In Search of Secrets (DDAL07-12) by Christopher Sniezak is an adventure for level 11-16 characters set in Chult. The adventurers travel to a yuan-ti tomb full of traps to stop a yuan-ti priest and his undead servant from fulfilling the wishes of Dendar, the Night Serpent, the evil god of the snake-people.
It’s not a great adventure.
This isn’t to say it doesn’t have some interesting design. Chris includes a yuan-ti tomb that includes informative murals, unusual tricks, and traps a-plenty.
However, when one of the traps requires the characters to read Abyssal and make five DC 19 Wisdom (Medicine) checks to solve it, I begin to worry. This is design that doesn’t understand its potential audience. When writing a D&D Adventurers League adventure, you can’t assume the party has access to spells like comprehend languages or heroes’ feast. You can’t assume that there’s someone in the group with a good Medicine bonus. When these things are added to a death-trap that kills the characters if they can’t figure it out, then it’s frustrating to DM and players alike.
I like adventures that reward characters for having unusual skills or having the foresight to prepare certain spells. However, this needs to be included as a reward for the players, or an easier solution to a problem. Don’t make these skills and abilities requirements to progress. In an adventure for your home group, you know what the characters can do and design appropriately. In an adventure for regular release, you can assume that the party covers the main competencies. In an adventure for the D&D Adventurers League, you can’t even assume that, because the table may be made of players who have never played together before, and the party is made up entirely of fighters and rogues.
Making five successful DC 18 checks is difficult for the Cleric trained in Medicine, who although he has a 60% chance with each check, takes eight checks to find all the skulls with a 60% chance. Without that cleric? It’s horrible, and then the party must get the order right. There are 720 combinations. Did you play this with only four PCs and no-one could read the clue outside? Sorry, they’re dead!
The unfortunate thing is that I very much like the concept of the trap. It’s just the method of disarming it that annoys me so.
The other traps are more reasonable to overcome, although you might need to adjust the difficulty of the Night Void trap. However, I found it tremendously evocative: the character finds themselves in a void where everything is black and white, and they must fight against their worst nightmare!
Another major disappointment is the ultimate battle. Two challenge rating 7 enemies do not make a memorable encounter for 13th-level characters. Both tables that ran the combat at our store finished it in a round-and-a-half.
The last problem is that the players’ goal, as given to them in the initial briefing, doesn’t work within the structure of the adventure. This is a significant problem. I found too many of the sources of information are obscured or difficult to get. The stated goal is to discover why the Ihl tribe of yuan-ti are more active. When you get to the Ihl village, only a few yuan-ti are present, and they don’t speak Common. For the flow of the story, I think it’s essential that the characters learn that within the tomb is the leader of the Ihl tribe, a priest named Nozhi. Within the tomb, the ghost of Ihl’s mate appears, but is unable to communicate with the adventurers except through pantomime and will only answer three questions (probably badly if I know my skill at acting out concepts).
So, the structure of the adventure that should slowly reveal why it’s important to stop Nozhi is undermined by the difficulty in getting this information.
Even the final revelation, which makes the adventure seem somewhat worthwhile, is gated with an Intelligence check.
It’s entirely possible for a group to greatly enjoy this adventure, if they have the required proficiencies or spells, despite the weakness of the climactic battle and the difficulty in solving the snake trap. However, if the party lacks these elements, then the potential for the adventure is wasted. Sadly, I can’t recommend this adventure.