COMMENTS BY THURYL
Echoes: Renegade

Combat was consistent in difficulty and required a fair range of tactics, but felt a little too random; some of the later bosses could wipe out the party in a single round if they happened to use the right combination of attacks. Item and spell rewards weren't manifestly excessive, which was a pleasant surprise for a TM scenario. The plot holds together well enough at first glance, which is good enough for the scenario's purposes. Unfortunately this was probably the buggiest of the four scenarios I judged. Outdoor encounters sometimes reappeared when they weren't supposed to. Nature Lore behaves weirdly (checking a single PC's skill instead of the whole party); this was apparently an intentional decision on the designer's part, but it's a dubious one at best and should have at least been mentioned in the documentation, since it's a departure from BoA's explicit recommendations on how to distribute NL. The final boss fight was good in terms of tactics and challenge, but had a serious bug which forced several reloads. I'd probably raise my score significantly if the bugs were fixed. As it is, though, it's an 8.1.

Rating: 8.1

Embers of Rebellion

Does a good job of including some interesting quests that don't require combat. The plot has potential, but suffers a little from the fact that the scenario is so short; the ending didn't seem to resolve much and felt a little unsatisfying as a result. The final battle seemed unbalanced compared to the rest of the combat -- while my party dealt with the earlier fights with little difficulty, my fighter had about a 30% hit rate against Joshua and nobody else could do much to him since he was invisible. Overall, this scenario is nice enough but a little lacking in substance.

Rating: 7.8

Exodus

Has a few bugs, but less buggy than E:R or RA, which is pretty impressive given its size. The plot is serviceable if a little overwrought at times, and the scenario manages to strike a decent balance between the main plot and sidequests. Combat doesn't require a particularly broad range of tactics (with the exception of a handful of melee-immune enemies and a couple of gimmick bosses), and gets rather easy toward the end as super-powered items and special spells become available, but hey, how many chances does one get to legitimately tool around with a level-100 party in a decent scenario?

Rating: 8.7

Rats Aplenty

 Has some very funny moments and well-written dialogue (although the humour is a little hit-and-miss; the blacksmith seemed a bit over the top to me). The contrast between the fletcher who couldn't talk and the leatherworker who wouldn't shut up in the same building was amusing in a surprisingly subtle way. Gets more serious toward the end, although the seriousness is a little undercut by the fact that you're still dealing with a bunch of talking rats. The Duffeldorf Manor sequence was fun but the quests associated with it were somewhat buggy. Combat is a little uneven in difficulty; it's possible to stumble into very difficult fights outdoors early on, but the final battle is relatively trivial. (Unlimited training in Blademaster for 500 gold per point is a bit much for a beginner-level scenario, too.)

Rating: 8.5