While I had a lot of fun adding my own elements to this story, it was hard to follow as a new DM. This was only the second adventure I'd run and I found I needed to do a lot of tweaking to make sense of the flow.

The Pros: -Once again, I love the setting and characters. They all felt fleshed out and I had fun leaning into the difference between the bigger "city" and the Druid village.

-The fallout guide at the end was very helpful as a way to add closure to different branches the player could take.

-The loot was really fun and the PC still has most of their bag of beans, having use some of them to destroy a structure in module 3.

-The sidequests were fun to play and the clues in Louissa's house were enough to make the player see what she was really up to.

The Cons: -This took a lot of prep time. I had to reorganize the module to make it easier for me when the player chose to go to a location.

-The ending could have used more closure in general. I like the way the endings are structured depending on what the PC and DM want to do, but a sentence or two describing how Louissa was sent to jail or a new mayor elected would have been helpful to me as a new DM.

What I changed:

-I changed the names of the Druids to plants.

-I added some loot around the Druid village and in general. I also added some magical items to the shopkeeper's stock.

-I added Stealth rolls if the player chose to sneak the Cervidae out to the trees, 1 for each NPC they might encounter.

-I added an ending for Adwyn & Destin as well as one for Louissa and Bertram.

-My player didn't see the sense in traveling back to the Druid village, so the townspeople handed out the reward items from the beginning of module 3.

-I made the forest in between the Druid village and the town a shifting maze with additional loot items.

Great adventure for a small amount of players. These duet type advenntures are great.

I've had a lot of fun making little changes to this adventure. It's also allowed me the chance to leverage Midjourney, and my player has loved it! I purchased this module over a year ago, and have had the chance to run it twice now for two separate players. This is great for new DMs in that it provides enough substains to keep things flowing. As I've become more experienced I've enjoyed putting more life into the world (Sword Coast).

I ran it and its a worthy successor to First Blush, which I feel is also a great intro to 5e D&D. While First Blush doesn't give the player much agency in how they deal with the situations as they are learning the rules, Second Glance gives the player more freedom. Together they are an entertaining start a campaign and perhaps one of the best ways for two people to learn to play D&D together if they can't join an established group. I look forward to trying the 3rd in the trilogy!

Me(DM) and my PC really enjoyed playing this adventure! If you are looking for something different than dungeon-crawl, then it is an adventure for you :). It is a mini-sandbox adventure(as previous reviewer stated), with cool NPCs, and a lot of RP!

However I feel like I needed to prepare a lot to make it work, like create additional encounters, to show my player all the sides of the conflicts - Adwyn, Louissa, Destin and Bertrand. For example, there is no encounter that will introduce Destin or Louissa before everything is resolved. Following what is in the pdf will also not motivate our PC to sneak into Louissa house. At least these are my conclusions, also I am a beginning DM, so possibly I missed something :P. What worked for me was following preparations steps from the "Return of the lazy DM". So I took all of the gossips and information from the whole adventure, and then I used it whenever I needed to show it, instead of sticking it to the paper note of the Louissa's jacket in her apartment. And also creating a list of encounters that may possibly introduce all of the characters/side of conflicts or move the action forward. And just FYI, it took me 2 3/4 hour sessions to finish it.

Five stars because I loved the story!

A previous reviewer indicated that this adventure plays like a mini-sandbox where the PC can move from one area or NPC encounter to the next in whatever order works for them. If DMed well, I agree that this could be the case. However, my problem is that the adventure is really not written to support this and so it requires either a lot of work upfront to re-organize it into this format or a DM that is really good on the fly. I also felt that there were logical inconsistencies and stock monsters used whose behaviors did not fit with the standard MM descriptions/motivations. A DM would have to want to fundamentally change these monsters or create additional motivation for them to behave this way. I very much liked the premise of the module and it could be great but would require quite a bit of work to get it there. As it stands I think it is useful as an adventure 'seed' for a DM willing to spend the time to develop it.

A fun balance of role-playing, open-ended problem solving, and combat. There are a LOT of NPC's to manage, which can be challening for the DM. My player's character isn't the most outgoing, which made it tricky to have him get the necessary info from the NPC's to move the story along. Having the paladin "Garren" as a sidekick can be a lifesaver, literally. The side quests were sometimes more entertaining than the main storyline, but overall it made for a good time. I wish the maps were a bit better quality, and the map of the temple doesn't quite line up with the description, so I had to improvise some details.

Enjoyed a lot more than the preceding adventure, First Blush. This plays kind of like a mini-sandbox adventure, with a variety of npc's and avenues for the PC to wind their way to solving the stories mystery. We enjoyed the non-linear nature of the adventure that doesn't force a certain route of action. They got right into the story and though there are a decent amount of combat opportunities, we ended up playing through with mostly investigation and roleplaying, which was a suprising turn for both myself and the PC, both being quite new to DMing and playing. And with multiple resolutions at the end which made the ending a suprise for even me!

This adventure combines all the elements I look for in D&D - mystery, fascinating creatures, NPCs who could be allies or enemies, conflict, and most importantly lots of opportunities for roleplay. That last is the best part of this adventure. A lot of premade adventures are all combat. There is nothing wrong with a straightforward dungeon crawl, but if you are looking for something that has a little more depth and lots of options for your PCs, this is perfect. And they include all the details that take the most time like maps and monster stats, so I can focus my energy on fitting the adventure into my campaign. Definitely worth it!