I played in the game day adventure and would say that it was just okay. We only had three players, so each player ran two characters. I ran the eladrin monk (Wintereve) and the halfling ardent (Dai'lo). For what it's worth, I liked my characters a lot.
We negotiated with the underling who hired us to give us two survival days each, since he wanted us to make it BACK to Tyr, of course. The skill challenge was ultra-dull. I hate it when a DM says, "You're in a skill challenge. The primary skills are X, Y and Z. Secondary skills A, B and C can be used, respectively, to cancel one player's failed check on X, Y or Z." If the players are told "This is a skill challenge," it tends to devolve into "Roll a bunch of dice. Now do it again. Again." In any case, our party had great luck with the rolls and passed the challenge without a single failure.
The DM didn't want us to completely bypass the encounter at the elven oasis, so he had us come upon them from a distance and the only elf we could see was the one on top of the rock. He offered to sell us water, but since we were well-stocked we declined and decided to give him a wide berth (Dark Sun elves having a reputation for being... well, disreputable). Hidden elves in the trees started chucking knives at us, so our "Discretion is the better part of valor" approach failed, and we fought. The best moment was the end of the fight, when my monk used her Rising Storms power to FLY to the top of the rock and unload a flurry of fists on the leader, finishing him off. Man, I love that power!
When we arrived at the cave, the Gith were described as looking unfriendly, so we went for the all-out attack. Some of their spear attacks were nasty, and my ardent was spending lots of time healing folks. My monk did get knocked into the pit, but she used an action point to stand up and then her Rising Storms to fly out and beat up on the shaman who had attacked her. The Tembo did not come into play during the battle with the Gith; based on other comments here, it sounds like our DM might have misread it. If we had to fight the Tembo at the same time as the Gith, we would have been in deep doo-doo.
We took a short rest after mopping up the Gith and then headed down the hole. The Tembo was mean, but we really didn't have THAT much trouble with it. The Ardent's daily was indeed helpful, but the Tembo saved from its effect at the first opportunity, so it only resulted in one bonus attack. We had the four melee characters surround it, and it ended up being knocked prone a lot. The aura hurt, but we stayed on the offensive and won the day. The fighter and barbarian were just about out of surges at this point.
The final battle with the Urik folks was interesting. The barbarian charged out into the middle of things and found herself hurting but conscious. Once again the four melee characters got into the fray and rolled well while the warlock and seeker lobbed death from within the cave. The ranged strikers were never threatened all day.
After having played the Free RPG Day and this adventure, I think I'm not a fan of the Dark Sun setting, but that's okay. I will note that we were annoyed by the mul fighter's card describing his ability to take his second wind as an "immediate interrupt" without specifying the trigger. Interrupting what, exactly? We decided in the end that it would be triggered by the fighter becoming bloodied, but I have no idea if that was right or not.
Rating for the adventure: 6/10.
