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DDAL-DRW02 Blood in the Water $4.99
Average Rating:3.3 / 5
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DDAL-DRW02 Blood in the Water
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DDAL-DRW02 Blood in the Water
Publisher: D&D Adventurers League
by Donovan H. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 10/04/2020 18:01:40

I'm running a group through Ghosts of Saltmarsh and the DRW content in an AL setting. At first I enjoyed this mod because it actively integrates characters from GoS and helps blend the two narratives, or should I say, tries to. Here is my list of issues start to finish PLENTIFUL SPOILERS:

  1. Completely unnecessary Survival check to determine where Myth Nantar is. If it's failed, do you just stop? If it's a pointless check that needs to be passed for the narrative, why include it? (pg4)
  2. You're informed that there is a recent Sahuagin occupation of Myth Nantar, that the Nantaran council reluctantly accepts, and then it doesn't go into that at all. Are there skirmishes along the outside edges of the city? Is there a standing Sahuagin army occupation? Do they have Sahuagin representatives in place on the council? This needs quite a bit more exposition and we get none. (pg5)
  3. There is a sidebar on the effects of deep sea swimming, exhaustion, etc. for creatures without a swim speed. Zehira stresses how important it is to cast waterbreathing every day. Once you get inside, the mythal allows waterbreathing and swim speed for everyone as well as a warm and comfortable climate, rendering all of the previous information obsolete.(pg5&6)
  4. You're given 2 ways in to the city. Method One. Infiltrate through a tower constructed by meshing two wrecked ships that is affixed to the side of a mostly submerged mountain. Descriptions of this are as follows(pg 4,5,6)
    • A set of wrecked ships that at one point says that they have been there relatively recently, by Elven standards, but has coral growing on it, and has recently, by human standards, started to bloat and rot.
    • At one point it says that the ships, a merchant vessel and a pirate ship, crashed bringing supplies to Myth Nantar and arcane and standard warfare was used.
    • At another point it says that the Sahuagin brought them from a nearby coast. The only coast referenced in the module is the Whamite coast, 30 miles away.
    • These multiple conflicting sets of information made it fairly difficult to get an actual narrative going on about how they got there, where they came from, and why the elves didn't assist a supply ship that sounds like it was attacked bringing supplies right outside their gate (if that's what happened), how long it's actually been there, or why they didn't remove them at some point when it seems like a long standing entrance into their walled city.
    • The interplaying series of questions regarding the extent of sahuagin forces, length of time they've been there, and how they aren't a bigger aspect of day to day life if they have a mountainside tower constructed inside of Myth Nantar resulted in a long series of unanswerable questions by any of the parties involved.
    • Multiple combat encounters. Multiple skill checks. You're breaking into a city that is not hostile to you and is currently under siege (to an unknown extent). Guards find you when you break in, escort you to center of town.
  5. You're given 2 ways in to the city. Method two. (pg 6)
    • Go to the front door. It's 120 ft under the water. 20 ft from the gate, and the six guards surrounding the gate, there are 3 Sea Spawn that pop out of the darkness (CR1). Why 3 evil creatures are allowed to hang out in the darkness outside a defended gate nobody could understand. Guards find you and escort you to center of town.
    • Why have an incredibly confusing breaking and entering scenario that has little to no motivation behind it vs a "knock on the front door" scenario?
  6. Inside Myth Nantar you find out there have been murders. Everyone wonders who did it. Players all look over their shoulders at the occupying force of Sahuagin, the mortal enemies of the Sea Elves. (pg7)
  7. You speak to Oceanus (I played this up as the group had a history with this character). He, being a member of the council now and of elevated status, sends you to talk to a conspiracy theorist tailor, who sends you to talk to a guard with little to no information, rather than Oceanus giving you access to something useful like crime scene information or... anything else. They each give you little bits of information, which give no real identifying information on who committed the murders, and actually left the players with more questions than answers. Essentially red herrings and had my players asking what the relevance was to the rest of the mod? (pg8)
  8. You have 2 opportunities for the group to run into the murderer they are looking for before the end of the mod, mostly by happenstance, both of which narratively require the murderer escaping to further the plot, as well as the baddie escaping at the end to presumably set up a follow up plot point in future mods.
    • Hall of Living Memory described at one point as heavily guarded. Arrive, there is one guard and NPC escort doesn't notice.
    • Players can spot lone guard is wielding a trident and most guards wield short swords. Zero description in mod of guards using short swords. Only weapon description on guards outside of stat blocks mentions Trident specifically.
    • The final encounter, according to the flow of the module, happens with absolutely no activity from the players affecting the outcome of finding the murderer and it left my players wondering why the first 80% of the module even existed.
    • The baddie is in the city for a specific purpose and every action it does runs contrary to that purpose throughout the mod. It tries to briefly explain this away in a sidebar, but even that part is inconsistent.
  9. Side quests.
    • Part B is important to the acquisition of the item and is potentially incredibly short with a relatively low DC skill check as a barrier for them getting the item?
    • Part A sets up information for following adventures and seems very important, yet is hard to fit in the narrative flow of the game as it happens after the "final encounter" of the mod.

The module has thorough descriptions of the city making it the most fleshed out aspect of the entire adventure. The background information is interesting and the layout and appearance of the mod is extemely well done. I feel like there was an intent to connect the multiple incoherent plot points and I'd love to rerun this if it was reworked to connect them in some more tangible way.



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL-DRW02 Blood in the Water
Publisher: D&D Adventurers League
by Glenn H. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 12/30/2019 21:02:24

DM'd this at a monthly event at a game store. Finished in 3 hours, skipping the bonus objectives because they are nonsense.

I made several plot changes:

Zehira does not need to accompany the party into Myth Nantar. Sahaugin are mortal enemies of Sea Elves so I said they are not allowed into the city and would be hunted on sight. Skipped the investigation involving Errel and Myrin--why would a foreign and unknown group be asked to investigate murders in city described as "tense and uncertain"? Kept the predetermined questions for the Librarian (no player re-write) because there is a pre-determined answer.

Other recommendations for DMs: <<Strongly recommend swimming down the shipwrecks so they can have the fight at the bottom. I identified 8 actions that would slow the descent and if they did 3 of them I would have made them roll for exhaustion. My party cast a spell to befriend a shark and hitched a ride to the bottom--I never thought of that one! <<I made the "Welcoming Party" fight in the water, not inside Myth Nantar, so they had to deal with underwater fighting rules. Also, for my strong party, I had Shark Telepathy bring in 1 reef shark every round. <<Since the party did not break any of the 4 Rules, only Oceanus meets them at the Fire Fountain and explains the Mythal, the city, and that they are NOT needed to investigate murders, which is OK because the party's (secret) mission is to find Thessalia and ask questions to the Librarian. <<The party meets Thessalia in an alley; a Veteran Patrol approaches aggressively and says a scrying spell is taking place here from...that building over there! Go there, BOOM! Whoever it was gets away and a Sea Elf veteran is unconscious from the blast--did the party treat the injuries? Nobody saw how he got injurred so it's kind of suspicious. And the bad guy got away, too! <<Veteran Patrols are called away to investigate another murder. There is only 1 guard outside the Librarian (it's the Malenti), the party goes inside and gets the riddle/answer, and comes outside to a dead body and accusations of murder! (BTW, I played the Veteran Patrols to be very no-nonsense and have constant radio contact with Mythal, like it's a central police dispather that knows any spell cast in the city.) <<The party tries to talk their way out of it, the Senior Councilor remembers the history of the Malenti, a conjuration is detected in the Hall of LM--the Malenti!--and there is a final fight.

BL: Fast and fun, DMing it this way. When I played as a character, as written, I did not understand the motivations for doing what we were doing. I just regret that I had to spend so much effort to re-write a module after having paid good money for it.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL-DRW02 Blood in the Water
Publisher: D&D Adventurers League
by A customer [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 12/02/2019 22:43:59

TLDR: If you liked the set up, story and flavor provided in Breaking Umberlee's Resolve, then this mod extends the fun. My party (Con Players) definitely enjoyed it!

Note: My true rating is a 4/5 but I feel like I need to give a 5 for people dinging the author over Teleportation Circle and the combat balancing (really people?)

What went well: Much like the first module in this series, we are given an interesting location to explore and several very imaginative and evocative scenes dripping with flavor. There's two major plots to follow up on (Zehira's quest to find the Librarian, and the more pressing concern of solving a murder) and both have interesting conclusions, particularly the one w the Librarian. Forget Silverbeard, I want to see waaaay more stories involving the Hall of Living Memory!

What didn't go so well: I think there's some general consensus on potential - we've got all the ingredients for this excellent layer cake but it doesn't feel quite baked.

Side Plots and Module Construction - There's legit criticism from other reviews that running two current plots is rough on the players, and neither of them is truly resolved in this module. There's a lot riding on the DM to effectively "shaba shaba" the NPC motivations and move the plot forward, especially when it comes to reconciling the fairly xenophobic attitude of the natives with what the group of random bungling PC's are consistently stumbling into ( trespassing, a potential bombing, potentional desecration of two holy sites, and an outright murder)

Here's a city map, good luck - there's a lot an enterprising DM can do with the city map, or provide more depth with the information given, but Adventurer's League generally limits us to the written description, not the intent. I'm happy to do improv but there feels like there could have been better construction - nodal design, 3 clue rule, or fetch quests across the city with the given encounters to solve the mystery.

For example - the murdered character is relatively important, which meant that the natural step for a serious investigative team would be to make a list of suspects and interview them, establish alibis, get involved w local politics, hear the POV from a Sauhagin or Malenti settler or ambassador, etc. We get none of that. We get do get a guy who got promoted to help out a few weeks ago, but he has no actual details or case file on the murder itself (which made him a suspect in my groups eyes!)

If I were running this out of AL, I would literally cut out the call to action and the second chapter and just start in the city and really give this wierd city a chance to breath, and tie the visit to the Librarian into the first murder somehow.

Not a good nor bad: Mythal - I hate to bring it up, but Window to the Past kind of sets the bar on what Mythal is supposed to do (mainly affect/cancel/enhance various spell castings) and I have a feeling we're going to get some detail retroactively when the epic hits, that may be useful to refer to when you run adventures in Myth Drannor in general. Advice for now - make it up, and use it to balance encounters.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL-DRW02 Blood in the Water
Publisher: D&D Adventurers League
by Steven B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 09/17/2019 01:35:14

For the base gameplay, this module is too short. I ran a 3-player group (APL 8) through the module with all bonus objectives, and finished in two hours. Part of the issue is that the combats are too easy: the final fight has only a CR8 enemy, and other fights have a handful of weaker enemies. (For comparison, the only other T2 module I know with the same CR8 enemy adds other smaller enemies in the same fight and models the section at 45 minutes long.) Meanwhile, there's small bits of exploration here and there, but nothing substantial, and the large amount of player railroading (see next paragraph) means that players are disincentivized to explore. In particular, section 5 (with the aforementioned CR8 enemy) is listed as 1.5 hours but likely plays in a third of the time, and the bonus objectives are overly generous even when listed as 30 minutes.

However, more than being short and lacking in content, the plot of the module is too railroady. Almost no skill check in this module matters: even if the players fail, the story must still progress (e.g. the first check in Episode 2 Scene A: what are the consequences of failure? If the players don't get information from the NPCs about the murder, does that have any effect? If players fail the check in Bonus Objective A, do they fail the objective?). Furthermore, the two plots between the Librarian and the murder are poorly intertwined. When my players arrived in Myth Nantar, they wanted to find the Librarian and not investigate the murder, but had no leads. When they were pushed to talk to NPCs about the murder, they find one who points them at the Librarian. Most of the NPCs' information were of the form "talk to X instead", as if they were on a wild goose chase. That is, their choices to explore the story didn't matter. Also, there are no suggestions for answers to alternate questions to the Librarian. And, as an aside, the players are looking for a Librarian, and there's a Great Library in the town that they would want to investigate, but it is not described in the mod.

Lastly, mechanics and proofreading: others have pointed out that teleportation circle has a 1 minute casting time, so the malenti shouldn't be able to escape easily. The malenti is described as having a trident (allegedly unlike the guards with shortswords), even though the guards are described as having tridents in Episode 2 and the trident is a stolen weapon (although not in their statblocks). Episode 2 Option B mentions sea spawn as if they were meant to be enemies, but their names aren't highlighted and they are missing stat blocks. From a design perspective, Options A and B are very nonsymmetric in terms of complexity and playtime. Finally, why do the players end up with the magic item when Thessalia wants them to obtain the item for her?



Rating:
[1 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL-DRW02 Blood in the Water
Publisher: D&D Adventurers League
by lowell s. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 09/16/2019 12:58:40

In general this was just not a good module. The plot was all over and in places contradictory. The main plot of the story had nothing to do with the lead up



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL-DRW02 Blood in the Water
Publisher: D&D Adventurers League
by Marcello V. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/20/2019 19:31:32

I don't want to fawn over it too much, but as a Forgotten Realms fan that never journeyed to The Sea of Fallen Stars I have enjoyed reading these modules. Now that I have prepped it for an upcoming convention, I have some thoughts I'd like to share.

There are instances of downtime activities within the episodes and also a chance to do some interesting exploration that could steer outside the allotted time for the episodes. I have grown accustomed to looking in the Dramatis Personae Appendix to get the lowdown on NPCs, so I was a bit thrown off that it is provided in the narrative. The designer's effort to provide vivid depictions of undersea culture and lore is apparent, plus an NPC (The Librarian) unlike anything I have seen before. My jaw dropped when I saw that the effect of admiring The Librarian (won't spoil it) ... but when I saw how it was resolved, I was like, "O.K., this is alright". But I did start to become confused when I saw that information gleaned from The Librarian appeared to have no context to objectives in the adventure. I went back to look throughout the module, and can only deduce that this insight is supposed to given to Zehira ...

The adventures climax does not really provide closure to the one of the main objectives, leaving me to wonder the condition for rewarding players for "Finding the murderer and escaping Myth Nantar". It seems that players have the opportunity to know of the antagonist through narrative, but are not able to affectuate the antagonist's plan, since I beleive it was the designers intention that the antagonist elude capture. I did like that there was a brief timeline of the Malenti's actions provided in the Call to Action which clearly reveals events relating to the characters main objectives.

With the exception of the mysterious insight given at the end of the adventure, an experienced DM could tighten the plot flow a little more and make episode transitions smooth. I think the designer has done a good job putting together a follow-up to "Breaking Umberlee's Resolve", but there are instances in the meta to work out that DMs might find stalling to adventure flow. Throughly reading the adventure can help DMs recalibrate some of this, but there hopefully will be future edits to address the adventure's flow.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL-DRW02 Blood in the Water
Publisher: D&D Adventurers League
by Colin P. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/20/2019 12:34:43

A Good Adventure Mired in Sloppy Execution

I agree with the majority of reviewers: this module has a lot of issues. The TL;DR of it is, this adventure has some interesting ideas that would make it a fun adventure, but the execution is very, very sloppy.

Some of my major concerns:

  • The adventure can end very early if the party fails a skill check, and there's no explanation of what to do when and if that happens.
  • The adventure provides lots of wonderful flavor for locations you barely interact with (Ayakar) and next to none for important locations (Myth Nantar). The geopolitics on the ground in Myth Nantar between the Sahuagin and Sea Elves is especially lacking in cohesive detail.
  • The story is convoluted and unfocused - it pushes you to investigate a murder with no payoff for the players. Players' efforts on this front are literally deflected back to the original goal of finding the Librarian. It is a weird and confusing railroad situation.
  • The final battle/getaway is entirely on rails - you cannot stop the BBEG's escape (which would take a long while based on the casting time of the getaway spell), which is fine, but it requires the DM to put in extra work to find ways of obfuscating said rails.
  • The bonus objectives run way too fast (a common issue with these Season 8+ features in adventures). This adventure is a 4-6 hour adventure that, when broken down by its own timing, is 4.5 hours max with the two bonus objectives.
  • The encounter where the PCs are accused is a wasted opportunity. The clues are ambiguous and a stretch to in any way clear the party. And no explanation is given as to why one of the clues is of any concern or would in any way exonerate the party.

That said, there are some cool ideas here. The murder mystery could be used to better explore and understand what is happening in Myth Nantar. The travel to Myth Nantar has some interesting elements (assuming the party can FIND Myth Nantar). I feel like there's an excellent adventure underneath a mess of confusion and half-formed/executed plot devices. More infuriating is that major plot elements could be expanded upon without timing issues, because there is 1.5 hours not even accounted for within the current itteration of the adventure.

A DM trying to run this as-written is going to have a disappointed table - it's one that will require a lot of work and re-envisioning to make it interesting and fun. I honestly feel like this was an early draft that was never properly vetted and honed into a final product. My hope is that the author, whose other work I enjoy and respect, will revisit this module and release an update, because it has five-star potential.



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL-DRW02 Blood in the Water
Publisher: D&D Adventurers League
by Jordan C. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/19/2019 23:05:34

the spell used by the melenti to escape takes 1 minute to cast. as writen the players have to stand there and watch the murderer get away. I have never had to railraod players so much im a mod. also finished, with bonus objectives in under 3 hours.



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL-DRW02 Blood in the Water
Publisher: D&D Adventurers League
by Jason C. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/16/2019 16:01:53

I'm not a new DM but I am a new DM to AL. From the DM's perspecitve I really enjoyed the story in the module. From what is being delivered to the players as written I think the focus doesn't do whats happening in the story justice. With a littel restructuring and a slightly shifted focus I could see this adventure being just as good as the first part or the epic that follows.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL-DRW02 Blood in the Water
Publisher: D&D Adventurers League
by Zac G. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/12/2019 16:05:43

I ran this module 5 times at GenCon, or rather I ran the framework of this module. As is, there are huge sections that are unusable. It feels like an adventure who's author knew where they wanted to go, but somewhere along the way it got chopped up, shuffled around, and over condensed. I had a lot of fun with my tables, but I'm not sure how much credit I can give to the module itself.

Other reviews already posted have voiced most of my frustrations, so I'll just notate 2 specific one's here: (A) There is a murder that happens near the PCs. No agency is allowed for in the PCs noticing or interfering. Then they are blamed for the event. Then they must use half-hearted clues to prove their own innocence. It's a rough section that's only sufferable if you cut out half of it and do a rewrite. (B) The first combat encounter is actually pretty fun! The last one leaves a lot to be desired. If your party is at the APL 8 that is recommended, they should blow through it. Additionally, the PCs have (hypothetically) spent the whole module investigating an assassin who has all the spells to make quick escapes, but only uses them once the PCs have a chance to see the creature. Heavy railroading and the potential to frustrate your characters. The final fight (to avoid spoilers) involves the assassin casting 2 high-level spells at once and instead of fighting the assassin, your party will end up fighting an odd assortment of creatures that do nothing for the story at hand.

When I saw that this adventure was taken down once from the Guild, I had high hopes that it was getting a rework. Several adjustments could lead to this being an interesting addition to the series. Unfortunately, the rerelease offered no improvement whatsoever. Do yourself a favor and hold off on this one till it gets redone.

I will also notate my frustration with our unheard feedback. These are new adventures. GenCon is a huge event and dozens of tables ran this module. In the future, please, please use that feedback before you open up these adventures to the world.



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL-DRW02 Blood in the Water
Publisher: D&D Adventurers League
by Mike A. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/12/2019 15:04:44

I ran this adventure at Gen Con and played it once as well. Both sessions were 4 hours, so we didn't do the bonus objectives.

The key reasons I rated it with only 2 stars:

  • The situation in Myth Nantar is unclear. There's a reference to sahuagin raids, a sahuagin "occupation" and even sahuagin on the council. A more precise description of the sitaution would have been welcome. Though given the way the adventure is written, it hardly matters.
  • There are the pieces for an interesting murder mystery, but the PCs can't actually solve it. The adventure seems to assume the players will investigate, not find anything, and then eventually give up and head to the temple. I would have preferred if the adventure either paid off the investigation or removed it.
  • The main villain in the adventure has impenetrable plot armor, which I and the players found frustrating. I'm not sure why this is the case, because while the malenti shows up in DRW-03 they aren't a critical piece of the plot.
  • I think the adventure is set up for the PCs to be far too dependent upon NPCs. The players could too easily feel they are simply Zehira's hired muscle. And if there is no elf in the party, the characters are forced into accepting Thessalia's help.
  • Communing with the Librarian had the potential to be a memorable scene, but instead the PCs are likley going to be cooling their heels while Thessalia does it. This is another missed opportunity.

I was able to solve most of those problems for my run-through, but I shouldn't have had to. With so much great AL content available, I can't really recommend this one.



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
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DDAL-DRW02 Blood in the Water
Publisher: D&D Adventurers League
by Martín R. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/12/2019 13:21:24

So this adventure is extremely frustrating. There is a lot of superfluous information that is great for world building and exploration of the city, but doesn't drive home the key point of the plot. I had to run this with very little lead time at Gencon and found that this module was not well set-up to help me communicate what was occuring to the players. A few key issues:

  1. Are the sahuagin in the city or outside of the city. Are they openly attacking people in the city or is there confusion. I the DM was confused, and therefore I wasn't sure if it was both and everyone is confused or if it is something different. Some people believe sahuagin are sitting on the city council, or are they just working for the sahuagin.

  2. Hey we got boxed text, but we spend the first 1.5 hours or so of the adventure telling the PCs to look for the Hall of Living Memory to speak with the Librarian. They then get in trouble and learn about a rash of murders in the city. At that point all of the boxed text is dealing with this murder mystery plot and we have no information about what the NPCs know about the Hall of Living Memory and the Librarian. It isn't even alluded to. Is this a secret location in the city or is it public knowledge. This is something as a DM that is critical to the plot and just isn't there. This is bad considering this was designed for AL play and many AL players in my experience tend to be extremely objective focused.

It is this key lynchpin in which the two plots running throughout the adventure combine that we, the DM, are hung out to dry.

So why did I rate this a 2. Because even with this critical failure there are some cool things going on and it makes for an interesting adventure.

I will also say that I am disappointed as I did send this feedback when I was at Gencon and obviously nothing happened.



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
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