Great mix of social encounters, combat, and investigation! These first 3 modules really flesh out the Dock Wards and the conflicts happening around Neverember's Enigma in the city.

Clunky Start, but Epic Finish!

This started off meh for my players. They were not hooked by the call to action. At all. They spent some time roaming the Dock Ward, but were not interested in getting involved in a shakedown. We are told "The only clue the characters have is the map itself" and "Details are sparse". Sparse indeed. The investigation felt clunky and I did not get much from the module to help players navigate the Dock Ward. I used NPC Ian Forksful here to involve the PCs in a world of 'organized' crime and he basically gave them a tour of introductions to all the contacts ever needed to take down an evil gang.

Finally, episode 3 and the action starts! My players had a blast in the setting for the final showdown, The Prow, Inn and tavern. It became a beloved landmark--one of my favorite settings as a DM. Have a map for all three levels of the Inn and let the BBEG run around the map. After a bloody battle, my players welcomed an almost Deus ex Machina ending with the red sashes and the city guard showing up. They role played a Scooby Doo ending with BBEG in custody, they pull off her hat of disguise, reveal her plot, she confesses she "would have gotten away with it, if it weren't for those meddling

A decent conclusion to a meh start to the season. It is okay.

The last part of the first trilogy for season 8. though it could be run alone i would run all three or none at all.

The investigation part is very fun if the players are into some roleplaying. If you reward them generously with information they can skip a trip back to the start. The final encounter is challenging especially if you don't run the optional part to get some extra help for the party. Somehow the gun is a melee attack in the statblock. Probably this was made to avoid disadvantage in melee but this had the awkward effect that one player would have been punished for dropping on the floor. I recommend treating it differently.

The module is perfectly decent; I was concerned about the free-form nature of the investigation phase, but it ended up going pretty well – budget some time for players to discuss options to search, and be prepared to redirect or spin connections if they have ideas that take them out of the dock ward (e.g. going back to Green’s Rest, since they’d played the trilogy), and/or to make things up entirely. Bringing Optional A into play adds some depth and life to the mod, though the common folk one is challenging to benefit from without another group being invoked. Great flavor to the magic item. End fight reinforcements can get a bit draggy - when do they end? The multi-level nature of one of the maps can be challenging to do on tabletop, but can also add a dynamic element to the encounter.

Its "fine". The only reason I really would ever run it is to complete the trilogy, because while the core two hour content is good, the bonus objectives are just not well enough integrated into the storyline for a first time DM to properly follow. A potentially very deadly final fight for lower level characters, with single hits able to kill someone outright. But, this does increase the adrenaline at the table and hopefully enjoyment when they celebrate their win.

Ah Dock Ward Double Cross is a fun adventure IF you players are up for some role play and so sleuthing. make sure you read the module goes without saying BUT you can make it funner IF you use the Main NPC and their magic item to "spice up" an encounter or two. You will have to read the module to get the idea about how to. I foound PRE_drawing the last enounters maps useful as well and I would suggest using GIFT WRAPPING PAPER (back side since it has nice lines already drawn unless you only use hexes).

Figuring out HOW to weave the story together can be a challenge as well. I had mostly new players whom I had to use a fair amount of narration using ability checks to help them get the gist of how 5E D&D works going at first.

It is SUPER USEFUL to have your group play 08-02 FIRST (stomp stomp !)

I would also suggest you make a copy of the map of the Dock Ward area to give to the players as well that way they can figure out on their own where they want to go. Also the stats for the pistollero are not anything to trival with unless the players have a strong party and help AND are smart. Play it HARSH! Overall my players had fun with it and I hope yours do as well.

This adventure is a whole lot of fun to play and to run. The dock ward really comes alive in this one. The final fight is a BLAST! :)

This is my favorite installment of the trilogy. The PCs must solve the mystery behind the maps, which leads to a solid climatic confrontation that the DM can really run with. Like the second installment, the optional content is fairly well done here, and it can dramatically influence the final scene when included. And unliked the former adventures, it actually stands pretty solidly alone without the context of the former installments in the trilogy. It's the best of the Season 8 T1 adventures.

So, this is kind of frustrating. Something went very badly wrong in the translation of this module, in a very frustrating way. As a concept, there's nothing wrong with it: Discover the origins of the fake maps, gather allies to help you fight the villains, and then get into a rousing battle to finish it off.

In practice, however, it's kind of a mess.

The final battle is a good place to start. It is worth noting right off the bat that the module does give the DM a lot of very good ways to tailor the difficulty mid-fight to adjust the difficulty; primarily in giving the enemies smart or not so smart attacks. For example; the main boss deals an average of 20.5 damage on any successful pistol attack, but only 15 attacking with a shortsword. The thugs and spies, meanwhile, do only 5.5 damage per pistol attack, with melee being substantially more damaging. Smart DMs can adjust accordingly to keep the fight tense without being insanely lethal.

But it absolutely can be insanely lethal. While unlikely, it's entirely plausible that a single shot from that cannon could be a one-hit insta-kill on a squishier player, even at level 3.

Is that bad? Well, to my way of thinking it kind of is. D&D should not be perfectly safe for PCs. Characters can, and do, die. But to my way of thinking that kind of instant scenario feels unfair and more often leads to the players feeling cheated than fairly killed. That in turn means this scenario absolutely requires a DM who is aware of the danger and is careful with it.

Now, that's a matter of taste, I concede. But other aspects are more difficult to resolve as taste issues. For example, bonus objective A has a few points that are poorly worded or flatly difficult to integrate. Plague Rats Help or Hinder has the Help action see one of the drow attack the other drow instead of the players, but a hinder action which sees them target... the players. Which they were already doing. (One might interpret this to mean they exclusively target the players rather than the guards, but that's still a very odd decision.) And the Red Sashes card provides no way for the players to even think of them. Unless the players happen to know of the Red Sashes, they will never consider seeking them out because nothing in the adventure prompts it, and they're the only group for whom a random encounter makes no sense. (You could imagine running into the guards, or a resident, or the dung sweepers, but not the Red Sashes.)

Not everything here is bad! Bonus Objective B is very fun, with some cool little details. (I love that you can bribe the drow to leave, for example.) And the complications are all fun, interesting ideas.

But the whole scenario feels disconnected and piecemeal. The final fight is, to my mind, far too hard. And several components of Bonus Objective A feel both essential and utterly unworkable.

In short, it is kind of a mess.

This was a fun advnture to run for players. It was pretty straightforward in regards to the main and bonus objectives and each one easily flowed with the story plot.

It's a good story, but not great. I like some of the alternative naratives such as the chase scene. As someone who has both run this as a player and a DM I will say that the last encounter can be incredibly dangerous for anyone who forces combat.

One of the optional objectives was rediculusly bad and boring (seriously, helping with groceries or cats up trees? Try harder writers to be worth the cost of these modules.), but the rest of the module was good. Certainly better than 08-04, which is easily the worst DDAL season 8 T1 adventure. The end battle in this one can be fun with the right setup.

Many ways to play this module makes it throughly enjoyable. Love the flavor on the magic item.