Ran it as the 1-shot version and my players flew through it. With a slightly crazy warlock that was willing to sacrifice part of himself to the sphinx (- Int), tried to join the monks (until the party stopped him) and let Kwalish "borrow" part of his soul to test out the new not-even-close-to-AL-legal armour, there wasn't a whole lot of tension besides the one fight. In that one fight the Master decapitated the bugbear barbarian (aka the party tank) with the very first non-surprise hit on combat, so that had them a little worried. Thankfully they tried to use the Gate spell, and instead of Stygia they got a visit from Hruggek in Pandemonium to bestow a favour on an faithful sower of violence to override his honourable death on the battlefield.

Great mod, even though I had to wait quite a while to find a group of T2 to run it for. I had the privilege to run DDAL08-11 and DDAL08-12 at a Con back in June, so I was eager to see how part I fit in. Much like parts II and III, the fights look scarier than they actually turn out to be.

That being said, a Mindflayer with 12 ID can wipe the floor with pretty much any party of any level (Mind Blast is 60’ AoE stun attack, which Y gets as a reaction, the basic MF attack is both grapple and stun-if grappled and stunned you’re taking 10d10 per turn, which can easily hit triple digits on a crit. Plus 12 shots per turn at Body Thief (unless you’re a wizard Int is a dump stat, so most characters should be very afraid of getting eaten quickly, which leads to some interesting PvP action). Now despite the BBEG fight from hell, Y immediately surrenders and the module is over.

The two bonus objectives were fun, the party necromancer jumped at the chance to get a trio of pet zombies, and the other objective was the only combat in the entire expedition (see previous paragraph).

Magic item drop is amazing; I’m definitely grabbing another with Dedicated DM.

It was enjoyable, we hade fun. For a part III of a trilogy, it did a great job tying into the previous 2 parts, and setting up a great finale... but unfortunately there is no grand conclusion.

The 2 bonus objectives are top notch, but without them this would be terrible. So X has the key you've been chasing for 3 expeditions-excellent, someone wants you to assassinate his pet fish-awesome, X has also kidnapped some girl to paint his portait-amazing storytelling. Great set up and well planned.

Act 2/Main objective A: come up with a plan (which were pretty much spoon fed to you in Act 1 Call to Action), running then entirely to Act 2 as a DM consists of asking "So what's you plan then?" and awarding 1 ACP and 1 TP if they answer it.

Act 3/Main objetive B: ok so we avoided the OP major NPC that can wipe a T4 group, completed the excellent Bonus Objectives, and stole the key, now what-does the party just go home? There is no real ending to this module or this trilogy.

On a side note: for the break in and steal stuff type modules, see the Embers of the Last War Ebberon storyline-there are almost all the same and better done than this one was (albeit a bit repetitive)

If it were not the bonus objectives this would be approximately a 1h module, and season 7 proved that 1h modules for T2 don't work. With the bonus objectives it's still about 3:15.

and if I may comment on 2 other reviews: David E, see ELW for Heist-type adventures Henry B, Season 4 did not have a coherent storyline when it was being released, they had to retcon the Misty Fortunes and Absent Hearts when DDAL4-13 the Horseman was release to try and tie everything together. DMing that for the orginal release schedule was a train wreck since no one knew where things were going. Once you get the whole thing you could probably do a much better job. I agree with season 5 having the best storylines-probably the best 2 story arcs actually

Obviously better than the T1 modules this season (which isn't a high bar), and didn't suffer from any of the nonsense planning issues and blatent ignorance of the rules that the other T2 trilogy did. That being said, I found the combat very very unbalanced in this module. The Objective A fight with the 2 bugbear gladiators and duergar master theif almost TPKed the party. Then the "fight" against Sundeth and his sleeping Wyvern was a cakewalk (creatures asleep grant advantage and auto-criticat due to the unconscious condition). Plotwise it actually connected to parts I and III of the trilogy, while still being a solid adventure on its own. Also, having run it at a con with a 2h time limit only took 1:45 including both bonus objectives.

I want to give it a 4/5, but there are simply too many errors. The NPC group has 5 members, only 4 of them have stat blocks. The BBEG is a vampire that cannot access his own coffin. I will quote p13 directly here:

Misty Escape. When he drops to 0 hit points outside of his resting place, Rhacoph transforms into a cloud of mist (as in the Shapechanger trait) instead of falling unconscious, provided that he isn’t in sunlight or running water. If he can’t transform, he is destroyed. While he has 0 hit points in mist form, he can’t revert to his vampire form, and he must reach his resting place within 2 hours or be destroyed. Once in his resting place, he reverts to his vampire form. He is then paralyzed until he regains at least 1 hit point. After spending 1 hour in his resting place with 0 hit points, he regains 1 hit point.

Shapechanger. If Rhacoph isn’t in sunlight or running water, it can use its action to polymorph into a Tiny bat or a Medium cloud of mist, or back into its true form. [...] While in mist form, [...] He is weightless, has a flying speed of 20 feet, can hover, and can enter a hostile creature’s space and stop there. In addition, if air can pass through a space, the mist can do so without squeezing, and he can’t pass through water. He has advantage on Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution saving throws, and he is immune to all nonmagical damage, except the damage he takes from sunlight.

Yet another Ebberon "break in and gather intel" mission. Really getting repetitive here. Also there are no stats for the Kraken Medallion you can loot. The 3 main villians (as one would assume in playing it) of Captain Calypso d’Lyrandar and Sterryk ir’Tyran have a whopping 40 HP and 58 HP respectively, so a fighter with extra attack and action surge can take them both out in 1 round if they roll well. The actual BBEG has no allies, so its best attack (sneak attack) is much harder to pull off before it gets pummled by the entire party at once. Finally, this is recommended for APL 7, and if people have been playing all the ELW content, they could be lv 6 with 7 ACP at best (if lv 4 with 3 ACP going into ELW 4 and abusing the downtime catchup mechanic mid-session to start ELW5 at lv 5 with 7 ACP) so the author should really read the AL rules better.

Finally an Ebberon module that isn't 1) get mysterious note 2) break into building, 3) look for infomation while avoiding enemies. While a little light on combat, compared to the other modules of "you've been spotted, get swarmed by 30 enemies", this was a nice switch. It's also the only module that actually clocked in at 2h, so no one missed their bus. So to recap: Fights in T2 mods more balance than the T1 was, ELW06 not as repetitive as ELW02, ELW03, ELW04, & ELW05 were (especially back to back to back to back)

It's great to finally hit T2 and have the characters offense greatly improved to allow combat to run a lot stabler. Despite the fact this is yet another "1) stranger shows up at your place, 2) go break into building, 3) try not to agro as you search for info" module (there seems to be a lot of that in Ebberon) this one did it better than some of the previous attempts at the same thing.

Ran this for a group of n00bs (2nd ever AL game, 1st was DDAL00-04) and they had fun with it. None of them being Bard/caster types didn't help any. Bonus A turned out to be more Roll-play than roleplay (because of un-balanced party build). Bonus B required some hand-holding (because they're n00bs), as did the leap from Part 2 to Part 3 (i.e. why would we do this?). I may end up running DH for this group, so if we go with Summer this mod is a nice intro to the larger campaign (and a much better one than DDAL8-00)

Combat too difficult for a T1, the veterns would be fine if this were T2, but it isn't. Also, WGE states that Changlings can only change into other medium humanoids, not small size, and their clothing does not change-this was clearly glossed over for plot reason, but could have be handled better.

Ran this for 3 brand new players, so obviously lv 1. A CR6 monster vs a group of lv1s with no spell casters doesn't end well. Also the games assume profieciencies the party might not have, or they may just get cold dice and fail repeatedly (which did get funnier every time, but after the level of exhaustion it was less funny). Loved the idea behind the plot, but the "correct" step can easily be missed by unobservant players (they finally gave up and decided to help the rock monster steal the fruit, since he was dropping them every hit).

Loving the ELW storyline. Still being T1 the combat was mostly pretty easy, but still had a couple foes that presented a challenge without overdoing it too much. The final fight had some kick, but the players had enough firepower to make the fight fun (and the chance to use some of their firepower for once)

Finally some combat. How well this module goes will definately depend greatly on party composition. If you have a wizard with fireball the mummy fight would be a cakewalk, if you don't you will be in for a rather difficult time of things. However, with someone fluent in Ignan and with a high enough Dispel Magic, you can recruit a trio of firesnakes that will eviserate the combat for you as you stand back and watch. I was going to say this module has absolutely no connection to parts 1 or 3, but part 3 also uses the "get the enemies to fight for you" tactic. As a stand alone this is awesome, but as a trilogy it's rather disjointed.

A vast improvement over the T1 content this season. The 2 bonus objectives didn't add a whole lot, but at least they made good sense plot wise. Sad that there is no real connection to the Undertakers or the bad vampire fan fiction in the rest of the trilogy. To call this a trilogy is stretching it a bit, as all 3 are unrelated adventures awkwardly throwed together, but as a stand alone this isn't bad.

Kind of combat light for my taste, but the RP options more than made up for it. A better labled map would have help aliviate some confusion.