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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jimmifett" data-source="post: 5317031" data-attributes="member: 55006">I'll add in my review.I DM'd for a table of four. I pulled a monster or two of each encounter, as specified in the mod.Summary: I thought this was an excellent adventure. It was TOUGH! I loved the map design with plenty of alternate entrance points into rooms. The combats were challenging, and the trap skill challenge was slick. 9/10.Long Version w/ spoilers:Right at the start, I was in love with the sketch style map. With Encounter 1, It had nice large rooms with multiple points of entry. My players waded right into the middle, leaving the wizard near the entrance where it was "safe". One bandit sneaked out the north east entrance while the other bandit sneaked around the corner. The two then attacked the wizard in a pincer attack and put the fear of bacon into the wizard. I really enjoyed the Orc Archers, I liked the volley of arrows, and used frequently, catching allies in the attacks. It was much fun.With encounter 2, I was worried about the number of minions all carrying javelins. The halfling thief stealthed forward and warned the party, while the wizard went the other way and botched a stealth roll, alerting the lone kobold who screamed out. I had the Orc order 3 kobolds scout out each side so as to not have so much in one shot. The wizard and the others quickly dispatched the 6 kobolds, when the Orc ordered the others back to take up a defensive position and cover him, taking advantage of the dais.This was a hard fought batle, with a slayer taking a TON of damage, and being set on fire, immolized, and covered in a jar of Urine (Jarate) from the slingers. To make things fun, I allowed the on fire fighter to set enemies of fire with a charge for 1 ongoing fire damage. The party fought hard and finished off the enemies before moving on.Encounter 3, this one was fun. The thief searched the door and rolled a crit, which i wasn't going to allow to go to waste, so I said he noticed stoned stacked against the other side of the door from under neath. He slowly opened the door, pushing the stones softly back. This created 2 squares of difficult just inside the door. I gave them a surprise round since the orcs and humans were playing pokemon card game in the back of the room. Once battle was enjoined, I turned it into a mexican standoff with the archers kicking over the table and chairs to use as cover while the party hid behind statues. They quickly noticed the trap tiles and disabled one. The wizard very quickly destroyed the minions with magic missiles. The party then raced across the room to get into melee, at which point the humans pulled halberds out of their back pockets. The cleric was brought down and left in the middle of the room.Now, I like to roll the death saving throws behind the screen so the players do not know how close to death they get.The guards put on the hurting the party was hurt pretty good before they defeated the enemy. The cleric had failed 2 death saving throws and a prayer to his deity let him know that a spot in the hall of fallen heroes is being prepared for him. The trap skill challenge was very fun and really added excitement to the encounter. The party cheered when a tile went off under an enemy and zapped him. The wizard sent another enemy sliding over 3 trap tiles. The party watched in amazement as all 3 missed him.The party healed up, very low on healing surges, and approached the door to encounter 5 (skipping encounter 4).I can't review encounter 4, since we didn't get to play, but it looks like a solid encounter.Encounter 5. The party, getting low on resources, moves carefully after disabling the trap. The listen carefully at the door, seeing flickering light (from the braziers) underneath, and hearing the rustling of a very large creature on the other side. They throw opens the doors and roll for initiative. Dragon wins. They are in a nice funnel inside the doorway. The drag races forward, gloom shrouds them and acid breath. Right of the bat, half the party is severly bloodied. The wizard quickly throws out a zone of fire, leaving 1 square of empty space past the door, before slamming the doors shut. With the zone keeping the rest of the enemy back, they heal themselves and shake of the gloom effect. The dragon moves back and around into the hall running between encounter 3 & 4, laying in way for his breath weapon the recharge. The hobos and minions line up a few squares outside the door, readying ranged attacks.The party, very wisely, comes up with a plan. They delay until they all take turns contiguously. The wizard, being first, throws open the doors and launches some magic missiles to reduce damage some hobos and kill some minions. The others would fire off ranged attacks on their turns, and the cleric would close back up the doors and throw around some healing. This worked a few rounds while the dragon was waiting for his breath to recharge. Finally, they left the doors open, with 2 of them stepped just beyond the doors. The dragon rushed into and unloaded his claw attacked, critting both hits. Down goes a player. Dragon Action Point, claws, down goes the wizard and the whole party is bloodied. At this point, the fire zone ends as the wizard goes down, and the hobos move forward. The minions already dead.Time for 2 death saves. A miracle happens. I roll the death save for the first player. I lift up the screen, showing a nat 20. Healing surge and the players are now excited. I roll the death save for the wizard. Flabbergasted, I roll another nat 20, lift my screen, and the players go wild! By this point, i'd rolled 5 crits in a row (I'm famous at the flgs for being an evil murdering rat bastard DM with unnatural crit powers, but only as DM, never while playing <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" /> ) They take out one of the hobos and start to pummel the dragon. The fight is brutal, both sides throwing out damage. Unfortunely, a claw attack with a gheto crit downs another player, then the dragon gets bloodied, recharging his breath, which had previously gone un-recharged. Now the dragon is recharging nearly every round, but misses a lot for half damage. The acid blood splash quickly downs 2 more players, leaving the last player to be flanked by the last hobo and the dragon. Another miracle, both the dragon and hobo miss for 2 rounds, but between the acid and the hobo, the last player falls. The last hobo only had 1 hit point, while the dragon was only lightly bloodied. The dragon dined on adventures for the rest of the week.The players all agreed the last encounter was ridiculously hard, but fun, even after I'd removed a couple enemies for smaller party. They had a great deal of fun, but all agreed they'd rather have used non-essentials characters for the extra options and more optimized builds.The next table over barely beat the mod, but only because the DM felt pity and allowed the use of LFR reward cards. One player still died there, having been dissolved by acid.I really enjoyed this module, and it did not have the feel of a grind.If you haven't played this already, you may want to give it a shot with the essentials characters and see if you can fare better than my players.</blockquote>

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