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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2009376" data-attributes="member: 18387">For those of you who do not know, this is a WoTC product that was designed as a mega adventure or campaign size adventure taking characters from approximately 4th level to 14th over the course of the full adventure.  At first glance as a DM this product seemed pricey by well stocked with rich full color maps, 200+ room detailed with encounters, full rosters of NPC's and Villains, etc.  My glance proved correct and then some, boy did I underestimate the size and undertaking of this massive adventure.  What I thought my group (7 players, once a week, 8 hour sessions) could finish in a couple of months turned into a monster campaign that lasted near six months of real time sessions.  Quite an epic that was more than worth every penny that grew a small group of 3rd level nobodies to an epic group of 14th level heroes ready to do battle with dark gods and elemental princes!This adventure really caters to DM's who prefer to have every detail really flushed out for them.  Like I said above, this adventure has 200 + rooms, encounters, etc wrapped into a massive dungeon crawl  (the Mines and the Moathouse Ruins) as well full color maps, temple of elemental evil, flushed out towns (Hommlet, Nulb, Rastor, etc), and evil outer planar strongholds of evil elemental princes!  Dont worry about adventure or excitement, this adventure is massively loaded with tons of both.  It is definitely more stacked towardshack and slash melee rather than roleplaying, but that carries over well in this action oriented adventure.The tough thing to add in is the backstory of the original adventure.  For me, 3 of my 7 players had played it and the other 4 had not even heard of the adventure.  That complicated things just a bit and to make it tougher, we use the Forgotten Realms setting.  This adventure as well as its predecessor were more designed to fit the Grayhawk campaign world.  Although do not be disheartened by any of these facts, all things are easily explained, flushed out, and easily adaptable to any campaign world.  The plot is as easy to follow in any world as this . . . an evil cult of priests look to set up a powerful base of evil minions in the land to sacrifice people and do evil in an attempt to gain a release of their banned or imprisoned elder dark god!  The heores must come to the aid of this small land, find out about the cult, track them down to their base of operations, and prevent them from releasing their dark god from his prison.  It boils down to just that simple of a storyline.  Yes, there are some twists and turns, so dont be worried reading the above simplification of the story.Strong points:1.  Details, this adventure has more encounters than your party would even possibly want to do.  Maps, encoutners, NPC's, villains, plot, reactions, tactics, etc, its all here, somehow!2.  Battle, taking your party of characters from 4th to 14th or so should show you just how much battle is tucked in between those two covers.  Anything from evil cultist priests, to demons, to dragons, to assassin NPC's, to elder elmentals, to giants, to ogres, to hobgoblins, etc!3.  Story, I dont want to give to much away in this review, but the story is exciting and well paced.  It doesnt lose anything in the middle and ends with a strong climactic battle, an all out good versus evil for all the marbles!  Stuff that makes characters into heroes and legends!4.  Bad Guys, I love the variety of class and monster race they dish out in this game.  Half Fiend Stone Giant Warriors.  Undead Aboleth High Priests.  Half Elemental Assassins and Priests.  The list goes on and on.  Very creative and rich bad guys that really open your eyes to 3rd editions flexibility.Weak Points:  1.  The dungeon crawl at the mines becomes a grind at best if your party is a tedious one that can leave no door unchecked (such as mine was).  Your talking about, in a worst case scenario, 150 encounters right smack dab in the middle of the storyline.  This could take months of real time and with enough unlucky nights or poor team work, can really grind into and rip at the core sanity of your group of players.  If Little Danny the rogue dies 3 times in 5 sessions and goes from 10th level down to 7th, and then through those experience gains, back to 9th, then things begin to look like chutes and ladders more than DnD.  My advice is to thin out the encounters a bit by having some of the larger rooms and allies join forces against the heroes, breaking apart some of the 30 plus encounters per temple section.2.  Treasure, its massive as many (maybe 50%) of the main encounters involce battles against NPC's instead of monsters.  And all of the NPC's from 5th level to 15th level have a minimum of 2 to 5 magic items each!  Towards the last few sessions many of my players had 3 or 4 rings of protections each, granted, they were all +!, but it seemed a bit over kill.3.  Villians potency, it really catered to those that played the first adventure, thats for sure.  The players who know of Lareth and the others were really happy to meet and beat them again.  To those that had not played before, they were just some more high priests of the evil cult, not anywhere near as dangerous as the First, Second, and Third were.Overall this adventure was a gem!  Much more flavor rich and chalk full of adventure than the adventure path series (Sunless Citidale, Forge of Fury, etc) has been.  Monte Cook and Company really out did themselves putting this impressive adventure together and tying it into the past story line.  Dont think about the price tag of this adventure, you and your group will surely get much more than you payed for with thise epic campaign like adventure!Arreon, Lord of the Dragon SlayersSean McDaniel</blockquote>

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