to 5E. I would recommend it to DM's who know the game and want to help players learn it.

DDEX1-01 Defiance in Phlan is an introductory adventure with five individual missions each which should take one to two hours to play.

Mission one is a pretty simple and short adventure that starts with the group in a tavern and contacted by a mysterious figure. This figure represents one of the Adventure League factions and needs the group to pose as a merchant, that one of the player character just happens to look similar to, and to do some basic espionage. The story is kind of bland in this one but can shine with players that are really invested in being deceitful and sneaky, for the good team.

Mission two introduces the player characters, who just so happen to be at a tavern, to the Black Fist. The Black Fist are the law and protection in Phlan and more than willing to pawn off their jobs to independent contractors who don't mind getting goblin blood on their weapons. This mission gives the players to be the heroes as the infiltrate a den of goblins to save some of the villagers before a goblin hoard returns. It also introduces the players to another one of the Adventure League factions. This is the best adventure in the series because it can be solved through fighting, diplomacy, or stealth depending on how the players decide to do it, plus gives the players a taste of being a hero. It also carries some risk for the group as at low levels even Goblins can be a threat to unprepared characters.

Mission three has another Adventure League faction giving a task to the players that starts off simple but quickly expands. I find this one to be the weakest of the adventures as players who aren't as quick thinking will find the NPC will complete some of the adventure for them. The mandatory fight in the adventure isn't bad as it has options to not be a straight up fight, but it's not interesting enough to make up for what I feel is the low points.

Mission four basically has another Adventure League faction representative tell the players that an NPC in the crowded room has a weapon that endangers everyone and the players need to find out who has it. This isn't a bad mission because it's easy to embellish the NPC's and make them interesting but has the downfall that if the player characters aren't quick thinking an NPC may solve the adventure for them.

Mission five is a fun little incursion into an illegal prison run by the corrupt Black Fist. This mission has an interesting monster fight with a hazard in the room making it a nice action scene. Plus the players get to help another Adventure League faction.

Overall Defiance in Phlan is an average adventure. The map quality is decent for theater of the mind DM's but lacking for DM's that are more grid focused.

If you're buying this adventure for Adventurer's League Organized Play this is a good adventure for very new groups or groups with little time to play, but suffers from several flaws. One of the major flaws for Adventure League play is that some of the adventures provide less experience points than the player characters have earned due to the maximum experience cap. For instance the fifth mission the players could earn double the experience of the cap. Though the series is a good source of downtime days.

For home play I think this would be better as you could easily flavor all of these adventures as happening in the same 24 hours giving a interesting challenge for slightly higher level characters then the first level it was written for. Or a home group could use some of the missions as short side quest whenever they stop by their local tavern for some rest.

Great introductory adventures for anyone new to Adventurer's League or D&D in general. Could use a little bit of editing and updating to bring it in line with the current AL Player's Guide and DM's Guide.

This is my second favorite intoductory season module, behind Season 5's, though I think that this module does a better job balancing roleplay and combat scenarios.

Good mix of types of adventures to be found. Several of the scenarios will force new players to get out of their comfort zones and roleplay a bit. There are a couple of classic dungeon crawly, hack-n-slash scenarios for balance as well.

This is a really good type of module to run when time is questionable. Having each scenario break down to ~1hr really lets DMs and players be flexible. You will have to push a bit to complete them all in a normal 4 hour con timeslot.

This was a great quick mod to throw together. I was planning on playing and hadn't read any mods recently and so I needed a quick adventure and I had this on my laptop. It was really easy to throw together and doesn't require a lot of prep work. If you run all 5 it was a nice variety of playing. Its nice to be able to control play time by the hour. I enjoyed it, it was a nice mix at times for combat and splashes of roll playing.

This set of mini-adventures is a great way to introduce new players to the game; however, they are easily forgotten. There is a loose tie in with the cult of the dragon, and all of the adventurer's have a loose "dragon" theme in one way or another (eg. recover a dragon egg, this dead adventurer may have been a dragon in disguise, etc).

There is no build up between each adventure and they are not connected in any meaningful way, except that they all begin at the same tavern.

Quite a good spread of introductory quests that will allow new and returning legacy players to experience many facets of 5e in short, 1hr sessions. There are puzzle missions, combat dedicated missions, and missions where the whole scenario can be run with roleplaying. Of all the missions, the players I have DM'd for seem to enjoy mission 3 the most.

These are among the first DnD 5e games that I played in. They are extremely simple to run and provide opportunities for new players to get a grasp for the basics of the game. Their simplicity is what keeps them at a 3/5 for me as well as there is not a lot of replay value to them and they are easily forgotten adventures.

This was the first adventure I ran for 5e, and I have probably ran it dozens of times. It still holds up as a fast, easy intro to the game and to adventurers league play. Now it comes with a fantasy grounds mod, which makes it even better and easier to run. Great for 1st time DMs and 1st time players.