I really wanted to like this series but running this has felt like a chore. The siege of Arenway is the highlight and it is an annoying slog to get through. With boring downtime activities once more, confusing subsystems, and little agency on the players' part. What was so good about book 1 was the player agency in the gala, and how it felt like they were the ones protecting the forest in this pivotal time. Yet book 2 and book 3 just fail to follow up on that energy.
For example, much of the things you do during the siege is just random encounters; that you might as well have been rolling on a roll table for. The Caustic Cave dungeon crawl was fun but aside from that it was just a lackluster string of events.
After you have successfully put Ruzadoya on her backfoot (which unless you did what I did and made Ruzadoya's presence more felt in book 2, it won't feel earned.) you then head into the Plane of Wood. Which should have been the highlight of this book. I will give this book credit where it is due, the plane of wood felt alien and confusing in an interesting way. Though it being confusing is part of the problem, it was extremely difficult for my players to make it through. It was a pain after the initial contact though, having to do random chores in a town ridden with blight while trying to stop the possible end of the world (which the players did not know was at stake at all).
At the end the fight against the final boss is terrible, Ruzadoya does not pose a great threat and her goons are easily incapacitated. She does not hit hard at all and her ONE AoE attack is easy to dodge and does barely anything. The Gritblights you fight just before her are way harder than the FINAL FIGHT OF THIS AP. It's just dumb.
All in all this book just can't set the stakes right, does not follow on the threads in the first two books, and has a series of confusing subsystems that the players have to interact with or the world ends.
