trancejeremy
Adventurer
"The Secret of Smuggler's Cove" is perhaps not the most original module in terms of basic theme, but is fairly original in how it puts those themes together.
Basically, the PCs are hired to investigate a missing lighthouse keeper. The townsfolk are afraid to do it themselves, because they think it's haunted.
The upshot of it is, yes, it is haunted, but that's not the dangerous part. As you might guess from the title, somehow smugglers are involved. (Just what these smugglers smuggle, isn't mentioned. ) Presumably, the PCs will not stop at the lighthouse, and clean out the entire dungeon complex underneath.
While it is a Dungeon Crawl, but it's not one big dungeon (or medium sized), but basically 5 small-ish ones. The lighthouse itself, a deserted manor, the dungeon below said manor, the Smuggler's Caves, and the caves of some fish-people. There's a lot of "rooms" or encounters, almost 60 by my count.
It's all fairly logically done. And while I don't want to spoil it ( a little hint - "The Fog" meets the Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh), the plot actually makes sense.
The module is very well written and presented. You get a description of each room (which you could read to players), what's in the room itself, and any relevant information on tactics the monsters would use, or the DCs that the PCs might have to roll against, for traps or spotting things and such.
I also liked how the author gave class levels to many of the monsters/opponents. Beyond the fact that this makes the monsters unpredictable, power wise (since players don't always expect monsters with classes), it makes scaling the adventure easier - you can take away or give levels fairly easily. (This adventure is for 5-7th level characters, but does have tips on how to scale it).
Obviously, as a Dungeon Crawl, it's a bit lacking when it comes to NPCs that aren't meant to be killed (this is actually used as a selling point), but there is a town (Fair Haven) detailed briefly (just a few shops and such) with a few friendly NPCs. And there are a couple prisoners in the dungeons themselves which may or may not be friendly in the long run, much like the old classic modules had NPCs that you weren't completely sure of.
The layout is pretty straight forward. Pretty much consisted entirely of keyed entries for the maps.
The art is all retro in style, and all pretty good. There are 9 pieces of art in 36 pages (3 pages of maps and 1 page for the OGL round out the book), which seems to be about the standard ratio (1:4), but all the pieces except one are fairly small. There is also no coherence between the pictures, since they were done by 3 different artists.
The maps are nice and clean, easy to read. Like I said, they largely emulated the old TSR map style, which is very easy to read. There are some frills to the maps, additional details, some of which aren't obvious what they are, because there is no map key for symbols.
It's really hard to find anything wrong with the module. The only real concern I have have is over one magic item/encounter (and this isn't really a spoiler, because you can see an illustration of it on the product page). Apparently (though this isn't clearly stated, so I'm not sure), one of the items in the dungeon underneath the manor is an "Iron Flask", complete with inhabitant. This is meant to be something of a trap. However, the "Iron Flask" is also one of the most expensive magical items around, weighing in at 170,000 gp. Though actually, I've never understood if the Iron Flask forced the critter back into the bottle at the end of the hour, thus being re-usable (getting an hour of service from the critter each day), or just worked once, then the critter took off. If it's the latter, I don't see why the thing is so desirable. (The original DMG didn't list a price, but pretty much contains the same exact text).
Still, while it's very good, it's not amazing. It's a very journeyman-like effort - the pieces all fit together, it's plausible, it's complete, but it's not especially memorable. Not that this is a bad thing, very few of the old TSR modules were like that, but enough so that I only give it a B+, not an A. Unfortunately, ENWorld doesn't let you give a 4.5, which it probably is, so I'll be rounding down.
As a side note, you could also easily adapt it to a Call of Cthulhu adventure. Just change the fish-people to Deep Ones, and the smugglers to bootleggers.
Basically, the PCs are hired to investigate a missing lighthouse keeper. The townsfolk are afraid to do it themselves, because they think it's haunted.
The upshot of it is, yes, it is haunted, but that's not the dangerous part. As you might guess from the title, somehow smugglers are involved. (Just what these smugglers smuggle, isn't mentioned. ) Presumably, the PCs will not stop at the lighthouse, and clean out the entire dungeon complex underneath.
While it is a Dungeon Crawl, but it's not one big dungeon (or medium sized), but basically 5 small-ish ones. The lighthouse itself, a deserted manor, the dungeon below said manor, the Smuggler's Caves, and the caves of some fish-people. There's a lot of "rooms" or encounters, almost 60 by my count.
It's all fairly logically done. And while I don't want to spoil it ( a little hint - "The Fog" meets the Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh), the plot actually makes sense.
The module is very well written and presented. You get a description of each room (which you could read to players), what's in the room itself, and any relevant information on tactics the monsters would use, or the DCs that the PCs might have to roll against, for traps or spotting things and such.
I also liked how the author gave class levels to many of the monsters/opponents. Beyond the fact that this makes the monsters unpredictable, power wise (since players don't always expect monsters with classes), it makes scaling the adventure easier - you can take away or give levels fairly easily. (This adventure is for 5-7th level characters, but does have tips on how to scale it).
Obviously, as a Dungeon Crawl, it's a bit lacking when it comes to NPCs that aren't meant to be killed (this is actually used as a selling point), but there is a town (Fair Haven) detailed briefly (just a few shops and such) with a few friendly NPCs. And there are a couple prisoners in the dungeons themselves which may or may not be friendly in the long run, much like the old classic modules had NPCs that you weren't completely sure of.
The layout is pretty straight forward. Pretty much consisted entirely of keyed entries for the maps.
The art is all retro in style, and all pretty good. There are 9 pieces of art in 36 pages (3 pages of maps and 1 page for the OGL round out the book), which seems to be about the standard ratio (1:4), but all the pieces except one are fairly small. There is also no coherence between the pictures, since they were done by 3 different artists.
The maps are nice and clean, easy to read. Like I said, they largely emulated the old TSR map style, which is very easy to read. There are some frills to the maps, additional details, some of which aren't obvious what they are, because there is no map key for symbols.
It's really hard to find anything wrong with the module. The only real concern I have have is over one magic item/encounter (and this isn't really a spoiler, because you can see an illustration of it on the product page). Apparently (though this isn't clearly stated, so I'm not sure), one of the items in the dungeon underneath the manor is an "Iron Flask", complete with inhabitant. This is meant to be something of a trap. However, the "Iron Flask" is also one of the most expensive magical items around, weighing in at 170,000 gp. Though actually, I've never understood if the Iron Flask forced the critter back into the bottle at the end of the hour, thus being re-usable (getting an hour of service from the critter each day), or just worked once, then the critter took off. If it's the latter, I don't see why the thing is so desirable. (The original DMG didn't list a price, but pretty much contains the same exact text).
Still, while it's very good, it's not amazing. It's a very journeyman-like effort - the pieces all fit together, it's plausible, it's complete, but it's not especially memorable. Not that this is a bad thing, very few of the old TSR modules were like that, but enough so that I only give it a B+, not an A. Unfortunately, ENWorld doesn't let you give a 4.5, which it probably is, so I'll be rounding down.
As a side note, you could also easily adapt it to a Call of Cthulhu adventure. Just change the fish-people to Deep Ones, and the smugglers to bootleggers.
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