I have run this one twice now, once at a convention and once for my AL group. Overall, this can be a slog if the players go combat heavy. So I made some changes to improve speed when I ran the adventure for my group that was working through these sequentially. So take my notes below for thoughts:

First, I highlighted that the portals, the elder brain dragon, and the psychic backlash from the events at the supreme forge have made the city even more weird and dangerous. So everyone is more paranoid. I kept the wild magic potential increased- any levelled spell had a 10% chance of a wild magic surge. Wild magic sorcerers at 15%. Cantrips & rituals were fine, but even spells from magic items counted. This had the effect of making them plan more. But it also gave me room not to overly punish the players in part 3- the Thayans were cautious as well. This also made the second encounter make more sense- it highlighted the weirdness and danger of the place. It also opened more options for distraction tactics if they embraced the wierdness.

Second, and because of the first one, Thayan patrols brought along Thayan (aeorian) abominations. Story wise, to provide some non-spell magical support. But mostly because they are cool. I also used these as reinforcements in part 3 to provide variety other than “Oh great, more mages and fighters”. The nullifiers in particular help manage wild magic surges from the Thayans once they arrived, allowing the enemy to amp up the number of offensive spells being cast.

Third, I considered the entire facility as “Sparky’s” lair. As such, it was a noisy, smoke filled place. This provided the lightly obscured condition, which allowed the party’s sneaky people to scout the interior and first floor while the rest hid. This kept the story moving and provided some interesting story moments where they had to decide whether to help the slaves and risk being found out, or leave them and complete the mission. The upper floor was less smoky and noisy, but still enough that it made the mages with improved invisibility nearly impossible to track. Which was fun for everyone.

Lastly, I had the”Sparky” show up on round 5, to get them moving to the exits. It took 4 rounds to squeeze through the doors and up the stairs. This allowed the party an opening to escape, if they could get around it and back to the first floor.

I love this adventure. The infiltration presents many unique challenges that forces players to think creatively. Multiple solutions are available and there's room for the party to invent their own. It can be challenging and frustrating as the defenses are strong, but a party that is interested in coming up with creative solutions will have a great time.

This is probably my least favorite of the Terminal Ambitions DRW adventures due to the each encounter having design issues.

The first combat was challenging and engaging. It can theoretically be avoided with the right preparations, but the adventure semi-arbitrarily puts so many restrictions on how players can approach (beyond all of the normal Xorvintroth restrictions) that it might as well just require a decision to engage or avoid the combat.

The second encounter seems like a pure loot drop, especially given the issues with the final encounter. It adds nothing to the adventure beyond a little bit of momentary flavor, which might have been enjoyable were there not so many other frustrations with the adventure.

The final encounter could really just be the sole encounter for the entire module because there's so much going on. The constant pressure pushing the players forward means they'll end up skipping portions, but even then it can take 2-4 hours to get through everything. It also means they'll skip interest stuff (including treasure), which is why it feels like the second encounter is there simply to ensure players get something from this adventure. The final combat also badly needs more ways that it can be approached beyond immediately triggering combat, which has the a very real potential for a 1 round TPK with the number of casters in the room; as well as needing more extraction options, which is odd considering how good a job the designers did providing multiple entrances to the building.

If you're an experienced DM willing to dig into this adventure and modify things, then you could probably make a good adventure out of this (see Rick's review). But as it was run for me, it was a truly disappointing end to what had been a very good run of adventures starting with the T2 mods.

I've played through this one twice and ran it once. It's not a bad adventure, but it feels a little below the high bar that the rest of the DRW series has set.

The first encounter can be really hit or miss. I strongly prefer giving the party some leeway for creative solutions to the mislead option, but if they choose combat, be prepared to lose an hour plus of the session to that one scene.

The second encounter really feels shoe-horned in place. It's a fun little encounter, but it's just odd that it isn't connected to anything else in the story.

Exploring the factory exterior is solid, I love the fact that the author worked in that the Red Wizards are real people, complete with shoddy programming and lazy security, it gives them much more of a realistic feel than some group of autonomuous robots operating with perfection.

Inside, exploration is typically minimized as everyone is 100% terrified of the sheer mass of guards. Which is awesome for the party to be so terrified. But it means that the rewards and interactions on the first floor are rarely encountered.

Upstairs, love the encounter design, but each group has a different challenge with it. The first time I played it, it was rough. To be fair though, it was closing in on midnight, the DM hit us with a surprise round, and we had no plan. Second play though went much easier, folks went into it with teamwork and a heist mindset and it was cake. The run through I did I had a very strong party. They started it off as a heist, but turned it into a bloodbath, in the end, they could have easily dealt with the reinforcements for quite some time as the action economy was in their favor. Probably worth doubling up on the reinforcement rolls if you have a very strong party.

All 3 had the same issue though: time. With all of them getting the portals closed down with between 15 minutes and negative 60 minutes remaining. In the two play throughs, the DM handwaved the escape. Knowing that the escape was likely to be handwaved, for my run I had Jaanvald give the party a teleportation beacon that would be able to pull them back to the safehouse when they activated it.