AD&D for PCs of 4th-5th level
Ah, man.
For my review criteria, you may check out this post. All reviews will (probably) contain *SPOILERS*; you have been warned! Because these are short (three page) adventures, it is my intention to keep the reviews short.
So...pretty decent concept. Sometime in the past, a gnomish city was hit by an earthquake that crumbled the hills, and sunk its population into the ground, leaving only "Devil's Swamp" behind. Rumors abound of undiscovered chambers still waiting to be plundered. There are some mercenaries camped out in the swamp who've already started their delve, but there are multiple ways into the sunken basements.
So, as said. Good concept. Execution is the problem.
Let's start with the map. It's a cutaway vertical, not isometric, but more similar to Haunted Keep in Moldvay's Basic book. That's not enough! It's not enough to see the levels and layers and heights of chambers...for the tactical game play inherent in old edition D&D (especially 1st edition), you need to be able to see the floor layout...because threats are (most often) dealt with in TWO dimensions (because humans and demihumans don't fly). The Haunted Keep, shows the vertical but also shows the standard top-down map. Danger omits this step. And as there aren't even dimensions given in the encounter description, the DM is just left...with nada.
But that's not the only thing that's left out. I'm missing a lot of info that I want for running this adventure. How long do the phosphorescent mushrooms glow if picked? How do the beartraps function (procedurally)? How do the denizens get along with each other (and where are all the lizard men coming from)? What are the mechanics of contracting typhus?
And with regard to to typhus (and the other disease-ridden areas); is the author aware that the DMG already has procedures for contracting disease?
60 kuo-toa are a pretty beefy encounter for this level of PC...and, yet, this isn't a very beefy encounter at all, because it does not have the normal kuo-toan output of leveled characters that would normally be encountered for a tribe this size. If you just want 2 hit die combatants (they're all F2s), why not make these guys the lizard men (HD 2)? Hell, make "Joopalp" a lizard king...he's already got the trident (not on the kuo-toan weapon list, just by the way...).
I'll be honest: I don't really understand the rust monsters, the clay golem, the cannonball (no cannon), or the giant octopus.
Treasure...is odd. This is a "full-size" dungeon (31 encounter areas) so we're probably looking at close to 100K for this level range. Treasure is close to that amount (thanks to a lot of gemstones)...82K or 132K if you sell all the magic items. But the distribution is odd. Only about a quarter of the locations have treasure, with the largest monetary hoard (some 32K) is with the octopus. A massive vault guarded by the clay golem holds...11,000 silver pieces. I mean, it all feels very random (and perhaps it was generated randomly). I prefer a higher rate of distribution, as it keeps the players pressing on.
This one needs work. The map...the map kills it for me. Really nice concept, but the theme could be much tighter (the only evidence of gnomes at all are bas-reliefs. Let's have some gnome stuff!). Sorry, but this adventure only gets two stars (out of five) for me.
**
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