Combat was too easy, and the Tier 4 metaplot was House Hunters - Faerun. Last season had the releasing of the promordial destined to destroy the world, and you were the foolish mortals who stepped in front to save the multiverse. This season you gotta find a guy a house.

I don't know. it was... okay? I think the DM needs to pref a lot. there are many holes in the module and the DM needs to fill it when running. As long as you pref enough, it is a runnable story. The whole season 8 DDAL's problem is, player just want to kill mr.M at this point.

tier 4 content again by WotC is yet another mundane to meh experience. Let us fight Artur Morlin that damn vampire skum. Otherwise the experience of kicking out an old man from his house is kinda lame.

This module is severly undertuned for a Tier 4 module. Aside from perhaps the final boss, I suspect the module could be completed on average difficulty by a 10th level party without much trouble. When I ran it, I offered the table the option of having me running it as written (with the caveat that I believed it to be undertuned) or to attempt to upscale it appropriately The table opt'd for running it as written which led to us finishing the ostensibly 6 hour module in a little under 2.5 hours (I ran a second module with the remaining time). I do not believe that a single character in their party was ever reduced below half hit points and nobody ever felt threatened. I will note that I ran this as weak due to the party being entirely level 17 and only having 4 members. I do not believe that it would have been suitable even if I'd run it on strong.

There are two major problems with it as written:

1) There is no inherent time pressure, so short resting is free. 2) Every single fight is too light.

SPOILER BELOW:

Bonus Objective A: No number of CR3 gith warriors represent a threat to a tier 4 party. They mostly can't hit and even if they do, they do pitiful damage. Further, since this fight occurs before the "core" of the module, there is nothing to prevent the party from taking even a long rest after doing it. [Possible fix: Upgrade warriors to knights; knights to gishes; and gishes to 2x gishes]

Fight 1: 2x Zombie Beholder; 2x Shadow Assassins. 2x Zombie Beholders were a Tier 2 fight in Season 7. The shadow assassins are certainly dangerous--but only due to strength drain. The party went through with lights on (a glowing Light Cleric) and so it the assassins were largely negated. Most parties won't have 100% darkvision, so this fight is rarely going to "come together" into a threat. [Possible fix: replace 1 or 2 Zombie Beholders with normal Beholders]

Fight 2: Larval Mage + Cadaver Collector. Finally enemies that are almost the correct CR. Here, the main problem is action economy. Even a weak party will have more turns than them. My party's monk stunned both of them before they had their first turn in combat, so they never got turns. The only resources the party spent on this fight were ki points. [Possible Fix: more-mid CR fodder]

Bonus Objective B: CR3 and CR4 Deathlocks; CR5 Flesh Golems; CR6 Mage. This is just awful. The only enemy that got a turn in combat was the flesh golem and that's because its a sack of hit points. The deathlocks died to a single fireball. Again, these are completely tier-inappropriate. The Mage + Fleshgolems optional fight is similarly trivial. [Possible fix: Replace deathlocks with Warlock of the Fiends with max hp]

Fight 3: Boneclaw + Shadow Assassin. Boss fights mostly don't work in 5e. This is an easy example of that. The party's crossbow expert was sent ahead to scout because he had a cloak of invisibility. He was spotted by the boneclaw. He solo'd the boneclaw in two rounds without action surging. [Possibile fix: probably needs 3-4 boneclaws]

Fight 4: 3x Death Slaadi. The module description notes that the characters are automatically aware of the enemies, so no surprise. Even if they are invisible, 3x fireballs aren't that scary. Only one of them managed to get their fireball off (the other's invisibility was dispel-magic'd and so the spell was countered). [Possible fix: more death slaads or give them surprise]

Fight 5: 2x Gibbering Mouthers. I don't understand why this is here. Gibbering mouthers are CR2. Two of them show up as part of the final fight in a Tier 1 CCC. This isn't even a speed bump. [Possible fix: just remove this encounter, it is a waste of time]

Fight 6: Lich + 5x Flesh Golems. The flesh golems are 100% ignorable. The party focus-fire'd on the Lich and he died in the second round of combat before getting a second turn. As fodder, flesh golems represent too little of a threat and the lich too obvious of one. At best, the golems form a wall and block advancement, but they can't actually harm anyone due to low to-hit bonuses and low damage output. [Possible fix: Start the lich with foresight + great invisibility up; replace flesh golems with stone golems]

This module is not so great. It seems that authors have no idea about what a T4 challenge should be like. I had to rewrite all the encounters in order to provide my players experience they want.

And the unlocked reward is... horrible.

Not a lot of exploration throughout shadowdusk hold. every enemy was way to easy for a party of tier 4 players. the Final boss I saw this ahead of time and swapped out his 5 flesh golems(seriously? flesh golems against tier 4?) for 5 deathlock masterminds. the players still wiped the floor with them and current rules allow warlock to gain boost from both rod of pact keeper and staff of the magi. Also, half of my party had staff of the magi which made the lich, even after i swapped out his spells no problem. they saw it and went "Oh, a spellcaster. This will be a piece of cake." whoever is writing these modules has not played with characters with access to season 8 unlock list.

I kind of see what the author was trying to do here, but it has failed pretty badly. There are a lot of combats, but most of the monsters are no challenge for a T4 party - particularly now that items like a Staff of the Magi have become pretty commonplace - there were two in the group of 5 players that I DMed this for. I think the author was going for a war of attrition feel, but CR 2 and 3 monsters (even in groups of half-a-dozen or more) just don't drain the resources of a T4 party - they are taken out with a few charges from a staff and a bunch of cantrips. My party had a paladin and no other healing, and I don't recall the paladin using much of her healing pool - many of the PCs never even got through all their temps. It was nice that there was an attempt to keep the monsters thematically linked, but if you're going to DM it, take enough prep time to go through Mordenkainen's and replace a whole bunch of the creatures.

Also, putting in text room descriptions instead of maps just seems a bit lazy to me.

This is a combat heavy module with wimps as most of the foes. The monsters from Tome of Foes will surprise your players and are the most difficult. The DC for traps, saves, etc are tier 1 low. The final boss is push over if the party gets first strike. If I would run again, the monsters from Monster Manual would get an addition +2 to +4 to hit. I did change Episode 3 so if you defeat the final boss you defeat the level.

So with tier 4 content, I typically tend to be excited to DM it as players also tend to be excited to play in it as there are still so few Tier 4 adventures. So I went into this adventure with an open mind.

All it was was combat. It was something that just felt like "Fight after Fight"... and that was really it. Beyond that though.. most of the encounters were not with terrifyingly power monsters... but typically felt more like monsters with high hit points.

I enjoyed the chase sequence.. it did give a change of pace and the Cadaver Collector fight was cool [I liked the monster], but the rest wasn't really memorable, including the finale.

Combat is great... but this module seemed to feel like it was attempting to make things more difficult through a battle of attrition and that not merely bogs down the players, but the DM as well.

I'm hoping the next two modules will be better.

I won't address the editing issues past saying there are a number of them.

What I will address is narrative and combat tuning issues.

The narrative is actually a pretty good narrative, for the most part. A degree of fun, a degree of wit, and some interesting characters to play with. It deliberately eschews the usual 'End of the World' T4 tropes of Utter Disaster and DOOOOOOOM!!!!! if the Great Heroes of The Realms don't the Grand Evil Poobah. If it weren't a T4 adventure, set in Faerune, I'd account that a strength.

Unfortunately, this is a T4 adventure set in Faerune. Faerune is a world that lurches from disaster to disaster, saved on a daily basis by the acts of heroes. Trying to pretend otherwise is silly -- it's just part of the narrative of the setting. Every land, every city, every village owes something to heroes of one stripe or another. From the lesser heroes who deal with lesser issues, to the greater heroes that deal with world-shattering issues. They have a perfect world-shattering plot here, and they just don't use it to it's full potential.

Now, by itself that flaw wouldn't even be worth knocking a singel star off for. But the result of that flaw is what costs this adventure more than anything else. It's undertuned. In trying to avoid 'End of the World!!!!' monsters, the writers have left themselves in a horrible place as far as monster selection. Much of the combat is appropriate to a T3 party. A low end T3 party at that. Some of the fights, to be completely honest, work better for a T2 party. Anyone who goes to DM this, have Kobold Fight Club handy to build encounters with, and be prepared to rewrite every single fight. (And don't forget that with Staff of the Magi, Cloaks of Invisibiliity, and other legendary's becoming standard equipment, you're gonna need to push into 'deadly' fights to make any progress at all.) Take the time to look up thematic replacements, and make sure to utilize every last trick you can get -- a T4 party has plenty of tricks of their own. The monsters chosen, all to often, simply aren't a significant threat to a T4 party, not even in numbers.

A generous 3 star rating and the points lost are all on editing.

Please fix the Checkpoint awards and item information.