I'm going to start with the thing I think will most upset players if the module is run as written. It both begins and ends with combats that the PCs aren't supposed to win. The DM is instructed to add more and more combatants until the party is defeated. I hate running infinite wave no-win combat, and I can't even fathom running two in the same two-hour module.

How would new players feel if this was their first D&D experience? Would they feel victorious? Why? How would a player feel if their character used a consumable magic item like a potion of giant strength hoping for a heroic victory only to learn that they never had a chance?

When I run this module, I ask the group outright how they feel about no-win scenarios. If they don't want to play through them, then I skip the first combat and don't run the additional waves in the final one. Reducing these combats can make the module very short.

The other problem here is that the module doesn't need the player characters to be there. Nothing that happens is a result of their efforts. They wash ashore, get arrested, tried, convinced, imprisoned, freed, and then transported all due to factors and actors outside their control.

The problem is not that the module is on rails. It's okay that there's only one path through the module. The problem is that the player characters are not the engine that drives the plot along.

Finally, there are only a few clues that link this module to the broader trilogy. Many of them are missable, and many of those can be missed because of die rolls. Groups that do miss the clues probably won't know that they've missed anything.

This module doesn't provide the DM with enough information to improvise as necessary in response to player actions, answer basic player questions, or even really understand what's going on. I'm not sure that the author understands what kind of setting they're writing for or who their audience is.

I'm going to start by focusing on the very first scene, the introduction. I'll let you know when I cross into spoiler territory.

The premise of the module is that a high-level wizard who has been a fugitive in hiding for twenty years has announced that he would like to surrender. A high ranking official in Phlan requests the PCs by name to retrieve the fugitive wizard. No part of this makes any sense.

My second time through this module, I had several brand new characters. When I read the boxed text saying that the PCs were requested by name, one of the players with a new character interjected: "No, I wasn't."

The first question that every table asks when told that their tier 1 characters are supposed to escort a powerful wizard prisoner is "how?"

There are no answers in the module to how the quest giver heard of the NPCs, why he thinks they can do the job, or how he thinks they're going to do it.

Forgotten Realms in general and AL, in particular, is not the type of setting where characters don't have a basic idea of their reputation or how powerful they are or aren't. Spell levels exist in-universe, so this is especially true for wizards. The players and their characters both know that this isn't an appropriate task for them. When they ask about it, I can't answer because the module doesn't say or even offer any suggestions. That makes roleplaying hard for the players, too, since they have no idea why their characters would go along with the situation.

Okay, spoilers beyond this point.

The prisoner that the characters retrieve is a "doppelganger." When he tires of being the party's prisoner, he bites the bars of his cell in the ship's brig until his teeth crack, and then he melts through the floor of the boat, disappearing from the module. Why he does that, how he does that, and where it takes him are all not explained. Those aren't things that ordinary doppelgangers can or would do.

When this happens, players want their characters to react to it. They want to search the cell, or cast detect magic or run to the deck to peer at the ocean looking for an escaping oil slick. None of these actions can have reasonable outcomes because the necessary information isn't in the module. Players feel like this isn't letting them roleplay because reasonable actions never work or are unavailable. It's not fun for players, and as a DM, I don't appreciate modules that put me in that situation.

I don't want the players to think that I'm trying to punish them for thinking critically or trying to solve problems. When the module is missing critical information, and the players' actions require it, I usually tell them. That's not fun, and it's not a substitute for merely including necessary information in the module.

Many of the players at my FLGS refuse to use this bundle. It's hard to find from within the site, it's not even in the site's top results for "player pack." They'd need to sign up for another website, and go through an apparent online shopping process even though it's free. The site and the bundle aren't phone or tablet friendly. There's so many files in the bundle that the site won't allow them all to be downloaded at once which sets the expectation that players already know which files they need. They don't.

At a minimum, can we please trim the number of files to something that can be downloaded in one shot so players don't feel responsible for knowing what's in the documents before they've had a chance to read them? A smaller number of better connected documents would also prevent players from feeling like there are "surprise rules" because of some very short file they missed.

I have played and read this adventure, but I haven't had the opportunity to run it so my review will not be as thorough as usual.

I am really disappointed to see that this module is about finding a lair for Artor Morlin, but it doesn't have a single word in it about why he doesn't want the one that adventurers cleared out for him in an earlier S8 T2 trilogy. That means that the adventurers fail to achieve anything noteworthy in 100% of the T1 and T2 content for this season. I don't know about this trilogy because I haven't finished it yet.

It's not great storytelling if the main characters never accomplish anything, and it's not a good way to treat your audience, players or DMs if you're just going to ignore relevant ongoing plots.

As written, the hook for this module that most players will experience is weak. The only way to get the hook that makes sense is if characters have met Artor Morlin before. There's not enough S8 AL content to get characters to tier 3. Which means that when the module is released almost everyone playing it will be using a character from a different season. They're going to get the hook that isn't connected to the broader story, doesn't make that much sense, and doesn't give them any reason to actually pursue the objectives in the face of even mild inconvenience.

This is a critical review, so expect spoilers. The Background section on page 2, basically the first actual content of the module, ends like this. "The gang tracks the key to an agent of a rival group, BREGAN D’AERTHE, in SKULLPORT. They kill the drow and bring the key to one of the Xanathar’s nearby bases. The beholder wastes no time and immediately contacts the Shadowdusks. They quickly arrive to claim their prize and then return to the depths of the mountain. Of course, as far as the player characters know, the Xanathar still has the key and their job is to get it."

This fact and its implications are mentioned nowhere else in the module that I can see. The PCs do find a key in the Xanathar's vault and the module doesn't say that the key is a copy or a fake. I am forced to wonder if the background section is an editing error or if this major plot point just doesn't merit any followup. Given the number and magnitude of other editing mistakes in the module, I can't be sure.

I believe the key is probably fake based on details in the module and because the blurb for DDAL08-17 "The Tower of Ahghairon" is about not being able to get into Ahghairon's tower, which the key is supposed to unlock.

It bothers me that I can't really be sure if this is a major plot detail or an editing mistake. It also bothers me that it might be a plot point because that means that this module and its trilogy are participating in one of the most corrosive trends in season 8.

It is in character for the Xanathar, as a successful beholder, to have convoluted schemes and trick PCs. However, of the four trilogies releases so far in season 8, the players do not accomplish their goals in three of them, and in the remaining one, they are knowing servants of evil.

In the first trilogy, they follow a map that they are meant to assume leads to treasure. It doesn't.

In the second they are sent on a fact-finding mission to a mental projection of the past, which they cannot change. They do not find the information that they go looking for.

In the third, they help a vampire find a new lair. They technically succeed at the goal they were given, and they get to defeat a nest of vampires to make room for their vampire employer. However, many players at my FLGS felt coerced. They needed to make their character go along with things they wouldn't tolerate so that the player can play the module. Succeeding at that is not something that makes the players or their characters proud.

Now they spend the fourth trilogy chasing a key for Volo and fail to retrieve it.

This is not normal for adventurer's league. Go back over past modules and summarize what the PCs accomplish like its a bullet point on their heroic CV. Usually, they accomplish something independent of the way that they did it. The stakes do not always have to be high. They might escort some refugees out of an occupied city, or they might rescue a kidnapped child or solve a murder mystery.

So yes, it might be very impressive that the PCs managed to infiltrate a Xanathar base and then escape, but if they can't say what they accomplished by doing that then it isn't a success and it isn't in keeping with previous modules.

Players at my FLGS have been making grim jokes about how nothing their characters do matters since the very first trilogy when they realized that they don't know where the map leads and nothing bad happens if they stop following it. The players have a reason to keep playing but their characters don't.

Let's look past the issue of whether or not the key is fake for a moment after all that won't matter until a future trilogy anyway. That leads to the next problem with this story.

My FLGS runs tier 1 and tier 2 content basically every week, but we only have the resources to run tier 3 content once a month, and we can only run tier 4 content at special events. Many of our players don't have tier 3 or tier 4 characters. I know that many other stores and players are in similar situations.

For most of the players in my community, this module was the finale of regular season 8 play. It features a major NPC that they're not really supposed to fight and that there's no reasonable way for them to defeat for story reasons if nothing else. It doesn't contain any kind of climax or resolution. In fact, because they spend the whole time chasing a key and won't get to see what it opens it is an unresolved cliffhanger.

At the very least the modules for season 3, 5, and 7 are written so that each tier is its own story. Season 4 is an exception and even that is designed to provide enough experience so that players can take a single character through the whole story (with exceptional help from Genny Greenteeth after the T1 finale module).

Why is season 8 an exception to a pattern that has held, in one form or another, for at least 4 seasons? How are players supposed to feel about this and what are DMs and organizers supposed to do? Because I am getting frustrated messages from players about the situation assuming that there must be some kind of answer or at least an explanation and as far as I can tell there is not. I don't appreciate being put in that situation.

All of those things might not be the responsibility of this specific module, but they need to be mentioned here because this is the point where I as a DM need to face the consequences of these overarching patterns and decisions.

But okay, let's talk about the module itself.

I have to commend the author for creating a scenario where everyone has reasons for what they're doing. Congratulations, genuinely.

Unfortunately, it isn't really possible to avoid discussing the editing problems in this module. The air elemental in the vault is basically the only combat that can't be avoided, and there are no stats for the air elemental. The Xanathar's second in command, Ahmaergo very likely acts as a major antagonist in this module and doesn't have stats. Ott, Sylgar's caretaker, is very likely to be in the room with the Xanathar if the players choose to risk confronting it. Ott has no stats either.

The Oni encounter in the bonus objective "Preserving the Att(ist)" is disruptively awkward and coercive. Both times that I have been involved with this module so far the players have refused to tolerate it. It's just there to prevent the characters from doing the most reasonable thing and trying to arrange transport home for the child. It's trying to coerce the PCs into taking a child into a probable combat situation which many players refuse to have their characters do. It's also really clear that it has no other purpose.

Are you telling me that if the PCs told the Zhents to ransom the kid to her parents that they'd still let the Oni eat her? If the PCs take her to the teleportation circle out of Skullport in the previous module, then the Oni follows her out of Skullport? Neither of those things seems particularly reasonable. But according to the bonus objective as written the players fail the bonus objective because that's what happens.

At a minimum the bonus objective needs to explore the likely implications of what it suggests is supposed to happen. Ideally, it would, like the third trilogy, stop putting PCs in situations that their players would rather withdraw from than engage with.

The oni encounter is so awkward that it effectively undoes any benefit provided by the fact that all the NPCs have motivations in terms of the confused or angry conversations that I will have to have with my players as a result.

I expect three things from an Adventurer's League module. I expect a coherent story with good reasons for various kinds of PCs to participate, and enough background information to support necessary DM improvisation without requiring DMs to invent new material if they don't want to.

I expect the module to include challenging combats, skill challenges, and other content for the game we're all playing, with enough information for less experienced DMs to run them effectively.

I expect the module to be structured in a way that helps DMs run them in the allotted time, preferably with some guidance on how to do that.

All of these things relate to the nature of Adventurer's League. No matter how experienced I am as a DM I'm not comfortable improvising about background information, such as plot points or characters motivations, because if it isn't described in the module, no future DM is going to know about it. The more improvisation that I have to do the more jarring and confusing the experience for my players.

Not all DMs are good at designing combat encounters, not all DMs are good at adjusting them on the fly. Some DMs are asked to run at the last minute with a minimum of prep time. Some DMs are new. Organized play is supposed to represent a ready entry point for new DMs because as much of the work as possible had been done for them.

Adventurer's League modules are often run at conventions, game days and game stores where there are fixed time constraints. They need to be able to run in their slot because going over or finishing later might not be possible.

This module does better than previous season 8 modules at the first point and fails at the other two.

All the NPCs in this module have reasons for acting the way that they do. This puts it in the top tier of season 8 modules so far. I am genuinely thankful for that.

The module is very difficult to pace since it could have as few as 0 combats or as many as, I think six? Several of the combats are described as avoidable on the basis of a skill check. Assuming that we expect people to run the module as written I don't think it's a good idea for the number of combats to be left up to chance in a module that is meant to be run under strict time constraints.

The combats themselves are difficult to balance. A knowledgable but inexperienced DM is very likely to accidentally kill PCs with very high damage boss enemies. The Drow Arachnomancer does an average of 54 damage on her first hit in each round and may get a second, weaker hit. This is more than enough damage to take some characters that might be in this module - like a level 5 rogue or wizard at a table of 6 level 9's - from maximum hitpoints to killed outright with a single hit. At the same time, such a small number of enemies without legendary actions are easily overwhelmed in the action economy by a table with a large number of PCs. Neither of those outcomes is particularly fun. There are no interesting tactical decisions in being killed outright in one hit or burning down the boss before she can act.

Even as an experienced DM it is difficult to control the challenge of these combats. I should be able to adjust the challenge by having the enemies act strategically or not to match the players, but enemy behavior still needs to look like the NPCs are trying (however ineffectively) to win. Having the NPCs make obvious mistakes to the PC's benefit isn't fun for them, and fudging die rolls is a last resort. It is very difficult to run combat properly when the boss monster's most effective reusable tool is to simply hit for an average of 54 damage once per round. If she just chooses to stop murdering people for no reason then the players are going to notice.

Finally, I try not to mention the season 8 module format in every review because I know it isn't up to the individual authors but this module is very hard to use. If you don't prepare with meticulous care, and that means luxurious amounts of time, you will very likely miss things such as how combats are meant to be skipped or what the obsidian whistle actually does. It is very difficult to find information to remind yourself or confirm things while you're at the table. For example, the section on reinforcements in the Tower of Seven Woes doesn't mention the obsidian whistle even though delaying those reinforcements is a large part of what the whistle does.

There is simply too much in this module that isn't explained. When I'm running a module, especially in an environment like Adventurer's League, I expect that module to provide enough information that I can improvise what happens on the basis of a story that I already know. I shouldn't have to invent motivations and past events to explain the things that the module expects to happen. If I'm going to invent the story myself, I may as well be playing in a home game. This is especially inappropriate in organized play because my players' future DMs aren't going to know any of the things I had to make up. This means that characters aren't continuing the same story at all.

Examples follow, so expect spoilers.

So, Yraxilinith upset some Zhentarim by eating the wrong brain, and he needs money to do them a favor, so he gets that money by betting on fights at the Bat's Roost. That's about as much of the module as makes sense. Why wouldn't Yraxilinith just buy the key from Thimblewine's pawn shop itself? Why involve Laurel Stillwater and Mugrub at all? What are their reasons for participating? If there is some reason to use so many go-betweens, why kill Mugrub? If there is some reason to kill the go-betweens, then since Yraxilinith prefers to eat evil brains, wouldn't it be motivated to find evil go-betweens?

Volo tells the adventurers that the key is stolen. The module says that this is a lie, Volo simply wants it. That's fine, but that means that players are going to reasonably think that the pawn shop might be a fence for stolen goods. They're going to ask where the shop got the key. The shop's extensive records mean that there's no way Krystaleen doesn't know, but the module doesn't say.

Since I have different players every week, when players ask reasonable questions that the module doesn't answer the best option for me is to just break immersion and tell them that the module doesn't say, since anything I improvise won't be true in the next module. I really don't like how often season 8 puts me in this position compared to past seasons, especially with how careful season 4 was to have a season-long plot that can be run effectively by multiple DMs who aren't communicating with each other.

It's possible to make it through this entire module without combat, and I appreciate that. Unfortunately, this means that the module either contains no combats or far, far too many. Characters who can't tolerate monstrous races and default to attacking them mean that every single encounter is going to turn into combat while more cosmopolitan characters mean that the entire module passes more or less peacefully. This makes timing the module very difficult.

Too much of the module exists in sidebars that suggest you could make something up but don't give examples. If you want to suggest that the DM involve the flameskulls of Skullport to add "weirdness" and give "bizarre quests," you need to give some examples.

The sidebar that suggests adding up to twelve intellect devourers to the series of trap rooms is perhaps the most dangerous.

I'm going to reiterate my standard of a knowledgable but inexperienced DM. A DM who understands how combat works but isn't familiar with the details of every monster is going to see that the Intellect Devourers are intelligent and have them gang up on the most vulnerable looking characters. With 7-12 Intellect Devourers, especially if they by chance do well in the initiative, vulnerable characters are going to fail their saving throw and have their int reduced to 0. If they get taken over, their own party has to fight them to the death.

Only then will this DM discover that there's no described way to recover from the intelligence drain, so the 5th level spell greater restoration is required. Many T2 parties won't have the ability to cast that spell. If a character was taken over, not only did their own party have to fight them to the death, but they're dead in a way that Raise Dead can't fix since they're missing a major organ.

That is not fun. It probably shouldn't be here, and if it must be then it needs to be a combat writeup with adjustments instead of just a sidebar with some suggestions of what the DM "could" do.

The module doesn't provide enough detail to allow a DM to improvise effectively, and the combats aren't written with enough care and clarity that I could hand this to an inexperienced DM without taking the chance that they'll kill characters accidentally. I don't know what this module is supposed to be providing.

This module fails one of the basic tests of writing. Why don't the characters just leave? An employee of an Inn, to whom the players have no personal connection, hands them a map that he found to which he has no personal connection. Nobody knows anything about the map and the map makes no promises of reward. There is as much reason to assume that it leads to something that is valueable only in a specific context or to specific people as to assume that it leads to riches. The charcters might as well assume that it's an initiation scavanger hunt for a fraternal order they don't have any interest in joining.

I know that sounds sarcastic, but players expect the situation to support them in coming up with a reason why their characters would participate but this module has no stakes. They have nothing to lose and no real promise of gain. "We're doing it because it is there to be done, it is about the journey and not the destination" is a suitable motivation for some characters but not others.

The first time I ran this module it took until about halfway through for one of my players to ask what they were supposed to think the map lead to and why they were doing any of this. I had to tell them that they don't know. Nobody they have spoken to knows where the map came from or what it is supposed to lead to, and the map makes no promises. It was an incredibly sad and momentum breaking moment.

The things that the map asks the charcters to do are increasingly illegal. When they get to the shop where they must study the painitng and the owner doesn't want them to, he's going to ask them to leave. The players have no real reason to disobey, and certainly no real reason to fight the shop owner.

If the players do choose to fight the shop owner so that they can study the painting with the final clue, I see no reason that he wouldn't run through the streets yelling "Murder, murder!" until he attracted the attention of the watch and had the party rightly arrested, then go home and destroy the painting. I do not appreciate it when modules put me in a position where I must make the NPCs act in a clearly irrational manner.

Once again a season 8 module has lead to a high number of unintended PC deaths at my FLGS. This is especially punishing given that there is no more faction resurrection in season 8. So this puts DMs in the unfortunate position of permanently penalizing T1 characters with treasure point debt, even if they didn't do anything wrong, or shrugging and un-happening the thing that killed the PC, severely damaging any sense of risk and ability to trust the DM. After all, if your previous DM un-killed your PC, the next one who lets them stay dead must just not like you, personally.

Authors need to remember that these modules may be run by inexperienced DMs or DMs who don't have much time to prepare. They also need to remember that a party of 7 1st level characters is a normal strength party according to the guidance printed in the module. As I have said in previous reviews, the module needs to account for what a knowledgeable but inexperienced DM might do. A knowledgeable but inexperienced DM will see what the enemies can do and then do it, killing characters whether they mean to or not. A module needs to tell such DMs what powerful enemies should do, to reduce accidents. A boss enemy with +6 to hit and 20 average damage on a hit is extremely likely to both hit T1 characters and to 1-hit KOs many, many of them.

The story is also incoherent. If you have a table with a mix of characters who played DDAL8-2 and characters who did not it is awkward to join them. The main motivation for characters who have played 8-2 to serve the quest giver is so that he doesn't kill them for invading his lair and learning his terrible secret. The main motivation for characters who join at 8-3 is because he hired them? The quest giver has no reason to share his secret with those characters. It's unclear why he would allow adventurers he has conscripted, who know his secret, to mingle with those he has hired who do not.

The clues that the PCs gather aren't really clues because they don't really inform the PCs about what they need to do next. They are really just exposition that offers background information about the story. Even after the PCs have gathered all the clues, the plot depends on the DM to make something up, or put the characters in the right place at the right time to move the story forward. Succeeding by coincidence doesn't make the players feel empowered. Putting the DM in a position where they have to invent people, places, and events to make the module's plot hang together because it doesn't naturally hang together on its own doesn't make the DM feel supported by the module, either.

I'm going to try and keep this short. Many other people have made good and necessary points that I won't repeat. The two things that I had the greatest problem with are that the hooks are so terrible that they can discourage players who notice, and the module's combats are not at all friendly to inexperienced DMs.

First, the hooks. There's no indication of what the characters stand to gain by following the clues they find. They don't have anything to lose by walking away. There are some characters who would follow clues that they coincidentally come across through great adversity just because it is a thing that can be done, but that's not a reasonable motivation for all characters and it definitely doesn't make them heroic. Players who think to articulate or ask about this can feel extremely railroaded since their characters must do something for no reason for the player to play the module.

The combats in this module are very powerful, and if they are run strictly as written are very likely to kill a party. An experienced DM has many options, but an inexperienced DM won't know about them because the module doesn't mention them or warn the DM how deadly the combats are.

Spoilers for combats below this point.

A knowledgeable but inexperienced DM is going to look at the first combat and realize that skeletons and skeletal warhorses that have the same master and instructions would act basically the same. There's no reason for the skeletons to control their skeletal mounts so they can both attack. This is extremely likely to start knocking out PCs in the first round. Once the DM has realized that the combat is too powerful, if they do, then it's harder to adjust the combat without tipping off the players that something has changed. If you feel like the enemies have suddenly stopped fighting as hard, then you may also feel that defeating them is less of a victory.

The second combat is only really survivable if you allow the PCs to run away and don't have the creatures follow them. But the module doesn't actually say that the creatures won't follow.

This is a good way to generate dead PCs and confused DMs.

It isn't appropriate for DDAL modules to rely on having an experienced DM who is comfortable adjusting combats on the fly to make the combats manageable. They need to take some of that space they've been saving by eliminating boxed text, or maybe cut into the art, and spend it advising DMs.