I just completed running this adventure for a new campaign that my group started up. I'd recently purchased Evil's Lesser Minions for a whopping 70% off at a Wizards of the Coast shop. I had not heard of Pinwheel Games before, and it appears this may be one of their only products published so far.
Location/Setting: The module contains background of an area called the Black Sea Empire. There are a few details and even a map of the area, a mountain range known as the dragon's talon. It appears this could be the 1st module in a series of adventures taking place in the Dragon's Talon range, or the Black Sea Empire. The city of Mellisan is where the action takes place. There are several notable buildings listed and NPCs included. There's a lot of detail here for some of the NPCs, and many rumors listed for Gather Information checks. They've done a good job at setting up a starting city for the party's adventure.
Plot/Story: There are 3 main sub-plots to get the characters involved. The first, and probably the most likely to be pursued is a missing daughter of a local merchant. Anyone asking for employment options around town will likely be directed to one of the two Mercenary guilds. Both of them have notices posted which will direct the party to the merchant. The second plot to investigate is some other missing persons from the area around northgate. After spending some time in the city, a group of beggars will approach the party and ask them to investigate these disappearances. Finally, the third plot to uncover is the string of recent thefts around the city. It's possible that any 3 of these could be investigated first. There's really no correct order here, and all three sub-plots eventually lead to the same general area. My group likes taking missions for hire, so they leaped at the chance to find the missing merchant's daughter for 500gp. These three sub-plots are not ground-breaking by any means, but they still serve as acceptable hooks to get the party on the right track. It's also possible to have any rogues in the group get arrested and found to be potential thieves. They get 5 days to track down the real thieves to clear their name. I would only suggest using that if you enjoy more role-playing in the adventure. I used it mostly because the party was acting rather suspicious, and it worked to put them on a timetable, though they would have solved the robberies by then anyways.
They have provided a lot of DM background for some of the NPCs. In fact, the background story about the cleric is extremely impressive and I'm using part of it to setup a future adventure. This level of detail is often tossed up front in the background section of many adventure modules, but here they chose to break it out per NPC which I actually found to work very well. The enemies have motives and reasons for their illicit activities. Too many adventures don't bother to delve into the reasons for the monsters being there, but they have provided that in this adventure.
Maps/Key: The city map is fine and could easily be used elsewhere if you need a city. However, there are several notable buildings listed on the map key that are not found detailed in the adventure (example, the churches). Also, the numbers listed on the map do not correspond to the entries in the adventure after about number 8 or so. The map has about 30+ building numbers, but only the first few have corresponding numbered entries. This was confusing at first until I realized that the other buildings were simply not detailed. I suspect these were left out to conserve size of the printing. It would have been nice to have them all included.
The wizard's tower and two dungeon maps are rather simple. The tower map indicates squares are 10x10, but the text entries suggests the squares are 5x5 instead. The dungeon maps also suggest 10x10, but the text there confirms these sizes. The tower gets extremely large on a battlemap with 10x10, so I suggest changing it to 5x5. The rooms and halls are mostly square and there's nothing terribly complicated here. I would have liked to have had a map of the sewers provided, as well as a small map of the abondoned house.
One interesting thing this adventure includes is how to run things differently based on which direction the party enters from. At first, I found this very confusing. But after reading thru it closer, understood why there were 2 sets of encounter lists (one counting forwards, the other counting backwards). This is probably most helpful to newer DM's, but even an experienced DM may find some use to this extra set of info.
Encounters/Difficulty: This encounters here range from approximately EL1/2 to EL3, with mostly EL1's. They are appropriately balanced for a 1st level party of 4. Unlike some adventures, the EL for each room is not listed in the adventure. That's something other publishers use that I've grown to like. It helps the DM if they need to quickly scale an encounter for more or less characters, etc. All of the monsters are from the Monster Manual, so there's nothing new or uncommon here. Many of the encounters should be fairly easy for an experienced group of players to handle, and most of the encounters are broken up so the party can't get into too much trouble. If you have enough experienced players or a party larger than 4, you'll likely find some of the encounters to be too easy. I recommend tossing in an extra creature or two in some of these encounters, especially in the lower level, where there are many CR1/4 or CR1/2 creatures.
They took some liberties with the goblins, and changed their gear and weapons from what standard goblins normally have. That is fine. However, they violated some rules in the process such as equipping the goblins (size small) with short spears (size large). The CR values of some of the goblins is listed as CR1/2, but they are effectively the same as a normal CR1/4 goblin. The armor class of several of the goblins has been reduced as well (normally AC15, but here there are many at AC14 or below).
They also mention that the party autmomatically surprises certain groups of monsters, which I didn't like. My group made a lot of noise in one location, and it seemed much more likely that the enemies would be prepared for them in a few of these location. I recommend ignoring those surprise suggestions if the party is noisy.
There are no traps in the entire adventure (at least none that I can remember). I would have liked to have seen at least 1 or 2 in the bottom level of the dungeon, since it would seem logical for the inhabitants there to set at least a few minor ones.
Treasure/Rewards: The treasure comes in a few big lumps, which many DM's may not like. For example, if the party enters the Tower directly, finds the missing girl, searches that room, and returns to collect their reward, they will probably wind up with about 1000 gp or more and have a magic item worth 4K, yet they will have only faced three CR1 monsters in the process. On the other hand, if they start in the sewers and fight their way up from there, they could easily encounter several EL1 to EL3 encounters, yet get almost no reward for their efforts. There are a few non-standard treasure items to be found, including bolts of cloth. But otherwise, the treasure consists of coins (mostly gold) and a few magic items. Considering this is a 1st level adventure, and the town uses a silver standard, I expected that more of the treasure would be in silver. I also expected that there might be a scroll or two to be found since this was a wizard's tower. I would recommend changing some of the loot in order to spread it more evenly across the tower and dungeon levels. At this level, it would probably be better to award a few more masterwork items, potions and scrolls instead of the few magic items that are available.
Experience:
The experience gained should be enough to bring the party to 2nd level. For larger groups, the DM will need to scale this. I had a party of 6 characters and by adding an extra monster here and there, and tossing an extra level on the NPC cleric, I was able to keep things balanced. The party ended with about 1170 exp per character, so it is an ideal 1st level module in terms of experience.
Length/Content:
It required 2 play sessions (4 hours, then 5 hours) for my group to finish this. They rested twice - once after the tower, and then again after the 1st dungeon level. In game days, it took about 3 days for the characters to investigate and explore. There are several rooms in the tower and dungeon levels, but a large number of the rooms are empty. Thus the actual time to explore the tower and dungeon levels is fairly short.
Artwork:
The cover piece is an adequate, though somewhat simple depiction of one of the NPC's lurking on a city street waiting for his next victim. Inside, there are a few black'n'white images, which are also somewhat simple. It appears that some of this art has pixel artifacts from a computer so the images are not as sharp as I would have liked. I am rarely concerned with the art in an adventure module, so I don't hold this against them.
Conclusion:
Evil's Lesser Minions is a good, though somewhat vanilla starting adventure. The challenges included are well balanced for a new 1st level party. However, the rooms and encounters are rather simple, and experienced groups may find the challenges too easy in many places. It sets out to be a 1st level adventure and it successfully achieves that. There are a few things that could use improvement, including more details for the other noteworthy locations in the city, map scale issues, handling of the goblins (CR ratings, weapons, etc), and the treasure distribution. There are some nice details such as Lamp's character history, and a plethora of rumors and a useful city map. Overall, I give this adventure a C+ to B-. I'd award it a 3.5 if half-points were allowed.
