Jake Wallace wrote an interesting article for the Scenario Workshop called Zen and the Art of Game Play in which my scenario was prominently figured. I would like the opportunity to post a brief reply with that article. Far from flaming you, Jake, I appreciate what you said. When I was writing EL I thought perhaps five people in addition to my beta testers would play it. I had no idea it would spread so far. Some comments about your individual points: 1. I agree the two items you mention are too powerful. That was a mistake. 2. The whole point of the Test of Resourcefulness was to force the player to do something other than fight these guys. You actually came up with a novel way I hadn't heard before! The easy way is to take the secret passage. Most people do a trick involving going in and out of fight mode. 3. I deliberately made the mission hard to find, and the initial dialogue and descriptions reflect this. Very few people have had any real trouble figuring out where they should go. I liked the idea of making it non-linear at the start, especially since it gets quite linear internally a couple of times. 4. There are only about three puzzles in EL. And there are so many random encounters with thieves and lizards that I got complaints about it. Perhaps the party you used was not medium level and they fled. I thought there was enough fighting in the Vahnahtai caves and the Frigid Fortress to satisfy even the most blood thirsty adventurers. But everyone has their own taste. BGraceFild