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Rating: 
Summary: Good d20 Dungeon Crawl with other Possibilities
Review: Having picked up a couple of the other products by Necromancer Games/Sword and Sorcery Studios, I decided after glancing through Rappan Athuk that this had possibilities as well. First off, let me say that the only disappointing thing about this product is the long wait between part 2, where more info on the lost Temple of Orcus will be presented. This is a good, basic dungeon crawl with several tough encounters. There are enough hooks available so that it can be dropped into any campaign that you are running. Plus, there is plenty of room for a creative DM to add to the dungeon or make it a part of his or her campaign. The toughest creatures that the party will encounter is this module are the Skeletal Warrior (who is a Blackguard), Purple Worms and the Spectral Lich, who resides on a level that the PC's will have to work hard to get to. The treasures are commensurate with the encounters, so the PC's will be happy. Overall, the product is great, it is presented well and easy to follow.
Rating:
Summary: Best module for the third edition so far.
Review: Normal Necromancer Games products value roll-playing as much as role-playing. The dungeon is a tomb that becomes later a temple and later leading to gates of hell or the fabled mithril city. This is part 1 and it's only from ground level to level 4. These first parts of the dungeon take level 4 characters to level 8. If I was to rate how difficult the dungeon is, I would say 9 out of 10. What's nice about the Rappan Athuk series is that they can be added to any campaign. The tombs can simply be anywhere in your world. I attached them to the module Crucible of Freya since it took characters from level 1 to 3 and is supposed to be in the same world as the Rappan Athuks. Perhaps the best feature of the dungeon is it's freedom of a controlling theme. The characters have a goal and a lot of clues but there are no timed events waiting to happen after a certain amount of time or themes have passed. The middle levels are accessible at all times as long as you solve the puzzles or get through the nasty battles. I have tried the other D&D modules and they are pretty good but I believe this one is the best one out there so far when it comes to challenge and roll-playing.
Rating: 
Summary: Delivers what it promises.
Review: Since you can read the introduction in the "Look Inside" section, I won't say much about it except that Necromancer Games is going for an old style dungeon romp with monsters, puzzles and traps (including instant kill ones - ie, if you don't escape the trap, you're dead.. no save attempts). The graphics on the cover are quite nice and the black and white drawings inside are very well done. There's good use of white space in the text, making it easy enough to read. The maps however are below average. They're small, with no grids or size scale and hard to read. These problems are fixed if you log onto their site and download new maps, however this shouldn't have been a problem in a module that's otherwise of high quality. In addition, you can download more information about the wilderness and a special extra encounter that harkens back to a 'classic' (supposedly) module encounter from 1st Edition rules. This special encounter is now downloadable without having to dig up the codeword, since it's right on the site, and looks to be a fun addition. Before I go on, realize that I've only read, not DMed or played this adventure. This is part 1 of a 3 part dungeon and includes the upper levels. The nice thing about the dungeon is that it does not get incrementally harder as you move down it. The players had better realize that sometimes it's better to run, since not all the encounters are tailored with an eye towards the probable strength of the party. You can also travel between many levels, even skipping many in between, using certain routes. No "one way to the previous level and one way to the next level" deals here. This feels a lot more realistic (in spite of the claims by the authors that they want to go back to the good old days of illogical dungeons - I'm firmly convinced this was meant tongue in cheek as there is at least a nod towards logic in it). Of course, this only works if you have all three modules. There are some fiendish traps and strong monsters, but puzzles are lacking. One complaint I have is that the shaded text that's meant to be read to the players sometimes assumes you've gone through the dungeon a certain way and seen something referred to in the text (usually minor, like saying something along the lines of "The rubble in this room isn't quite as broken as that in both of the others." when the players may have only moved through one room on the way in). Also the shaded text sometimes assigns feelings to the PCs, a no no in my book. These complaints along with the maps prevent me from giving it a 5 star rating, but if you want a decently priced, hack and slash dungeon crawl in the old style, this looks to be one of the better choices.
Rating:
Summary: Put this in your bag of tricks.
Review: This module is advertised as the intro to a series of modules that are pure dungeon crawl (Long on Hack 'n Slash and Traps, short on roleplaying), but each of the levels in this dungeon can easily be adapted by a DM to be a standalone adventure. As such, this module will work for DMs who want a long running dungeon crawl, or DMs who just want a bunch (up to 5) of drop in 1 night adventures. Anyone looking to make money at publishing modules should look at this as a good example. This presumes next to nothing about the campaign, and so you can fit it where you need it in your campaign rather than making your campaign fit the module.
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