Let me count the ways I wuv it...
So I've finally finished reading this and I felt it was really an excellent adventure. I'm going to touch on various aspects of the adventure here and I'll mention some of the stuff I was not so fond of along the way but my over all feeling was that this was just an excellent adventure.
OK so starting off we have the Scribbler and his little dungeon. Sadly, for me anyway, this was a bit of a low point for this PF. I mean we've just finished off Against the Stone Giants ... err I mean Fortress of the Stone Giants which was largely a big dungeon, we get back to Sandpoint and, lo and behold, there's a dungeon and it'll take us to another even bigger dungeon. Now I love dungeons but here we desperately need to mix it up a bit.
The Scribblers pretty cool himself and I like the idea of him trying to get intel I'm just not sure its all that cool if its done in a dungeon. Maybe have him in some kind of a hostage situation or something might be more interesting. My feeling is some kind of a social encounter right about here would have really hit the spot, negotiating for clues with an ancient mad man might have been unique and entertaining.
I'm concerned with the actual clues themselves. I liked the idea of a puzzle and I think this was a good place for it but I'm not sure this puzzle quite works. Still at least we got a puzzle, that's something.
My other complaint is that this 'baby' dungeon is taking up a fair bit of space. Not sure if a social encounter could have saved on the word count or not but there is a descent chance it could have since you'd not have to explain as many environments. There'd be the environment where the social encounter took place and that's it – it'd have to be pretty complex to take up as much space as a little dungeon and I feel the word count probably could have been used in the big dungeon coming up.
OK moving right along – We get heads and a White Dragon, some stairs with Elementals – I liked all of this, especially the White Dragon, except for the idea that the Dragon sneaks into the pocket dimension after the PCs. That sounds fraught with problems. Better to have the Dragon wait to ambush them when they come back out, IMO.
The Sinners rules involving wizard schools and actual sinning was kind of confusing. I think just going with the PCs sins would have been better and then throwing a 'designers note' box basically saying – if you've not tracked your PCs sins then here are some rules for making wizard schools act as Sins.
BTW I love the dialogue boxes in this adventure. I mean I like 'em in all adventures but here they were particularly thought provoking. I like the way they addressed aspects of D&D game theory in terms of the design and implementation of aspects of this adventure. I'd love to see more of that sort of thing.
I also really liked how unique many of the features of this dungeon were. I'm not actually sure I like the Disjunction trap as a trap in and of itself but I was impressed that such an interesting trap existed here. It got me to stop and think in a way that a 50 foot pit or a rolling boulder would not have. Many features were unique and I did not feel as if I was seeing just another rehash of stuff that had gone before. Even if I choose to cut something like the Disjuction trap at least it has me thinking about my game and why I would or would not cut such a trap.
I was initially pretty distressed to see all the humanoids filling this dungeon out. Generally if I'm dealing with a big dungeon at higher levels I like them full of things with lots of teeth. This is because its generally pretty dang hard to justify packing some place chalk full of nasties with lots of of teeth unless you come up with some kind of a rationale for a Dungeon. You can make a lot of other interesting encounters in many interesting environment but only the Dungeon can make it at all believable that big nasty A lives near big nasty B which in turn is not far from big nasty C. A good excuse for a Dungeon full of monstrosities is a wonderful thing.
However I'll forgive Greer in this case. These humanoids where generally all pretty unique. All of them had interesting twists and quirks. They were complicated in a way that a toothsome monster rarely is and that justifies their inclusion.
Krazan did not really speak to me particularly and seems to exist mostly to die – which is fine as far as it goes and he does make a neat threat so there is no real issue here. Especially considering how interesting the rest of the dungeons denizens are.
I really liked the Mithral Mage but maybe even more then the Mithral Mage I loved his Mephits. Actually I think this encounter as written is basically a mistake. It seems to start of tilting to a fight and then offers some possibility that maybe this won't be a fight. I feel this encounter should have started from the premise that there was not going to be a fight and then mentioned what to do if the PCs are bloodthirsty and insist on a battle. These guys are a great chance to insert some humour into this adventure and get a good RP scene going. Their story made me laugh and I suspect that PCs might really get a powerful emotional kick out of the release of tension from a peaceful and funny version of this encounter. Obviously groups that just sat down at the table and resumed from last weeks game won't get anything really powerful out of this encounter but on average most parties will come upon this encounter probably after at least a few fights and maybe after hours of battling the denizens of this Dungeon. A little some what light hearted RP and some humour will make for an emotionally powerful encounter for such groups. SO yeah – these Mephits are great but less hack and more yack would have been good here. They should be able to reveal some weakness of the Mithral Mage to reward PCs who talk with them. They obviously hate the guy so engineering a reason for them to want to parley with the PCs should be easy to work into the adventure.
I liked the Iron Cages a lot. In fact this is one of the rare encounters where I actually think that the having the PCs battle the Mistress of these halls or parley with her would both be very interesting encounters. She'd make a great RP encounter. She's got a really interesting personality. Very evil of course but she's stuck in a bottle (or Demi-plane as it where). Which means PCs can deal with her and not have to really deal with the fact that their aiding evil over good – there is no good in this place, just evil. That said she and her daughters have a neato prestige class and some cool abilities. They'd make an interesting fight as well. I suppose I'll just leave this to the PCs and see how they run with it without even trying to influence them to my preferred outcome since I don't really have a preferred outcome.
OK on too the Shimmering Veil ... screwed up with his clone regime – oh that is too funny. Here again I really liked this part of the Dungeon. The background material is good – I certianly found it an interesting and often funny read and really this whole place was loaded with atmosphere - the busted Simulacrum are a great touch. Their commentary during the battle should be a lot of fun and I love it when an adventure gives me good ideas about how to role play bad guys during a fight 'cause it makes the fights so much more interesting. My only real complaint was that it was about here that I began to clue into what this whole dungeon was about. Their should have been some kind of a synopsis earlier on - or if their was a synopsis it should have been clearer 'cause I certianly never clued into its existance.
I liked the Halls of Wrath as well and felt that a more martial orientated battle would play well after fighting all these mages. They should be a bit better organized however – I mean if they have done nothing but train their whole lives you'd think they'd do more then stand around waiting for the PCs to beat them one group at a time.
...and finally the PCs wrap up the adventure with Kerzog intervening. This is another interesting encounter - plus I finally get a toothsome monster. I like how the adventure peels back a bit like an onion and slowly reveals to the PCs how they can use things here to help in their battle with Kerzog. That element of discovery is pretty cool – though I think it should have been spelled out for the DM earlier.
To sum up...
Mr. Greer you have really hit the nail on the head with this. An excellent adventure over all – on par with that masterpiece Tides of Dread.
I wuv wuv.
Wow! Thanks, Jeremy. As is the case with most good adventures that Paizo puts out, the end result is a good part what the author submitted in his/her final version and a chunk of changes and additions that went in to it when the editor(s) went through it. In this case, the brilliant Dr. Jacobs riffed off of some of my initial ideas and improved on many of them or came up with some all his own.
There were admittedly a good bit of flaws that snuck their way through editing which have already been pointed out in other threads, but I'm happy to hear that you were able to see past those and enjoy this adventure for what it is.
Good luck running it. I hope your players have a great time. :)