For this week's fantasy review I'm going to complete another module review since I have so many D&D modules to catch up with. Out of the Abyss quickly became one of my favorite modules. As usual, I made modifications for my players and weaved in some other modules/adventures along the way.
Out of the Abyss
In my opinion, this adventure stands out as the best 5E module yet. Thus, as you read my criticisms below, please know that I greatly enjoyed DMing this campaign and my players enjoyed the gaming sessions. According to the book, the adventure was made for levels 1-15, but I highly recommend starting the campaign at a higher level because the Underdark is deadly.
Our group loves "naked challenges" in which the players need to escape from a dungeon without any of their equipment so this campaign's opening premise of starting out as drow prisoners/slaves, while not original, stood out as a fun possibility.
The book layout centered around chapters for the different locations, which I think helped me a lot as a DM. Unfortunately, this setup also comes with problems because it can be difficult to put all of the story threads together. I find that I have to read these modules at least 3 times for them to really make total sense.
The adventure also contains the most interesting NPCs in any of the D&D 5E modules thus far. With the Underdark races being used, the characters have many different bizarre personalities and motivations. Some characters from D&D novels also make appearances.
For a campaign starting as a slave escape, the adventures easily become a sandbox (after a while). One of the biggest criticisms of the campaign is that half way through, the players make their way to the surface and then are supposed to get support before going back down into the Underdark - but why would they return? While down there, the players have a chance of gaining insanity levels each time they rest. With the additional material that I weaved in, I got my players interested in the drow capitol city of Menzoberranzan:
As usual, these campaign books require some extra work and really skip leveling requirements for XP by using milestone leveling instead of really sticking to the numbers. My players were also able to skip sections since they didn't need to go to each location to achieve their goals (which is fine, but as a DM I had spent time preparing all of the locations).
Overall, I give this module a rating of 8 out of 10 because of the fun NPCs and the high number of usable locations but the best part of the module was the inclusion of 5E stats for 8 demon lords at the back (Baphomet, Demogorgon, Fraz-Urb'Luu, Graz'Zt, Juiblex, Orcus, Yeenoghu, and Zuggtmoy). With those stats, it would help DMs convert more of the old modules that featured these demon lords.
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