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
