City of the Spider Queen

[Endur]

GMing COSQ.

Well, first, even if you have a module, no matter who wrote it, the GM is still going to have to do some work prior to running a game. Depending on how prepared you want to be, a GM might actually prepare for more time each week than he or she plays. For example, you mention putting each monster on an initiative card. This is a useful GM activity and helps GMs learn the capabilities of their minions. I don't think WOTC would be able to give a page for every monster, but I do think WOTC should maintain a message board to help with questions for each module.

High level role playing encounters really DEPEND so much on who the PCs are and what their background is. Some PCs will negotiate with some encounters, others will negotiate with different encounters. The module does tell you which evil npcs are likely to negotiate or avoid combat. Its up to the GM to come up with the npc speeches/offers/ threats/bribes/etc, none of that is provided in block text.

The NPC stat blocks in the back of the module is the weakest portion of the module. Major NPCs received various exotic equipment and minor NPCs look like they were borrowed from the DMG. When you are copying your NPCs to your initiative cards, you could very well decide to modify your NPCs equipment to better fit your storyline.

The custom monsters are well play-balanced. If anything, the author erred on the weak side of the CR. That's ok. There's nothing worse than a custom monster whose real CR is 5-10 higher than what the module says. There are plenty of deadly generic monster manual monsters in the module (advanced, templates, magic items, levels in PRCs, etc), including all the biggies (Drow, Vampires, Liches, Dragons, Demons, etc.).

 

[Willowhaunt]

The only thing I would change about the NPCs in this adventure are the spellcasters. I haven't found a preapred spells list that I've liked so far, and it seemed like the author(s?) were afraid of taking full advantage of the spellcasting system for fear of creating a true challenge. Case in point: All throwaway Wizards are Evokers who have banned Enchantment and Illusion, the two best schools for screwing over a party. I don't understand why, but that's how it is. I'm about to start running this adventure myself, and the one thing I'm planning to change is the NPC spell loadouts.

The other problem that a good DM can effortlessly ignore is that a lot of encounters are written with the NPCs set to kill PCs on sight. Once a DM starts ignoring any sentence with "Attack on sight" or "Attacks as soon as the PCs enter the room," there is a lot of room for negotiation, politics, and general noncombat trickyness, especially since the situation in the Underdark is perfect for such wheeling and dealing. If the PCs are the types to attack on sight, there's always a way to raise the EL of all the encounters a little bit...I like the idea of passing out more scrolls and wands...they're dangerous to give to PCs, but it'll be worth it if the PCs suddenly become unwilling to fight...