Hi everyone,
I'm thinking of using the last two Serpent's Skull APs (Thousand Fangs Below and Sanctum of the Serpent God) in a homebrew campaign. However, there is not much in terms of reviews out there to tell me if the modules are good and fun to play.
The lost underground city sandbox theme appeals to me, but what makes me hesitant is that, based on the reviews of the the previous APs (especially City of Seven Spears) there was some major issues with the design of a similarly themed lost city sandbox.
I would greatly appreciate if anyone who has played them (or at least read them) could give me some feedback about them.
Thanks!
Here's a supershort review (spoilers):
Fortress of 1000 Fangs reads really well. It's basically two parts: crawl the abandoned city, then do a dungeon seige. The city of Illumeria is interesting (and has a well-done and imagination-inspiring support article) and the various factions in it are pretty neat and memorable (if somewhat wonky for some people's tastes). The fortress itself is laid-out nice, and makes for a cool, visually interesting seige.
However, two major strikes against this module. First, the "purpose" is pretty lacking: why the heck do you care about saving Eando Kline? The AP doesn't do a good job motivating the characters (but if you're adapting this for a homebrew, that should be easy to swap out). Second (and harder to fix), is that serpent folk are a chore to grind against. They have a ton of immunities and defenses, but somewhat mediocre damage output, and can all communicate telepathically (which is why I keep refering to it as a "dungeon seige" rather than a "dungeon crawl"). It can be a numbing act of attrition. My advice: swap out the serpent folk statblock for something of a similar CR.
Sanctum of the Serpent God is a mixed bag. Where it shines, it shines, and where the author didn't choose to make it shine, well, you wonder why the material didn't get cut. It starts off with a 100% pointless dungeoncrawl against weakish enemies that is just there to waste your time. Then it goes into a section on assassins that is brilliant. Then it handwaves over a huge war: great concept, really evocative images, but really no support for it at all if your PCs try to ask any questions or interact with it. Then the final dungeon is neat, and the one-two punch final battle has some tactically interesting opponents and some good writing.
I'll admit, I didn't read this one as closely, as I just started to get weary of the whole thing, so take it with a grain of salt.
Thanks Erik! That's very helpful.