Heart of Nightfang Spire, an adventure for 10th level characters, is the fifth of eight stand-alone adventures from Wizards of the Coast designed to show off the nuances of the latest incarnation of Dungeon's & Dragons while taking a party from first through twentieth level. In it the adventurers explore the headquarters of a long dead dragon cult and discover that their past has come back to haunt them. By the end of the adventure, surviving player characters should be 13th level.
What does the DM get for her hard earned money? The numbers break down like so:
New Monsters: 1
New Magic Items: 3
Pieces of Art: 16
Pieces of Art Good for showing to the players: 8
Pieces of art repeated from previous products that have nothing to do with this adventure: 7
Number of elements: 117
Number of elements that are a variation of "empty": 32
Play Time: 25-30 hours!
Number of times the entire party almost died during playtest: 5....
The adventure can be used in any fantasy setting and placed in any out of the way place, making it easy for DMs to incorporate into their campaigns. There are numerous rumors (all true) provided to get the heroes to check the place out including: a dark evil grows there, it's filled with undead, it's the former headquarters of an ancient cult, and so on. The adventure really starts at the spire and there is little roleplaying involved, making this an old school dungeon crawl.
Fortunately, it's very well done. Nightfang Spire is a big place, but the players are kept interested by clues to what's going on, traps, numerous original ideas, and a prodigious amount of violence. The size of the spire makes it easy to run using miniatures, since each floor level easily fits on a typical gaming table using the 5' to 1" scale that has become the standard. In addition, players enjoy the feeling of progress that the completion of small levels gives, preventing burn out
Even for those of us who enjoy dungeon crawls though, the adventure is not without it problems. The spire is heavily populated with Girallons, which in playtest turned out to be far more dangerous than their CR5 would suggest. Don't be surprised if one of these nasty critters hands out 70 points of damage in a single round, it happened to us. The players were in such fear of these creatures that when they finally did encounter some friendly ones with helpful information, they instinctually went into GKM (Girallon Killing Mode. Consists of a Fireball, Flamestrike, Fireball combo -- repeat as necessary.) DMs should also be aware that an assassin with improved invisibility is a virtual Angel of Death to a party with no way to see invisible creatures and, to make matters worse, the one in Nightfang Spire has an incorrectly inflated Fortitude save for its Death Attack.
In contrast, a full quarter of the spire is empty. Players found the number of empty rooms a bit monotonous, as much as it made sense to have them there, but the layout is such that removing them presents no problem for the DM with a mind to do so.
All in all, Heart of Nightfang Spire is a good adventure and well worth the price. Most importantly, the players themselves gave it "two thumbs up."
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