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Spoilers inside!
DMed this for a party of 3 players. Very weak party
- JC played Hattori, level 6 half orc samurai
- Andrea played Nedeal, level 5 human assassin
- Étienne played Steve, level 5 tortle shadow monk
This was a good introduction to this new trilogy and I'm stoked for the two other parts. The hook was great. I really liked the coastal city of Ayakar and how detailed it was. I would have liked some more things to do in the bazaar, maybe a small encounter there or some more social and roleplay stuff. I loved Mezhar as this mysterious quest giver, I hope he plays a role later on! There's a good amount of details and fluff and it really helps the immersion in the Sea of Fallen Stars area that we had yet to explore in AL (at least to my knowledge). The crew of the boat was detailed and interesting but some of the highly detailed things were just... details and weren't super important in the grand scheme of things.
The fights were interesting and it was fun to take the time to build a Lego boat just for the first fight. I liked the d20 thing you could do during the encounter but it could had been better integrated, maybe as Lair Actions on initiative 20. The fight with the Corpseflower was challenging, I only managed to play one turn with it since the monk kept stunning it but I almost killed a player when I did. Malady, the mongrelfolk tiefling could have a larger role than she did though, she's a cool NPC.
I liked the magma mephit encounter, unfortunately no players could claim as a familiar but this was well thought out and I liked the link with Mezhar as well. It was odd to find though, there's no real connection with the rest of the adventure except the elemental link through Mezhar.
The final fight, while created to be challenging, was way too hard for that group of characters and I had to downplay the very weak adjustments. The Morkoth is a great monster but its immunity to non magical damage meant that my players couldn't do anything to it. Season 8 rules for magical items are rough and no one had magic weapons... I made the monster resistant and I had to restrain myself a bit or else it would had been a TPK and not one I would have liked. The rogue decided to free Zehira so I gave her a +1 magic club (as mentionned in the encounter). I want to reDM the module with a larger party, this has the potential to be an incredible fight. The fighter was at 1 HP (after his half orc feature) and the monk at like 2-3 HPs so this was rough and I barely used any of his spells except a 4th level Lighting Bolt. The Darkness lair action plus his 3 attacks were enough. DEADLY fight for sure.
I would have liked a map for the final cavern, sure the description and the size are mentionned but it's always nice to have a quick physical support for when you DM on the fly or for the more visual players. Like the previous review says, there's no water and it's a mistake for a creature who dwells under water and has a swim speed.
While I personally like the Iron Bands of Billaro magic item, I think it's a really bad choice given the season 8 rules. I actually like to give items that the players would actually unlock and no one and I mean no one would unlock an item that can be destroyed on a DC 20 STR saving throw from a monster. It doesn't help to ease the frustration many players have with the s08 treasure rules.
I did 1 of the 2 bonus objectives and the adventure didn't take more than 5 hours but with 3 players, especially 3 veterans, it goes faster. 6 hours with the 2 bonus objectives seems like a reasonable length.
Cool adventure, stoked to DM it again and excited to run the two other modules from the trilogy. Some game mecanics that could have been tighter here and there but this was fun to run. To me, it seems that some details were rushed and I'm not too sure why. At times, it presents really cool things (Mezhar, Captain Lazlo and his crew etc) without really exploring them in a meaningful and totally rewarding way. Still, awesome adventure.
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Spoilers for both The Myconic Nidus and Sanctum of Rot
I DMed BWM-04-01 and BWM-04-02 together as a four hour adventure for a group of 5 players (from level 6 to level 10) and it was quite fun. I'm a big fan of what Beers, Pace and Murakami-Brundage's adventures so all their stuff are automatic purchases for me. Their season 8 epic (Chaos in the City of Splendors was incredible) and I'm a fan of all things Zuggtmoy so I was excited to DM this.
The choice of monsters was super interesting. The two bosses from both adventures were fiends from Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes and they're challenging monsters for Tier 2. I runned the modules as a combination of strong and very strong even if I had a below average party since the level 10 fire genasi fighter barbarian had a flametongue greatsword that he used recklessly. I think he managed to crit 15 times in 4 hours. RIP my monsters.
The encounter adjustments were good and made sense. Not sure I would have used the rakshasa option for Madcap in Sanctum of Rot though, ouch!
I really liked the encounter system for Myconic Nidus, it gives the DM some leeway and options. I personally let the dice decide which encounters to do and we did the vegepygmies fight and the veterans plus black pudding fight (I was planning this one for sure since I always like to use my pudding miniature. This alongside the poisonous atmosphere gave a nice dangerous crawl feel to the first module.
The alkilith’s confusion ability was fantastic and challenging to the players. The genasi fighter was lucky to have his Mantle of Spell Resistance, let me tell you that or else the whole encounter would have been different. This was a good monster to put alone against a party due to his special features.
The second adventure relied more on a dungeon crawl dynamic with a good map then on the exploration done in the first part and it was well done. I liked the circle of commoner cultists just being drugged around a statue of Zuggtmoy and the kenku bard who fireballed them had fun. Poor fellows! The encounter with Madcap was fun and challenging, he's a creepy dude and I decided to represent him as an evil Toad from the Mario series. The final boss fight was great too but I was a bit in a hurry to finish the adventure so I didn't do it as well as I would have hoped, things like the Bulezau's effects were a bit ignored. I tried to feeblemind a player and did good damage with the Oinoloth. If I had more time, I would have put the three veterans from his private quarters in that final fight as well.
The four bonus objectives were good but some seemed better than others. I'll probably run it again as a 8 hour adventure. I usually think that this season 8 method gives us some useless time fillers that doesn't seem important in the grand scheme of the adventure but I think those are better than usual.
Top tier quality from those guys once again.
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Spoilers for both The Myconic Nidus and Sanctum of Rot
I DMed BWM-04-01 and BWM-04-02 together as a four hour adventure for a group of 5 players (from level 6 to level 10) and it was quite fun. I'm a big fan of what Beers, Pace and Murakami-Brundage's adventures so all their stuff are automatic purchases for me. Their season 8 epic (Chaos in the City of Splendors was incredible) and I'm a fan of all things Zuggtmoy so I was excited to DM this.
The choice of monsters was super interesting. The two bosses from both adventures were fiends from Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes and they're challenging monsters for Tier 2. I runned the modules as a combination of strong and very strong even if I had a below average party since the level 10 fire genasi fighter barbarian had a flametongue greatsword that he used recklessly. I think he managed to crit 15 times in 4 hours. RIP my monsters.
The encounter adjustments were good and made sense. Not sure I would have used the rakshasa option for Madcap in Sanctum of Rot though, ouch!
I really liked the encounter system for Myconic Nidus, it gives the DM some leeway and options. I personally let the dice decide which encounters to do and we did the vegepygmies fight and the veterans plus black pudding fight (I was planning this one for sure since I always like to use my pudding miniature. This alongside the poisonous atmosphere gave a nice dangerous crawl feel to the first module.
The alkilith’s confusion ability was fantastic and challenging to the players. The genasi fighter was lucky to have his Mantle of Spell Resistance, let me tell you that or else the whole encounter would have been different. This was a good monster to put alone against a party due to his special features.
The second adventure relied more on a dungeon crawl dynamic with a good map then on the exploration done in the first part and it was well done. I liked the circle of commoner cultists just being drugged around a statue of Zuggtmoy and the kenku bard who fireballed them had fun. Poor fellows! The encounter with Madcap was fun and challenging, he's a creepy dude and I decided to represent him as an evil Toad from the Mario series. The final boss fight was great too but I was a bit in a hurry to finish the adventure so I didn't do it as well as I would have hoped, things like the Bulezau's effects were a bit ignored. I tried to feeblemind a player and did good damage with the Oinoloth. If I had more time, I would have put the three veterans from his private quarters in that final fight as well.
The four bonus objectives were good but some seemed better than others. I'll probably run it again as a 8 hour adventure. I usually think that this season 8 method gives us some useless time fillers that doesn't seem important in the grand scheme of the adventure but I think those are better than usual.
Top tier quality from those guys once again.
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My review includes spoilers, of course
I was looking for a cool tier 3 to run for my dudes and the name of this one was intriguing. Combined with the fact that Jeremy Hochhalter wrote some of my favorite CCCs like Zhentarim's Lament or The Dreaming Relic.
First of all, the things I liked:
Even if I didn't read the 2 other parts of the trilogy (tier 1 and tier 2), the story award is cool and new (they can be applied to the other characters who play the other modules) and they made sense. The story was also cool and I like Velvet as a bad guy. Some of my players played Raiders of the Twilight Marsh or Claws of Fury when I DMed those adventures and it felt nice to revisit that baddie.
The inclusion of a Song Dragon, something not in 5e was well thought and well done. I think she could had been a bit more integral to the story and some player boons could had been given or something.
The earthmore and the aarakocra were interesting elements and I liked having them.
The magic item is quite cool too and it made many players happy.
The things I didn't like:
The first part with the skill checks didn't please me when I read it. I never really liked that idea and I still don't. The DCs for the checks were low and easy to beat and it just seemed like a waste of time. I was happy when the wizard decided that he could just use Teleport to go help the mage in danger.
The first combat with the dire trolls was fun, 5 of 'em against the party was a good fight and I managed to down the level 14 barbarian/paladin with one. It could had been a bit more diversified though.
My main issue with the module and the combat in general was the final fight. In my opinion, this wasn't playtested enough. It has ONE Green Abishai (he's not worth his CR at all) and the Adult Black Dracolich. It was nowhere near a challenge for any players I know in tier 3. I guess it could be challenging if you have 4 level 11-12 but still. I rebuilt the encounter and added a Red Abishai (as the main emyssary), a blue abishai and 4-5 white abishais. Now, it was a good and challenging encounter. The cleric even used Heal to save the paladin. Easy fights are way too common in modules but this one was far too easy as is. If your players are min/maxers with great magic items (everyone and their mothers have a Staff of the Magi now because of the seasonal unlocks), encounters should take that in consideration.
All in all, fun adventure that you need tweak to make sure your players face a good challenge.
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It's been said that it was a really tough adventure and while I think no tiers 3 are tough enough for my usual friends and players, this was a fun one.
The first encounter should had been 2 purple worms for average parties and maybe even 3 for very strong ones. Yes, they do a lot of damage but if you have a party with wizards who can plane shift them or bards who can banish or hold monster them, it's not challenging. It's fun though and it was cool to use the Purple Worm mini. The yuan ti shepherd druid was lucky to be immune to poison!
I've skipped the hag fight and made it a social encounter, it would have been way too easy for my players. The kelp encounter was fun though, the valor bard was his own rival so he kept fighting a major image of himself riding a griffin while the monk and the giant frog druid just did the whole job.
The final fight was very cool but the mind flayers need to be max HP and the spell list of the arcanists needs to be a bit modified (I gave them banishment, synaptic static etc...give them counterspell if needed and if you have the time to run a longer fight)
Overall, fun and easy adventure to run and my players liked it. I'll run the rest of the trilogy as well!
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Spoilers in the review:
It's a really fun adventure with some great writing and ideas. I really liked the overture where it's each character versus a skeleton (the poor kobold bard got knocked unconscious and got to be a "minion!"), it's different from what you usually see and I thought it was refreshing. It was a genuine pleasure to be able to roleplay and feature an ancient gold dragon in AL and especially in a tier 1 adventure so this was special as well.
The two encounters on the dragon's back were cool. The griffin one was cute, they fed him rations and the eladrin rogue managed to ride him a little. The pixies with their devious fun was funny and it was a good idea to give the idea of featuring them at the end with the roc's fight. Without succeeding the pixies' encounter, things can be tougher in the Quivering Forest though so I suggest not to skip it.
I did the Xvarts, the Redcaps and the Oni encounters as far as combat is concerned. Like I mentioned to the writer already, the redcap encounter is broken and it will be fixed soon. It suggest 4 redcaps for an average party level which is way too much. Mr Gabat mentionned that he wanted tough encounters in the forest so for an APL party, it would have been 2 redcaps which is still really really hard. One redcap has 3 attacks of 2d4+4 and one big attack of 3d10+4 that can literally kill a level 1 adventurer (I had 2 in my party). I don't mind killing people but in tier 1 in a random encounter, I think it's not totally the ideal moment to do so. It's a fun fight though, adjust according to your party's strengths, weaknesses and composition. The Oni fight was easier in comparaison since for a weak or average party, he doesn't have multiattack, he's medium and has no spellcasting.
The final encounter with the roc was fun. I've let a player control the dragon and unleash his CR 24 power upon that poor gargantuan birdie. It was an impossible fight to win for the DM but my players did epic things to help the wounded dragon. The tiefling barbarian jumped on the roc, he managed to roll a DC 20 athletics check! My players felt that the dragon's death was a bit random and not super related to the plot though, it was a random bird that appeared from the Plane of Dread. I think it was obvious that he was gonna die before doing this last good deed for his genie friend but still, he could had died differently or just of old age (which I guess he did but yeah...)
The story was good overall, Vagabond Victor was a fun NPC to play and the unlocked item is a fun one for the bards out there. I'm looking forward to the sequel.
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The Scourge Unseen is seriously good and it almost got a 5 stars rating but the final encounter didn't impress me as much as the rest.
I had a very tanky party and even if I had the APL, the 6 players were strong and it's always a bit hard to challenge a table of 6 veteran players.
The story is definitely a 5/5 even if it's fairly simple since the lore and the use of evil gods was well done and the simple but cool puzzles did a lot to the exploration.
The first encounter with the Slightering Trackers was way too easy even with the stealth element and the use of water, a stronger monster alongside the trackers could had been better. For stronger parties, adding additional trackers just slowed down the game and it's really heavy with combat already. The first floor was intriguing and the damage from going down the watery tunnel was cool. The map was superb and fun to draw. More glyphs and traps could had been a nice addition. The behir was a cool boss for the level and he took 2 players down with its breath before perishing. My local shop where I DM had an old mini from 3.5 that I got to use.
The second floor was my favorite since you can really mix encounters up depending on the demon lords that you pick, I picked Baphomet, Juiblex and Orcus and had a bunch of different monsters to use like black puddings, tanarukk and a devourer (lovely new mini from the new Waterdeep collection) and the idea of putting statuettes beneath the names of each demon lord was cool. I had players who knew their lore so it was easy but still fun! I did 2 fights back to back so it took a long time but it was challenging for the players and used their ressources before the final encounter
The top layer of the dungeon crawl was outside in the Cormanthor forest and while I really liked the maps, I'm getting a bit tired of hags as monsters in CCCs as I see them often. There's a CCC trilogy that I had the chance to DM that isn't on DMs Guild yet that features them as well. While I like the fluff and the ideas of hags, they're not really powerful monsters even with the coven spells added. They were challenging in Wretches, a tier 1 but at tier 2 when you have level 8-9-10 characters who can unleash 4th level spells and 2 melee attacks for some great DPS, they're a bit weak. I did managed to crush the fighter/barb for like 65 damage with the Annis hag (once again, cool to use the new Waterdeep mini that I got) but he was merely bloodied! The spectres didn't add much since their to hit is not enough to be scary and they were gone in 1 round due to their 25 or something hit points. I did really like the map but a bigger and stronger BBEG could had been better. With a short rest, my players could have handled a bigger threat. I also think it was a missed opportunity to forget about the kids tied up in the vines. Yes, the author gives a way to remove them from the thorny cliff (with damage to the player who do it) but there's no point in rescuing them during the combat since there's no mecanical or roleplay advantage in doing so. You can kill the three hags and then take your time to rescue the kids and the two other NPCs. Lair actions was something sorely missing from the encounter, a module like Necromancer's Ascent (SPOILERS) where the BBEG can drain the life of a prisoner to regain some HP could or any other lair actions with the trees, kids or surrounding would had been a superb addition to the fight.
Magic items: The Iron Bands of Bilarro are really cool but I'm afraid that with the new rules of season 8, not a lot of people are gonna be willing to spend their precious treasure points on a item that can be destroyed... The addition of a cool common magic (the unbreakable arrow) was well done though as I believe it was the first time it appeared in AL.
I had a lot of fun running The Scourge Unseen and I'm looking forward to the other DRUID releases.
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Creator Reply: |
Thank you for the frank and constructive review! I'm glad that you enjoyed the adventure overall. |
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I really enjoyed running this module, it had a great balance of challenging battles and interesting roleplay opportunities. You could really feel that the decisions taken by the players could influence the chain of events and change the outcome. Some of the scripted events were a bit of turn off for the players (I think) but I didn't mind them. Poor dude who got sliced like a sausage by the redacted! I'm stoked to run the 2 other chapters if they're as good.
P.S.: ropers make me happy
P.S: 3 ropers make me even happier
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Creator Reply: |
Thanks for taking the time to leave a review. Glad you enjoyed the adventure. The follow-up adventures are quite different and do have less of the cut-scenes! |
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Insanely good adventure! The story is written in a really concise but rich way. It's straightforward but described more than sufficiently and it's quite easy to be a dungeon master for your group when you run it. I wasn't prepared enough to do it but it went well regardless and I'm looking forward to do it again. I had a strong and diverse party of six players so I don't think it was quite challenging enough but considering it's Guild Adept and written like a hardcover, it's easy to simply boost the encounters to your liking. I've used the Blue Abishai (cr 17) to make the "final" encounter much tougher and even then, it was perhaps not enough to challenge my players! They didn't fight the final optionnal big bad at the end since it was already quite late but the skill challenge was still fun to do.
Also great magic item! My wizard is quite happy now!
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I was looking for a tier 1 module to DM to my friends who wanted to play tonight and this was a good choice. The adventure is fun, straightforward and pretty damn funny at times. It was a blast to roleplay the goblin tribe! The party wasn't very strong but I was confident in their ability so I used the roper since well, it's perhaps my favorite D&D monster. The Goliath battlemaster tanked well! I think the ending was somewhat anticlimatic since there's no real bosses. I don't think the Cave Fisher was challenging enough and the dwarven entry to the underground caverns they couldn't access (stoked for the followup module) was a bit disappointing as an ending. I didn't use the dwarven statues since there's no real point in fighting them.
I really liked the creative things like:
-albino goblins being lawful neutral and worshippers of dwarven gods
-Voodoo puppet being used by the goblin chief if the players decide to be murder hobos
-The mushroom story award!
Huge plus for the great artwork and the awesome map as well.
Unfortunately, the adventure is riddled with mistakes, I've seen at least 5 while running it but that's a recurrent theme with AL modules.
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Creator Reply: |
Hi Antoine,
Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated! If you have the inclination I would like to here about the mistakes you found. Would definitely like to address them and update the document. In any case I hope you and your group had fun and it was worth your time to play. Best regards and happy gaming! |
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Some spoilers:
I had a really great time running this module and I think the players liked it as well. The first fight with the revenants was fun even though I forgot to add the wraiths to the 3rd round and the map and the terrain made it really interactive. The rogue managed to hide in a cliff and shoot from afar while the paladin jumped from wagon to wagon.
The NPCs were interesting and detailed enough. The players really didn't expect a trial and it managed to make the warlock shine a bit. Since the first encounter wasn't challenging enough to my veteran players (group of 4), I made the encounter with the devourer very strong and it almost TPKed the group so watch out for that. My players were fine with the challenge.
It was a good idea to give the magic item before the actual dungeon, it's a small but cool twist and it helped the paladin quite a bit!
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I was looking for a fun new tier 1 adventure and this looked it could do the job. I was right, Bedlam at the Benefit was a really damn fun module. I played this at home with 3 friends so we didn't have a strong party by default so the first fight was quite challenging (but fun!) and I really liked the choice of monsters. The Gibbering Mouther (cool to use the minis from the new Monster Menagerie series) can be deadly if you approach them.
I think the party liked the social roleplay at the start and the amount of NPCs you can talk to adds a good replayability. The gnome wizard who was on the run was especially funny. It was out of the box writing and a bit hard to DM at first. I missed where the rules for the donations were but that's probably my lack of preparation due to last minute DMing. It's pretty clear.
The exploration of the sanitarium was well done, all with skills instead of your classic dungeon crawling. The base DC of 16 for successes was a bit high for a tier 1 adventure though.
The final boss was hella cool and the lair actions were great but my party managed to destroy him quite easily with a well timed Hold Person from the war cleric. He can be deadly if your players failed the skill challenges beforehand though as he has access to 5th level spell slots as a warlock.
It's a fun adventure that can be either done in 2-3 hours or a bit more if your party wants to take their time with the social aspects of it.
Highly recommended.
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