I ran this module at mylocal stores Free RPG day event. Had 3 players (Cleric, Rogue, and Paladin), and they had a blast. They felt bad for killing the snakes, and were totally surprised by the end.

Journey to the Buried Vale is a great simple adventure to run as a one off for a gaming group or as an introduction for new players to D&D 5th edition. While it is simple and linear, it does give players a taste of the various mechanics of D&D and a little problem solving.

That said it is not a complex deep adventure full of plot hooks, but that was never the intent of this product. Also for the price (pay what you want) you get good value. There are maps for each of the combat encounters and fully fleshed out characters with data for all their abilities except spells.

This leads me to the only downside of this product. There are no spell descriptions for the spells that the casters have. This is no issue for most people as they will have a player’s handbook, but it would have been nice to have a spell sheet. Also some of the spells are not from the SRD, so if you only have the free D&D products you will need to change these over.

Even with this minor quibble I can thoroughly recommend this product.

Ran it this past weekend, absolutely fantastic adventure. Very easy to pick up and run, the printable maps were laid out great with optional notes. I only had 3 players and bumped them up to level 2 (did not use the pre-gen characters, but appreciated) and the challenge rating was great. I just reskinned the summoned dragon as a Frost Yeti, didn't even need to change the stats. Was originally just going to be a one-shot, but the players got into it enough that Citadel Hoarfrost is now their new home. Looking forward to running any adventures following this!

A top-notch offering with a classic adventure setup (always a thumbs-up here), an awesome set of printable maps that can be used with miniatures (a definite plus), and a very well detailed set of pre-gen characters for players to use.

This is definitely worth adding to your library, and for the price of free, it cannot be beat! ~Recommended!~

The only disappointing part I encountered was the lack of a female/male mix in the pre-gen characters and the dialogue for the players (it was all male-centric). Not a lot of trouble to work around, but having the mixture "built in" would have made this even better.

This is a classic, old-school convention dungeon crawl. I'm not really a fan of that type of adventure, but for what this is it cannot be beat! Best thing: All the printable pregen characters and maps. A lot of value for free, thank you for sharing!