Terror in Freeport
Terror in Freeport is 46 pages of rollicking adventure, set in Chris Pramas’s dynamic fantasy city. It works either as a stand-alone adventure, or as a sequel to the best-selling Death in Freeport Revised. The d20 System once again provides the framework for a story of heroism and villainy. This time the PCs learn that not all cultists lurk beneath the streets, and not all serpent people are agents of evil.
Terror in Freeport was the second part of the epic Freeport Trilogy and the beginning of a product line that currently includes 9 titles. Terror in Freeport Revised makes this classic adventure available again in PDF format, with updated stats for the 3.5 rules. Also included are sample characters, handouts, and a fully revised version of the Cultist NPC class! Plunder and peril await in Freeport, the city of adventure.
For characters level 2-5. Requires the use of the Dungeons & Dragons®, Third Edition Core Books, by Wizards of the Coast, for use. The product uses material from the v3.5 revision.
(Originally posted by Lawbag)
As promised here is part 2 of my review of the Freeport Trilogy.
This module carries on directly from the first part, and brings back several of the key characters from the first adventure, and quite bravely, re-introduces a dungeon level the party had already explored. It was certainly quite eerie to be running an adventure through a dungeon they had already played in. The twist was there are new traps and encounters and things to discover. Anyway, I am getting ahead of myself.
The module is for higher level characters 3-5 (I think), and carries on the detective route of the first game, keyed into linked encounters. This time around though, the encounters are not set in stone, but can happen when the party is ready, or run in a different sequence than written in the book. The adventure tries to help you as a GM navigate your way around these problems through “expected” potential choices made by the party.
One comment made by my players, and one which jumped at me towards the early stages of reading the module, that all the events in Freeport is happening independent of the players. I.e. all the encounters and events would still happen without their input and to a certain extent they felt a little helpless.
Overall there are 4 main encounter locations/chapters and maps, but through clever avoidance my group bypassed 2 of them. Of the remain 2 encounters, one was a little forced (i.e. the clues they discovered were bleeding obvious), and the other required a “leap of faith” to undertake. By that I mean, the module assumed that because the players had discovered several large tunnels beneath the city, that they would automatically decide to go to the local council offices and demand routes and maps of the underground network. Most parties I know would immediately lift the nearest grate and head into the blackness. Annoyingly this encounter with the local councilor and his maps of the tunnels of Freeport is a mine of vital information for the plot to come ahead.
I suppose what I am trying to say is that whilst the adventure if run like the module would actually be quite good if it stayed on its fairly rigid rails, the moment it derailed, I had to ad-lib the remaining 70% and hack apart sections to make a playable game. Debating whether or not this is the fault of the designer is kind of pointless, as we did have fun with the module even though I didn’t actually enjoy running it. My enjoyment came from two mini-adventures I slipped in between parts 1 and 2 of the Freeport trilogy which introduced some interesting characters with which the party has attached itself to, and whom have attached themselves to the party.
This adventure can be run stand alone, as there is a sufficient (Id say excessive) amount of space given over to “Whats happened so far”. Also a large amount of the appendices is given over to new creatures, a bonus prestige class, all of which added a little flavour to the game, but not enough to warrant the amount of pages.
The second part wasnt written by Chris Pramas this time around and it does show his lack of input.
I think I gave the first part a seven out of ten, so in all fairness, I will give the second part a fair and honest
5.5/10