Ruined Prospects is a Tier 2 adventure set in Avernus for the D&D Adventurers League. In it, the characters must rescue a dwarven Hellrider from a ruined fortress crawling with devils.

The dwarf has been preserved in crystal by the blessing of Torm, one of the Forgotten Realms gods of good, and the adventure features several aspects of his faith, in both puzzles to solve and in interactions with inhabitants. These are nicely done, although I’d have liked a sidebar summarising Torm and his tenets for reference.

I have a feeling the running time in this adventure can vary dramatically, as the player can avoid or shorten some of the combat encounters.

I had an excellent time DMing this adventure, for the action flowed logically, it had a varied selection of challenges, and thematically everything flowed together nicely. You can role-play with the devils, fight, find unsettling images, discover the history of the fortress, solve puzzles, and overcome traps. This adventure has most of what I want from a Dungeons & Dragons adventure.

However, the final encounter gave me trouble, primarily because it became too crowded with opponents. Against a balanced party of five characters, four barbed devils (110 hp each) and two bearded devils (55 hp each) arrive in the first round, then another four barbed devils and two bearded devils in the second round. In the third round, two white abishai (68 hp) and two merregons arrive (45 hp), and then further monsters afterwards until there’s a potential of 27 monsters throughout the battle!

There’s a way to destroy the teleportation circles that the devils are using but destroying four squares of 30 hp each to deactivate just ONE circle doesn’t seem a good use of time, especially when a devil or three has just arrived in it. I ruled that a single prestidigitation spell would suffice to remove the dried blood and deactivate a circle and reduce the number of opponents able to enter the combat. That still left the players to defeat twelve or so enemies, something that took a lot of time and wasn’t the most entertaining battle. The temple of Torm where the encounter takes place has environmental effects that means the characters aren’t overwhelmed – these are brilliant to see – but they do have the effect of prolonging the action.

The idea of the battle is fantastic, but it can become very grindy.

There are few inconsistencies between the map and the text (in particular, one door isn’t pictured), but these are minor. The encounter descriptions have a few errors or unclear spots – I’m still not entirely sure how to run the stairs down to the temple – but for the most part, it isn’t hard to run, although the format still separates information that should be presented together.

Overall, I very much enjoyed Ruined Prospects, although I have reservations about that final battle. I certainly didn’t want to run the bonus objective that follows it with yet another combat encounter! Despite these caveats, the adventure uses lore effectively and includes many evocative and entertaining encounters. Recommended!