There were some problems with running the module. I was a bit confused when Stonebone Skeleton was mentioned but no mention that it was in fact a Ghast. The map itself is laughable. For $5 USD please include a map that is usable in play. Chicken scratch is not acceptable. There is a fair amount of content though and I feel that the overall content is solid and there is enough story and subplot there for a few hours worth of play.

I very much appreciated the fact that all creatures and NPCs were taken from the Monstrous Manual.

I'm not sure if the module itself is presented in such a way that non-linear play is encouraged or if its just disorganized. Appendix 9 or the APL suggestion stuff is usually at the beginning.

Fun to play and the NPCs are worth investing some RP time.

Love this mod, best part of the trillogy. Enjoyable encouters

The majority of the problems I have with this module has to do with the new style of the AL mods, rather than the content, but enouh has been said about this topic, and I don't think WotC reads the reviews anyway. As such, I'll say that this is a decent outline for what can be a great adventure.

Why does Durnan need a reason to get the adventurers to go to the mine (blue lichen for ale)? Hasn't Artor Morlin aready told them their mission and to ask Durnan for help?

I do enjoy the openness of how to run it: theater of the mind or on maps, however there isn't enough detail to really tell when or where events happen. Durnan knows where the mine is. Limn knows where the mine is. Limn knows where the lichen is. That's basically the extent of the details given. There is a cave in that just happens, with no warning, and fail one check to clear rocks from a different cave-in causes another.

Also, Tev has a golem. There is a pile of bone shards where he animated the golem, meaning he did so in the mines. At minimum, it takes 30 days to create a golem. Are we to believe that he's spent 30 days in mines where a cave in occurred recently just to make a golem help him remove the rocks?

It does allow for some roleplay because combat isn't neccessary for most encounters, so that's nice.

This is a module that a DM really needs to spend time prepping.

I enjoyed this module overall, but I found bonus objective A to be pointless. I didn't really know what to do with it after the characters negotiate with Reizzlerum and there are two scenes after that. I would give bonus objective A a one star. The remainder I would give 4 stars. There are still some problems, like the lesser ghosts wailing about their bones. What bones? The bones in the boneyard, the bones in the bone golem or the bones from the stonebone skeleton.

This beginning blurb is going to be copy pasted across this trilogy, scroll down for content review. At this point I'm beyond disappointed with the QC on these modules. A weeks delay on some and you seriously couldn't get another pair of eyes to proofread? You are charging $5 a module for what is turning out to be outlines with mislabeled chapter headings, spelling errors, monsters being called different things in different text blocks, missing statblocks, refrences to monsters in the some "playing the pillars" blocks are incorrect (When they appear at all, one chapter is missing a playing the pillars block.) As well as the item card title font isn't even the same as the first set, I'm having issues with printning. No consistancy whatsoever, No printer friendly version either? I will be willing to revisit my star rating when I see a v1.1 and a PF version uploaded.

Storywise, I'm seeing a definite improvement from the earlier trilogies, this is a very interesting take on a classic decent into the mines adventure, with plenty of lore and interesting NPCs. Plus I always adore story rewards.

Combat: I'm really liking the use of new monsters as well as reflavoring old monsters for a new twist, the comabt here can be deadly so keep an eye on HP, every fight in this mod has an interesting terrain element too.

Exploration: This is where I feel like the modules shines, and where the majority of it will take place, the mines have a deep history that the party can interact with.

Social: RP isn't pushed as hard as previous modules, which is nice, but taking the time to talk to NPCs can for sure make things easier for the party, and the NPCs are unique enough to encourage RP.

Story rating: 4/5

One of the best season 8 modules so far. I don't typically enjoy "Theater of the Mind" games, that is to say games that largely rely on not having a map available, but this one in particular is well laid out and structured in such a way that it generally doesn't need a physical map. Describe it simply as "A maze", the characters finding their way through it is less literally telling you if they go left or right and more making skill checks and putting it together.

Pros: Well written story with likeable NPCs Feels like the first game since Season 7 that's actually an adventure; A true blue dungeon dive. Encounters are well balanced and setting it to strong presented a real but not impossible challenge to my five level five players. Side content is meshe din well as long as you read it ahead of time to know where the passenges splinter off in to. An absolute wealth of options between social, exploration, and raw combat.

Cons: The plot hook, or the call to action as you may call it, suffers from the same weakness as the previous trilogy. Just listing the characters that are present and what those characters know really isn't sufficient in my opinion. I understand maybe Wizard's wants to move away from pre written stat blocks, but there needs to be more guidance in this opening scenes. Nomatter how well the session is written around it, the lack of maps is still a problem. I had to make and prepare maps ahead of time for the combat encounters. DMs should never be afraid of prep work, but if i'm paying money for a module then it should at least have decent maps. The sketches in this module are the worst i've seen in all eight seasons.

I ran this product online as part of the full trilogy as a premiere at Aethercon last month. There's definitely significant theatre of the mind sections here that make running it online something of a challenge, as you don't have the benefit of facial communication to supplement verbal descriptions and rough drawings (without commiting to doing up proper graphics for locations that the characters are purely meant to walk through).

I certainly like that this was an adventure designed to be solved multiple ways, where all of the challenges thrown in front of the party can be through any of the three pillars, as long as the DM is cognizant of various environmental factors and hidden tidbits of information here and there that might be obscured by the formatting. The timing of Objective A and B seem to be meant to be totally flexible, but if done following the suggested Flowchart, they don't quite feel right.

Bonus Objective A seems to give benefits that help in completing Main Story Objective A as well as B, and it probably makes sense to have it so that this Bonus Objective can be completed before Story A gets all that far along. Also, Story Objective's A Scene D doesn't appear to be clearly demarcated as being some kind of navigational skill challenge that happens over a time period after Scene B/C.

That being said, I certainly appreciated the kernels of material in there for roleplaying that I got to ham up, though, you do need cooperative players who buy into some of the silliness of the situation, and especially the rather goofy miniboss at the end.

I DMed this dungeon crawling adventure at AetherCon last month and have decidedly mixed feelings about it. My players enjoyed the adventure, because it gave them a lot of options (particularly for a dungeon crawl). As a DM, I had to do a huge juggling act to make the positives work and cut the frustrations. 3.5/5 stars.

Pros:

The dungeon has a definite character, as opposed to feeling generic. Adventurers go in to an abandoned dwarven mine to find a hidden entrance to undermountain. The mine’s character and history play an important role in some bonus objectives. This is a great carrot to hand to players (and DMs) who prefer narrative driven plots to dungeon delves. Future authors should take note.

The author does a good job of empowering players and giving characters opportunities to do what they are good at, instead of requiring a limited number of skills. I doubt anyone will feel like they picked the "wrong character" for this adventure. That’s a definite endorsement for dungeon crawls, which typically reward a particular set of skills.

Cons:

There are only a few small, hand-drawn maps for the entire adventure. It felt like a dungeon crawl designed to be theatre of the mind. Out of combat, this worked much better than I would have expected. In scenes where there was a potential for combat, my players needed a map and were sorely disappointed.

I've never had to flip through a module so much at the table. As written, you first meet an NPC for bonus objective A around 30 minutes in to the adventure, but it doesn't make narrative sense to go in to the rest of the bonus objectives until completing a lot of the main objective and getting in to the depths of the mine. At this point, players may have forgotten the first bonus objective. There's no natural place in the main text to introduce bonus objective B. I had to flip through the module to have the questgiver for bonus objective B suddenly show up while the party kept watch during a rest.

As written, rocks just fall on the characters' heads in the scene after the first fight, save for half damage. There’s no warning, no sense of "we screwed up so now we have to suffer a cost," and no specific instructions for the DM on when in the scene the rocks fall. My weak party had some terrible luck in the first fight. They may have TPKed if I had rocks immediately fall on them. I rewrote the scene to say rocks only fall on the characters' heads if they fail a skill check in the scene. Otherwise there’s a skill check characters "must pass" that offers no mechanical consequences for failure.

If it’s possible to update reviews, I will update once the rest of the trilogy is released to talk about continuity of the series.