Bastion of Broken Souls is an adventure for 18th-level D&D characters. It caps the Adventure Path series of modules from Wizards of the Coast. But how well does it stand on its own?
Pretty well, actually. Visually, it's impressive. The color cover is a spoiler, depicting as it does the climactic battle of the book. But it's a beauty, very useful as a visual reference. The maps inside the front and back covers are clear and straightforward, well indexed and drawn. And the few pieces of black-and-white interior art are uniformly well done.
Content-wise, it's a pleasure to read. The layout is standard two-column, with player information set off by gray boxes. Everything a DM could possibly need for the module is spelled out, from possible player tactics and responses, to new monsters, spells and magic items. The last page is set apart for four sample characters, so this can even be used as a break from a regular campaign.
There's only a small amount of new stuff, all of it tied deeply to this adventure. Two new monsters of the Positive Energy Plane, one of which has three subtypes. Two new spells, neither of which anyone would normally need outside a scenario like this. And there are several new magic items, including a few major artifacts. A couple of the regular magical items and one artifact actually have significant uses in general, such as the ring of greater counterspelling, but most are tied to the scenario as well.
There are only tenuous hooks to the rest of the Adventure Path, shared names and the like. And of the four character hooks given, only one has anything to do with the Adventure Path. But it's not a great adventure on its own, just an acceptable one.
The primary hook makes one of the PCs out to be a descendent of the legendary druid Dydd, who single-handedly slew a great red dragon a thousand years ago. This is the first thing that bothered me. A thousand years is living memory for the elves. It's entirely possible that someone is still around who remembers the fight, but the PCs are only given one avenue to gather information about Dydd. And that has nothing to do with any witnesses to the battle.
Let's back up a minute. Assuming the DM uses the primary hook, out of nowhere the PCs are attacked by a nine-foot-tall half-demon/half-devil that looks like a marilith, the Cathezar. She concentrates on one PC -- the descendent of Dydd -- and tries to make off with that PC, dead or alive. A human man intervenes partway through the fight on the side of the PCs.
If at least one PC survives other than the descendent, the party can investigate why the attack happened. Their new aide Nurn can clue them in on what the Cathezar is doing, but he doesn't know why. (I handed Nurn off as a PC, which made things much easier on me.)
I like this part. An 18th-level party will have quite a few magical resources at their disposal -- spells, items, etc. Bruce R. Cordell has thoroughly covered the main lines of magical inquiry, giving the DM everything needed to answer the questions the PCs may ask at this point.
But there's a problem, too. Some spells or questions will be blocked, apparently arbitrarily. That's part of the mystery, but to keep things unknown, Cordell has resorted to a blanket ban on some information, the Ban of the Unborn. This short-circuits many of the advantages of being high level and forces the PCs to do legwork. The Ban of the Unborn makes sense in context, but still feels like a cop-out to avoid making things too easy.
Not that the legwork is all that hard. Divination spells will certainly point the right directions for the party to go. If not, there are ways to get some of the information from historians, bards, etc.
From here on, it's a combination of mysteries and fights. The PCs eventually discover who the Cathezar works for, why she wants this particular PC, and what the Ban of the Unborn is. Along the way they must visit a druidic shrine for information about Dydd. The Guild of Sleep tells them about the Ban of the Unborn, once they defeat Dreamer Prime in combat. And along the way, the Cathezar may continue to ambush them. If somehow they defeat her -- and it took my players four tries to take her out -- her master sends a backup team to continue the capture attempts.
Wait a minute. Even the gods don't defy the Ban of the Unborn. But the mortal leader of the Guild of Sleep can ignore it? Where does she get the authority? Plot necessity, it seems.
Anyway, once the PCs are done gathering information, they have one more stop to make. They must visit the prison of a deposed god and convince him to give up his greatest possession. To get there, they must bypass his gatekeeper on the plane of Pandemonium. That requires either some fancy talking, or just killing her.
There's an unpleasant pattern here. With the lone exception of the shrine, every single encounter requires combat. Bastion of Broken Souls reads like a series of fight scenes connected by direction signs. There's no set order, outside the need to get to the ex-deity's prison last, but there aren't a significant number of alternatives to fighting. In fact, most of the encounters say something along the lines of, "will fight to the death rather than being helpful."
By 18th level the party should have significant non-combat abilities, but Bastion doesn't take those into account outside certain information gathering abilities. Add in the Cathezar's repeated ambushes, and combat got so tiresome that I ended up giving the PCs significant breaks for good roleplaying and unorthodox ideas, sometimes well beyond anything the adventure suggested.
The prison visit ends the first part of the module. The second part takes the PCs to the Positive Energy Plane, there to locate the dragon Ashardalon. By this time the PCs have discovered that Dydd did not slay Ashardalon, but severely weakened him. In fact, he has hidden himself away on the Positive Energy Plane, for only there can he survive. That he's causing untold problems throughout the multiverse does not bother him, because he's evil. But the problems do make great secondary plot hooks, way back at the beginning.
The PCs have to hunt down Ashardalon's lair, which isn't hard as by now they'll have a key. Then they must fight their way in, fight their way through it, then fight Ashardalon at the center. They do get some deus ex machina assistance if absolutely necessary, and there is one reprieve room in the lair. Coincidentally, there are also a few highly useful magic items in the rest area.
The PCs will need the help, too. Most of the fights in the lair are tough, but definitely survivable. In the battle against Ashardalon, though, they'll need every bit of help they can get. By now the party is 19th or 20th level. And Ashardalon is a CR 27 dragon, unimaginably huge and well-prepared.
He's so dangerous that he has to be partly neutered for the party to stand a chance. First, he can't fly any significant distance or height in his lair. Second, he's rather short in the treasure horde department, costing him a significant amount of useful magic. And third, the descendent of Dydd is another deus ex machina.
It may not be enough, though. A party that doesn't plan is likely to be slaughtered. But if they survive (mine did), they'll be heroes across the whole of existence. There's also a good chance they'll make it into epic levels.
Bastion of Broken Souls is a decent adventure. It's internally consistent, if a bit contrived. There's a good 15 hours or so of gaming here at a bare minimum, so it's well worth the price. But it's not quite the epic adventure I was hoping for. High-powered and challenging, yes, but not terribly interesting outside combat encounters.
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