It is okay. I ran a very weak party and had to adjust combat down more than suggested. So beware of that. It also on the rails adventure. But my players like the puzzle and combat so they gave a thumbs up.

A very linear adventure but, with mostly fun and challenging encounters and a very cool Giant rune puzzle! I would definitely play up the extraplanar nature of the library by describing astral vistas the characters can see beyond the library's walls.

My group got a little confused by the fissure involved in the secret mission though and almost tried to explore the Underdark entrance below it...

Felt kinda easy for a Tier Three module. The advice says for a group of five level 15's and our party of five (less than 14's) easily fought it even at a strong party level. Sure the first room surprised us with a couple of unusual enemies, but the other rooms were just bland in comparison.

Part 2 of a 2-part module, this adventure follows up after your hunt to find the missing SEER. This adventure includes an NPC companion that may or may not join in combat, and I thought the choice of monsters for the combats again were a nice mix to offer a challenge, but the final encounter was a little difficult to make challenging my first time running it, although there are plenty of opportunities for challenges before then.

[Spoilers] Encounters Rating: 8/10 The encounters in this mod are fun. If there is an OotG in the party, the "boss" fight is challenging. There is a lack of support goons for the boss, so the difficulty of the encounter depends very much on the skill of the DM. The guidance for the "boss" is probably not helpful.

The other fights involve rather fun, challenging, and unique creatures to deal with. The only issue is that with some of the encounters (the ones against humanoids), there is really lack of diversity amongst the opponents, so they are quite easily overcome with a good spellcaster amongst the PC's.

Plot: 5/10 There really isn't much mystery or motivation provided for the adventurer's to care about this issue. The story isn't particularly interesting, and doesn't seem very consequential to the overall theme of Season 5 mods.

Other Notes: A really straightforward mod. Easy to run.

This has the same problem as ReEducation with the monsters and such. I honestly would rate it as 4 stars if I ran this first as reupping mosters again was annoying. Really I think the best thing to do is add another wave or in some cases 2 of the monsters ass presented then Kobold the players into a challege. I will say that as a straight and narrow run its a good pick up module when you aren't expecting to DM. -DM Ace

Spoilers.

PDF File: Thumbs down. The PDF has no bookmarks, and is locked so I cannot add my own. Which is lame.

Story: Thumbs down. All the story happened in the previous module. This one is just a dungeon crawl with some combat encounters and a puzzle. No roleplaying to speak of, and not much plot. It's not even an interesting dungeon.

Encounter design: Thumbs down. The encounters are basically all low-CR enemies that T3 characters will easily steamroll. They're a joke. Way too easy. The hardest encounter is the first one, and while there are a few nasty effects that the enemies there can dish out if you fail your save, they still have to get lucky to even have a shot. After that, everything just gets steamrolled. The only challenge is keeping the NPC alive when the nagas hit him with a series of lightning bolts, or whatever—and that's not exactly very compelling.

Player agency: Thumbs down. The plot is entirely on rails. Proceed through each room in sequence. Kill the enemies. Get MacGuffin. The end. There aren't any opportunities written in for the players to come up with creative solutions for anything. Every enemy is there to kill you and cannot be bargained or reasoned with, even the humans (they are apparently so afraid of Baron Rajiram that they fight to the death rather than risk his displeasure). There is only one solution to the Sudoku puzzle room. The ending is so railroaded that there isn't even any mention of what to do if the NPC mage dies. Stay there stuck forever, I guess?

So basically this module is a series of combat encounters with no real roleplaying or story. And they're not even good combat encounters. The whole thing is a poorly-designed smashfest, and it is my #1 worst module of this season. I mean, I heaped a lot of the same criticisms on Jarl Rising, but at least it had a couple interesting, challenging encounters in it. The encounters here are just boring. Swashbucklers? Really?

EDIT: As an attempt to "fix" the module, I ended up rolling with how overpowered T3 characters are, and took advantage of the library drawing from all over time and space to bring back some notorious boss fights from previous adventures in the season: Bad Fruul and his mammoth from DDAL5-16 Parnast Under Siege, the Rune-Forged Guardian from DDAL5-11 Forgotten Traditions, and the Beast of Talos from DDAL5-17 Hartkiller's Horn. I had these fights replace the encounters in rooms B, C, and D. It was fun giving the players a chance to stomp the bosses that nearly TPK'd them in the past. I left the pirates as intentionally easy encounters and played it up for laughs, with them soiling themselves and saying "Holy crap! That's a T3 party, Bob! They sent T3 adventurers after us!" "But we're only CR 3! We're gonna get murdered! What do we do?" "I don't know! Play it cool, pretend you don't notice them, maybe they'll try to Stealth past us instead!" I think it ended up being a big improvement overall.

This module felt lackluster for Tier 3 play - although more challenging than 5-14, still not as challenging as would have been nice. The puzzle aspect felt very rail-roaded, but the combats were somewhat enjoyable.

Much like DDAL5-14, this adventure lacks challenge for a typical tier 3 party. The combats were weak and are more like tier 2 fights than tier 3. It did have a Sudoku puzzle in it, so it has that going for it.

Recommend Purchase: Yes. XP Range: 11,250-15,000

The Season 5 Hardcover (Storm King's Thunder) is an amazing sandbox that spans the entire northwest Swordcoast. Unlike seasons 1-3 these storyline modules actually occur in the same area and mesh well with the hardcover. This is the first season to include the digial certificate for permanent magic items.

Before running any Season 5 module, you should download the following content from DMSGUILD and read it fully:

• Season 5 Narrative: Parnast, Stagwick, & Beregost Sadly this was released only AFTER the season was over :(

• A Guide to the Factions of Faerun Lots of Faction stuff in Season 5, so your players should be engaged with the Faction they've chosen.

I really enjoyed the encounter for the Order of the Gauntlet, as the enemies were actually a challenge for the players. The shield guardians and nagas aren't really that hard. And honestly, that puzzle is a joke, and it doesn't provide any alternatives for players who have already played it. And the final fight isn't even a challenge when I change the spellcaster into an archmage.

Ive ran this several times and its a joke to T3 players. The challenge level of this was beyond poor. Most encounters seemed fit for T2 and were solved with a single spell. The second time I ran this I was able to use the alternate encounter and was able to play a smart spellcaster who precast several of his spells in advance. Final encounter is weak beyond weak.

Like DDAL04-14, this is underpowered for the tier it's written for - it's not quite as soft, but it's still not hard. It requires multiple adjustments to make it a decent challenge.

Not great, not awful, just kind of bland. Also have I told you I hate escourt quests? Well I hate them more after this module. This can be a deadly fight becuase you get to play some spellcasters as intelligently as possible, but otherwise it's pretty forgettable. The puzzle in the middle did a little to break up the boredom, but both times I've run this one player just takes the module from the middle of the table and solved it in under a minute.

The whole dungeon was just a huge corridor with different rooms and monsters in them. Nothing can be worse in D&D. And even the fights themselves were too easy for a tier-3 party. Sorry bu this is 1 star :(