I’m not sure why this one doesn't have more ratings, but I highly recommend it. I am writing this from the perspective of someone who has GMed it twice and played it once. Not only does this scenario have a great, terrifying atmosphere, but it has a very nice mix of different combat situations. It has some fun role-playing opportunities too and gives the GM a fun mix of characters to play. There is also a situational problem that the players have to think through, which I found very refreshing. The background story is fairly well communicated to the players, unlike some other scenarios. (Note to GMs: Do not forget to hand out the player handout at the appropriate time. It adds a lot of flavor, but is easy to forget.)
This scenario may be from an early season, but it is far from being a pushover. I had some very experienced players looking seriously scared during the final battle. This scenario is definitely in my "top ten".
This is only one player’s observation, but the intra-party conflict the scenario encourages has the potential to become absolute drudgery. For the group I played with, this scenario had about ten total rounds of combat and two miserable hours of arguing, backstabbing and intra-party sabotage. If I had been true to my character, I would have just left the table and gone home, once it was clear my teammates could not be trusted to not sabotage the dangerous course of action the majority had agreed on. And in retrospect, I wish I would have.
On the positive side, language skills actually mattered, which was nice to see. I think this could be a fun scenario if you are lucky enough to have the right mix of characters.
I have only experienced this one as a player, but I am very surprised by the number of high reviews. Yes, there are some interesting creatures to fight, and you actually find some useful magic items in the early encounters, which is a nice change. But, the adventure just felt like the kind of thing I would have thrown together in 7th grade by flipping through the monster manual and finding some creatures to fight that my friends had not fought before. Essentially, you walk through the woods and lots of things try to kill you. And as previously mentioned, you don’t even know that you are fighting the BBEG until it is over and everyone asks, “Was that it?!?” The NPCs have some prepared dialogue, but you do not really need to obtain anything from them through role-playing.
I was quite disappointed and would say that this was the first adventure that left me feeling like I wanted my 4 hours back.
