ASC3 Review - Albariño’s Icy Cellar

Adventure Site Contest 3 review

This adventure was submitted for consideration in Adventure Site Contest 3 being run by Ben Gibson at Coldlight Press. It has been or will be reviewed by the official judges, who will be selecting the eight winning adventures. This is an unofficial review, which was written prior to reading (or watching) any of the official judges’ reviews. I will do my best to link to the official reviews at the bottom of the review.

I will use a five-star scale, based on both playability and interest:
*          Failing grade. The adventure doesn’t meet minimum standards of playability.
**         I could see running this, but it fails to inspire me or has significant playability issues.
***       I would consider running this.
****     I am considering running this.
*****   I want to run this. Now.

Albariño’s Icy Cellar
By Zoranu
For AD&D
Levels 6-8 (5-8 characters)

Time to grok the adventure: 30 minutes (markedly longer than most other sites)

Set-up:

A group of derro and a white dragon vie for control over dwarven ruins in the icy mountains. The party might be lured by rumours of the dragon’s treasure.

Things I liked:

The party might find (temporary) allies in the derro against the dragon.

The secret basement complex is a good bonus. 

Things to note:

There is a cursed scroll which casts imprisonment on the unsuspecting reader. No save. The DMG is vague on whether cursed scrolls can be recognized as such before they are read. Imprisonment is a 9^th level magic-user spell, which likely means the end of that character unless they have a wish or are friendly with an 18^th-level wizard (and no, I don’t think that the limited wishes that might be available later in the adventure would cut it). Also, imprisonment (the spell) requires knowledge of the name and background of the prisoner, so a GM (or player) might object that it shouldn’t work as a curse.

Secret doors are not given a precise location or opening mechanism, so there is no chance to find them by description, only a roll. This is a miss for me. 

The dead derro are described as dwarf/human hybrids. Presumably, living derro look the same. Doesn’t that make it hard for them to pass as normal dwarves?

I didn’t understand the tactics that the derro in rooms 13, 14 and 15 would employ. Where is the chokepoint? Does “use the hallways to flank” mean that half the derro would go around the ring (formed by rooms 12-19) to attack the party from the other side? 

The adventure assumes that it is daytime; otherwise, there would be no reason why the derro would avoid areas 11 and 20. It seems like the derro have not entered rooms 20-24. Why not?

The Savant knows of the secret door in 16. Why haven’t the derro explored the secret basement complex yet? Is it simply that they haven’t been able to open the puzzle door? 

Major Strength check must be terminology from OSRIC. AD&D has bend bars/lift gates.

Would a subdued dragon really be worth 2,500,000 gp? The Monster Manual provides guidance on this: 100-800 gp per hit point, offers randomly determined by rolling a d8. That would put its value at 5,600-44,800 gp.

The map isn’t clear what is at the bottom of the stairs past room 23. 

Rating:

**1/2  A promising adventure with playability issues

Links to official judges’ reviews:

(forthcoming)