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Message: <blockquote data-quote="machineelf" data-source="post: 7013015" data-attributes="member: 6774924">It's very good overall but has a few parts that are wonky that you'd want to know about and prepare for. -- Spoilers Below -- The good parts: <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A very fun beginning with an heroic prison escape. This opening scene is very fun, and sets a nice bit of storytelling conflict as the drow are pursuing your players through the underdark.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">An epic feel overall with the players slowly beginning to realize there are much bigger, demonic problems in the underdark.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The book is almost a mini-campaign setting of the underdark, giving you a good amount of information and a sense of what the underdark is like.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Really interesting characters and encounters, and evocative locations that will be a thrill for your players to explore.</li> </ul>The good and bad:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Huge number of interesting NPCs. This can be good for the varied personalities your characters will meet. But it's a lot to run, and you will have to work to make each of the NPCs have a voice and be meaningful to your players. If you do the work and pull it off, it can be very rewarding to your players who will begin to feel a connection to them. My players loved Stool, and by the end Ront and Jimjar were the only of the original NPCs left alive (Stool and Topsy and Turvy survived too, but moved on earlier), and they felt a kinship to them both. But I had to do a lot of work of constantly roleplaying with all of the NPCs to forge those connections. Very worth it though, just be aware of it.</li> </ul>The bad parts:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Really huge areas (by square miles) and loooong travel distances. The monotony of those long travels can be broken up with some interesting side-encounters that are included in the book, but once you run out of those, the travel does get monotonous. I've read elsewhere and really recommend allowing your characters to find some teleportation circles here or there to help cut down on travel times.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The second half of the campaign still has interesting locations, but it begins to get a bit more railroaded.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">There are some locations that could use more explanation or clearer explanation, or better organization of the chapter. For example, The Gravenhollow library is a really cool place, but that chapter is horribly organized, and your characters will ask questions that you might not be prepared for. So spend extra time really understanding how to organize that encounter for your players so that it hopefully goes smoothly. (The whole stonespeaker crystal and researching using the stone tablets/cylindrical tablets/scrolls thing gets muddy and complicated. You may want to give them the stonespeaker crystal right away and just let them use that alone.)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Some chapters will go by quickly in  session (Sloopludop is a fairly brief encounter), and other chapters are looong. Blingdenstone and Gracklstugh have a lot of content to them. Be prepared for multiple sessions in those locations. And while they are interesting and fun, your players may get tired of them after awhile and want to move on -- which is fine but there may be repercussions if they don't handle all the problems in each city.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Every location has gone mad in some way or another, and there are few places to actually rest and spend money on buying new equipment, or whatever. It almost doesn't matter if your characters get gold, jewels, or other items, because there is no place to use it, for the most part. It's just run, run, run to each new location that is suffering some madness, and the only true cities you run into where you can get a night at an inn or something is Blingdenstone and Gracklstugh, and you may not even visit both of them.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">And my biggest complaint is just a complaint with how a lot of adventure paths are designed these days: Levels 1-16 in the span of about a year (in game time), and all of it in the underdark? I'm a fan of long and varied character development and taking years in the characters' lives to go from a newbie adventurer to level 16. The adventure is fun, but it doesn't lend itself well to the idea of an adventurer having a lifetime of interesting and epic adventurers in a host of different locations around the world or planes.</li> </ul>But overall, yes it is worth a buy if you are aware of the mostly minor hiccups and you prepare for them ahead of time. I would highly recommend that when you get to the second half, cut out a lot of the clutter and speed up the pace to move them along toward the end so it doesn't drag. For example, try to move them along to Mantol Derith, then to the library, then to the wizard's tower, then to the wormwrithings, etc., at a nice quick paceafter the halfway breakpoint. You might need to reduce the later encounter CRs to make that work.  I'm currently running it and nearing the end, and my players are still very captivated by the underdark, but I have a feeling that about the time we are finishing, they will be ready to move on and do something different on the surface world. As we get to the end I am trying to speed up the pacing so that there is no burnout and we end on a high note.</blockquote>

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