The Sinister Spire (Dungeons & Dragons) [Paperback]

NOTE THIS REVIEW WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS. IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ SPOILERS AND/OR MAY PLAY IN THIS MODULE AT SOME TIME I SUGGEST YOU READ NO FURTHER.

Summary: the second part of the Trilogy that includes Barrow of the Forgotten King and Fortress of the Yuan Ti

This module starts off right where Barrow of the Forgotten King ends and drops the players right into the heart of the Underdark. The first challenge is getting past a horde of bugs and a Magic Earth Node. Once this challenge is met and defeated the party finds themselves in a huge underground grotto, complete with sunken sea and huge Drow City.

Most of the adventure takes place in the Drow city of Pedestal. Here the party finds an Undead Patron in one of the oddest Bars they will ever step in. After completing some none-too minor tasks for this creature the party gains access to the Necromancer's Spike a huge dungeon in the center of Pedestal. Some interesting sub-plots exist in the city including fallout from a magical disaster, a three way power struggle between the citizens, a drow Matriarch and The Assassin's guild, an Aboleth working behind the scenes and pulling some strings and Bizarre magical ghosts.

The dungeon itself is rather large, at least 3x the size of the Barrow from the first module and includes a huge variety of encounters all based on the premise of a long abandoned Necromancer's home and what he left behind when he finally died, mixed with the current inhabitant trying to prevent the party from following. The Climax is a huge battle with a Medusa in front of a Glowing Magic Portal (which of course leads to the next module in the series).

The Good: out of the three modules in the trilogy this was the best written, most interesting and most fun. The entire city of Pedestal was just cool and interesting. How often do characters get to wander a Dark Elf city, working for an Undead and still be progressing the cause of good? The undead Es Sarch was one of the better NPCs I've seen of late. The sub-quests and sub-plots were all very interesting and different styles of challenges. The fight against the Huge Invisible Mushrooms will always stand out in my players minds. The dungeon itself was complex and interesting, and I really liked they way there was plenty of atmosphere that gave the place a real sense of being an abandoned Necromancer's Tower.

The Bad: The power struggle in the city was very interesting, but underutilized in the module as written. I think it would have been better to include the players in a few more plots so there was a better chance for them to understand what was going on behind the scenes. I realize a lot of this was left open so as to allow you to continue the module even after the adventure was finished but I was just using this module as a bridge to the next and didn't plan on using it as a major campaign resource.

The Ugly: This module was brutally filled with 'you can't do that' monsters. What I mean by that is that it was filled with creatures with spell resistance, undead and constructs that couldn't be critted, creatures that absorbed spells etc. It also had a tone of 'save monsters', which included Poison, Stat Drains, and other various status effects. Some monsters attacks actually required 3 separate saves. It was to the point that my players were saying things like "no point in even rolling your crit die as you can't ever crit anything in 3.5". The module was definitely written to be hard by countering the characters attacks instead of just having appropriately challenging creatures/traps. Now this wasn't enough to break the module but did frustrate the players.

Overall: out of the three modules in this trilogy I thought this was the best one. The location really made this module, the city of Pedestal, it's inhabitants and the three way power struggle between them was a great backdrop for adventure. The eventual dungeon was perfectly disgusting and moody as it should have been. The main drawback to this module is it's reliance on power canceling monsters instead of what I would consider real challenges. I definitely suggest picking this module up, just so you can read up on Pedestal and drop it into one of your games somewhere.

I DM a crew twice a month and enjoyed being able to be lazy and still have an outrageous time. I was skeptical about published campaigns until I purchased these. Well worth the money if you are crunched for time or just feeling lazy.