I'm playing through the Tomb of Annihilation AL and rating the adventures as we go through them. DM has adapted some things to make the adventure more exciting/coherent, so may not follow everything as per AL mods.
First off our DM did a great job making what is basically a set-up adventure into something exciting and memorable. Without impacting the trajectory of the story, he included elements of a previous campaign that we had wrapped in the previous fortnight which I had run, and it was fun to see a bunch of characters that we had previously seen throughout those adventures, especially considering that a lot of our players played in the previous campaign. He was also super prepared, with laminated cards for items and enemies, scrolls for Harper messages, and more. It was clear that he'd put a lot of thought in the monologues and encounters and it meant that we were able to RP with a lot of range without feeling railroaded. We had a table of 10 (!!!) players, a number of whom are a little frustrating in terms of their participation (talking during descriptions, combat, etc.), but our DM did a great job of keeping the story moving and keeping the table on track. Combat still went fairly quick and was exciting, and the end of the adventure gave us a great set-up for the rest of the campaign, thanks to the way that the DM kept bringing us back to our objective.
The mod itself was decent, there was a great amount of combat which was good for the size of the table. Our DM pushed through with a number of items that didn't need to be stopped down on too much which was great, and the main thrust of the adventure was classic dungeon crawl. The ghouls and ghosts were a lot of fun to deal with, and there were some interesting party splits that made for a great time. I played a rogue/trickster cleric with a 1/3 split which ended up being a good option for this mod. The final fight was a bit underwhelming but it seemed like it was mostly due to some unfortunate rolls from the DM and the fact that we had a massive party who obliterated the final enemy.
We had a great time, it was a good start to the campaign, and the Death Curse of it all does give us some decent stakes as well as a good reason to try to push through the main plot. Excited for next month (it will be fortnightly starting 03/01).
To our DM if you end up reading this, you're crushing it!
DDHC-TOA-14 - Xanathar's Lost Notes to Everything Else
Initial Rating: 4/5
Super fun mod, with a lot of surprise and variety throughout. The Ships in the Dark section was great, and we were able to board the boats with a combination of stealth and bluster, and the fights went well on each boat. Our DM managed to keep us on track even though we went through a big chunk of story in one sitting.
We are now terrified of one of our players, as he very calmly went through the process in which he would be interrogating an NPC including multiple tools and flames, so we will be keeping an eye on them from now on.
The final house fight was pretty wild, and there were a huge number of enemies to deal with. Our group split up to attack from multiple points, and thankfully it went quite well. We actually ended up bypassing a few of the more distraction-based enemies and hitting the true bad guys quite quickly, which probably sped things up a bit. Great mod, and once again our DM absolutely crushed it.
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I'm playing through the Tomb of Annihilation AL and rating the adventures as we go through them. DM has adapted some things to make the adventure more exciting/coherent, so may not follow everything as per AL mods.
Week 1 - 06/12/25
DDHC-TOA-4 - Cellar of Death
Initial Rating: 4/5
First off our DM did a great job making what is basically a set-up adventure into something exciting and memorable. Without impacting the trajectory of the story, he included elements of a previous campaign that we had wrapped in the previous fortnight which I had run, and it was fun to see a bunch of characters that we had previously seen throughout those adventures, especially considering that a lot of our players played in the previous campaign. He was also super prepared, with laminated cards for items and enemies, scrolls for Harper messages, and more. It was clear that he'd put a lot of thought in the monologues and encounters and it meant that we were able to RP with a lot of range without feeling railroaded. We had a table of 10 (!!!) players, a number of whom are a little frustrating in terms of their participation (talking during descriptions, combat, etc.), but our DM did a great job of keeping the story moving and keeping the table on track. Combat still went fairly quick and was exciting, and the end of the adventure gave us a great set-up for the rest of the campaign, thanks to the way that the DM kept bringing us back to our objective.
The mod itself was decent, there was a great amount of combat which was good for the size of the table. Our DM pushed through with a number of items that didn't need to be stopped down on too much which was great, and the main thrust of the adventure was classic dungeon crawl. The ghouls and ghosts were a lot of fun to deal with, and there were some interesting party splits that made for a great time. I played a rogue/trickster cleric with a 1/3 split which ended up being a good option for this mod. The final fight was a bit underwhelming but it seemed like it was mostly due to some unfortunate rolls from the DM and the fact that we had a massive party who obliterated the final enemy.
We had a great time, it was a good start to the campaign, and the Death Curse of it all does give us some decent stakes as well as a good reason to try to push through the main plot. Excited for next month (it will be fortnightly starting 03/01).
To our DM if you end up reading this, you're crushing it!
Week 2 - 03/01/26
DDHC-TOA-14 - Xanathar's Lost Notes to Everything Else
Initial Rating: 4/5
Super fun mod, with a lot of surprise and variety throughout. The Ships in the Dark section was great, and we were able to board the boats with a combination of stealth and bluster, and the fights went well on each boat. Our DM managed to keep us on track even though we went through a big chunk of story in one sitting.
We are now terrified of one of our players, as he very calmly went through the process in which he would be interrogating an NPC including multiple tools and flames, so we will be keeping an eye on them from now on.
The final house fight was pretty wild, and there were a huge number of enemies to deal with. Our group split up to attack from multiple points, and thankfully it went quite well. We actually ended up bypassing a few of the more distraction-based enemies and hitting the true bad guys quite quickly, which probably sped things up a bit. Great mod, and once again our DM absolutely crushed it.