"The Commandant-Burgher's cat Jasper has gone missing, and the characters must help find it."
MetalMan's Review of "The Sewer Fiend" by Peter Schweighofer
The Premise:
"The Sewer Fiend" is the second book in the third series of Legends & Lairs mini-adventures from Fantasy Flight games for use with Dungeons & Dragons third edition. These reasonably priced adventures are intended to be used when the GM has had little time to prepare an adventure or is just stumped for ideas. It is recommended for four to six characters of levels five to seven.
PERSONAL NOTE: I will be discussing the plot of this adventure in this review. If you suspect that you will be playing in a game with a GM using this adventure, I recommend that you stop reading now. Most people don't like having their fun spoiled.
What Ya Get:
"The Sewer Fiend" is a small pamplet-sized booklet that clocks in at sixteen pages.
Cost:
It, like all the other Legends & Lairs mini-adventures, will cost you $3.95 USD
Appearance:
"The Sewer Fiend" continues Fantasy Flight's excellent trend for making their products look good. There are small pseudo-mystical decorative borders at the top and bottom of each page that look good but don't intrude any and doesn't seem like padding. There is a map for the adventure in the center of the book that is keyed and very legible. It also includes two grayscale illustrations by Ramon Perez of skeletons and the evil sorcerer and one by Eric Lofgen of a ratling. There is also an advertisment for Dragonstar included in the back.
The Adventure:
Unfortunately, once you get past the very nice presentation, the rest of the product just falls to pieces and any resourceful group with half a brain is likely to destroy this adventure within at least an hour of it beginning. I'm not kidding and I'll explain my points below:
The book starts off with a brief overview of recent history and a setup of the powers that are involved. Two years ago, a plague decended on the town of Vallidyl. The Commandant-Burgher was ruthless in controlling the disease so much so that he had all the plague victims herded into designated housing for the disease-ridden and then had the buildings torched. Meridal, an innocent sorcerer, was one of those mistakenly caught inside. Disfigured, he managed to escape the blaze and find his way into the sewers where he began to plot his revenge. The Commandant-Burgher's daughter is unknowingly assisting Meridal by sending him notes in the cat's neck bell because she doesn't know who he is. She is, however, under the assumption that he is a powerful personage that can give her some of the political power she craves. Unfortunately, the Commandant has noticed the disappearance of his beloved cat and needs someone to locate him. So far so good right?
The first minor qualm that I had was that the burgher was offering 200 gold pieces each up front for anyone to accept the mission and then an additional 800 gold pieces if they're successful. Excuse me, sir, you're offering HOW much for us to find your cat?! ... what's the catch? Who do we have to kill? Now this could be purely my own gaming style but even fifth level characters in my campaigns aren't going to be offered that kind of money and certainly not for such a trivial task. Your players are very likely to get suspicious at the amount of cash being offered regardless, which kind of ruins the suspense and suprise that the adventure tries so hard to build.
Asking around town will lead players to the ruins of the plague houses and they will see Jasper for the first time as he escapes down into the ruins. This is the beginning of the biggest problem of the entire adventure for me. It specifically says "before anyone can make a move to capture him (physical, magical or otherwise)..." I'm willing to let this type of fiat go once but it's repeated three additional times: twice by having monsters jump the party while the cat escapes and once by just having the cat escape through a narrow opening. The author doesn't even seem to consider that certain party members might ignore the intial attack in order to deal with the cat first by hitting it with spells such as Enthrall, Speak with Animals, Calm Animals, Animal Trance, Hold Animal or Web... and those are just first and second level spells! Specifically having a Ranger, Druid or Cleric in your party could really cause problems. As I said before, you could probably get away with the initial fiat but your players are going to soon be wanting your blood by not even allowing them the chance to get initiative over a normal housecat.
Jasper is only a simple annoying plot device to goad the players into finding the evil sorcerer making his ratling gang in the sewers. Players who capture the cat will find the message in the bell but what reason do they really have for continuing past this point? Sure they could let the cat go and follow it to find out what's going on. Smart or mercenary players might realize that something is going on and return the cat and the note to the Commandant who will surely realize his own daughter's handwriting and he will surely send his milita into the sewers to ferret out the threat. The players collect their money and go happily on their way.
So how do you save this one? You can operate in two different paths. Let the players capture the cat and leave. Meridal could kill the intial foray into the sewers with his ratlings and realize that he has to lauch his attack before a greater force can be mustered. This is the optimal solution as it leads to additional adventure that doesn't seem scripted. You could also add in your own railroading and just have a greater force of ratlings herd the players towards the sorcerer's lair. I wouldn't recommend the second option but I do present it as a possibility.
Overall Impression:
"The Sewer Fiend" got off to a good start with a good setup and an interesting backdrop for the adventure to happen in. Unfortunately, heavy handed railroading and disregard for player actions kill this one before it barely gets out the gates. It is salvagable with some work but that really does defeat the purpose of these mini-adventures doesn't it? Save your money and investigate some of the other mini-adventures from Fantasy Flight or AEG.
MetalMan signing off.
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