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Review of DDAL 04-14 The Darklord (4 stars) [SPOILERS]
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<blockquote data-quote="Pauper" data-source="post: 7078802" data-attributes="member: 17607"><p>Great (or sick) minds thinking alike? My first draft of this review had the adventure coming in at 3 stars, but in retrospect, since many of the complaints I have relate to other modules, I finally decided not to hold the weakness of the season against this module as much. As a straight dungeon crawl, it fits both the theme and the challenge of White Plume Mountain, here in Season 6.</p><p></p><p>And my group also took two short rests during the exploration of the castle, so I reduced the ritual to being complete when Esmae took her action to maintain it during the seventh round. The party had to 'bucket brigade' the locket in order to get in enough checks to burn through her Legendary Resistance, but they managed it. (I also ruled that, once the Evening Glory was exorcised from Esmae, nothing prevented the Dark Powers from directly intervening to foil Esmae's plan, so I ran the 'successful conclusion' scene even though the party hadn't even damaged Esmae yet.)</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Amusingly, the player who took the wind fan was complaining about it throughout the season, so I finally took up his offer to trade it to Larga Bloodhand in exchange for Sybil's life. Once he realized that he could have prevented literally 100 damage to the party if he'd had it, he was suitably chagrinned.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I agree, though I didn't mention it in the review because, again, it's a flaw in the season structure rather than strictly a problem with this adventure. With that said, there was going to have to be some allowance for parties who couldn't complete the mission -- the idea that not being able to get through this adventure would possibly doom a PC to permanent retirement wouldn't have flown, back when we didn't know for sure if we were getting an independent downtime activity to escape from Ravenloft.</p><p></p><p>I may need to put together one last essay reviewing the season as a whole rather than any individual adventure. As much as I wanted to like the season, being an old-school Ravenloft fan myself, I really didn't enjoy it and I felt that my players were less excited than relieved to be done with it at last. At least I managed to earn Dedicated DM in Season 5 for running it!</p><p></p><p>--</p><p>Pauper</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Pauper, post: 7078802, member: 17607"] Great (or sick) minds thinking alike? My first draft of this review had the adventure coming in at 3 stars, but in retrospect, since many of the complaints I have relate to other modules, I finally decided not to hold the weakness of the season against this module as much. As a straight dungeon crawl, it fits both the theme and the challenge of White Plume Mountain, here in Season 6. And my group also took two short rests during the exploration of the castle, so I reduced the ritual to being complete when Esmae took her action to maintain it during the seventh round. The party had to 'bucket brigade' the locket in order to get in enough checks to burn through her Legendary Resistance, but they managed it. (I also ruled that, once the Evening Glory was exorcised from Esmae, nothing prevented the Dark Powers from directly intervening to foil Esmae's plan, so I ran the 'successful conclusion' scene even though the party hadn't even damaged Esmae yet.) Amusingly, the player who took the wind fan was complaining about it throughout the season, so I finally took up his offer to trade it to Larga Bloodhand in exchange for Sybil's life. Once he realized that he could have prevented literally 100 damage to the party if he'd had it, he was suitably chagrinned. I agree, though I didn't mention it in the review because, again, it's a flaw in the season structure rather than strictly a problem with this adventure. With that said, there was going to have to be some allowance for parties who couldn't complete the mission -- the idea that not being able to get through this adventure would possibly doom a PC to permanent retirement wouldn't have flown, back when we didn't know for sure if we were getting an independent downtime activity to escape from Ravenloft. I may need to put together one last essay reviewing the season as a whole rather than any individual adventure. As much as I wanted to like the season, being an old-school Ravenloft fan myself, I really didn't enjoy it and I felt that my players were less excited than relieved to be done with it at last. At least I managed to earn Dedicated DM in Season 5 for running it! -- Pauper [/QUOTE]
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Review of DDAL 04-14 The Darklord (4 stars) [SPOILERS]
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