I tested D&D’s new Deadfall adventure, and Szass Tam obliterated my party

A great D&D campaign is more than a set of robust combat encounters strung together. Someone needs to let Wizards of the Coast know, though, because Arcana Unleashed: Deadfall doesn’t have much else to offer. After nailing its saving throw with Arcana Unleashed (read my review here), the accompanying campaign feels lackluster – even with a tough-as-nails final fight against Szass Tam.

Review copies only reached hands recently, so I haven’t had time to run a full Deadfall campaign. I have, however, given it a close read – and given the final gauntlet some serious stress-testing. My guinea pig characters were appropriately leveled, but they weren’t quite as rich in magic items as heroes who survived the full campaign. Bear these conditions in mind for my review.

First, the gist for the uninitiated. Deadfall is a fantasy spy thriller adventure set in one of the Forgotten Realms’ most famous and hostile nations: Thay.

Yes, the place is still ruled by tyrannical Red Wizards. And yes, the lich Szass Tam is still bent on ruling Thay (and then, Pinky, the world!). You’ll play as undercover operatives, deployed by a slightly more benevolent Red Wizard to thwart Tam’s plans of necromantic world domination.

Wizards sets up the operation with a handy gazetteer to Thay, something that’ll delight anyone not intimately familiar with the setting. Thay is talked about in whispers, often from the outside, so this is a rare chance to see its inner workings and build characters from there.

Deadfall also nicely introduces a concept D&D was pushing in Arcana Unleashed: patrons that guide and reward your party. Unfortunately, the execution is underwhelming. Deadfall’s adventure structure smells richly of railroaded fetch quest.

When you think of espionage movies, what comes to mind? Risky gambits to gather intel? Undercover manipulation and dramatic betrayals? Taking down the system from the inside? This all happens in Deadfall, but it doesn’t happen to you.

All you’re doing is the grunt work for your patron. She tells you where to go and who to apprehend, and sometimes you barely know why beyond ‘they’re a buddy of Szass Tam’. Every idea for sabotage is pre-determined, meaning player agency has been replaced with a bedazzled shopping list. You never get the thrill of making decisions.

When big (but extremely predictable) plot twists happen, Deadfall doesn’t even stop to explain how they happened. You’re apparently instrumental to taking down Szass Tam, but details are on a need-to-know basis. Sometimes, even the DM doesn’t get enough info to fill in plot holes.

Combine this with non-existent character writing, and you’ve got a vacant set dressing for what Deadfall actually is – an excuse to run high-level combat encounters. Not every set piece in Deadfall need be solved with violence, but there’s as much fighting as there is social intrigue (if not more).

Those dungeon crawls, at least, are delightfully varied. Death tyrants stalk bazaars, and purple worms circle magic towers like snakes. There are smoky gambling dens, ancient temples, and pirate coves guarded by beasts from the deep. There’s more fiend stat blocks than you’ve had hot dinners, but Wizards makes almost every encounter feel different.

There’s also clear attempts to keep things balanced. Combat at D&D’s highest play tiers is infamously swingy, and it’s prone to bloat. Sometimes, a level-20 player will end a boss fight on turn one thanks to a lucky roll. Other times, the enemy’s endless supply of legendary resistance and magic immunity stretches things way past the standard three-to-four combat rounds.

Deadfall solves problem one in the usual fashion: throwing a meat grinder of low-level enemies at the party before they reach the big boss. Wizards did this in Vecna: Eve of Ruin, and it was a grindy bore. D&D players who are less enthused about combat may still find this a grindy bore, but dedicated strategists will appreciate the monster variety.

As for the second problem, not every combat encounter is a fight to the death. Unexpected circumstances often interrupt an inconsequential battle that would, otherwise, take six sessions to complete.

When it comes to Deadfall’s structural issues, these strategies are like throwing bottled water on a forest fire. They don’t conceal that key concepts like ‘challenge rating’ and ‘balance’ fall apart in high-level D&D games. They are, however, a welcome balm from session to session to soothe that repetitive gameplay.

If all you want is a combat simulator, Deadfall gives you the goods. It’s entertaining, and it’s really challenging. You might have noticed I listed this as both a good and a bad thing at the top of the review.

This is a cruel combat rollercoaster that, depending on your party, could prove tremendously exciting or incredibly frustrating. Deadfall’s success lives and dies on how accepting your group is of that great big balance swing.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the final fight against Szass Tam. I’m going to need to explain my math a little, so stop reading here if you want to avoid spoilers.

Szass Tam is a CR 23 spellcaster with all the usual trappings: Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Counterspell, Shield, Power Word Kill, you name it. He can only teleport as a legendary action, but apart from that, he’s an arsenal of killer combat spells. None of these are as threatening as his standard attack action, though.

Szass Tam can use multiattack to make three attacks. Those three can be any combination of his two standard attacks, Soul-Draining Ray and Paralyzing Touch. The former is a ranged attack that deals necrotic damage and gives targets disadvantage on attacks and saves until the end of their next turn. The latter requires you to get into melee range, but it automatically paralyzes the target.

There’s no save involved. If Szass Tam beats your AC (which, with a +13 attack modifier, is extremely likely), you’re paralyzed until the start of his next turn.

Tam can take multiple party members out of a fight for a round. Plus, thanks to the automatic critical hits given by the paralyzed condition, he can chip away at your HP single-handed (though he doesn’t need to – there are other assailants in this final fight).

In my test fight, the party Wizard rolled abysmally on Initiative, while Szass did pretty well with attack rolls. Szass paralyzed said Wizard on his first turn, and kept paralyzing him until his HP was low enough for Power Word Kill. Insta-death. The Wizard never took a turn. In a four-person party, that was a death sentence for all involved.

Anybody remember when we begged Wizards to errata the Carrion Crawler for paralyzing enemies for an entire fight? This is pretty close to that.

One part of my narrative-loving brain wants to call this a metaphor – one that shows how unjust the fight against tyranny is. The rest of Deadfall is so narratively shallow, though, that I think I’ll just call this ‘unfair’. Gluttons for pain will enjoy seeing Szass Tam turn them to goo, but just as many people will feel annoyed they didn’t get a fair shot.

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Source: Wargamer