|
There are several NPCs and unique locations that allow the DM to create a very exciting and dynamic campaign setting just from the materials provided. Great stuff and my group is really starting to enjoy 4th edition. Taking a group through this module now and we are having a lot of fun. Its a lot of fun, the materials are high quality and provides a good fix of role playing and combat.
the adventure is decent for a few encounters but since it has no linear continuity i was constantly check around for stats and monsters for encounters. also the map for the dungeons were awful and small since they cut each dungeon up and cut it down to fit all on one page.
I just want to re-emphasize that to fully appreciate this module, you have to be an experienced GM who runs their own written adventures as the norm. So great for a hub of operations for the players-you could easily build a mini-campaign to a large campaign with this place as the players' HQ. Below it you can lead the players to the Underdark and that's a whole other campaign. Ran players through most of it (I skipped the first part where they raid a gnoll hideout-this is extraneous, it's just to give players more XP without good storyline written in) and they enjoyed it overall. But not for beginner GMs.
Challenging also. But overall I though this was excellent and can be scaled easily as players get stronger. Module is written with just enough personality so that the GM and players have a good feel for the mountain and its inhabitants. Module is pretty excellent. There are great leads throughout the module that can lead to a lot of other self-written adventures and this is just to include the mountain.
The adventure itself is pretty good.
Not something I would pay for- No role playing. Thought an hour or so a week would be enough prep time with a pre-packaged module. These got so tedious for me as the DM and for the players that I encouraged my players to think a way around them so I could move the adventure along. I did not, which is why I purchased a module.
I agree with other posters that there is the potential with all of the back story given, I had just hoped it would have been built in by WOTC.- Poorly arranged book. It grinds play to halt for perception and thievery checks. I was wrong. Traps. To me, the $25 would have been a lot better spent elsewhere.I felt this module was very heavy on tricks and traps, something my group generally dislikes. Good:- Some pre-generated maps - not as many as I had hoped for or ones that will be useable in many other campaigns, but it did have them- Some nice pictures that added to the atmosphere- Interesting city for neutral to evil characters. And more Traps. I bought the module because I didn't have time to write up an adventure.
Had I more than an hour or so a week, I would not have needed a pre-packaged module.- The story line has a lot of promise, IF you have the time to put into it. I ran this adventure for my group of six regular players as I was swamped with work. Unfortunately, my party was filled with mostly good characters.- Potential for an epic storyBad:- Traps. As this is an RP game, I would have liked to see more RP.
It'll give you a wonderful place you can keep gaming in for months, even after the adventure is done. Duergar, drow, halflings and dwarves meet and trade beneath it's vaulted stone roof.It's populated with a wonderful mix of nonplayer characters, a guilt ridden man cursed with lycanthropy, an exiled drow curio shop dealer, the big ogre bully tasked with keeping the peace, the grim righteous dragonborn who finds herself being bent down the path of warlockery by the corrupting enticements of her imp mentor. Gone. Liberating them leads you between the various parts of the Labyrinth beneath the mountain, taking on various of the Hall's factions, and then to unravelling a conspiracy which threatens the entire Nentir Vale.But beyond the adventure, there's lists of places to explore, detailed just enough to let you spin your own adventures through the many cool places they hint at, and a list of encounters with a rogues gallery of specific enemies that can become an even bigger part of the storyline--like the creepy deathlock wight Az-Al-Bani.Just great stuff. In fact, for the past month I have been.
I highly recommend it. This is the Seven Pillared Hall, a trade city built in the ruins of an ancient minotaur city, ruled by the ironfisted peacekeepers the Ordinators Arcanis, deep underneath a mountain and lit with magical green flame. It's the best of 4th edition D&D. This really is the kind of adventure you can wrap a whole campaign around. Gone is the quaint little thatch roof village surrounded by farmland.
Just great stuff.The adventure is broken into three open-ended objectives, tracking down some slaves captured and taken for trade in the hall.
|
