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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Vanuslux" data-source="post: 2008947" data-attributes="member: 937">This is a PLAYTEST review.  Beware of SPOILERS.The Sunless Citadel is the first adventure in WotC's "Adventure Path" series of modules.  Just one look at the maps and the phrase "dungeon crawl" leaps to mind.  Whether that's a good thing or not is a matter of personal taste.  This module reminded me of all the pros and cons of dungeon crawls.  The module doesn't present much in the way of motivation to explore the Sunless Citadel.  The three character hooks given are solving the mystery of the fruit the goblins are selling, being contracted to find out what happened to a party of adventurers who disappeared into the dungeon, and simply because its there.  I decided to invent my own motivation for the characters.The PCs in my campaign consists of a Lawful Evil Human Cleric, a Neutral Evil Human Sorcerer (of the BoEM2 variety), a Neutral Evil Orc Barbarian, a Chaotic Neutral Half-Elf Druid, and a Neutral Halfling Rogue.  The town of Oakhurst is nothing more than a weak map, a list of rumors, and a stat block.  I fleshed it out a little bit, which provided for some NPC interaction.  Something sorely lacking in Sunless Citadel.  The dungeon itself is designed pretty well. Not perfect by any means, but definitely above average in my opinion.  There are certain aspects of layout that are clearly more a function of steering PCs through as many rooms as possible rather than logical choices in architectural design.  Most of the encounters were fairly good.  However, some were a bit poorly chosen.  For example, the Water Mephit towards the beginning was a bit much for 1st level characters if you ask me.  It was one of the tougher fights and had very little point to it.  If I had used the mephit to its full potential, I'm sure at least one of the party members would have been toast.  A small water elemental would have been much more reasonable.  Aside from the Mephit, the fortress level of the dungeon wasn't particularly challenging.  The characters, to my surprise, made peace with the kobolds.  They had very little difficulty bringing Calcryx back, though Meepo did bite the dust in that encounter.  The battle with the goblin chief and his cronies was moderately difficult, but none of the party was dropped in the battle.The party managed to walk right past several of the encounters on the grove level of the dungeon. They didn't have much difficulty cutting their way through goblins, a bugbear, and those pathetic little twig blights.  The climactic battle, however, was a worthy finale.  Even though Sir Braford and Sharwyn went down in the first round, the party almost didn't survive.  Belak, Kulket, and the twig blights managed to bring down the sorcerer, charm the barbarian, and winnow the rest of the party down to the low end of their hit point range.  Only a desperate charge by the scythe-wielding cleric and a beautiful critical saved the day.  Once Belak went down, the rest of the battle was in the bag.  The new monster in the module, the twig blight, wasn't very impressive.  They were only useful when acting as cannon fodder to buy more powerful opponents more time.  If I ever ran this module again, I'd either beef them up or swap them out with goblins.  Rolling a lot of 1d2 attacks and making players roll Fort on every hit with a meager 1 point of damage at stake just wasn't my idea of fun.  Especially during the encounter with 10 of the darn things.  Overall, the worst things I can say about the module are that there were a couple of questionable encounters and the fact that it began to wear a little thin towards the end.  For the most part, the module plays well, but there's nothing exceptionally great about it. I hereby declare this the baseline for average by which I shall judge other modules in comparison.</blockquote>

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