Grasp of the Emerald Claw

The final part of a series of adventures surrounding the gathering of creation patterns and working for House Cannith. I wanted to like it but several things just threw me off a bit.

The adventure starts off like a noir film, on a rainy night, where the PCs are summoned. They arrive in time to intercept a typical villain mistake - foiling a “mop up” scene. And from here, the plot hook falls apart. The main thing I find really jarring is the timeline. The PCs arrive to find that some secret notes had also been stolen by the Order of the Emerald Claw - secret notes whose contents nobody except the writer (House Cannith) knew of, yet somehow, from this point on, the PCs are on a race against time to “catch up” with the thieves. Somehow, they gained a massive headstart the moment they stole the notes (to the point of being able to immediately deploy a dozens of men and airships). This plot hook really needs a lot of shoring up for it to make more sense.

There's also a “reveal” right at the start about the true mastermind behind this plot hook. What's disappointing is that this is for the DM only - it is nigh impossible for the PCs to discover this - meaning it's nothing more than a little hook for the DM to continue the plot. Depends on whether you like that sort of thing - to me, if feels like those post-credits movie scenes that just dangles a titbit for a potential sequel.

But once the adventure gets started, things become much better. Traveling to Xen'drik is interesting, as it takes place underwater. But it's at this point that another problem rears up - encounter balance. If the PCs aren't the careful and/or strategic types, this is one place where the adventure ends.

Once the PCs arrive at Stormreach, it enters a more roleplaying phase, as the PCs now need to discover whether their quarry has arrived already or whether they had left. Again, this catch-up business is baffling to me. There are several factions here that the PCs can approach, so it can be stretched out as long as people find it enjoyable. Another adventure-ending encounter can occur right before the PCs leave Stormreach. And there's also a friendly NPC at this point who wants to tag along (especially if the party lacks healing).

The PCs are expected to go on a riverboat to reach some ruins. I think by this point, I found it somewhat lacking that there's no attempt to paint a picture that the PCs are actually on the mysterious continent of Xen'drik - just taking a boat ride up a jungle river. Oh well. And the ruins was surprisingly easy to spot... makes you wonder why it needed some secret notes.

Anyway, once the party arrives at the ruins, the meat of the adventure begins. It's basically a dungeon, but a rather fun dungeon. I still needed to try and ignore the timeline problem - some of the descriptions make it seem like the villains have been here for quite some time.... even though both they and the party found out about the secret notes on the same day. But there are lots of variety in the ruins - puzzles, traps (Indiana Jones-style, very nice!), drow (surprisingly underwhelming), undead, and of course, the Order of the Emerald Claw (forced to be scattered about so they can't gang up on the PCs, obviously). The final boss fight is really tough, especially since the party will most likely go right into it after defeating Garrow. But the conclusion is pretty satisfying.

Overall, it's not too bad, there are ample opportunities for roleplaying, and the romp through the ruins can be fun. The DM will likely need to watch out for several of the encounters and be ready to improvise if he/she is not interested in a total party wipe ahead of the adventure's conclusion. For players/DMs who are really into story and plot, there are a lot of holes here that need to be filled in though.