My very first AL adventure to play, as well as run. I love the replayability of it, having different outcomes based on player agency. Can be fun and challenging for all types of players. One of my go-to T1 adventures to run for new players!

The big combat at the end adds some great complications that make it fun and memorable.

You might be tempted to leave out the complications, but they force the party to work together and plan their actions to save the townsfolk. My players loved it.

This module mostly runs fine: it has interesting role-playing options and reasonable combats. However, the first part of the module, exploring the village, only works if the players are actually interested in exploring; if they go straight to the tavern, they miss context on the dialogue of the village's internal conflict, and can miss Sylas altogether without DM prodding.

This module does a really good job of creating interesting choices and really different consequences for the different choices. My biggest criticism is going to be that some of the fallout of wrong choices has such a strong impact on later modules in this series of adventures--and can do so even outside the control of the players. There is an early encounter in this adventure that, if a certain NPC rolls particularly well (say, a natural 20, as happened to my group), a certain NPC faction will have a very negative opinion of the party, and if they go on to certain other adventures (DDAL05-10 and DDAL05-16 in particular), will make certain options unavailable--or at least so difficult as to be unappealing to nearly any party.

That said, both paths of encounters are flavorful and challenging, and the players--unless they've played or run the module before--won't see a lot of the opportunities they may be missing as a result of their--or NPCs--choices.

WARNING: Potential Spoilers ahead.

The strength of this module is really in its NPCs. My players enjoyed talking with Sylas and Wallace, they spent a really long time gathering information and going around the town. If you are running the other modules leading up to Parnast under Siege, you should let them! This is one of the few modules where the party can explore the town and get a feel for Parnast in its default state. Once they are invested in the people and their plight, the hooks for the subsequent modules are a lot easier, gold or not.

I strongly suggest not letting the party split up to explore the forest, which is what mine did. This resulted in one group finding the stag and triggering everything while the other party was camping away, so half the group was a little bored while the bard talked things over with the fey prince. What worked well was playing up the danger and mysteriousness of the fey - I had the stag not leave tracks, the trees move omniously, critters staring at the party. Really helps establish the mood when they talk to Thornacius.

The final fight can be really fun but also confusing - I suggest a clean battle map and clearly marked obstacles as its really easy to lose track of where everyone is. I did not bother placing townsfolk on the map and just designated the entire region around the table as difficult terrain for 3-4 rounds (this also completely messed up the wizard and bard's sleep spells). Thankfully, my players went full "big damn heroes" and saved everyone, but a more selfish party might need a reminder by Ragnar or Wallace to protect the townsfolk. Foreshadowing this by discussing how Parnast has been losing people and how any further loss would be devastating helps as well. Other than the complications, the rest of the fight was pretty vanilla. Cinematic storytelling might help to keep players engaged.

Combat: 6/10 Puzzles: 5/10 Social: 9/10 Explore: 8/10

I really enjoyed DMing this adventure. It has a lot of branching out on it, creating alot of replayability. It made my players feel in control of the adventure even though it was an AL module. This adventure is even better with Season 8. I made the fights less challenging than it said by one level but this allowed more Roleplaying in this. My players enjoyed it. One even came up to me afterwards, (a more adventured player), and told me how much he liked the more roleplay aspect of the module.

Some Spoilers:
Since I was running the Parnast Series, I was trying to build the city up to play the others in the series (Bad Business in Parnast, Giant Diplomacy, and Parnast under Siege). Let them explore the town, let them talk to whoever however (we spent about 20 min roleplaying and figuring out about the town). I made Sylas a little more important in the module and put emphasis on him, and create the tie a little better with Weathercote. It also allowed my players to purchase the Wake Up Sauce. Which they all put their money together (since season 8 has less gold and they were level 1) and bought it and the blue potion. They figured out the potion through subtle hints. They saved the sauce for the future.

5/5 Would really recommend this for any type of players. Small town, descriptions of all the main people and buildings. Allows for RP, Skill checks, and fights. Allows for variety of types of players since it has many branching paths.

I enjoy the branching path of this adventure quite a lot. More diplomatic groups get to have fun social encounter, but they do still get to have a good fight in the end. More combat oriented groups get a chance to shirk the expectation of interacting with the sprites and just power through a couple of harder combats instead. I'm also a fan of the ties to the previous adventure, and the ability to make a call back to it in the party's interaction with Azam. All in all I'd highly recommend this to beginning groups.

This was an interesting game. I was a little leery during the encounter with the sprites, as the people I usually run for can be a bit...eccentric, but nothing bad happened...there. Did end up getting an entire TPK during the final boss fight. It eventually came down to the boss gnoll and the sorcerer with 2 hp.

Solid adventure with Role-play opportunities and branching outcomes. It helps if the players have previous experience in the town but that is always an issue with the 2 hour adventures. Some day I expect this will be an adventure I 'deja vu' on since it is a nice low level adventure.

As a DM I think some of the purchase options need stronger hooks since dropping gold on an unknown shouldn't be guesswork.

The feast story is a nice difference from a typical dungeon crawl, and the adventure has some different angles and surprises that keep the players entertained. We really liked it.

The module has abit of everything - really good for players who are just starting out in the game. Would recommend it.

A very enjoyable adventure with a nice mix of roleplay opportunities and combat encounters. There are some interesting NPCs that can be fun for the DM to play in Thornacious and Blassios. Having solid NPCs always makes the DM’s job more enjoyable.

One drawback is that with a 2 hour listed time there really isn’t enough time for the characters to get to know the town well enough to be motivated by its plight while also having time to solve the problem. This may end up running long for that reason.

I really enjoyed this season's T1 modules. All give ample opportunities for roleplay solutions, with meaningful consequences both within the modules, but especially in the final capstone. This module is no exception. The various NPCs are also fun to play with.

A solid try at a 2 hour adventure. It suffers from the usual issues of 2 hour adventures, but manages to pick up a bit with it's conclusion.

It makes solid use of magician's force to give the players the appearance of agency, while maintaining it's internal integrety quite well. The final fight has potential to be quite entertaining.

my son and his friends loved this one. These aren't especially hard quests, but the hunting was fun and the surprises were, too. Not too hard to roleplay either with younger players.