The Standing Stone (Dungeons & Dragons) [Paperback]

As with the previous adventure in the series (the horrible aforementioned "Speaker for Dreams"), "The Standing Stone" uses scenes rather than keyed locations to determine the action in the adventure. However, this adventure seems to use them much more successfully as something more than a flow in which dungeons to go to next. Here there is a real reason to have the scenes -- they move the adventure logically from event to event.

As with the first two adventures in the series, this one does a great job of highlighting third edition rules. It gives DMs a sidebar to help them determine what to do when their PCs have a lot of divination spells that might unravel the mystery for them. It gives DMs examples of how NPCs would use their skills to foil the PCs attempts to solve the mystery. It does a nice job with monster templates and introduces some interesting villains. A neat little quirk is that they've tried to tie in this adventure with the first two in the series through small features. (At one point, an NPC has a blade with the mark of the dwarven smith that the second adventure in the series focused on.)

I'd certainly recommend that any DMs disappointed after buying "Speaker for Dreams" consider buying this adventure even if they hadn't planned to. In fact, I'd recommend this adventure to either DMs who like role-playing or hack-n-slashing, which is really nice.

One of the other reviewers has some good points regarding one of the plot points and the elves. Although the elves actions are understandable within the story given, running them along those lines could cause the PC's to never quite figure out what is really going on.

I question the level rating of this adventure. It is rated for a group of 4 7th level characters. There are 2 encounters that are extremely difficult if run as the adventure describes (one EL 12, another EL 13). My group of 6 10th level PC's had a hard time with the final battle. There was over 100 HP damage done to the mage and the party was almost out of spells. Nearly all the PC's had significant damage. If it wasn't for a counter spell, and a very lucky attack roll much of the party would have died. I'm not so sure a 7th level party would have survived this encounter.

Like I said above, overall I found this adventure fun to run, and most importantly the players had a good time. If you are looking to add some role playing to your game, this adventure provides ample opportunities.

Unlike a dungeon crawl, this module is a bit more openended after the party eventually arrives to the village, and as the DM, it provided me with some opportunities to spur thought about exactly what the group was really accomplishing. Since my group never follows the delineated path anyhow, and muck around with things unforeseen by module creators, this was the type of storyline that allowed them to excel at their craft.