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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Retreater" data-source="post: 3461091" data-attributes="member: 42040">My opinion - first skimmingI got this yesterday, purchased sight unseen from Amazon. I'm a little disappointed on the first read-through. First, the plot is extremely convoluted. It gave me a headache just trying to understand what was going on. Your players will have to dissect layers of courtly intrigue into a tangled web of double cross, to the point where most gamers will probably just rip out their hair in frustration and quit. It's very rail-roady.Second, most all of the areas seem like very "bare bones" descriptions of locations. Sigil is described in like 2 pages (with a few combat encounters following that). Same thing with the demon city. No real detail to help a DM bring them to life, not even decent maps or more than a handful of sample locations. Third, the writers botch the Delve Format. Several encounters have participants listed with no stats provided, nothing more than a name, for which you'll have to hunt over 200 pages to find. This is in at least 4 of the encounters that I saw on first glance. (If you want to see an example of the Delve Format being used well, look at Cormyr: The Tearing of the Weave.) Not only do the encounters not list the stats of all the participants, but there are several areas where they actually refer you to other books (still published in 3.0 rules, mind you) or leave you with nothing but to create your own high level NPCs (like 17th level cleric/fighters, etc.) Fourth, it does not provide "everything you need." You'd better have Frostburn, Fiendish Codex I, and all the Monster Manual Supplements, and the Epic Level Handbook, because they cite these rules and use these creatures and don't provide all the information. When it says, look at "Frostburn" for a complete description, that's not good enough. Fifth, the entire adventure structure is just off. There are so many unrelated sidequests that the campaign adventure seems like a random assortment of encounters, none of which are fully developed. Example: Pop into a plane of existence, here's a single encounter and a couple paragraphs of description -- for an entire plane of existence! Overall, very disappointed in this book. It seems either a rushed job, or uninspired. I really recommend that if you are expecting this to be as strong of a release as Expedition to Castle Ravenloft that you seriously look through this to make sure it's what you want. Retreater</blockquote>

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