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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DonAdam" data-source="post: 2009930" data-attributes="member: 2446">The Toad God's Treasure is a d20 fantasy adventure for 4th level characters that comes in a pdf that you can get at RPGNow.com.This is a half playtest review. I say that because I ran this adventure, but with very heavy modifications (though not due to the quality of the adventure).Non-spoiler version:This module is easily the best straight dungeon crawl that I have seen for 3E. Though I came on board with 2E, I am a fan of 1E style dungeon crawls, the kind in which the players must exhibit substantial tactical thinking to survive. I dislike the perpetual CR = party level encounters that infest most 3E adventures, and prefer to run my players through a few tough ones, because it is both more exciting and the players feel like they have accomplished something rather than just playing out mathematical probability with miniatures and dice. I also prefer 1st edition style modules because of the emphasis on traps and puzzle solving. Finally, combats in 1E would often utilize interesting environments and/or monster tactics. I also appreciate roleplaying in the middle of dungeons (even the best combats can get monotanous), but fortunately that is one thing that is as good or better than it was in the 1E days.Now that my rambling has established what I consider to be a well written dungeon crawl, I can say that TGT meets almost all of these criteria. It lacks slightly in the trap and puzzle department, but everything else is there. The combats are tough and interesting, and the monsters are not stupid. There is at least one opportunity for good roleplaying as well.Where this module really shines, though, is ecology. If I had to rate that alone it would get a 6/5. Granted, it is simply a series of rationalizations for why all these different creatures would be in the dungeon, but it is a spectacularly imagined rationalization. Bravo.The only problem, other than the lack of traps, is a section of multiple combats, one after another, that get a little repetitive. Not Sunless Citadel dire rat repetitive, but it was almost a problem. Since I have a lower tolerance for those kind of encounters than most, I do not suspect that most people would find it a weakness of the module. I killed two birds with one stone when I ran it by replacing a couple of the monsters with traps, and voila! That was the only change I made in terms of the quality of the adventure. Had this been written into the module, it would have received a perfect 5.The other modifications either dealt with the specifics of my campaign (see spoilered section for that) or because my party is composed of 6 rather than 4 characters.Spoiler Version:TGT has the players investigating a recently uncovered (via earthquakes) temple of a toad god. In the temple is a lost artifact of the toad god. It might be too much to give to players at this level, another reason for the 4 instead of a 5. There are undead in the temple, as well as carrion crawlers. There is also a hill giant, trapped and starving from a recent cave in (this is a wonderful encounter), a malicious new demon that is incorporeal and inspires violence in people (this, too, is great), a tribe of goblins that just moved in (this serves as an infiltration/roleplaying portion rather than a series of combats, unless the players get stupid), and, most cool, an evil guy with his only little party racing to get to the treasure first.The section with the undead gets a little repetitive. This is where I inserted traps. Other than that, it is well done. The undead do things like trying to drown the players in the pools of water littering this section. This is a good tactic that takes advantage of the monster's abilities, exactly the kind I was talking about.The giant can be a great roleplaying as well as combat encounter. He is a very colorful character, well described.The Malfeasant, the new demon, is awesome, and beating it requires that the party inlist the aid of a ghostly paladin that had been tortured to death in the temple.The evil party is very cool as well, though I dislike that their leader is higher level depending on where he is encounteered. I just used the highest level version.In addition to the monsters, there are natural disasters to contend with such as cave ins and the like. The sunken cave environment is used well, the most memorable instance of which is when a homunculous follows the party until they are climbing somewhere before it bites them (with a sleep poison, mind you, that will make them fall off the rope). This is what I was talking about when I said I like monsters that use tactics.Why this module got a 4: ecology, monster selection and tactics, roleplaying opportunities, environmentWhy this module did not get a 5: a wee bit too much combat strung together, and too much treasure for a party of this level throughout including the artifact at the end (easily fixed)</blockquote>

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