The complexity of the characters reinforced my initial impression that D&D is only viable for the first ten levels or so, and discouraged me from wanting to play paragon tier.

The adventure was poorly thought out, vague, inconsistant, badly written, and apparently subject to only the most cursory editting. Terrain was unlabelled, so the DM had to guess what effects applied where. I had to even guess where the characters entered the map.

The central mystery, as presented, was contradictory and unsoluable. At least a thousand townsfolk are missing, but there are no real clues, no sign of a struggle, no tracks, only a single girl has escaped and is hiding. “Calming Solphi” was presented as level 11 complexity 3 skill challenge with ridiculously low DCs, entirely too many primary skills (almost half the available skills), and supposedly yielding 3,000 XP (when the DMG lists 1,800 for a level 11, complexity 3 skill challenge).

The combat encounters were long and sloggy, with high hit points under conditions of multiple stacking penalties (for example, concealment plus troglodyte stench). Supposed allies shared no language in common, and negotiations took place between monsters who not only could not speak to one another, but were unintelligent beasts. Demons, which are described in the Monster Manual as being incapable of complex planning and self-restraint were carrying out a complex plan requiring self restraint, with insufficient numbers to actually carry out said plan.

At the end of the adventure, the thousand or more missing townsfolk are reduced to a dozen cowering people kept in place by monsters that appeared in the text description, but were nowhere else in the encounter: no stack block, no mini, and not indicated on the battle mat. The monsters suggested tactics were lame, suicidal, and tended to prolong the already overly long combat.

I spent a great deal of time modifying the adventure and correcting the character sheets. Whoever Gregory Marks, the nominal author of the adventure, is, I will be avoiding any products bearing his name, and advising others to do likewise. I only wish I knew who his nameless editor was, so I could avoid their work in the future as well.

I made the adventure work for my players, who did have a good if confusing time.

Otherwise, I agree with all your assessments. The encounters ran far too long—our DM later remarked that the troglodytes only added HP to the combats—and the maps and setup for the mill encounter were ambiguous.

Having played the warforged, I was disappointed that although its warforged resolve power was mentioned, it wasn’t explained on the sheet. It’s not like it’s included in either PHB.

And whilst I can’t really complain about something I got for free, if I ever bring those minis out for my own games, they’re going to need a new paint job first. I got pride, dammit.

MATERIALS:
First, our store had plenty of materials. They had enough to run 5 tables 3 times each through the day. So, sounds like your store got shorted, not sure. Our store had plenty of product and from what I saw was packed, as each session had a minimum of 5 players.
I could care less about the module, as you stated, it was crap, but honestly I didn’t expect anything exciting from this type of event. I had volunteered for the experience really.

MINIATURES:
Wow, do they suck. I mean really suck. They have lost all quality control or don’t even care anymore. I hate them all. The new sculpts suck, the paint sucks, they all suck. The Dire Bear was the only decent one IMO. I let all the player’s keep their respective miniature and character sheet.

CHARACTERS:
Agreed, having the Paladin seemed silly, though I do think they gave him some of the new Paladin abilities from the upcoming Divine book, so in theory he had some abilities no one has seen before. Otherwise it was a good set of PC’s with yes, atrocious errors on the sheets.

STORY:
OH my…yeah, it was bad. I was thinking to myself, why would a “bandit” group consisting of a Quickling, Dire Bear, and two Troglodytes be raiding a village? They would DESTROY a village like Weeping Briar, not raid it.

The mistake I realized was not making the trogs minions in the first encounter. We ran that one full strength, and I heavily modified the final two just so we could finish on time. Second encounter the Trogs were minions, and the last encounter I only had one Gloom Trap and only the Mezzodemon and two spitters, left everything out (we had 10 minutes for that encounter).

PC LEVEL:
Yeah, 11th level sounds cool, but wow do you get a LOT of encounter powers to choose from. Didn’t help that my table had: 2 players who had played 4th, 2 players who regularly played 3.5, and one player whose never played a role playing game. That greatly added to encounter length for us as well.

All in all I’m still glad I did it, I had fun and all my player’s thanked me for running the game.

I agree on your assessment about the adventure. 11th level was too high. We spent the first 30 minutes of the 4-hour session reviewing the PCs and answering questions. Encounters still ran long as players pondered their options. We were one player short, so I removed a creature from each encounter, but still didn’t get to the last encounter. I should have considered 1/2ing HP (my biggest complaint against 4E is bloated HPs).

I didn’t mind the plot/theme of the adventure, though it was nothing remarkable. The skill challenge was horribly designed, and I’m beginning to have doubts that the mechanic works at all as written. Every one I’ve run from a published adventure has required heavy modification in order for it to work as a role-playing encounter with a logical flow rather than a series of mechanical skill check rolls.

We had similar issues at our area store for WWGD. The owner scanned and printed enough copies of the adventure for everyone, but there weren’t enough miniatures. Players who expected the freebies given at prior events were sorely disappointed, and vented their frustrations at the owner, as if he somehow controlled what WOTC sent to him.

Hopefully, WOTC will receive enough feedback about this issue that future events will be better supplied.