Mixed Results from Two One-Shots

Forgotten Realms: Adventures in Faerûn contains 51 Dungeons & Dragons adventures, which is a lot for any book to tackle. Add in hundreds of pages about the lore of Faerûn, and one has to wonder how much individual attention was paid to each of these options. I won’t be able to make my way through all 51 any time soon, but I have been able to run a couple, and it’s already painted a contrasting picture of what the book has to offer.

The two I’ve chosen to run so far are “Dougan’s Hell” and “In for a Penny,” level seven and eight adventures that work in succession for a group bouncing between one-shots. To be clear, there’s no connection between the two, with one offering a chilling Icewind Dale encounter and the other diving into havoc in Theskan city streets. The contrast goes a lot deeper, though, and I walked away with great appreciation for one adventure and severe disappointment in the other.

Dougan’s Hell Is One Of Many New D&D Adventures

Forgotten Realms: Adventures in Faerûn follows the format set by the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide, sketching out adventures in broad strokes that only take up a page or two. The task of filling out the picture falls to the Dungeon Master to fill things out, which I’m generally happy to take on.

When testing out a new book, though, I mostly stick to the basics. While I could use any given adventure as scaffolding to build my own heavily revised version, it wouldn’t be particularly indicative of what the adventure itself offers.

None of Adventures in Faerûn‘s level six adventures immediately entranced me, but “Dougan’s Hell” seemed like the most interesting at a glance. Confronting the party with the crazed inhabitants of a ruined town, “Dougan’s Hell” brings an appropriately threatening atmosphere to the trademark intensity of Icewind Dale’s frozen reaches. I glanced it over and resolved to run it mostly as written. The mechanism of getting the party to explore the ruined town was a little awkward, but nothing seemed particularly off.

The adventure’s first encounter is fairly rote. The party is ambushed by a Cultist Fanatic and five Berserkers, a crew that offers no significant challenge but can easily overstay its welcome. Up next are some Harpies and a Carrion Crawler, which my party successfully avoided. Further threats await in the tunnels beneath the ruined town, where Goblin Warriors, Berserkers, and several key NPCs are all on the prowl.

Once again, the party made efforts to minimize confrontation, which I was glad to support. Fighting everything in sight could quickly become a slog, and the maze-like map lacks the terrain or environmental features to jazz up encounters.

Dougan’s Hell Dives Off The Deep End

The module is clear about the climax, however. When the elder becomes aware of the party, “he directs any surviving combatants against the characters and summons Thruun, a Beast of Malar.” If the party manages to kill him before he can summon Thruun, the beast will still spawn on his corpse.

This is the point where everything goes completely haywire, as Thruun is, frankly, ridiculous. While the adventure suggests that something is very wrong in Dougan’s Hell, nothing really explains to the party that they’re about to get hit with a nuke. My party had more or less the best possible set-up, catching the elder and the Goblin Warriors with a surprise fireball. They had avoided a lot of encounters, and I didn’t have the elder call anyone else to his side.

With everything in their favor, they still didn’t stand a chance against Thruun. On top of dealing massive piles of damage, he constantly regenerates health (I immediately cut this feature, but it’s there). I let the party use hypnotic pattern — which Thruun is actually immune to — to escape. As written, deploying Thruun in the suggested manner is a nearly guaranteed TPK, and nothing in the adventure suggests any real awareness of this inevitability.

In For A Penny Can Be A Great D&D One-Shot

A week after licking these wounds, we dove back in with “In for a Penny,” which I liked a lot when I first skimmed the book in search of its coolest adventures. The adventure starts with city exploration and climaxes in a mine cart chase, giving it plenty of fun one-shot flavor.

This time, I was a little more liberal in my translation, letting the party’s initiative guide most of the investigation and remixing anything I needed to. Unwilling to bog down in another combat encounter as dull as the Berserker battle in “Dougan’s Hell,” I embraced a fun sewer fight but cut a subsequent battle with Toughs, throwing a few of them into the final fight to make up for the lost challenge.

Unlike “Dougan’s Hell,” “In for a Penny” was a success. The mine cart chase was as charming as anticipated, and the final boss fight was threatening but fair. The dust settled on two party members thrashing about in the harbor, one nearly dead on the docks, and the last having triumphantly finished off the boss with a final application of heat metal. While the city was still in chaos, the party had secured both riches and a deed that had become a running gag throughout the night.

One lesson here is that prep is always worthwhile, no matter how simple the adventure seems on the surface. The other, though, is that Forgotten Realms: Adventures in Faerûn is a true grab bag. Deploying “Dougan’s Hell” without care could bring a campaign to an untimely and unfair end, while running “In for a Penny” without any tweaks would still be a fairly good time.

If you want relatively polished and consistent Dungeons & Dragons modules, your best bet is to go with a book of classic adventures, like Tales from the Yawning Portal. Forgotten Realms: Adventures in Faerûn poses a greater risk, and I’m sure plenty of other design flaws reveal themselves throughout its full slate of adventures. If you’re willing to reach into that grab bag, though, you might still find some real treasures inside.

Original Release Date

1974

Publisher

TSR Inc., Wizards of the Coast

Designer

E. Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson

Player Count

2-7 Players