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DDAL-DRW-15 Frozen Whispers |
$7.99 |
Average Rating:3.5 / 5 |
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I rated this 3 out of 5. My players enjoyed parts 1 and 2, but struggled with 3. But in each part, I had to make some adjustments in order to make it flow in an entertaining and timely manner.
In all parts, having a sidekick is critical for helping move the plot along. It keeps the party focused in part 1, can help with options in part 2, and maybe help with a side-portion of part 3. If the party hasn't met the three before, let them interview each. If not, I suggest picking one that fills holes in the party.
In part 1, the NPC can help keep the party focused and avoiding any number of pointless combats with wandering afflicted. Having someone who knows the other NPCs also provides motivation to fix, not kill. Which speeds things up. However, the section really needs to be re-organized. I found myself flipping through multiple pages because you start with a cutscene, then have to flip to room 4, then back and forth for information. For clarity, the room you start should be room 1, and keep the lower level (where the important parts are) immediately following it.
In part 2, There are many things you can do to speed things along. Let the characters focus on finding clues and use the NPC to 'fill out the chart'. That avoids issues if you have a group that does not like math puzzles (most groups, sadly). The pit portion can be wildly frustrating because the creature is not a beast, so speak with animals does not work. I highly recommend adding "understands common, but cannot speak it" to its stat block, and a note saying that anyone with a shard CAN communicate with the creature through its chew toy. That makes this one hugely fun. The party's ranger was nearly cuddled to death. The last part can be tough, so I made the judgement call that a DC18 Survival roll could give the party advantage against the exhaustion effect- but only because our ranger asked if they could figure out a way to make the climb easier.
In part 3, having the NPC allows the party to save the other NPC without losing efficiency- have their NPC do it. I had one player that never made a save the entire combat. That was brutal. So I had to make some adjustments to how things played out. Once anyone made contact with the ice, I ended the compulsion effect. I also changed the effect so that those stuck lost their move action and were essentially grappled by the wall, taking damage. This allowed them to take an action, at least, and feel somewhat involved. Since he was a sorcerer with Misty Step, I had planned to re-institute the compulsion effect if he jumped away, but he never thought to do so. But it was still a slog since the characters didn't really ask the slivers about what they were actually supposed to do. Again, this is where having the NPC came in handy.
Overall, this was a great module, if it runs a bit long (4.5 hours with rewards, etc). But each section needed something to make it run more smoothly.
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Having played this adventure/DMed it a couple of times, I understand the complaints I've seen but I thought this was a well done adventure, except with length of time which turns out to be important.
Part 1 begins unusally and can take a long time since people are having to become familar with the situation and the sidekicks if present REAL fast agains a nonstandard setup. Player uncertainty is what I think could make this part run too long. I would say be descriptive, but also sum up the goal for them to get the players past any uncertainty. I agree with one comment saying the body harm should have been called out in the warnings, but I feel the descriptions were necessary to inform players of the true nature of the brood threat. That said, if there are players for whom these descriptions are not a good experience for, the DM has plenty of material to use to paraphrase without the precise body horror description to describe the nature of the threat.
Part 2 is where length of time had me truly concerned. Doing all of the encounters here can EASILY go over the expected length of time. Instead, I asked my group what 2 pillars of play they prefer and guided them to those encounters. And summarized the encounters not done (ignoring the potential combat effects as part 3 is more than enough), giving the the "things" at those encounters. If they didn't have time to finish the ones I guided them to, then I just summarized those and skipped the remaining. Some specifics that others have mentioned, I LOVE sudoku and thought the puzzle was awesome...but for time purposes, the puzzle should have had more filled in for the start (to represent knowledge the NPC already learned. The combat is somewhat easy but can also take too much time, again from players having difficulty adjusting to unusual situations. I suggest calling this fight early once the players figure out how to handle the opponents.
Part 3 is probably where a lot of people had a bad taste in their mouth and it does have "lose your actions for rest of the scene" effects. But for me, I thought the encounter had more than enough context clues to make it fairly easy. If your group attacks everything thru raw force/power, then they're in for a rough time. If you have players more concerned about doing "their thing" in a fight instead of working for the good of team, they're in for a rough time. That's my experience, but I get where others have different ones, especially given some folks expectations of Tier 3.
I would have voted this a 5 but it does require a bit more time management than it should.
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I really enjoyed this adventure both times I played it, but I can understand how less experienced players or less optimal group compositions will struggle to survive this adventure. This one is definitely for groups that enjoy extra challenging combats.
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This module has a lot going on. Seriously, don't plan to finish it in the suggested time frame with a full table. My table spent two full four-hour sessions here, I cut as much as I could from middle locations, and still had to rush the very end. There are two extended combats, a lot of exploration, and tons of potential for roleplay. My table enjoyed the way that the Shadow came back from one of the Season 10 modules.
Unfortunately, as written, it's very easy to give the players the idea that the McGuffins are extremely dangerous. I didn't see a good guide on how to represent that, especially given the cause of the events in Act 1. Ultimately, the party was so worried about them, they got chucked immediately into various bags of holding with as little contact as possible. I'm sure the result was a unique game experience, but I did end up basically having to tell them, out of character, what to do with the things.
This module is a good reminder that you need a more balanced party composition in T3 than you do at lower tiers. Since there was a balanced party, the end fight had some serious stakes, but didn't feel unfair. The compelled action was at the edge of my comfort for removing player agency, but it put the fear into the party.
There was a lot to prep in this, and a lot of decisions to make. I had to design the maps for everything but the home base. I actually made one of the arenas into a side scrolling map because of the challenges of the terrain.
Overall, I enjoyed running this, and I'm glad I bought it.
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Played through once, ran twice.
I think Frozen Whispers does a lot to really set the tone for Xorvintroth, the story really highlights that this isn't a friendly place and even out of combat it is exhausting just being here. I love that the decisions from DRW-14 can come back to haunt the players.
It is tier 3, so the save DCs are high and there are some really challenging encounters. There are times where the party has to put their desire to kill everything on the shelf and focus on the mission. The final encounter can be a 2 hour slog fest of a fight, or 15 minutes of focus on the objective.
There is one scene with a suduku puzzle, if your table doesn't have a suduku/mathduku player, you may want to drop the suduku portion and just have them make X successful checks instead.
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This module seems to be designed to be punishing to players. Essentially it boils down to any module that says, "Do you have a Paladin? Yes = Easy, No = Near Impossible" is just not good.
[Spoilers]
To get to one of the shards, you are required to go up a tower, making 4+ DC18 Con saves, or gain a level of Exhaustion. Halfway up, there are flying grappling specialists (that you may have disadvantage to oppose due to Exhaustion), that drop you down... not for 20d6 damage, no. 40d10.
The final fight starts with a high DC Wis save that compels you to a really high Con save DC... or you're out of the fight. And maybe quite dead.
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