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DDAL08-09 Fangs and Frogs |
$4.99 |
Average Rating:2.8 / 5 |
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while the idea of the adventure is pretty good and i like how the puzzles work. while that is said there is a lot of information missing that the GM would come up with himself. like the room with the painting and a trap. no map to the room and no discription of the actual dimensions. is it closed and what was the purpose of the room. it only hurts if you look them in the eye. there is no soultion to dispel the room itself. also the room has 2 triggers but 3 outcomes. i solve it by rolling a d6 but no description to how it works.
also missing a statblock from one of the adventures so i don know who or what he does. bear in mind gm's can make something up BUT when you pay for a module there is some expectations to the module.
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While the plot was weak at best the final fight is pretty cool if you actually use underwater rules and do more with the material at hand than the author did.
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I have DM'ed and played this module. As both, I felt like the module was light on content (regularly completed the core and bonus objectives in a bit under 3 hours).
There are a few challenges to running this module:
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It's (theoretically) optimized for APL 10 parties. At least at our tables, that's been nigh impossible to arrange. We've run this module at an assortment of Weak and Very Weak and it's definitely a challenge for the DM to cover the range of "Very Weak" from three 5th level PCs through four 9th level PCs.
- It also feels like it's more bones than content. That is, most of the rooms are empty, or have an obvious trap and are otherwise empty. Neither of those provides a lot of enjoyment to players (or take much time). The social encounter / puzzle is pretty tough to run well (I think). There are so many NPCs and so little information about them or guidance on how to run them and how to cue their order of influence (or even that there is a pecking order, which isn't obvious or normal for adventuring parties). I felt like I was largely left to wing it as a DM, and would have appreciated more support from the module author.
2b. What content there is feels very ambiguous. I've played this, run this, and talked to other DMs, and so far no two runs have ever had the same interpretation of what the intended layout of the space is, how the portal works / which rooms can connect to which other rooms how, what the exit portal is and how it works, etc.
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There's no Vampire unless the party is at least Average, but that's unlikely (See 1). Unfortunately, Vampire Spawn are such a step down from Vampires, that even the legitimately Very Weak party of only medium effective PCs at my table stomped the Spawn without any serious risk. And this was without a Sun Blade (this is a special black mark for Season 8-- At least 6 Tier 2 and 3 modules are trivialized by a PC in possession of a Sun Blade and/or with the spell Dawn prepared. I think enemies with Sunlight Hypersensitivity are probably just inappropriate for Organized Play, period).
- I wish there were more social pillar. While there are things the Naga can rant about, their guidance is basically: they see you and they attack. Similarly, while it's possible to have superficial social interaction with the boss, (a) basically no party will (their core module objective is kill all Vampires), and (b) there's no value in doing so-- the boss has no information, and attacks after some pro forma chatter. It'd more interesting if there were encounters in the module where taking a social route gave clues to other pieces or somehow provided merit in and of itself.
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I'll be honest. The only reason I bought this was because of a party wipe on the Slitherswamp level to the spirit nagas and I needed an easy idea for an AL-legal adventure to help with them figuring out the more interesting situation of Alterdeep without possibly going completely off-book. I figured the agency and loose writing of a season 8 module would fit the bill. So, in that it was a success. Being able to pile on more weirdness helped.
The module, however, has many glaring issues. There are the QC issues (missing stat block, typographical errors, grammatical errors, lack of a printer-friendly version, and so on) that have been commented on at length by other reviewers. It's not a good sign when one of the first bits of information in the setting--the crystalline chimes, engraving, and door--seem to have no correlation with each other. The players need to use the gems in the doors to get around and all they have to do is to touch one. The chimes have no part in that, and the engraving would indicate that the notes are D, F, T(?), L(??), and S(???). Presumably it makes sense if you've read and ran the previous adventure and that is not what was actually intended, but there is literally nothing to build on so to do anything with it would be the hand-waviest of hand-waves and is better left out entirely.
It's unclear how players are supposed to get back from any one room to another; I assume the easiest way (and possible intent) is to run the door as a central hub leading to/from other areas with a portal on the other side. Empty rooms with obvious traps aren't very interesting even if you have players who are likely to trigger them because they can. The thralls are either going to wind up being a frustrating puzzle or a murder hobo killing spree unless the party came packing with enough dispel magics. Of course, that assumes you somehow get across to the players that the characters are enthralled without just coming out and telling them. Then, of course, there is the question of whether or not killing them all would count for "freeing them from enchantment." The explanations of who everyone is is buried in an appendix instead of being put in the main text and the puzzle "solution" is in yet another appendix.
The fight with the bone nagas would be improved by giving some idea what sort of nagas they were in life. I decided to go with one spirit and one guardian for variety, but again it seems like another case of purely lazy writing and lack of craft.
The maps are kind of fun and can scale up fairly easy with some screenshots and scaling. The side effect on the wand of lightning seems like it's a great opportunity for future role-playing that will probably be totally ignored in the majority of AL play.
Frankly, everyone involved in this module except for maybe cartography--designers, authors, and editorial for sure--should be embarrased that this module was released in the state it was. The only saving grace was that I didn't pay full-price for a rough draft.
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This modules has two glaring problems:
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If the party has a sun blade, they win trivially This module has been run multiple times by DMs in my area, including by me. All but one time, the party brought a sunblade which resulted in the final fight being a Benny Hill-style encounter where the boss is fleeing at maximum speed from a dashing character with a sunblade. Worse, the only other combat encounter in the module contains enemies who are sensitive to sunlight and so it ends up trivializing both combat encounters in the module. Even without a sunblade; Dawn (cleric/wizard spell) + Wall of Force (wizard spell) makes short work for a tier-appropriate party with a couple of spellcasters.
- The whole place is empty Yes, there is a social encounter, but the party has to bumble through a series of "this is obviously a trap" rooms for the first half hour or so of the module. The main issue is that all of the traps are either "only an idiot would fall for this" (drink the rainbow water) or offer no real means of avoidance (bonus objective A's "look at this thing and make a save").
Additionally, I found the layout of the "keys" (eye gemstones) that lead players through the module to be unhelpful. I ended up moving them around to linearize the module slightly (i.e., force visits to both "empty" rooms and both "bonus objective" rooms before the social encounter room). This at least gave the players some sense that entering the rooms had a purpose.
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If the entire Vampire Hunt trilogy feels insubstantial and thin, at the very least it ends on a bolt of genuine weirdness. The final villains are a weird, wonderful idea and give this module a touch of gonzo that at least make it stand out and feel honestly memorable in a trilogy of adventures that felt anything but.
Unfortunately, that gonzo weirdness is itself constructed around a puzzle scenario that doesn't provide any real mechanism for solving its own puzzle (what possible clues do you get that give you the chain? How do you fail to solve the puzzle, invoking a penalty? None of this is answered) and a pair of bonus objectives that feel like DCEU world-building: Weird offshoots not designed to further this story but somehow set up a later trilogy.
While its portal hopping froggy weirdness is at least memorable, it none the less still fails to hold up, and its final boss suffers from a total lack of foreshadowing and menace. It's a disappointment.
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I want to give it a 4/5, but there are simply too many errors. The NPC group has 5 members, only 4 of them have stat blocks. The BBEG is a vampire that cannot access his own coffin. I will quote p13 directly here:
Misty Escape. When he drops to 0 hit points outside of his resting place, Rhacoph transforms into a cloud of mist (as in the Shapechanger trait) instead of falling unconscious, provided that he isn’t in sunlight or running water. If he can’t transform, he is destroyed. While he has 0 hit points in mist form, he can’t revert to his vampire form, and he must reach his resting place within 2 hours or be destroyed. Once in his resting place, he reverts to his vampire form. He is then paralyzed until he regains at least 1 hit point. After spending 1 hour in his resting place with 0 hit points, he regains 1 hit point.
Shapechanger. If Rhacoph isn’t in sunlight or running water, it can use its action to polymorph into a Tiny bat or a Medium cloud of mist, or back into its true form. [...] While in mist form, [...] He is weightless, has a flying speed of 20 feet, can hover, and can enter a hostile creature’s space and stop there. In addition, if air can pass through a space, the mist can do so without squeezing, and he can’t pass through water. He has advantage on Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution saving throws, and he is immune to all nonmagical damage, except the damage he takes from sunlight.
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This module was a bit easier to get through in the allotted time, and was a bit tricksome for the players as they couldn't figure out what was important and what wasn't. Unfortunately for me the players came up with a really good strategy and demolished the baddies at the end with very little fight. Fun module.
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Overall this is a great module. I was completely satisfied by the number and quality of the maps included in this module. The story was creative, though maybe a bit confusing if you don't take the time to read the module. The BBEG was a ton of fun to play and my players loved finding out its secret. I think this is going to be a nice one to replay with future groups.
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While me and my players had fun with this one. I worry how non-rp groups will handle it as it isn't the most straight forward and the combat encounters can be very punishing for lower level parties who just want to hack their way to the end. Cool ideas but I think more thought should have been put into the pathing to make options and solutions a bit more clear to the players and DM's.
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The structure of this module is very disjointed and doesn't scale well for a for such a high APL. If you don't run the bonus objectives this module could be run in under hour. The goal of bonus objective A seems vague and if you are playing this one expect DM variation with weither or not you can even earn this objective point. I feel that no matter what the group's power level they should be fighting the signature villain at the end not spawns. Otherwise it feels anti-climatic. Plot elements seem to be the overall weakness of this trilogy.
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I actually rate this adventure higher than others in the series, and the reason for that is the author did include much of what makes an adventure great- with interesting challenges, and the ability to replay it in different ways. However, the formatting for season 8 ultimately makes this a much harder adenture to read than it should be- it comes off like something I would make up on the fly. Which is fine, but I do expect more from a mod.
The magic item and flavor is excellent.
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Its hard to get past the sloppy editing, typographical, grammatical and typesetting errors in this and other installments like it from Adventurer's League. Once you do, you are left with a somewhat bewildering ending to this trilogy. Enthralled Adventurers, Rooms with no meaning and a story with a eye raising twist. Oh well I guess I got to play with a vampire that said 'Ribbit!'
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This adventure is great and terrible all at once, but I really enjoyed it overall. The main villain is probably one of the most fun that I've ever had, and gives players their likely first battle with a legendary creature. This is an adventure that is plagued by the terrible season 8 formatting, which really hurts it. However, it has some very fun encounters that aren't all combat.
To run this best, I recomend that you have the rooms mapped out first if you use maps and miniatures. It will save a lot of time. Second, read and re-read the adventure. There are a lot of parts where you will need to ad lib. A DM who is good at this will be able to make this an incredible adventure. DM's who prefer to not adlib much will probably hate this adventure.
A lot of negatives to this adventure, but the fun factor was huge and my players had a great time. The villain is a blast to play and gave the players a huge sense of accomplishment when they won. Buy it, read and reread it until you know it well, and give your players a heck of a good time.
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The new adventure format is the first hurdle to overxome with this adventure. Past there it gets more convoluted. The crystal chimes from the last adventure is here, but seemingly does nothing. The snake portal is an interesting concept but I can't see any way to get back from the rooms they open. I assume there are matching portals in the rooms, but I don't see any mention fo them.
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