Review: “Dry Spell” by Darrin Drader

Darrin Drader's last offering in the “Original Adventures” series of D&D 3.5 modules was the forgettable Matters of Vengeance. I presume that Wizards of the Coast also found it forgiveable or had already made an agreement to receive further work from Mr. Drader. Dry Spell is aimed at four 3rd-level adventurers and is strictly core material, so it can easily be run using the Pathfinder RPG.  Although it's no longer a freebie, $0.99 is all you'll pay for Dry Spell.

This is another very short module, again just a seven page .pdf. There's a single full-colour map covering the adventure site, and – thankfully - just a half-page of background. I'm not sure, but the map has a “Map-a-Week” look about it. It's also quite straightforward. There's no area map, because the scenario is simply set in “the area”, with no named settlements specified. I suppose the idea is that the DM could place the adventure wherever they like, but what it really means is that Dry Spell can't be used as a one-shot or campaign-starter without additional work. As a general rule for modules, if the content about the base location doesn't help a particular DM, it can easily be ignored or used independently of the adventure.

I don't have any real complaints about the adventure background and hooks provided. There's a reward offered for knocking off a bandit chief responsible for exacerbating a drought. While the party does need to track the bandits to their lair, it's not a problem that Drader really cares for. He does provide a table of random encounters to reward the party for finding the lair promptly, but there's no time frame, let alone an escalation in the module. Dry Spell does provide what could charitably be described as a short dungeon crawl – really, just a linear succession of encounters with an optional spur. The encounters are a bit challenging and Drader has written out tactics for the bandits.

 

Satellite footage of "the area".

There are three things I dislike about Dry Spell. Firstly, it's boring. There is very little of interest to a player, or for that matter, a reviewer. Any interest in the scenario is going to come off the DM's bat. Secondly, there's a dash of fiat – no real explanation is tendered – in the final encounter that allows the bandit chief to prepare for battle unless the PCs take extraordinary precautions. Finally, the maguffin that the party is expected to tamely hand over at the end of the adventure is worth rather a lot of change and this could unbalance a campaign. Drader seems to be aware of the potential problem but his solution is simply inadequate.

My rating is 2/5. You can play this, but it's nothing that a decent DM couldn't cook up in a short amount of time. The lack of much more than the idea of hook and the adventure means that it's not very well suited to starting a campaign. Frankly, I'm not sure whether this is an improvement on Matters of Vengeance or just an easier design target.