A review of the Legacy of the Elm King reposted form the Kenzer forums
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"I'm gonna be pretty purposefully vague so as not to give away too much info as spoilers, but still if you're not remotely likely to GM this, and much more likely to just play it, probably don't read any further. Just know that you can recommend this adventure to your GM unreservedly. It'll be a lot of fun to work through from both sides of the table.
If you are a GM this adventure will fit in perfectly with a story set in the Frandor's Keep area. It's built upon a previous adventure "In the Realm of the Elm King" but can be run without any problems by parties that missed that first leg. It can also be imported without any problem into much any other setting, as long as there's a likelihood of Kobolds living around and a somewhat pastoral farming community. It'd probably take a pretty long session or 2-3 smaller sessions to get through.
Generally, this adventure is fun and easy to read. Important for GM's! Stats are laid out in a precise and easily understood manner, and I rarely found myself confused or flipping back and forth to remind myself of what was what. Fun to read, should be pretty straight forward to run.
I don't usually look for straight dungeon crawls because I often find them rather one dimensional, repetitive and rather broken from a story-telling perspective (I often find myself asking "why are these creatures even here in the first-place and why the heck is there all this valuable loot lying around unattended?"). LoEK does a great job of building homegrown plausibility that fits right into its regional setting (Vew, near Frandor's Keep). From the hooks to the setting descriptions, I found myself right in the lay of the land, believing what I was hearing and ready for more. In now way did I feel the setup to be contrived or out of place, as hooks sometimes can feel. That's important to me cause I try to keep players involved in a consistent setting-feel, which can be broken, and thus belief unsuspended, so to speak, if setup is "off."
While the dungeon crawl itself is "just another Kobold lair" for me it wasn't "just another Kobold lair." It had a really neat unique feel to it, largely thanks to the well thought-out layout of the warren and the interesting little descriptions (rocking-chair thrones and a scepter fashioned out of a yarn-festooned ladle is awesome). From a technical encounter standpoint, this crawl (literally) will likely have your players feeling claustrophobic and paranoid (with a little bit of skilled delivery) and ready to get through the dam thing so they can get the erf out. The layout makes this crawl a potential meat-grinder. Complacent players and those expecting "just another Kobold lair" will find themselves in some tight spots, and pay some penalties. I wouldn't be surprised to see a PC kill or two. Awards are pretty straightforward and pretty generous too for parties able to take full advantage. That's another cool aspect, as there's lots of stuff that PCs might easily miss if they're just running through rough-shod (or scared).
My only constructive criticism is that there were a few sections where I wasn't totally clear on what Kobolds should be where in certain circumstances (want to leave this vague ala spoilers) ... for example, should there be 6 behind the barricades if A happens, or none? If none, then where are they and what are they doing? But really, these details should be pretty easy for the GM to extrapolate and make decision on without exact guidance.
I'm quite looking forward to hooking my table in the mouth with this little adventure! I'm thinking I might even offer it as a detour to their present mission, though I doubt they'll bite right now cause what they're after is vitally important and they know it. Still, some day! Cheers"
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