The story was good, the encounter design was not. if you run this module you should seriously look to scaling up the encounters to tier three scale.

This module pulls off an actual moral conundrum, and whenever you make players think, and feel conflicted, you have writen something nice.

A fun investigative romp that as usual will run way over the 4 hours posted unless you really chivvy your players a long.

The last boss made for a hardy final challenge, and my players were entertained all the way through, so what more could I ask for? (Though possibly one too many Vampire spawn loses it a 5 star rating).

If was fun. My players had a lot of fun with it and while not all the combats were challenging... they had a nice balance that the players seemed to enjoy.

I'm not a fan of T3 and higher play. Most of the seasonal products I see for play at these tiers falls short of the challenge of characters with maximum optimization; however, you tie in a good story like the Artor Morlin arc that this module continues with and you have buy-in from me! I enjoyed the premise behind the adventure... clue-hunting and discovering a portal for their benefactor, and options across the pillars of play for it. The battles can get lengthy, but the designer not only gives you options to increase the challenges beyond the adjustment sidebars, but also is also courteous enough to give supplement references to consider for those DMs looking to amplify their narratives/optics. I ran over the alloted time with just one Bonus Objective, but the players enjoyed the game (and I think that trumps any insignificant critique I have). There was slight hiccups with the Adventure Flowchart and Adventure Hooks (I basically said that Artor Morlin did not find the charaltan Undertakers territory, the dwarven crypts, nor the Slitherswamp suitable for him); it is easily overcome with DM fiat. I highly encourage DMs to read the module through before running it. Looking forward to running the follow-ups! Thanks to Cindy Moore for this effort!

Really fun adventure. The players loved getting to run through Skullport and see all of the weird denizens there. They enjoyed the who-done-it aspect and had a lot of fun getting to do so much roleplaying. I highly recommend the adventure.

I enjoyed running this adventure. The only reasons I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 is because the location names in episode 3 does not correspond to the names on the map. For example, there is a place called Mantrap that is not on the map. This has been a recurring problem with season 8 adventures. Why not use numbers? Also scene D in episode 2 seems to make all the party's invesitgation irrelevant. I would have liked more connection between scene D and previous scenes.

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.

DDAL 08-13 Vampire of Skullport

Disclaimer: My first season 8 adventure.

I was unsure about running this adventure, with the season 8 concerns, but my players are devouring Tier 3 adventures, so I needed something. I was pleasantly surprised. The flow was fine, the appropriate hooks took place, and the combat scenes were adequate. The “pillars” threw me for a loop. I just assumed that any DM would go with something similar, but perhaps less formal, for any adventure they ran. But perhaps DM empowerment is less prevalent than I thought.

I enjoyed the role play aspect for the DM. Plenty of opportunity to let your inner actor show! I am still not completely sold on the looser flow of this style of adventure. I prefer more “railroad” adventures, especially if I do not have a lot of lead time to prepare myself. Still, this is a good adventure to play.

Out of the three tier 3 season 8 adventures, the is the one that is most worth playing, the only one worth playing more than once.

The characters are led on a fun excursion to figure out why citizens of Waterdeep and Skullport are going missing. The investigation is a lot of fun and the bonus objectives fit more or less seamlessly into the main adventure. If I could change anything from episodde 2 it would be to expand slightly more on the NPC's character an give them a bit more to say.

This module, like the other two but to a lesser extent, suffers from the lack of vampire options. The problem being that there is only really two options for vampires - CR5 spawn or CR13/15 vampires. The author here has dealt with that issue by bringing in other potential enemies such as war priest and blackguards, though they could use a little more augmenting to bring them up to tier 3 competitiveness. Alternatively this would have been agreat time to add a couple of new vampire based NPCs to the menagerie.

The Maps are great, the second bonus objective contains a little more combat-combat-combat than I would like, though if it was played out fully the module may have run closer to the 6 hour runtime rather than the 4.5 that we managed it in (Fast DM, experienced players, many magic items)

Overall I enjoyed this module a lot, it's a shame that the following tier 3 modules do not hold up to the same standards.

Three stars for heavy hammer approach to combat , ignoring the Mad Mage Guildlines, and important info buring in text. It has some decent detective story lines. Go rescue other minions and find the portal. The time to play is spot on especially if the players get into combat. Be totally award Bonus Objective A needs to be handled with care. The heavy hammer approach of Flameskulls arriving in second round is harsh. I suggest using the code legal from Waterdeep Heist with some changes if you are going to flameskulls be cops. Take a pen and mark on the page which item belong to who. Bramble's item is causally mention on page 6. Also the quirk items are interesting but I got to research who a pc break the quirk. In 08-05 it is mentioned the spell "Banishment" does not work. Scene C has the npc using the spell. I suggest swapping out Banishment with Polymorph and turning the cultist into a goldfish. I do wish the author mention what level of Mad Mage the module ties into. This will help the dm cross reference to the Mad Mage.