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CCC-TRI-24 Knight Errand (Part Three of the Storm Series)
Publisher: Dungeon Masters Guild
by David E. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/17/2019 15:46:05

This is a great ending to an great series. As such it is very combat heavy. The only thing I would do differently as a DM is not randomize the magic effects and traps. There are some combinations that work better together. The main villian is a real challenge both for the DM and the players. I made sure to make copious notes on all the buffs.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
CCC-TRI-24 Knight Errand (Part Three of the Storm Series)
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CCC-TRI-23 Sub Rosa (Part Two of the Storm Series)
Publisher: Dungeon Masters Guild
by David E. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 06/30/2019 07:42:56

I enjoyed this mod. The only reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 is part 4. It was just not my style so I felt it was awkward. I also felt that it could take a long time to complete if players really wanted to explore and role play. I also felt like the mechanics of the skirmishes at the beginning were a little wonky. It also took a lot longer than it should have. Perhaps, I read it wrong. I loved the Butterfly Effect for the last battle. My players enjoyed it too when I explained it to them after the game. I also enjoyed the chase at the end.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
CCC-TRI-23 Sub Rosa (Part Two of the Storm Series)
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CCC-TRI-22 On the Baron's Trail (Part One of the Storm Series)
Publisher: Dungeon Masters Guild
by David E. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 06/23/2019 18:58:19

This is my first module from The Role Initiative. I have been frustrated with the quality of many AL adventures lately. My complaints are many; poor descriptions, contradictory text, grammatical errors, plot holes etc... Many times I have had to read an adventure three times just to figure out how to put something together that will make sense. I am happy to say that this adventure is not like the rest. I read it through once with no questions. It is obvious that the author put a lot of work in creating each encounter. I especially like the abbreviated stat blocks for the Adjusting the Encounter sidebars, which are very thorough. Too many of the current mods just give a bare bones description, expecting the DM to fill in any missing information. I am sure there are many DMs that appreciate this freedom, but I like having box text and thorough descriptions I can rely on. I am looking forward to the next in the series.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
CCC-TRI-22 On the Baron's Trail (Part One of the Storm Series)
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DDAL08-15 Forge of Fangs
Publisher: D&D Adventurers League
by David E. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 06/08/2019 08:23:11

I played this mod as a player and ran it as a DM. When I played it as a player the entire thing took 2 hours with both bonus objectives. At the time I thought the DM must have ran it incorrectly, but unfortunately he was right. I managed to stretch it out to 3 hours when I ran it, but the party had accomplished all the objectives within 2 hours. Part of the problem is that there is a mechanic at the beginning that allows the players to essentially bypass all encounters until the final objective. Even if the players do have to fight through the encounters, the enemies are way underpowered.

Continuity is an issue with many of this season's adventure series and this series is particularly bad. The adventure begins in the prisoner cell. I assume this is meant to be the same prisoner cell from Escape from Vanrakdoom. There is a window that looks on the Forge in this adventure, but it looks on Shar's perpetual Darkness in the Vanrakdoom adventure. In any case Stone Shape would bypass the entire trek.

In the final battle, how many vampire guardians are present? The adventure doesn't say. It says to add one for a strong party, but the text does not specify how many for an average party.



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
DDAL08-15 Forge of Fangs
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DDAL08-14 Rescue from Vanrakdoom
Publisher: D&D Adventurers League
by David E. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 05/30/2019 10:14:45

The issues with this adventure are numerous.

  1. The connection to the first adventure in this series. It ignores the portal the players find in the first adventure and makes them find a new one. It would have strenghtened the continuity if the players used the same portal.
  2. The map. There are no labels. Why?
  3. The "Playing the Pillars" sidebars are missing. I actually hate this format and would rather find all the information in the text, but not including it leaves the DM guessing. They are present in the bonus objectives.
  4. The window in the captive's cell that reveals Shar's Perpetual Darkness. Is this a set up for the next adventure? Should characters have access to this room? If so, there is no description of the scene. If the characters are not to have access, how do I prevent them from gaining access?
  5. The Shadow Dragon. Are the adventurers supposed to encounter the Shadow Dragon? There is no stat block and no description of how this encounter is supposed to work?
  6. Editing. Read the creature blocks for bonus objective B.
  7. Timing. The entire adventure with bonus objectives did not take four hours.

I had to read this three times before I could make sense of it.



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
DDAL08-14 Rescue from Vanrakdoom
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DDAL08-13 The Vampire of Skullport
Publisher: D&D Adventurers League
by David E. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 05/04/2019 17:06:43

I enjoyed running this adventure. The only reasons I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 is because the location names in episode 3 does not correspond to the names on the map. For example, there is a place called Mantrap that is not on the map. This has been a recurring problem with season 8 adventures. Why not use numbers? Also scene D in episode 2 seems to make all the party's invesitgation irrelevant. I would have liked more connection between scene D and previous scenes.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
DDAL08-13 The Vampire of Skullport
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DDAL08-12 Xanathar's Wrath
Publisher: D&D Adventurers League
by David E. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 03/30/2019 08:08:02

The best season 8 mod thus far. I love heist adventures. The set up for the heist was well put together. It was a great ending to the trilogy. I really can't say enough good things. My players had a blast.

Having said that, I am still not a fan of the season 8 format. It is not easy to find things.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
DDAL08-12 Xanathar's Wrath
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DDAL08-11 Poisoned Words
Publisher: D&D Adventurers League
by David E. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 03/02/2019 11:44:18

I really enjoyed running this module. The plot was coherent and easy to follow. I especially like how it incoporates Bregan D'aerth, the Zhenterim and the Zanathar guild. It really made Skullport come to life. My group had a lot of fun with the different characters. I especially liked the Drow gunslingers, I couldn't help but playing them like Clint Eastwood in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

The only criticisms I have are that it took longer than four hours to run with all the bonus objectives and the format. I really detest the new format. The pillars of play side bars make it difficult to find information. I am constantly thinking to myself, "I know I read it somewhere. Was it in the encounter description, the pillars sidebar or the NPC descriptions?" It's a nightmare when you are working from a computer and have to scroll back and forth.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
DDAL08-11 Poisoned Words
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DDAL08-10 The Skull Square Murders
Publisher: D&D Adventurers League
by David E. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 02/23/2019 08:23:48

To be honest before I ran this adventure I was fully prepared to give it two stars. At first glance there doesn't seem to be a lot going on. Go here, talk to this NPC, go there talk to another NPC, go to the boss have a lovely chat about good and evil, done. It is possible to complete the entire adventure without a single combat through social play or stealth. It is also possible to run this mod with lots of combat. In that way it is a well rounded adventure. Almost any style DM should be able to craft a great story using this mod.

There are still some areas that need improvement, however. There is one area with six traps, but the mod only gives three. I realize that the intent is to allow the DM to craft their own, but I am old and tired and I don't have a lot of time. The author could have given six traps and allowed the DM to craft their own if they wished. My second concern is not about the adventure per se, but about the season 8 format. The sidebar with the three tiers of play makes it difficult for me to find the information. I am constantly thinking to myself, "I know I read that somewhere was it in the main text, the Pillars sidebar or the NPCs page." I would prefer the information in the Pillars sidebar be in the main text.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
DDAL08-10 The Skull Square Murders
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CCC-WYC-1-3 The Dawn Heresy
Publisher: Dungeon Masters Guild
by David E. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 02/16/2019 11:28:14

This adventure concludes the first WYC trilogy. The background of the story depends on DDEP 2 Mulmaster Undone and the CORE 1 trilogy by Baldman Games. The adventure background recommends that DMs familiarize themselves with the CORE 1 trilogy. There are many characters that are from that series. There are also many story awards that characters can take advantage of from that series. It would be good to run CORE 1, a tier 1 series, followed by this trilogy. None in my group had played CORE 1 and I am not familiiar with it, but it wasn't a problem.

This is a ticking bomb adventure. The adventure utilizes a system to keep track of time. I really don't like this sort of mechanic because I am really bad at it, but the time tracker is easy to use with specific times for travel to each activity.

I ran a group of seven with an APL of seven so it should have been average, but I had to beef up some encounters to make it enjoyable. Perhaps it is just me, but I find it difficult to make encounters with a spellcaster as the Boss challenging. Characters immediately target the spellcaster and the caster is often dead before the first round is over. A problem I encountered is that my group finished in well under 12 hours which meant that none of the lair actions or the fire elementals were active in the boss fight. In retrospect I should have ignored the time constraints and used them anyway.

Neither the group I played with or the group I ran chose the Sleepie encounter which is a shame because the enemies are not commonly encountered. Perhaps characters who have already encountered Sleepie in a past adventure would be more inclined choose this path. I would have liked to begin the adventure with the characters encountering Sleepie outside Melvaunt.

Overall, the adventure is a solid ending to a great trilogy set in the Moonsea region. It would be worthwhile to play the Moonsea adventures set in Elmwood, Mulmaster and Melvaunt then play this series as a conclusion.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
CCC-WYC-1-3 The Dawn Heresy
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CCC-WYC-1-2 Where Rock and Fire Meet
Publisher: Dungeon Masters Guild
by David E. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 02/13/2019 16:28:44

This adventure was a lot of fun to run. It is a pleasure to run a trilogy that actually tells a coherent story. I especially like the boxed text provided in this adventure. The dialog is over-the-top fun to read. I might have one mild criticism and that is the adventure uses a very common game mechanic in which the players need to collect the components for a key to open a portal. It works, but only if you don't think too much about why.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
CCC-WYC-1-2 Where Rock and Fire Meet
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CCC-WYC-1-1 Back to the Burning
Publisher: Dungeon Masters Guild
by David E. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 01/19/2019 07:32:24

Great adventure. This was a refreshing change from the the current season 8 adventures we are running. It actually tells a story that is well thought out and fully developed. This is something that is important to me because I really don't have time to fill in the gaps like I do in the current season mods. That being said the mod is heavily dependent on the events in season 2. The description plainly states this. Almost all of my players are new players without any experience beyond Waterdeep. It only took a few minutes at the begining to get them up to speed. Without giving away too much, there is an encounter in which the party is supposed to just survive for 5 rounds. My party of 7 had an APL of 6 which made them average. After one round they were headed for TPKville so I made the encounter end there. This may have been due to the inexperience of my group. They may have lasted a round or two more, but I was short on time and story wise the encounter achieved its objective. I also appreciate the fact that the mod is well edited. This is something I shouldn't feel the need to praise, but too many mods are filled with errors. There are two missing stat blocks, master thief and shambing mound. I am looking forward to running the next adventure in the series.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
CCC-WYC-1-1 Back to the Burning
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Creator Reply:
It's funny, even with the great editors who worked on this product, we all missed those two stat blocks. Thanks for letting me know and I'm glad you enjoyed it!
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DDAL08-09 Fangs and Frogs
Publisher: D&D Adventurers League
by David E. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 01/04/2019 22:09:10

I really don't know where to start. I found the entire adventure difficult to follow. Is the door with the snakes in the same room as the end of the previous adventure in this cycle? Does each snake lead to one room with no exits. If there are exits where do they go? This seems poorly thought out. Perhaps a simple map would be better. There are maps and I guess they could be useful if the game is run online but they are useless for running live. Bonus objective A or is it B (both bonus objectives are labeled B) could not possibly last 1 hour. It is literally just 2 saving throws. What would be the motivation for the characters to help the party charmed by the Spirit Nagas? It seems like they might just as easily leave them alone. There is no stat block for Ouida. One of the reasons I like to DM AL is that I do not have time to develop my own campaign. I like that I can pick up an adventure and with minimal preparation run it. Overall the season 8 adventures have been very challenging. Part of the problem is the new format. The box text with the three pillars divides the narrative in an unnatural way that makes it difficult to find the information. It doesn't help that by putting all the pictures in the module it makes it impractical to print. With a print copy at least I could highlight.



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
DDAL08-09 Fangs and Frogs
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DDAL08-08 Crypt of the Dark Kiss
Publisher: D&D Adventurers League
by David E. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 12/29/2018 11:16:05

This module is supposed to be the middle of a trilogy, but it has almost no connection to the first adventure. There is an object from the first adventure that the characters need to complete the objective for this adventure, but there is absolutely no reasonable way to connect it to the objective. (They have to ring chimes with an earring. Why would they do that?)

The adventure is just a series of 2-4 combat encounters which wil either be very easy if your group has the right composition or nearly impossible if it doesn't. The party I ran was 5th level, had no magic weapons and very few fire spells so the mummy encounter was very challenging. A party with one wizard with fireball would end the encounter in 2 rounds. The bonus objectives are just tacked on as after thoughts.

The entire document is rife with grammatical and formatting errors to a degree that is really inexcusable. I have complained before about inclusion of WOTC clip art in the season 8 modules and I will restate my complaint here. The pictures do nothing for the adventure except make it more difficult to run. This really has nothing to do with the quality of this adventure, but it needs to be said.

Overall, I am very dissatisfied with the quality of season 8 adventures. They are certainly not worth $5.



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
DDAL08-08 Crypt of the Dark Kiss
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DDAL00-05 Winter's Splendor (5e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by David E. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 12/23/2018 12:16:00

I highly recommend this adventure. It is a great holiday themed module with a dark twist. It is mostly social with some puzzles and a smattering of combat.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
DDAL00-05 Winter's Splendor (5e)
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