Dimensions of Flight is the second part of the Maze of Zayene series, an adventure written primarily for four pre-generated characters of levels 10 or 11. It consists of four demi-planes, from each of which the characters must retrieve a specific item.
Of the first three modules of this series, I like this one the most. It is attractively presented, with boxed text to read to the players for most encounter areas, good artwork, and mostly nice fonts. Apart from the actual adventure, there are also ten new magical items, and five new monsters, most of which are inventive and effective.
The actual demi-planes - Enots' Realm, Baal's Realm, Poharn's Realm and the Happy Hunting Ground - are each handled in distinct fashion, although there are some common elements between them. Mainly that they are each a challenging adventure for the players to overcome. In truth, you can view this module as being four separate adventures in the one package. If you are not running the entire Maze of Zayene series, it should not be difficult to integrate the realms as special quest areas for your players.
One thing that I must stress about this module is that it is extremely challenging for the players, and quite deadly. Inexperienced players will probably find it too hard without some modification or aid from the referee. This is not so much a flaw as a feature - a good referee will know his or her players well enough to adapt the material to their capabilities, but I think that this is one of the more challenging adventures available.
Looking at each realm individually, the first - Enots' Realm - is a relatively linear trek through some mountains before reaching a cave complex from which the PCs must retrieve an item. The encounters have the general theme of "stone", and include ambushes, normal melee combat, and several tricks and traps where the party will have to think hard about their actions.
The second - Baal's Realm - is again a relatively linear trek through a desert before reaching a cave complex from which the PCs must retrieve an item. Despite how that sounds, the encounters are actually quite distinct from those of Enots' Realm. There are more opportunities for role-playing with the inhabitants of this realm, and the challenges are of a different nature.
The third - Poharn's Realm - is a relatively linear trek across snow and ice fields before reaching the lord of this realm - Poharn. This is actually the shortest of the mini-adventures, with only four or five encounter areas, mostly consisting of combat against some weird creature or another. The ultimate encounter - that with Poharn - is surprisingly not a combat, but instead a test of the party's integrity. I have the most problems with this section of the module, because if the party is unsure of why they are in the realm, they are very likely to fail here and be destroyed - there are no second chances.
The fourth - the Happy Hunting Grounds - consists of an adventure in an Inn and the surrounding forest. Of the four mini-adventures, I found this the most enjoyable to read, and am looking forward to taking my players through it in the future. Combat, role-playing and fast thinking take the fore in this final mini-adventure.
What is good about the module? Well, I find many of the encounters to be inventive, thought provoking, and challenging. With respect to how it fits into the greater sense of the series, the linearity of the various realms is actually a good point, as both the first and third modules are very non-linear in their approach. The fact that it should be easy to remove one of these mini-adventures and use it as a special area in another game also appeals to me. I felt whilst I was reading these areas that this is how the Nodes of Elemental Evil (from the classic module, the Temple of Elemental Evil) should have been handled. Each possesses character and interest for both referee and players.
As to the bad points, the d20 system rules are - as in the first module - not always correctly applied. This didn't bother me so much as before, as the flaws are less easy to spot - although there are a couple of oddities with the monsters. The sheer deadliness of some of the areas is also not that appealing - often, instead of trying to challenge the players, the module seems trying to kill them outright.
Another problem with the module is its assumption that the characters and motivations used will be of the pre-generated party presented in Prisoners of the Maze, the first module of the series. The pre-generated characters do not include a rogue, so there aren't that many areas in which a rogue's special skills will be needed. (I'll just emphasise that no pre-generated characters are presented in this module - either you will use those from part 1, or you will have to create your own).
The final problem is that there are very few notes given in the way of helping someone who has not purchased Maze 1 in using this module. It would have been nice if slightly more space had been given to such an eventuality.
Although an experienced referee should easily counteract these problems, they are probably worth mentioning.
In conclusion, this module should provide a good challenge for a group of experienced players. Even if the actual module isn't used in full, certain encounters from it should give good material for individual campaigns.
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