I ran this adventure after having played a portion of it several years ago with my gaming group in Houston. This time, since we were already using Pathfinder rules in our Desert Raiders game, I generated several level 14 Pathfinder PCs.
In the first session, the party completed the first level of the dungeon, acquiring several objects to allow them to progress to the remaining levels. We had a fighter, monk, rogue, cleric, and sorcerer.
In the second session, only three players showed up, so I leveled up the pregens to 15 and had one of the players also run a second character. This time, we had the fighter, rogue, cleric, and sorcerer, and they slogged their way through the lower levels of the tomb. The fighter and cleric died from massive damage in the penultimate fight, so they teleported out, got raised, and came back. The cleric died again, so they had to teleport out again and get her raised. I let this go, since it was a one-shot game and they were so close to finishing, but in a campaign I think I would have had consequences for leaving the tomb at that point in the adventure.
The final encounter was lackluster – partly my fault (even though I upgraded the monsters) because I neglected some of the interesting traps and terrain, partly because of perfect spell use by the cleric, and partly because of *true seeing* keeping the PCs from getting fooled by some illusions.
LIKES: I liked the puzzles and riddles in the first level. I liked the artwork, the handouts provided in the module to show off said artwork, and how the artwork and the descriptions matched up well.
DISLIKES: The second session (the lower levels) was much slower and less interesting. Several of the later combats were almost pointless having. Overall, a number of the encounters were, as written, no challenge for a level 14-15 party (3.5e or Pathfinder). Several of the encounter areas need to be bigger for the monsters to take advantage of their superior numbers and/or mobility. As DM, I assume most of the responsibility for this, but at least some of the encounters should have explicit ways of resolving them without combat – it would make the whole dungeon a lot more compelling. Overall, too many fights.
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Thanks a lot for the review, Adrian. I totally agree with your assessment as far as I saw the adventure as a player. I don’t mind some encounters to be easy. It’s also nice to have an easy encounter because the party happens to be prepared – knowingly or not. 😄
if I were to run it again, I’d shorten the end a bit but that’s it.
– Alex Schroeder 2010-06-28 23:40 UTC