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ShortQuests -- individual adventure modules! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed to plug in to your game.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DonAdam" data-source="post: 2009929" data-attributes="member: 2446">The Sunless Citadel is the first in the adventure path series of modules published by WOTC meant to take characters from 1st to 20th level.  Unfortunately, it is not a good start.First a section with no spoilers:I love dungeon crawls, but this one fails to inspire the imagination in any way. It is nothing more than a series of isolated, uninspired combats. There is not a single interesting trap, encounter location, or puzzle. There are scant and poor notes on creature tactics. One wonders how the monsters in the dungeon survived at all given their utter lack of defensive preparation. Other than the final section, the module looks as if it was made simply by consulating the CR 1/3 to CR 2 charts in the Monster Manual, with nothing to spruce up the encounters.  Both times that I played this module the players grew tired of the repetitive combats early on, and it just became tedious, like trying to play Rampage: World Tour all the way through even though every level is essentially the same.The only thing that saved this module from getting a 1 was the final section of the dungeon, which had an interesting premise, interesting creatures, and a good villain, and a decent roleplaying opportunity early on.  Unfortunately, while the end is good and plays into the hooks well, it only comes into play at the beginning and the end. Rather than a gradual revelation, we get two clumps of information at the beginning and end, so there's no build to the climax.Now one with the specifics:The premise of the adventure is that the characters are looking for a magical fruit rumored to have healing powers and/or are going off to find a group of lost adventurers. It is a site-based dungeon crawl adventure set in a sunken dragon temple. The fruit/adventurer storyline culminates with a showdown with an evil druid taking care of a magical tree that has transformed the adventurers and spawns the fruit, which in turn gives rise to a new creature called twig blights. On the way, though, the heroes will have to contend with warring kobold and goblin tribes, as well as an infestation of dire rats.The kobold section is good for the roleplaying opportunities, as is the final section involving the tree. The rest of the module, though, is just dire rat dire rat dire rat. It could not have been more boring, honestly, and only the two sections mentioned above saved this module from getting a 1.This might be the first adventure that some people play in D&D, which is a shame, because it did not capture the feel of the game for us at all. The Sunless Citadel is often touted as the iconic 3E adventure, but I would rather it be Death in Freeport, which showed much better the array of possibilities that the system offers.</blockquote>

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