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.

This module, like many in Season 8, is saddled with the dishonor of featuring Artor Morlin: the bastard Vampire of Waterdeep. As in previous installments, he is awful to the party. This time around, rather than implying that he'll murder them as in previous outings, he instead goes much further by creating a "damage reflecting coffin" so that he is an ongoing impediment to the party while they are trying to do the task he asked of them. When I played this module, that coffin was the last straw and resulted in the party dusting him via Dawn + Forcecage after completeing all the objectives. Using a character who is both quest-giver and antagonist requires that character to have some redeeming feature. Artor, despite many opportunities, only manages to be somehow worse each time you see him--especially here where he reveals that rather than keeping Waterdeep free from vampires, he actually has dozens of vampire spawn serving him in the city.

From a technical standpoint, the module isn't much better. The combats are severely undertuned. The final combat--4 bone claws and a Death Knight--is a particular standout. Under no circumstances should that be considered an appropriately tuned Tier 4 encounter. A single 17th level Warlock with a +3 rod of the pact keeper (an evergreen unlock during Season 8) can solo the room by casting Psychic Scream. Neither a boneclaw nor a Death Knight can make the DC 22 Intelligence save necessary to become un-stunned (8 base + 5 charisma + 6 proficiency + 3 RotPK = 22). Without legendary resistances, the CR of a monster is irrelevant in Tier 4; they are simply speedbumps. When I ran this against a (by the numbers) average party, I ran the encounter on "very strong" and they still stomped it without difficulty.

First, I don't understand that how the demilich can be here. he's phylactery could have been destroyed at the end of 08-16. so how? Second, why is Berlain in here. she is in DMM lv.22 so if the players killed her here. do I remove her from DMM lv.22? or what if someone already killed her? The whole "far realm" thing was good. to finally end with things with mr.M was.... not so well fitting.

Back into Mad Mage for some beating up old folks and their retirement goals. The only challenge is the minions and their splash damage. Thankfully this is tier 4 and MindBlank and Dragon Form really makes to ruin 100% of the journey. From there the old tedius nature of mage duels become bland since a single enemy wizard is literally no threat.

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.

But the unlocked reward is very easy. I have been wanting this item since the start of my playing in AL. Great reward, and not so challenging module.

4/5.

Another combat only module. I had a very strong group and even with adjustments combat was easy due to the party make up. I suggest change Bonus Objective A into a social encounter with DC 30 persuasion check to get the amulet. Scene E is a series of Save or fail rolls with no way to avoid walls. I suggest Dex saving throw of DC 17 to avoid contact with the walls.

This is so far my favourite Tier 4 adventure to DM (and I DM'ed most of them : DDAL00-01, DDAL00-02F, DDAL00-03, DDAL05-18, DDAL05-19, DDAL06-03, DDAL07-15, DDEP08-03, DDAL08-16, DDAL08-17, DDAL08-18). Like the other modules in the trilogy, I have ran this one twice (both times with bonus objectives) : once physically at the Festival Magic Montreal, and once online. This review contains spoilers.

On the roleplay side, it was great ! Roleplaying a distracted mass of flesh named Berlain who was hurting the players without even realizing it (until the players gave her something else to tear apart) was great, and so was roleplaying a heart-broken demilich who could only say "Berlain" in a hundred voice tones. But roleplaying the Entity -- so, so fun ! The "Evil Gentleman" trope is so rare to see, but so satisfying to incarnate. Both times, the players loved the "Tell me what's missing" rooms and really got into it in terms of descriptions.

On the exploration side, it was great ! The Nightwalker corridor really pushed the players to get clever about who gets to go first, and their satisfaction was great when they figured out the Crossing Lines puzzle. The Ice Pillar and Waltz rooms of Bonus Objective A were both really cool to experience for them, and the maze sure got them on their nerves -- especially when the bardadin touched a wall, failed the madness save and got the "attack the nearest creature" effect !! (lucky for him, the cleric had Greater Restoration handy). The moral issue of having to bash their employer's "house" to continue also made for some interesting debates.

On the combat part... I'm not sure, because I modified them. I removed the entrance fight with the Star Spawn, because in both cases, I had previously served my players with many star spawn and did not want to make the whole thing feel repetitive. I also transformed, as explained above, the Berlain fight into a social encounter where she would pleasantly speak to them while other parts of her body would be trying to tear the nearest player apart -- unsettling but interesting. The Hannelore fight is where I went full throttle. Here is how I designed it : Four Boneclaws right next to the entry portal in a half moon to threathen all players with their long arms; Next to them, two Bodaks to passively hurt the party; Flying across the room, the suggested Adult Blue Dracolich; In the center of the room, Hannelore the Death Knight, next to a Skull Lord, an Alhoon, and a canoloth. The Skull Lord has casted a barred Forcecage to enclose himself & the alhoon & the death knight & the canoloth, and has casted Globe of Invulnerability. Since the Skull Lord passively regenerates undead within 30ft (the radius of the room, of which he's in the center), and since Hannelore has a Lair action to heal a dead boneclaw to full health, this fight certainly was something else ! The players won, of course (by Dispelling the Globe then blasting the caged opponents), but the unique design made them think, as simply bashing the nearest enemy was not the best way to go about it. For those who read this review, feel free to borrow this design for a more challenging fight ! As for the final Entity fight, I upped it up with the dramatic effect that "IT" was spawning Nightwalkers in a regular fashion (from a thematic standpoint, releasing those who were in the corridor at the start of the module). The first group managed to talk the Entity into accepting to be escorted to the Abyss and torture the ever-replenishing source of demons over there for the rest of eternity. The second group dealt with it by the Cleric successfully rolling for a Divine Intervention (got a 3 on the percentile die !!), which caused a dramatic scene in which the Entity slowly died from the inside screaming for help -- a wonderful end for a wonderful module.

I think this will remain my favourite module to DM for quite some time... maybe I'll go DM it a third time soon !

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.

The optional end boss, as an example, can easily die before it gets a single turn -- it simply doesn't have a fraction of the AC or HP it needs to face a high-powered group of T4 adventurers. It's a fun encounter, but so undertuned as to be a negligible combat with no meaningful resource expenditure.

Points deducted on editing, same as the rest of the trilogy. Please either correct or verify that the Checkpoints are an exception to the 2 treasure per adventure 'rule' at tier 3 and 4, both 16 and 18 award points like a tier 1 or 2 adventure. Also, more objectives like Bonus B please and thank you for having the correct item info!