I1 - Dwellers of the Forbidden City

*SPOILERS*

Thanks a lot! I see now what the problems were.

1. I had actually found the dagger already but unknowingly sold it to Gianner. I assume that is a bug or oversight, since all the other items cannot be sold? The ritual dagger is worth 1 GP instead of 0 GP in the shop.

2. This one is completely on me, I overlooked or forgot the map pin to the Northwest Pass, I had never been to that area before.

3. What final quest? I have all the items now and am able to end the module, without any other quest firing.

4. Hm, okay. I suppose my rogue picked that locked instead so that I did not need the key.

5. D'oh! You're right, I totally forgot about that. I assigned a quickslot to the map at the start, right next to the Emerald of Recall, but while I often made use of the latter, I never thought about the map anymore and did not use it a single time throughout the whole game. Silly me. Thankfully, there were Haste items in the game, which is almost as good as fast traveling. ;)

There are a few more loose ends:

(a) I found a Miniature Carved Chest the description of which says it needs something else in order to be opened - what is it?

(b) I never found out what's the deal with those magic mouths calling for help in the Master's court ...

(c) I found the Bullywug "God" Egg before visiting the swamps; when I went into the swamps the bullywugs were hostile and their "God" was, too, after it spawned as a dragon right when I entered his lair. I suppose there would have been some way to bargain with the bullywugs or at least their God, if I had done things in a different order? Did the egg have anything to do with that? Or what is it for? After I defeated the God, the journal entry and the conversation option in Gianner's dialogue both claimed the Pan Lung had polymorphed into a human and accompanied me, but that didn't happen in my playthrough. It just attacked me on sight and I killed it ... Did I hit it too hard? Was it supposed to trigger a surrender dialogue before dying?

(d) In general it sounds like bargaining with the factions or playing them against each other is an option, but in my playthrough they were all hostile to me and did not talk (except for the mongrelmen chief, and one time I was approached by a humanoid who suggested I help him become the chief of his tribe but I declined; are there many other ways to solve the faction quests that I missed for some reason, or is that just in the original P&P module and in yours you mostly just fight them?

(e) When I got to the mongrelmen part of the city, it was empty except for a raccoon and the chief, but the flavor text suggested it was full of people. Did you choose to have the player imagine the mongrelmen, just by reading the text, because you hadn't found any good models for them, or should there have been some and they did not spawn for me? I also later found the area called "Meeting with the Mongrelmen", after this faction quest was solved already, and it was empty as well ...

(f) I found Kwairno's Spell Book after I had already been to the past and back. The description lists some spells it contains, including Comprehend Languages. Would I have been able to communicate with the old inhabitants of the Forbidden City in the past, had I found the book earlier and taken it with me to the past? Or did it have any other use?

And some more observations I made:

- I thought the dialogue in the module was generally well written and polished, but the introduction by Holo the Guide I perceived as confusing, because Holo and the PC were almost talking past each other, both feeding the player with various pieces of information in a way that felt unnatural and artificial to me, pure exposition for the audience, without regard for how characters would actually talk to each other in this situation ...

- I opted for the introduction, but I actually found the introduction quest very late into the game only, because it is so well hidden in Gianner's dialogue. Holo the Guide says to talk to Gianner about the introduction quest, so I talked to Gianner and he explained some things to me, but did not mention the quest. When he gave me the option to ask more questions, the dialogue only repeated stuff he had already told me before, so I thought that was all I'd ever get out of him. But when I wanted to sell things to him later in the game, I accidentally clicked on "I have some questions" again, and lo and behold, this time there was an option about the introductory quest. So it actually shows up only if you talk to him again, not in the first conversation where I would have expected it. And even then, it's hidden behind "I have some questions" which I thought I had already exhausted before.

- The bosses you fight often surrender before they die, they become neutral and initiate a conversation with the PC, right in the middle of battle, while all other opponents stay hostile, which has a huge potential of interrupting the conversation and possibly even makes the boss start fighting against his former allies, and sometimes I even had the impression my henchmen were continuing to try and kill the boss regardless (not sure about this, I might be wrong, the situations were so chaotic). I got through these conversations with the pause button, and one time when it was interrupted, I just finished the battle with the other opponents, keeping my henchmen away from the boss, then talked to the neutral boss again after the battle, and it worked. So it's nothing game-breaking, but it feels a bit clunky and stressful. Admittedly, I have no clue how hard it would be to make all other enemies stop fighting as well when a boss surrenders. A compromise could have been to just let the boss turn neutral and scream a one-liner, like "Stop! I surrender!" or so and then wait for the PC to finish the battle and initiate the conversation with the boss of their own accord, when the party is not excited and engaged in combat anymore. That way the conversation would not run he risk of being aborted by outer influences. Also, one time a boss asked if I would let him live for information or treasure, and I said that depends on how good it is, but when he offered it to me, there was no option anymore to say "Not good enough" and kill him anyway (which I would have expected because "that depends" suggested a choice; not because my PC is a merciless killer, ofc. ;)).

- I had some difficulties getting through the part in the entrance to the city where you have to cross a bridge and tasloi are throwing boulders at you from above, if only because I wanted to do it without any of the henchmen dying (which in hindsight is a bit silly, since it's so easy to get them back). In any case, even when my PC went alone and the henchmen did not set a foot on the bridge, the rocks would still affect all of the party and kill the weaker ones regardless, which felt weird, but I guess that's just how it is scripted and it's hard to do any other way?

- I talked to some of the henchmen around the campfires, declined taking them with me, and when I later came back to them and wanted to check their class again, the dialogue option explaining about their class was gone, so I thought I had no way of knowing what class they are without inviting them first. Fortunately, I found out that you also put their class in their description - great! But for a moment I wondered why you removed that dialogue option, since it seemed inconvenient.

Anyway, sorry for this wall of text, I hope I'm not stealing your time or bothering you with this. All in all I had a lot of fun with this module and will write a positive review soon! :)