5e Review: Tyranny of Dragons

The premier adventure for Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons is Tyranny of Dragons. I held off reviewing the product until I got a better grip of the edition. More than other adventures, the first one has the risk of having design problems and system quirks due to unfamiliarity with the rules. Plus, y’know, I was busy reading and reviewing the Core rulebooks….

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Clik here to view.What It Is

Tyranny of Dragons is an adventure told across two 96-page hardcover books written by Kobold Press under the supervision of Wizards of the Coast. The first volume, Hoard of the Dragon Queen, was released in August 2014, alongside the Player’s Handbook, a month prior to the Monster Manual and two-and-a-half months before the Dungeon Master’s Guide. The second volume, Rise of Tiamat, followed two months later.

The adventure takes characters from level 1 to around level 15, where the party has the opportunity to face off against the evil dragon goddess, Tiamat, preventing her from entering the campaign setting of the Forgotten Realms.

The Good

The adventure is an excellent introduction to the factions that form the spine of WotC’s 5th Edition adventures. However, only three factions are introduced in Hoard of the Dragon Queen, and it takes several sessions to meet those three. But, for anyone unfamiliar with the Realms and its organizations, it’s a solid introductions.

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Clik here to view.The adventure is firmly set in the Realms. While there is no conversion advice for other settings, it would be easy enough to move the adventure elsewhere, especially HotDQ. Rise of Tiamat is a little trickier to transplant, since the Masked Lords of Waterdeep play a larger role. It wouldn’t be that tricky to move it to any dragon-heavy world with a large city, such as Dragonlance or Greyhawk.

Driving home the location is the overland map that begins HotDQ, which is lovely. The cartographer hired certainly knows how to make a breathtaking world map. Most of the maps in the book are works of art, with lots of little flourishes, but especially the overland and town maps.. The encounter maps are hit-and-miss (more on this later) but are all well drawn and beautiful.

The adventure is presented as series of episodes, each of which fill a session or two of play. These episodes are often based around a location or quest, a set-piece for events. This design is often criticized for being a railroad, with the plot firmly established. This is true, however, the actions of the players are not pre-determined and there’s often some flexibility in how the players can approach an episode: stealth, deception, or crossbows blazing. Many groups enjoy a stronger plot or adventures with some rails, and need a little extra direction. So this is a nice option, a counterpoint to the sandbox that is Princes of the Apocalypse. Plus, the order of many of the episodes in RoT can be shuffled, with missions chosen by the players.

Because each episode is largely self-contained – its own little story – it is easy to pull out an episode for independent use. Each volume is a half-dozen smaller modules: the swamp castle, the hunting lodge, the caravan ride, the iceberg lair, the forest cave, etc. It’s a good source for inspiration or a quick adventure location.

The adventure is crammed with NPCs. HotDQ has an entire caravan of potential background characters, and the Council of Waterdeep in RoT has a lot of interesting NPCs. The latter partially make use of a form of NPC statblock, including personality traits (albeit with a different name for no good reason). The patrons and quest givers in the Council also have their own motives and respond differently to the PC’s choices in episodes, with some reacting positive and some negative. It’s an interesting idea, as is the tracking sheet for tallying the collected reactions of the council. It’s certainly confusing at first, but is easy enough to understand after reading the description. I’ll certainly steal the idea if I ever need to track reputation between groups.

Despite being the first adventures for a brand new version of the game, Tyranny of Dragons is very old school. Many of the encounters are challenging, not as conducive to the straight-up fights of the past couple editions: 3e-4e thrive on “balanced” encounters, where so long as the players do not do anything foolish, they gave good odds of success. More thought is needed to survive the adventure, which just presents the challenges and leaves it up to the players to find a solution… or die. I like the dangerous old school feel. Success depends less on tactics or skill building characters, and more on the cunning of the players and their strategic plans.

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The story of Tyranny of Dragons is much better than the paper thin Princes of the Apocalypse or the series of unrelated events that is Lost Mine of Phandelver. It’s large but fairly cohesive, with most of the episodes having some purpose or connection to the main plot. However, so much of the tale feels like a retread of Dragonlance. Evil human followers of the Dragon Queen -one for each colour- are bringing the goddess into the world in a hideous temple, while raiding cities and employing dragon-men. And they are opposed by a council of assorted factions who enlist metallic dragon. There’s even a flying castle.

The story doesn’t *really* fit the Realms. Tiamat was never a deity in the Realms, and only had a single appearance back when she was a common monster. The motivation and activities of the Cult of the Dragon are completely changed, shifted from creating dracoliches to worshiping live dragons. The plot of the adventure involves letting Tiamat escape from the Nine Hells, but why she’s trapped in the Nine Hells is never quite clear and is a huge retcon. It feels less like a Forgotten Realms adventure and more like an adventure that happens to be set in the Realms.

The adventure has a lot of logic problems. First, there’s no reason for the Big Bad to spread his dragon masks among his lieutenants. That just risks them being lost or taken by adventures. This is the innate flaw in designing a plot centred around a “get ’em all” MacGuffin: it’s really easy for the PCs to derail this entire plan by just getting one mask and hiding it really well. The plot circumvents this, meaning at points the player’s actions just do not matter. Another flaw is how the caravan centrepiece of HotDQ heads far north to reach a teleportation circle, which is needed to send them far to the east, so they can take a flying castle to the south and close to where they started. Why not just go straight to the flying castle? Or have the caravan make a B-line for the Well of Dragons? It’s a curious move. Heck, all the gold gathered at the start of HotDQ doesn’t seem relevant to the plot. The real schemes of the Cult don’t start until RoT, so the entire first adventure is largely superfluous. It could be replaced by a single episode or series of encounters.

The beginning of HotDQ doesn’t direct PCs to the relevant tasks. There’s no easy way to guide players or tell them what to do, without actually telling them what to do. It really requires a skilled DM to read between the lines and point the PCs in the right direction. Railroad adventures are least offensive if the plot hooks are good: if the players want to follow the hooks and do the logical thing then they don’t notice the rails.

Much of the action in the early parts of HotDQ takes place in the Keep in the town of Greenest, which serves as the PC’s base for the first three episodes. Except there’s no map of the Keep. Greenest itself is sparsely detailed. The adventure really seems to assume the PCs won’t try to go shopping, or check out what’s left of the inn, or interact with the townsfolk.

Too many of the encounters are just rooms with monsters. There’s precious few chambers with interesting terrain or features. Often combat is just a handful of monsters thrown into a room or in a random undetailed locale. A lot of fights just seem to be filler. Which is ironic, as there is not enough experience in the later parts of the adventure to gain a level. Many episodes are highly under xp-ed, and the milestone rules are required to run without adding fights. In RoT it even suggests letting a character level after each of the “Cult Strikes Back” episodes, which are a single encounter! And a few role-playing episodes can also result in level gain. The experience gained is also not apparent. Monsters are called out with bold text but summaries of experience are not included. This would be nice at the end of each episode.

There are a lot of NPCs present in HotDQ, but none use the bonds/ideals/flaws system that is the highlight of 5e roleplaying. And despite all the myriad NPCs on the caravan sequence, the cultists the PCs are trailing are not named nor described.

The cities in the adventure are not well detailed and not mapped. The PCs pass through Baldur’s Gate and Waterdeep, but neither city sees much description text. Again, the PCs are apparently not expected to shop or drink or socialize.

During the “Cult Strikes Back” episodes in RoT, the adventure doesn’t even build encounters for you, just suggesting monsters for the cultist attacks. While some flexibility is okay, a suggested configuration of opponents would have been nice.

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Clik here to view.The Ugly

The start of Hoard of the Dragon Queen has a severe lack of a beginning. The adventures are just expected to be bold heroes and rush into a fight involving a powerful dragon they cannot best. There’s little motive to get involved.

The beginning of Rise of Tiamat starts with a white dragon fight. However, the PCs *just* defeated an identical dragon at the climax of the last adventure. Meanwhile, The dragon is still much higher level than them and they no longer have the advantage of terrain. Ending HotDQ in a fight with a young red dragon fight might work better, and still be an acceptable challenge, and mean a non-included dragon type gains an appearance.

While I like challenging encounters, there are several unnecessarily hard fights. The white dragon boss at the end of HotDQ is Challenge 13 compared to the player’s level 7. This seems fine if going by 3e/4e Encounter difficulty guidelines, but doesn’t work as well in 5e. This is repeated in RoT with level 10 PCs fighting a CR 15 green dragon. This isn’t including the accidental TPK errors, like the infamous “No Room at the Inn” fight, where the original monsters were cut from the MM, and the replacement monsters received a significant Challenge boost between the publication of the adventure and the Monster Manual. (I wonder how many fights are unbalanced because the encounter building tiles or final Challenge of the monsters were still changing.)

The location of many NPCs is uncertain. For example, Dralmorrer Borngray, the boss of Episode 6, is nowhere to be found. If the DM is meant to place him according to the events of the campaign, this should be made clear. He’s certainly not the only wandering NPC that might be overlooked.

The final battle really wants to be a mass brawl, but isn’t. It wants to be this struggle between allied forces, like Dragon Age: Origins but it just doesn’t work. The final pre-Tiamat encounter is more bookkeeping and villains being defeated by NPCs off stage. The absence of the mass combat rules might have hurt this section. A re-write could be interesting.

One of the final missions is to forge an alliance with Thay, which just seems odd. Thay is on the other side of the continent and the effects of this mission have no impact on the final fight, as they brings no assets to the team. It’s honestly a trap, causing potentially more loss of reputation than gain.

The art and style doesn’t match the look of the rest of the 5e books: no inksplatters behind character illustrations, no torn illo borders, no stylized font for first characters in a chapter, no dropshadow on headers, no boxes for monster statblocks, etc. It looks less like an official product and more like a high quality 3rd Party Product.

The maps are lovely to look at, but not always useful. Many maps are cluttered with lots of extraneous details and flourishes throughout the negative space. Meanwhile the chambers and corridors lack detail. I wish more time had been spent making the rooms of the map look less barren and less adding stylized names and texturing. The labelling of maps is sometimes hard to read in HotDQ, and the size of squares varies, which can catch unwary DMs by surprise if they expect the 3e/4e standard of 5-foot squares.

For example, iceberg of Oyaviggaton not drawn, just its dungeon. And this map is unclear and a multicoloured mess. (Heck, this whole episode is so-so, with no real feeling of actually being on a large iceberg, such as rocking or a risk of flooding.) The map of Neronvain’s stronghold is muddled, as the artist opted for creative design over usability. The climactic encounter takes place at Tiamat’s temple, which is presented as a handful of squiggly shapes with no identifying details. Removed from the text you’d have no idea what you were looking at. Compared these with the maps of Princes of the Apocalypse or Paizo’s APs where you can print the maps out as a poster and use with minis (or throw into a VTT) many of these are severely lacking.

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These adventures emphasise the associated free PDFs and the fact that all you need to play is these books and the Basic rules. This is great. There is even an extra PDF, with the Council reputation tracker also being available as a download.

Hoard of the Dragon Queen ends with a flying castle the PCs (potentially) get the keep or borrow. More adventures should end with property being claimed.

The final adventure ends in a fight with Tiamat, who seems like an actual challenge. A big difference from many of the high level foes in the game, which feel a little weak

The cover of Rise of Tiamat is amazeballs. Like all the D&D books it’s unfortunately cropped, though.

The adventure introduces scrags, aquatic trolls, and ice trolls by just slightly modifying the monster in-text. And makes quick half-dragon NPCs by adding a breath weapon and resistance. Overall, the adventure has a lot of custom monsters that add flavour without requiring a unique statblock. Such as the tile monsters. Good stuff.

Speaking of monsters, the books include a few assorted NPC statblocks and brings backs drakes. I like drakes for some reason. Rise of Tiamat also has ice toads for some reason. But they seem different.

Final Thoughts

This adventure was heavily playtested, but it feels like more feedback was aimed more at the rules and less on the adventure itself. There was clearly more time spent adapting to the continually changing rule set than polishing the adventure, and it shows. It is not for a DM who doesn’t want to customize or adjust an adventure to fit their party.

Like Princes of the Apocalypse, the bad guy’s downfall is really the cult doing lots of unnecessary evil things, giving allies time to muster, while not summoning their extraplanar patron from the beginning. There’s little reason for the delay in bringing Tiamat into the world. It’s a little better than PotA as prisoners are needed as sacrifices and other handwavy justifications, but Severin draws a lot of attention to the cult prior, which results in his downfall.

For anyone unfamiliar with the design of more old school dungeons, it can be an interesting template and a learning experience. It’s nice to see adventures try to do something different and break the mold of the past couple editions, even if they were not entirely successful.

There’s a lot of problems with these adventures, and a lot of screwiness that a DM will have to work around, but there is some good stuff in here. It might work better as a source of inspiration than played straight, the framework for a campaign that weaves in and out of the larger story. Plus, with the limited experience, there’s lots of room for sidequests and personal stories, which are not always possible in an Adventure Path style campaign.

D&D5 Review: Southland Heroes

Edit: Since the publication of this review, the offending aasimar and lizardfolk text has been removed. This leaves the aasimar entry shorter but workable but means the lizardfolk subclass is incomplete. No text was added other other changes made. So, this book is no longer has legal issues (to my knowledge) but its overall quality was not improved.

Second Edit: It’s been updated again. Changes I’ve noticed:
The aasimar had it’s lore increased (restoring the original pagination). More lore is always good, so this is a nice plus.
The minotaur Charge trait and tosculi Glide trait were rewritten and are much tighter improving the races. The arrangement of the minotaurs racial traits has been corrected.
The lizard archetype has been completely revised ,and while not great, it feels much improved.
The bookmarks are fixed (they might have been fixed last time but I honestly forgot to check)
Usage of square brackets “[” rather than parenthesis “(” in the backgrounds has been removed.
The Gygaxian rant on animal companions being “more than a weapon” was moved to a sidebar, which works so much better.

Kobold Press is a 3rd Party publishers, also known as Open Design and responsible for the defunct Kobold Quarterly magazine. They’re a non-monoGamist publisher that used to release content for 4th Edition and Pathfinder and was hired to do the premier 5th Edition storyline adventures Tyranny of Dragons. They also have their own campaign setting, Midgard, which includes a region known as the “Southlands”. Connecting the Southlands and 5th Edition D&D is the new book, Southland Heroes.

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Clik here to view.What Is It

A PDF-only product, it is written for the “5th edition of the world’s first roleplaying game”. Like Necromancer Games’ 5e offerings, this was written under the 3rd Edition Open Game Licence,, but is for 5th Edition.

The PDF is 26 pages and is full colour, with a fair amount of high quality art. The book is not a full conversion of the campaignsome setting, just a small infusion of crunch for players.

The PDF features 6 new player races: aasimar, gnoll, lizardfolk, minotair, tosculi (bug people), and werelion. There are also 7 new backgrounds: child of divine, temple slave, siwali traveler, desert runner, with three variant soldiers that are pretty much full backgrounds. There is also a rogue subclass, a sorcerer subclass, and three variant subclasses: two druid and one ranger.

The Good

The production is excellent. The page background is clean and inoffensive, and doesn’t detract from the text, and has a papyrus/egyption feel that matches the Southlands.

Several of the races are decent. The gnoll and lizardfolk are well designed and seem reasonably balanced, and are easy to include in any campaign. While more niche, the tosculi insect folk are also well balanced, but have an ability to fly/glide that some Dungeon Masters may be wary of. The werelions are a little on the funky side and I would need to see them in play to decide if they were balanced, but I want to believe they are. Close enough anyway.

The minotaur somewhat copies the playtest minotaur from the Unearthed Arcana article Waterborne Adventures, repeating Labyrinthine Recall. As I liked that minotaur, I approve. However, its ability scores are more in line with other PC races and the damage of its horns seems more balanced, which makes those aspects a distinct improvement.Image may be NSFW.
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All of the backgrounds seem excellent. The Child of the Divine is pretty specific and has a non-standard language as its choice, but the rest are campaign neutral, while still at home in the Southlands. This is a tricky feat to pull off, so kudos to the designer. The three soldier variants are not presented like the other variant backgrounds in the Player’s Handbook, but are full backgrounds, complete with personality traits. Uneeded, but I’m not going to complain.

The language of the races is often in line with the Player’s Handbook. Unlike Fifth Edition Foes, it goes for 5e terms like “advantage” and “proficiency bonus”. This makes it easier to use at your game without needed to “convert” the language. However, I’m unsure of the legality of this, as Necromancer Games used “tactical advantage” for a reason. But, at the risk of sounding insensitive, this isn’t my problem so I’m counting it as a plus.

The Bad

I’ll begin with the nitpicky. There’s some odd editing in background section. On page 15, one of the temple slave ideals is missing an alignment. Also, the punctuation around the alignments varies between parentheses “( and )” and brackets “[ and ]”. Oh, and the PDF bookmarks for the background section are not properly grouped under the chapter header. I did say nitpicky.

The werelion gets three times the flavour of the other races for no good reason. It’s good flavour and I approve, but I’d have rather seen all the races get that or all the races get the same. It’s odd, especially since the races that arguably needs the most advice and background lore is the tosculi, being unlike any other race.

The gnoll doesn’t try and emulate the rampage ability of the gnoll from the Monster Manual. A case could be made that this is a “Southland gnoll” and distinct from regular gnolls. It’s a small complaint as monsters use different rules and doesn’t really impact the quality of the gnoll.

The minotaur’s Charge feature is somewhat of a mess. It refers to “gore attack” and “charging gore”, which does not really exist. If the target is a creature you can shove it back, implying a charging minotaur can only move people but not tables, thrones, or other solid objects.

The arrangement of the minotaur’s racial features is also disorganized, with darkvision and its natural attacks in the wrong place. The minotaur also has has a “Backgrounds” entry in its racial write-up for no good reason.

The tosculi flight ability is interesting (and more limited than the aarakocra’s)  but has an odd rule quirk. “If you have not landed at the end of any turn in which you use your fly speed, you must have descended at least one-quarter of the distance you traveled or you fall 40 feet, taking damage normally if you hit the ground.” So… they fall 40 feet even if they were 30 feet or 50 feet from the ground?

Subraces are not always handled like 5th Edition subraces. The aasimar, lizardfolk, tosculi are treated more like Pathfinder’s variant races, with base abilities swapped out for alternate features, allowing you to mix-and-match racial powers. This can work, but doesn’t match the design of the ruleset, so I consider it a flaw, despite not necessarily being broken.

The class options are hidden in the racial entries, rather than being given their own section. They’re not even called out in the table of contents. The ambush predator rogue subclass is in lizardfolk entry, the lycanthropic sorcerous origin is in the werelion, and three class variants are in the tosculi section. This is not unlike how class-based archetypes were handled in Pathfinder’s Advanced Race Guide. The rogue subclass is anemic, repeating the thief subclass’ 9th level and 17th level feature, while the 13th level feature overlaps with the Skulker feat (and works on the presumption that taking any action while hidden reveals your location). It’s pretty terrible. Especially since the tosculi entry varies subclasses, so there’s no reason the lizardfolk entry couldn’t have done the exact same thing for the thief subclass.

The Ugly

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Clik here to view.The biggest strike against the book is the aasimar. Not that it’s bad, the entry is right out of the racial example found in the Dungeon Master’s Guide. Like, word-for-word. This is fine as it matches, but it is full on plagiarism. Without an OGL permitting direct copying, this is a pretty damn massive problem. If you’re interested in this book, get it now before the WotC lawyers notice.

The background section begins with an explanation of what backgrounds are and what mechanical elements they include. If someone is buying a 3rd Party 5th Edition book, I think they’re likely to know what a background is and don’t need a lesson, let alone a full third of a page.

The race entries have very, very limited flavour compared to the 5e race standard. I adore the extra attention 5th Edition put into the fluff of its classes, races, and monsters and I’m always super disappointed when a 3rd Party releases a product that only updates the crunch and doesn’t put the extra effort of writing flavour.

The formatting of the book also feels more Pathfinder than 5e. Not just the lack of ink splots behind the art, but the formatting of the racial text: the first line in the rules sections is not indented and instead all the following lines being inset slightly. If you squint or replaced all the non-headers with Lorem Ipsum you’d swear this was a Pathfinder book.

The book also contains a one-column “rant” on the beastmaster ranger, on DMing and making the beastmaster’s pet more of an NPC and enabling non-combat usage. Appropriateness aside, it should have been separated as a sidebar. It’s really jarring.

The Awesome

I want to repeat how excellent the artwork is. It’s very high quality. I imagine it’s recycled from other Midgard/Southland products, but that’s irrelevant since the quality is there.

The gnoll Bully ability is solid and super flavourful for gnolls. I like the inclusion of a slight disadvantage in non-standard PC races.

As mentioned above, the tosculi race entry includes three variant subclasses. These are not new but modify the ranger and druid. It’s a very Pathfinder idea, but it works in this situation as tosculi have a bond with insectoid life, and not other beasts. It would be awkward to have a tosculi ranger with a badger, and it’s more efficient than making three new subclasses that only apply to the one race. And it would probably work for non-tosculi vermin druids as well.

The werelion entry has the lycanthropic sorerous origin, which is pretty rocking. I’m not sure why being descended from a werebeast made you a sorcerer or gives you magical powers, but it’s pretty darn cool and seems balanced. More sorcerer love is always appreciated.

Final Thoughts

I wanted to like this product. Most 3rd Party Products that have dipped their toe into the 5th Edition pool are adventures with a few campaign settings and books of spells and monsters. There haven’t been a lot of new classes, subclasses, and races. With limited crunch coming from WotC, this a void I’d really like to see filled. Especially by an established publisher that could be used as a template for how to release the content under the OGL for smaller publishers and fans.

Southland Heroes isn’t a bad book, but it’s not the book I wanted. How safe the product is under the OGL is questionable and it commits the sin of directly copy text from a non-SRD sources, and uses terms right from the 5e rules.

Aside from that gripe, the content is uneven and not always the best example of designing content for 5th Edition. There’s a “new” subclass that offers nothing new, races designed in the Pathfinder style, and poorly phrased mechanics. Given how much Kobold Press disappointed 5e fans with Tyranny of Dragons, this is NOT the follow-up 5e product they needed to release.

If you really want a gnoll race, a new sorcerer bloodline, crave new backgrounds, and want a good template for a lycanthropic race then this PDF *might* be worth the $5. But it’s a steep price for those scant pages of content.

Shameless Plug

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If you liked this review, you can support me and encourage future reviews. My book, Jester David’s How-To Guide to Fantasy Worldbuilding, is available for purchase. The electronic copy is available on Kindle, and DriveThurRPG. The PoD copy is available on Createspace and Amazon. Purchases from DriveThru especially allow me to purchase new PDFs for review purposes.

The book is a compilation of my worldbuilding blog series, and all the entries have been updated, edited, and expanded. The final book features almost two-hundred pages of advice on making your own fantasy world.

Pathfinder Review: Occult Adventures

I’m not even going to try and count the number of hardcover rulebooks released by Paizo for the Pathfinder Roleplaying game. Even excluding the ones for the Campaign Setting line it’s a lot. Occult Adventures is the most recent. The big GenCon 2015 release. Let’s delve inside…

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Similar to Mythic Adventures, this book is an optional rules expansion for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game providing rule options designed to add a new tone to a campaign or adventure. In this case, the occult: magical mysteries, otherworldly forces, and the supernatural.

The 271-page book features six new base classes that fill over 75 pages (1/3 of the book). Each of these classes also receives 4-pages of archetypes, and there are 14 archetypes for the other classes: 2 alchemist, a barbarian, 2 bard, 2 cavalier orders and 1 cavalier archetype, 1 fighter, 1 inquisitor, 1 investigator (psychic detective. Woooo!), 2 magus, 1 monk, 1 paladin, 2 rogue,  2 sorcerer bloodlines, and a witch archetype. Phew. Rounding out the book is 14-pages of new feats, 36-pages new spells for pretty much every spellcasting class, and 22-pages of new items. Plus a bunch of pages of advice, new rules, and more.

The Classes

Each of the six new base classes is large enough to warrant its own mini-review.

Kineticist

At 19.5 pages the kineticist the longest of the six new classes, which is ironic as its ostensibly the simplest. The kineticist is the archer-type character that “shoots” rocks or flame. It’s the least subtle of the classes being similar to a bender from the Avatar/Legends of Korra series or the protagonist of Stephen King’s Firestarter.

The size of the entry is mostly because all its class features are unique and not spells, and thus contained in their own entries.

The kineticist is a Constitution-heavy class, since the saving throws of its blasts and abilities rely on this. This makes it rather unique to the game, and likely a little hardier than its d8 Hit Dice suggests. It also needs a good Dexterity for its ranged attacks, but can otherwise dump-stat almost everything.

The class has changed a little since the playtest, having gained a fair but of utility (and some skills). Its damage looks okay; as the class relies on a ranged touch attack, they should hit often, especially at low levels. Even with Dexterity as a secondary stat they should hit often, but can only a single attack each round, which should prevent them from being too potent. The damage of their blast increases at the same rate as sneak attack, but doesn’t include weapon damage or iterative attacks. Energy resistance will really hurt the kineticist.

Details for the class spread out all over the place. Each element has its own list of wild talents that are listed in several separate categories: kinetic blasts (further subdivided into simple and combo), defensive, infusion, and utility. Not sure why they didn’t give them separate names, like defensive talent rather than defensive wild talent. They also could have placed the non-variable talents (simple blast and defensive wild talent) with elements rather than require players to flip to three different sections of the book.

Not all elements are created equal; aether and air don’t get 9th level wild talents. Air gets to pick five wild talents after level 14 but their list only contains two. Even with universals, there’s only a third choice, so two of their endgame wild talents have to be low level. Wild talents also have an “effective spell level”, and kineticists can only take wild talents that have a level half their level, which is rather unintuitive. Since they’re not spellcasters and wild talents aren’t spells, needing to wait until 4th level to take a 2nd-level wild talent is needlessly complicated.

While the kineticist has more utility, they still need to choose non-combat options. There’s no automatic cantrip (or knack as it’s known).

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Clik here to view.Medium

The medium channels spirits into themselves, evoking tropes of ghost whispers and TV psychics as well as elements of seances. It’s the most improved class between the playtest and the final book. I’m super impressed.

The old medium was a “ghost talker” in name only, lacking any ability to deal with the established ghosts and spirits in the game. The new medium has a power to affect haunts, which is excellent, and the Location Channel ability lets them talk to specific dead people. All great stuff that really hammers home the tone of the class.

The influence mechanic of the medium is much more solid, and the lists of spirits is significant more manageable. Each spirit has a taboo, that give a nice mechanical and role-playing penalty for gaining too much influence rather than a vague penalty.

The medium is potentially very flexible, as the choice of spirit can let it shift between roles in a party. However, in practice, feat choices and gear purchased will likely push it to regularly take one spirit (or maybe two); if the medium favours the Champion, it will likely have a magical weapon and Weapon Focus, which become useless if switches to Guardian, and it will lack the magical heavy armour ne Ed to take advantage of the benefits of that spirit. Playing with an inherent bonus system from Pathfinder Unchained would help

Mesmerist

Hypnotist and stage magician, the mesmerism can be somewhat described as the “anti-bard”, which debuffs enemies and is better at lying rather than diplomacy or music. But much of the time the mesmerism also buffs allies.

The mesmerist is slightly changed from the playtest. It still fixes opponents with a hypnotic gaze, lowering their Will saves. This is handy ability as the class is has 6 levels of spells, so it’s DCs will always be a little lower than a full caster’s. The mesmerist can also eventually tack on a secondary penalties, including one that allows the mesmerist to affect undead and other creatures typically immune to mental damage. This is funky, but super useful. The class also has the opportunity for decent damage, as attacks against the target of its stare deal extra damage. But only once a round, so it doesn’t stack well with iteratives. But, it never misses, so there’s that.

The weak part of the class are its tricks. Most are super situational and require a trigger, so they might not go off if the party is facing the wrong opponents. A few are traps at low levels and work better when the mesmerist has more tricks. However, they don’t have a duration, so the mesmerism can just implant them at the beginning of the day and activate when needed.

The mesmerism is somewhat interesting but my least favourite of the new classes. It could arguably have been a bard archetype replacing music with stares.

Occultist

The magic using occultist imitates occult detectives, such as John Constantine, John Silence, Harry Dresden and a wealth of others. An occultist relies on items and relics for their magic rather than personal knowledge.

The concept is interesting and there’s a lot of solid additions since the playtest, such as seeing auras, reading objects, and contacting outsiders. All abilities that fit the tone of the class. The occultist can also draw magic circles to capture creatures. The expansion of that last ability – fast circles – is weird: it allows the occultist to make magic circles as a full-round action, making it something that can be done in combat. Don’t they need to move to draw the circle?

Sadly, no real example implements are given; it’d be very easy to forget the flavour of this class, and just have a character using a “ring” or “amulet” rather than holy relics or enchanted items. Hopefully the inevitable splatbook detailing the classes’ place in the world of Golarion will contain a list of sample artifacts.

The occultist has a resevour of power, mental focus, which can be placed into items to give a static buff so as long as the item has any focus remaining. But imbued focus can be expended for small bonuses during combat. If the occultist expends all their focus, it depletes the items. It seems unlikely anoccultist will drain an item, so each likely holds at least 1 point hostage: a 6th level occultist will have nine or so points but only five will be usable. However, some of the abilities granted by the imbued item overlap with standard magic items (the so-called “big six”), so the benefit of an imbued item might be unnecessary. But, I suppose it might free up the slot, allowing more fun non-standard item choices.

The based on literary archetype of the psychic detective, but the occultist wears medium armour, has  access to shields, and can weild martial weapons. It’s a little odd.

Psychic

A full caster class, the psychic is not very interesting. This is to be expected as it’s has 9th-level spells, which are the majority of its cool things. Spells are its class feature. The psychic also gains some minor telepathic abilities, which are mostly flavour but still nice.

The key non-spell abilities are a pool of phrenic points, which modify spells by tacking on an extra effect, adding a small self-buff, or allowing the psychic to affect creatures normally immune to mental magic.

The psychic casts spells using its Intelligence, but one of two different stats  determine the phrenic pool, which is handy for making very different types of psychic. Regardless, the psychic is mentally heavy, and psysical stats are not really needed.

The psychic also has disciplines, which are the generic “build choice” option, granting small supernatural abilities. Disciplines are so-so mechanically but have some neat flavour, describing the way your character unlocked their psychic powers. I’d hoped to see more unique ways to spend phrenic points in disciplines, but the two mechanics are somewhat disconnected. This is so archetypes can remove one without negatively affecting the other (although, no archetype in the book actually gets rid of the phrenic pool). I’m not a fan of archetypes getting rid of signature abilities of a class: there should be *sonerhing* common to all variants of a class.

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Simmilar to the medium, the spiritualist calls upon spirits for aid. In this case, the spiritualist calls on a phantom that fights as their ally. The class is a pet class, like the druid, summoner, or hunter. There’s slightly less lore in function around summoning a spirit to fight at your side, but it works.

The phantom is a weird type of undead that’s not an undead, but an outsider. I imagine this is so it can have a Constitution score and be healed by positive energy, but this is a little funky and is really twisting the lore of the game to accommodate a quirk of the mechanics. The phantom is also

This class is very much the unchained summoner with “eidelon” crossed out and “phantom” written in its place. It has a lot of similar abilities gained the same level. However, the spiritualist doesn’t summon additional monsters, which makes it a *much* better class in my mind. Instead the spiritualist can do things like see the invisibles, calm angry spirits, and sense the undead. And unlike the hunter, the spiritualist is limited in armour and weapons, reducing the abuse of having two characters acting at the same time, which can abuse the action economy of the game. It seems much more balanced that the other pet classes, and unlike the others I’ll likely allow it in my game.

The Good

This is a great concept for a book. On paper it seems odd: a book on supernatural mysteries for a game system where 4/5th if the classes have sone magical ability. But it works, and contains good advice on adding that mystery to your campaign. If I run one more Pathfinder campaign, this book will likely be the centerpiece. It’d be neat to do a Carrion Crown campaign with this book as the primary source, along with a few other choice classes. And thus book seems essential for the forthcoming Strange Aeons adventure path, due out August 2016.

The iconics characters are nice as always. Their stories – which are on the Paizo website and not this book – are always intersting. They got a little long this year, which makes me nervous: whenever comparable fiction increases in length it usually means editing is getting lax. As always, Wayne Reynolds provided the art for the iconic characters. Paizo continues its focuse on diversity, with these iconics being from the equivalents of southeast Asia and India, as well as child, an elderly individual and overweight. The only nonhuman is a halfling. There is a lot more art in this class section of this book, with small pieces throughout, highlighting the gear of the iconic character. Some of this gear is interesting and relevant, but some is super-filler. Still, it breaks up walls of text, which is needed with the class entries getting so long. While seeing a firestarter iconic’s hockey stick is bland, it’s much better than no art.

The book includes new uses for skills with a psychic flavour. This is interesting and preferable to forcing a new skill into the game.

This book offers a replacement for the venerable magic jar spell: posession. This includes both a new spell and expanded rules, clarifying some of the oddities of body swapping. I like magic jar, but is certainly imperfect and does not mesh well with standard fictional portrayals of possession, especially by outside entities.

There is lots of information on mindscapes, which are tied to psychic duels. It’s a lot of detail for something that might be used once or twice, even in an occult game, but cool nonetheless. Without running a psychic duel in a mindscape the functionality of the rules is uncertain, but I’m curious to try.

There is slightly expanded information on the planes, mostly updating the descriptions or compiling details that have beenadded over the years. There’s not much in this section though, so the old Great Beyond book is still the definitive source of planar information. Man, I really want Paizo to do a big hardcover on their planes. Especially expanding details on the Dimension of Dreams. The concept of a dream plane has been kicking around the game since the era of 2e and no one has really done much with it.

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Clik here to view.The Bad

The book diesn’t tune into any stories. It’s not really needed for an AP or story they wanted to tell, and Paizo has been writing adventures with occult themes and tone since, well, ever. Rise of the Runelords had done occult themes. Unlike Ultimate Combat or Mythic Adventures, it’s not a book they *needed* to tell their stories. Which suggests if they don’t *need* it then neither do we. However, it’s much more relevant than the Advanced Class Guide, which was pure filler/bloat. And potentially ties into the 2016 fall Adventure Path.

11 pages in the book are taken up by class spell lists. Not spells, just lists of the spells.

There are no new monsters or updated versions of classic monsters. You need to buy the Occult Bestiary for that content.

The signature ability of psychic spellcasting is “undercasting”. Essentially, thus means when you learn a spell with variable levels of casting (think cure wounds or summon monster) the character always knows the highest level and can cast any of the lower variants. This is so-so and nit really enough to make psychic magic distinct from arcane and divine magic. And there’s maybe a half dozen spells that make use of undercasting, so they’re limited to the psychic, making them less a property of psychic magic and more a psychic class feature.

The classes in this book have little establishing flavour text. While they have the amount comparable to other Pathfinder classes, it feels lacking now.

The Ugly

This book includes a LOT of just tacked on lore, typically in the class section. It often doesn’t “fit” the world of Pathfinder, or does so in a very inelegantly. For example, aether is a big deal to sone kineticists (20% really, being the generic “telekinetic” build), and is described as “the rare substance formed when elemental energy affects the Ethereal Plane”. However, aether has never been mentioned before and is not mentioned in the expanded description of the Ethereal Plane in this very book.

There’s very little support for existing classes, even by way of feats and archetypes. This is really a book focusing on the new classes and their options. This makes it difficult to add to an ongoing campaign and it works best with a brand new campaign where the tone can be established from the start. But how many people are starting new Pathfinder campaigns these days?

Aura colours. I’ve tried to use auras before in other game systems, but always been super awkward in play. First, like all divination, it can derail a plot by revealing secret motivations. And it requires having a cheat sheet of colours handy.

Chakras are terrible. The idea is interesting, but the saving throws required are ridiculous. It’s two pages of content only for monks, as no other class has enough ki points to make it work, but monks are unlikely to have the stats needed to pull it off without building their entire character around the option.

The classes in this book really emphasise the nitty-gritty aspect of Pathfinder, with every rule having to fill every loophole for the sake of RAW, such as specifying abilities can be used with non-hand prehensile limbs or being activated “as a free action even when it isn’t your turn”. Many powers feel much, much longer than necessary due to the wealth of clarifying text. So often reading a new power feels less like something magical and more a legal document. For a book on magical mysteries of the mysterious, this is rather ironic.

Similarly, all the classes in the book are long. As long as the longest classes from the Core Rulebook. Getting into any of these classes involves a lot more reading, and there’s no simple two or three page class for people who don’t want to pick from a giant list of options. There’s no “fighter” or “unchained barbarian”.

The book wastes half a page explaining how archetypes work. With eight other books referenced, it seems unlikely this will be someone’s first foray into archetypes.

Page 175. How does this art fit? It feel like something they just had lying around. “We need some art for a short chapter. What have we bought but not used?”

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There is a bloodbender kineticist archetype. It even looks somewhat Inuit, conjuring thoughts of Katara from Avatar: the Last Airbender.

The kineticist got all the cool feat: kinetic leap, interweave composite blast, parting blast, kinetic counter. All super evocative and thematic.

The explode head spell. ‘Nuff said.

Occult rituals a neat idea. I like the idea of powerful magic spells non-caster characters can perform, or accomplish as a group. It works with the narrative of someone accidentally casting a potent spell from a spellbook. Conjuring a demon is a classic example: why does Faust need to make a deal for magical power when he’s already a 14th level caster? And so often in play you want a lower level group to be able to perform some sort of magical deed that the rules say is impossible, like planar travel. The balancing factor of requiring numerous skill checks means these rituals are mostly going to be done by high level casters though, as no one else is going to have that many ranks in knowledge skills. But the framework is good and just needs some hand waving or DM-induced limitations.

There’s lots of advice on running occult games, including some campaign seeds: brief outlines for an adventure. It’s a short section but does the job.

There are revised haunt rules, including options allowing non-clerics to deal with haunts. A much needed change.

There are lots of fun items, both magic and mundane. A few choice examples include a drowsing rod, hypnotist locket, phrenologist’s kit, straitjacket, tin hat, ventriloquists’ dummy, dreamcatcher, four-leaf clover, ganji doll (read: voodoo doll), lucky horseshoe, shrunken head, haunted doll, and monkey paw. Plus the soul portrait, evoking Dorian Gray. Fun stuff.

There’s also Loci spirits, a form of positive haunts that bless creatures. A great idea.

Final Thoughts

I really like his book. It’s been a long time since a bought a Pathfinder hardcover and said “I want this in my game, right now!” Let alone had a book I wanted to base a campaign around. I’m pretty much done with Pathfinder and looking forward to finishing my Skull & Shackles game and switching over to a 5e homebrew. This book makes me want to hold off for one more Pathfinder fling

But, I’m a Ravenloft fan from back in the day so I’m pretty heavily this book’s target audience. So… bias alert.

There’s a lot of excellent stuff in this book, and the balance and quality seems much tighter than the Advanced Class Guide. If you’re the kind of person who likes the occult, wants to run a game with more wonder and mystery in its magic, likes a dash of horror in their fantasy, or simply wants to play a wizard that’s more Dresden than Gandalf then this book is for you. If you like fantasy super heroes and non-subtle games and enjoy blasting waves of orcs with magic.. well, the kineticist is pretty cool as well.

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If you liked this review, you can support me and encourage future reviews. My book, Jester David’s How-To Guide to Fantasy Worldbuilding, is available for purchase. The electronic copy is available on Kindle, and DriveThurRPG. The PoD copy is available on Createspace and Amazon. Purchases from DriveThru easily allow me to purchase new PDFs for review purposes.

The book is a compilation of my worldbuilding blog series, and all the entries have been updated, edited, and expanded. The final book features almost two-hundred pages of advice on making your own fantasy world.

Review: Midgard Heroes

Following up on Southland Heroes, Kobold Press has released Midgard Heroes. This book contains races and backgrounds for the 5th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons based on Kobold Press’ Midgard campaign setting. It is now available on the Kobold Press website and likely DriveThruRPG.

Honestly, being the more traditional release, I’m uncertain why this followed Southland Heroes.

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This product is a short 28-pages document offering a taste of player content for the world of Midgard. It includes 10 new races (alseid, centaur, dragonkin, gearforged, ghoul, kobold, minotaur, ravenfolk, shadow fey, and trollkin) and 7 “new” backgrounds (corsair, darkling, fey-touched, guild merchant, master craftsmen, nomad, and raider).  

Like the other 3rd Party Products for 5e, this is published for the “5th Edition of the world’s most popular roleplaying game” using the Open Game Licence and the 3e System Reference Document.

The Good

Unsurprisingly, this book features excellent art and good production values, and I did not catch any typos or problems in the text. Like Southland Heroes, this product likely recycles art from other Midgard products (those written for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game), but since the products are not likely to be owned by 5e fans, this reuse is mostly invisible (save the minotaur). This books is also effectively a conversion of PFRPG material to 5e (specifically the Advanced Races product line), so it makes sense to share art resources between the two.

There is a goodly amount of flavour text in most races, a significant improvement from Southland Heroes. The book still lags behind the fluff races receive in the official 5e books, but the disparity has shrunk.

Most importantly for players & Dungeon Masters, the races in this product seems fairly well balanced. 5th Edition is a little looser in terms of power balance between options than 4e, but these seem well thought out and perhaps even playtested. Nothing jumped out at me as offensively broken or problematic. For example, while I might bemoan the alseid for being a little weak, but it’s not dramatically underpowered and should hold its own. I think I’d allow every option in this book into my game if asked (setting appropriateness aside). Image may be NSFW.
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Most of the races in this book are also fairly generic, and would effortlessly fit into any fantasy campaign setting. Even the races unique to Midgard – like the trollkin, ravenfolk, and alseid – easily fit into most worlds. The dragonkin are different than dragonborn, but have a neat magical flavour that might work well in a Dragonlance game, or a setting with multiple varieties of dragonborn. Only the gearforged seems like it would be a tricky addition, but it makes a nice alternative to the warforged (even for people playing Eberron, as they might desire a slight variant or warforged built for a different task).

Similarly, the backgrounds are easy to incorporate into many campaign settings. Whether or not an individual background will work varies on a game-by-game basis, but options like corsair, raider, and nomad should fit most worlds with little work.

Interspersed throughout the text are assorted sidebars. One has a spell, a couple give some design notes, and the rest have extra world lore. As someone who does some game design on the side for fun, I liked getting the “peak behind the curtain” at some of the design considerations. It certainly changed how I reviewed this the book, by reversing one of my complaints.

The Bad

Starting with the traits that caught my eye, the gearforged and darakhul are standard humanoids and not “undead” or “constructs”. This is a little odd, but defended as the races would be immune to many spells and would not benefit from healing. Since most had a big racial trait that added immunities to the races, I wonder if it would have been more interesting to instead add  clarifications and variants that allowed them to be affected by the magic. But that’s a stylistic choice and not really a huge problem. The route they took works just fine.

While the flavour for most of the races was decent, there was limited fluff text for the alseid. This is unfortunate as, out of all the races, the alseid is the race that seems hardest to fit into a world. I didn’t really walk away from their entry with a good grasp of their culture and role in the world. Basically, they’re the elf to the centaur’s human, but the role of “elf” in a campaign world is already filled. By elves. (And nymphs, dryads, unicorns, and other forest guardians.)

I’m personally not a fan on how the trollkin regenerates. The race spends hit dice as a bonus action, which pretty much means it heals just as much as everyone else albeit slightly faster. It doesn’t feel like much of a bonus, and I can imagine many times where the trollkin ends a fight and heals just in time for everyone to take a short rest. A trollkin player might also be less interested in taking a short rest, forcing the players onward when they want to take a break.

Aside from the trollkin regeneration, most of the racial traits are unimaginative, similar to traits we’ve seen before. There’s little amazing design work at play in this document. In fairness, most of these races are pretty standard and there’s less room to get creative: giving a race a dramatic and interesting power would make it a poor conversion of the existing material. But I was still never wowed by the book.

A couple racial traits can be used multiple times per day but recharge on a long rest, such as the centaur’s Pike Charge or shadow fey’s Path of Shadows. This is uncommon design in 5th Edition, and I wonder if a single use ability that recharges on a short rest would have worked. It’s not bad design per se, there are examples in classes, but it’s far less common than in earlier editions (likely for ease of tracking as it is simpler to remember if a power has or has not been used rather than the number of times). This is especially odd as the shadow fey is fairly similar to the eladrin from the Dungeon Master’s Guide but can use misty escape more often. I wonder if after the complaint that Southland Heroes copied text directly from the DMG, the shadow fey was made slightly different on purpose to avoid the same calls of plagiarism.  

Several of the backgrounds are so-so. Corsair, nomad, and raider feel like variants of the sailor, outlander, and criminal respectively. The guild merchant is explicitly a variant of the guild artisan, expanding the existing variant into a full background. I can see campaigns where you would need to differentiate between a criminal who specialized and banditry and a raider, but these pages were just unimpressive.

While this book is good as a small Midgard-centric crunch infusion for 5e, I find I want more than just another book of races and backgrounds. We’ve seen that already. I’d like other content, such as information on ley lines or shadow and fey roads.

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The racial entries have no sample names. This is a small problem but a problem nonetheless. Names are helpful in making a hero or an NPC, either using the existing names or following their example to create your own. They can give a glimpse into the language and values of the race, such as if they use family names, clan names, or nicknames.

The book has a small and somewhat redundant section on elves. There’s no new crunch and just some world-specific flavour on Midgard elves. But there is no comparable section on dwarves, halflings, or gnomes. It really feels like shadow fey were here and then move to their own section but these paragraphs were not removed. It doesn’t really serve a purpose and the space could have been used to give the existing races an extra paragraph of flavour.

There is an odd design sidebar on  balancing  large races in the centaur entry, despite the centaur skirting most of these requirements (wearing standard armour & using regular weapons). Why draw attention to the design problem that didn’t apply? It’s doubly odd as large-sized weapons are less of a “thing” in 5e, and there’s no rules for increasing the size of weapon damage in the Player’s Handbook. Really, this section feels like something from a Pathfinder product that slipped in.  

This book has the minotaur… again. The playtest for the official minotaur was in a free article on the D&D website, and that was adapted into a minotaur for Southlands Heroes. So the minotaur in this book feels… redundant. I would have really preferred another race or other content in that space. But for people who skipped Southland Heroes and dig minotaurs, it’s inclusion is a perk.

I’m a little disappointed by the lack of subraces for most of the new races. Only the dragonkin and trollkin have subrace options. The darakhul ghoul has some size-based flexibility that could have been tweaked into subraces, and some variant gearforged would have been awesome. Similarly, kobolds could be differentiated in a number of ways. 

The Awesome

It’s excellent to see the ravenkin (read: kenku) and kobold. I’m a sucker for these races, along with the minotaur (and gnoll). (Really, both Kobold Press ____ Heroes books have been right up my alley).Image may be NSFW.
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The shadow fey race is a near perfect substitute for shadar-kai. Just swap out the weapon proficiency for some exoctic munchkin weapon and you’re good to go.

I really like the fey-touched background. It and the darkling background stretch the concept, but I really like the ideas and flavour of the defining element of your past being a bargain with great evil or being lured away by faeries. They also feature some of the cooler bonds and flaws in the book. The backgrounds here don’t get a lot of love or attention, being less sexy and crunchy than the races, but there’s some good character ideas and hooks on the personality traits. 

The art for the master craftsmen looks badass. Excellent piece. And while I mention tough looking women in art, the centaur looks a little like a half-horse Gwendoline Christie. Centaurs are often portrayed as super-masculine (often being entirely male) so female centaurs are always cool to see.

Final Thoughts

I was never blown away my Midgard Heroes. It was what I expected and did what I wanted. It fills a need for more 5th Edition crunch and some new monstrous races. It helps people convert the Midgard campaign setting to 5e, allowing people to play in a fully fleshed out world that isn’t the Forgotten Realms. It’s a good product. But it’s also a safe product. It doesn’t break new ground or get experimental with the rules or give us something other than familiar mechanics (races and backgrounds) to play with.

But that’s me being a cynical jerk.

The bottom line is if you want allow a player kobold, ravenkin/tengu, centaur, ghoul, troll/ogre, or minotaur this is exactly the book you need. If you want an alternative to the playtest warforged, this is the book you need. If you want to play someone who’s half-deer then this is the book you need. And if you want to scratch that it for new 5e crunch and cannot wait for November, then this is the book you need.

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If you liked this review, you can support me and encourage future reviews. My book, Jester David’s How-To Guide to Fantasy Worldbuilding, is available for purchase. The electronic copy is available on Kindle, and DriveThurRPG. The PoD copy is available on Createspaceand Amazon. Purchases from DriveThru especially allow me to purchase new PDFs for review purposes.

The book is a compilation of my worldbuilding blog series, and all the entries have been updated, edited, and expanded. The final book features almost two-hundred pages of advice on making your own fantasy world.

D&D 5e Review: Out of the Abyss

Hot on the heels of GenCon (and just missing the convention season) is the new Dungeons & Dragons tabletop roleplaying game book, Out of the Abyss, which tells the tale of a demonic invasion of the Underdark and the efforts of a ragtag band of adventurers to survive the horrors of the subterranean world before attempting to defeat this hideous evil.

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This is a 255-page hardcover book written by Green Ronin and produced by Wizards of the Coast. This is the third mega-adventure 5th Edition (fourth if you count the Sundering series) and part of the Rage of Demons storyline. It is a full colour adventure product set in the Underdark of the Forgotten Realms.

The adventure takes characters all the way from 1st level to somewhere in the range of 15th level. 220-pages of this product are dedicated to the adventure and adventure content, making the tale much longer than the past two adventures, having 30+ more pages of adventure than Tyranny of Dragons.

The Good

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Clik here to view.Somewhat surprisingly, there’s no Drizzt. When the storyline was announced there was the worry players would be playing second fiddle to Drizzt, being his sidekicks or helpers. WotC commented that the player characters would be the heroes of Out of the Abyss but there was still Drizzt-worry. Now we know that the PCs are self-made heroes unconnected to any atypically heroic drow. Drizzt gets name-dropped in the background of a few events, but never makes a real appearance (apart from reports of a random encounter leading to a “drow with two scimitars”, although I never saw that).

Out of the Abyss jumps right into the adventure. There’s no background, no pages of backstory the PCs will never discover, no elaborate set-up. The PCs are captured and now have to escape. GO! It’s a solid opening.  

The book details most of the important demon lords, including statblocks, backgrounds, lair effects, and unique madnesses that result from proximity to the demon. There’s a lot of demon lord all over this book. The past two storylines have been great excuses to include statblocks for noteworthy villains, and this takes that concept and turns it up to 11 with eight demon lords receiving write-ups (Demogorgon, Graz’zt, Juiblex, Orcus, Baphomet, Fraz-Urb’luu, Yeenoghu, and Zuggtmoy).

In addition to the demon lords, there are a few new monsters, which is always good. The book brings back the derro, has some new duergar and troglodytes, more myconid spore servants, some awakened plants, strider spiders, and it surprisingly reintroduces the evil sentient mantas, the ixitxachitl, both regular and vampiric. I never expected to see the manta dudes again, despite them being around since OD&D. There’s also five NPCs with unique statblocks.

This is the first of the storylines to feel like it truly belongs in the Forgotten Realms. Tyranny of Dragons was super generic and could have been set anywhere, while Elemental Evil was an update of a Greyhawk adventure. Neither really built on existing Realmslore and actually changed the world to fit the story. The setting of the sprawling multi-nation Underdark is very Realmsian (despite being created by Gygax  for Greyhawk), and the book expands on or uses events, characters, and locations featured in FR novels & setting material. This story really fits the world.

The adventure is a loose sandbox. Kinda. Really, if pressed I’d say it’s more a nonlinear adventure than a true sandbox, but that could be argued as a semantic difference. There’s definitely some expectations that the Dungeon Master will guide the players to the various encounter location, but there’s some potential freedom in order and structure. The players can pick their route through the chapters, and there are lots of random encounter tables, and a few filler encounters to disperse throughout the travels.

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Clik here to view.The tone of the adventure is excellent. I was worried by the implied “whimsey” of the story, but it works. There’s a lot of focus on the corrupting effects of the various demon lords, as they twist creatures and drive people insane. This is excellent, as it means the opponents of the players can be a variety of creatures and not just waves of demons. (Actually, demon encounters are paradoxically somewhat rare.) The hyped Alice in Wonderland vibe seems to be regular encountering strange but largely incidental non-player characters. The PCs just come across these odd and kooky and somewhat deranged figures on a regular basis, and then move on and meet someone new. That is very Alice – especially since they’re all quite mad – but also has a Wizard of Oz or Phantom Tollbooth structure. The players also being with a small entourage that can grow and shrink as they adventure (I might have preferred them starting alone and slowly gathering companions for more of an Oz vibe). There’s even a Through the Looking Glass/ Ozma of Oz moment where the heroes have to choose to return to the magical world they left behind. It’s a nice change of pace, returning as badass conquerors leading an expedition rather than fleeing refugees.

Because the adventure is firmly set in the Realms, it is trickier to pull apart the adventure for locations and encounters. Especially since many are named and established places. Except for the NPCs. The supporting characters are easy to steal. The book is also loaded with inspiration and funky ideas, so it’s worth reading just for that. And there are still a number of small “dungeons” that could be swiped wholesale and just reflavoured or given a new background.

The adventure is filled with lots of good roleplaying tips. And not just for characters, but for entire races and settlements. It gives you advice on portraying various groups, which is useful for DMs, even those not running the adventure.

The book is a good guide for Underdark adventuring, with survival rules, locations, terrain, random encounters, and loads of new fungi. Between this content, the roleplaying notes, and the NPCs, Out of the Abyss is a must-buy book for any DM planning a lengthy bit of adventuring in the Underdark.

The Bad

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Clik here to view.There’s no Drizzt. Yeah, this is both a pro and a con. The advertising and hype for the Rage of Demons storyline is very Drizzt-centric with the key art being Drizzt fighting Demogorgon. One of the taglines was “fight alongside Drizzt.” I can see Drizzt fans being disappointed with this product, and there’s not even a statblock included for DMs who do want to use him in their game.

There is a LOT of information to work through in this book. Sandboxes be tricky like that, since the party might go a couple different directions. The chapters and related scenes are large with a lot of reading, and details spread out over multiple pages. Sometimes there’s cross referencing, and directions to more details, and other times you just have to flip. The absence of an index really hurts a book this size, as does the lack of referential page numbers. I’m also spoiled from other companies having cheap PDFs of their APs; my past attempts at running large prepublished campaigns have been made significantly easier with a searchable document. The continued lack of PDFs and digital support for D&D products is a huge turn off.

There’s no suggested level range for each chapters. This aids the sandbox but doesn’t really give the DM an idea of the challenge. Since 5e encounters don’t advertise their theoretical difficulty like 3e and 4e encounters, there’s no yardstick for challenge. This also makes it harder to decide how much to customize encounters for a larger and smaller party, or what level range to use a chunk of the adventure if pulling it out for inspiration or a home game sidequest.

There’s little new crunch with the book, and almost none of it for players. The new monsters are good but there isn’t many, only there is only a half dozen new magic items (many reflavoured or adjusted existing items). There’s no new spells and, unlike Princes of the Apocalypse, there’s no new race or player content. This is only a minor complaint as adventures should be for the DM and not the player. However, there’s not even a free PDF of options for the new storyline (like for Elemental Evil) and the expansion book – Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide – is not out for a couple months. A brief PDF “preview” would have been nice, especially any content aimed at the Underdark. Something for this season of Encounters.

While the book features *most* of the classic A-list demon lords, there are some absent demon lords. It’s missing Lolth (who is a god, but still a small part of the adventure) and it’s also missing the 1st Edition allumns Dagon, Pazuzu, and Kostchtchie. But Wikipedia has 122 demon lords listed and it’s only one book, so not everyone can be featured. Given WotC is unlikely to have a second demon-centric storyline anytime soon, the missing lords are unlikely to make an appearance anytime soon. (It’s the kind of content that would have been great to coordinate with a magazine, but Dragon+ doesn’t seem to do that sort of thing.)

Not all the demon lords are even featured in the adventure. Graz’zt and Orcus are only mentioned, with the former’s “scheme” and activities being absent. Yeenoghu has a small cameo, Baphomet is mentioned but not seen, and Fraz-Urb’luu has an impact but is effectively bodiless. Lolth, who is not given statblocks, plays a larger role in the adventure than Orcus who was given some key love in the trailer. Zuggtmoy is really presented as the villain of the story, and Juiblex is also given some attention. Stopping Zuggtmoy’s evil scheme is arguably the climax, with everything else being wrap-up and denouement. It’s her story and everyone else is superfluous.

Now, arguably, this focus is okay. Zuggtmoy needs some love. It means this storyline feels like the first one that *could* spill out into multiple locations and have multiple stories occurring: Neverwinter, Sword Coast Legends, the novels, and the season of Expeditions could all tell their “demons in the Underdark” story while still allowing the PCs of the RPG to be the big heroes that save the Realms. Unlike Tyranny of Dragons where the MMO told the same story as the RPG (killing Tiamat) or Elemental Evil where the threat was localized and storyline connections were coincidental. It really encourages people to seek out the other media to experience the story. I’m curious what’s up with Orcus and the mind flayers and would like to read into that. But I have no idea where that story is told. Cross marketing works best when you tell people what is happening where.

The Ugly

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Clik here to view.I’m a little disappointed by the end of the beginning. Escaping from the drow in the opening doesn’t empower PCs. It’s really set-up so they need to be let out and assisted in their escape. A good DM can reward some creative thinking, but some more set-up and suggestions for how to escape and initially gather gear would be nice.

The book doesn’t provide any reasons or suggestion for the capture of the PCs. Or a hand-wavy justification for why any potential elves in the party were not killed on sight.

There’s no real boss fight/climax to the end of Encounters’ season. It ends with the (dun dun dummmm) moment where demogorgon is revealed to be in the underdark, and that a demon lord is free in the Realms. Which falls flat if the players don’t know who demogorgon is, or that demon lords don’t normally roam around the underworld, or the players have read anything at all ever about this season of Encounters.

There are a handful of allied NPCs on pages 130-31, which are formatted for copying and cutting out. (Thankfully, the book also grants permission to copy.) But copying from the middle of a hardcover book often leads to a dark, blurry mess and not everyone has access to a photocopier. But almost everyone has access to a B+W printer, either at home, at work, or at a printshop. This needs to be a separate downloadable handout.

Speaking of downloadable add-ons, this product does not mention a free rules download, like the one that accompanied Tyranny of Dragons and Princes of the Apocalypse that allows the adventure to be run with just the Basic D&D rules. The latter came out a day after the street date of the book. However, at the time of this writing, it is a few days after the street date of Out of the Abyss and the free Basic PDF is still absent. While this could be fixed at any time, right now it is still a complaint and problem with the book: the Monster Manual and the Dungeon Master’s Guide are required.

The maps in the book are good. Most are done by the same cartographer as the Tyranny of Dragons book, but they are much cleaner and fewer duds. However, a different cartographer does the map of the Underdark, which is so-so. Doing a subterranean map is tricky, given the 3-dimensions, so most just have surface map with the regions But this map feels like an awkward coloured mess, that makes the different regions unclear and the routes between locations vague. It really didn’t wow me.

One of the various NPC factions that was previewed was the Society of brilliance, a group of disparate outsiders working together for the good of the Underdark. They’re odd but interesting, but they aren’t given much attention. They all have headshots but only appear a couple times and aren’t ever given what feels like a complete writeup. Their first potential appearance is a random encounter that is unlikely to occur.

There’s an awesome piece of art on page 132, ostensibly of Mantol-Derith. It’s really cool. But it totally doesn’t match the map on page 134. Yeah… that’s a big shame.

The Awesome

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Clik here to view.The end of the adventure ends with a demon lord smackdown. Either demogorgon is the last demon lord standing by default, or the players can each take control a demon lord for a mass battle royale, with the PCs facing off against the injured victor. It’s a fun idea.  

Much of the first half of the adventure involves the PCs being pursued by the drow, which is neat and can add a nice feeling of tension and pressure. There could maybe have been a more ways of having the drow catch up, such as the PCs taking a long rest after less than 8 or 16 hours. There are a number of times the pursuit is worked into other scenes and locales, which is nice. The pursuit mechanic (and hook) is a neat concept to steal even if not running this adventure. It might not be worth the full purchase of the book, but for a DM planning on having their party chased by a recurring enemy, this can offer some inspiration.

The monster appendix at the back has both simple and complex new duergar. Most use regular Monster Manual statblocks, albeit modified with different hit points or attack options, but a few that employ larger changes – like the duergar soul blade – have full statblocks. Oh, these are also the classic duergar with a dash of psionics, and not dwarven tieflings with beard quills.

The book ends with alternate bonds that give PCs small adventure hooks or a connection to the Underdark and the adventure. These are very cool, and I’d recommend having every PC gain one as a secondary bond.

The party has two opportunities to gain monster eggs, which grow over a period of months. This would normally be a non-event, but there is a couple months of dead time allowing ample opportunity for the eggs to hatch and the critter to grow. This is cool and a unique treasure.

The featured duergar city has smog problem and an associated disease. This looks well-designed and is fun for any overly polluted city, or toxic environments like a volcanic cave or noxious swamp.

There’s lots of myconid action in the adventure, which is nice to see as they’re a seldom used race. I have a fondness for them (and the quaggoth) that dates back to the Monstrous Manual, which has influenced a lot of what I consider cool and iconic. Between this, Rumpadump and Stool, and Zuggtmoy’s scheme to remake the Underdark in her image, this is really the mushroomfolk adventure

There are tones of random encounter tables, which are very detailed. And not just combat encounters but likely social encounters, strange environments, and more. Every other chapter has a few random encounter tables.

There’s a fat dragon that’s part of a guild that keeps forges lit. That’s pretty darn cool. And one of the random encounter tables has a rocktopus! That’s just fun, and a neat way of taking a non-standard monster that many PCs might not fight and sticking it in an unexpected place.

A few of the larger dungeons have a full-page map, with sections reprinted later as an “art insert” when appropriate for that subsection. It’s a great way to get the maps to the forefront and being usable without lots of page flipping. It’s a really inspired idea I hope sees use in future products. It recalls the delve formatting without dedicating set pages to a section of the dungeon.

And as a final though, Vizeran DeVir. The curious drow who initiated the conflict of Princes of the Apocalypse, appears again in this adventure. This time he helps the PCs send the demons back to the Abyss. I expect we’ll see more of him in the future.

Final Thoughts

I’ve played a lot of APs of late. Most from Paizo. I’m tired of running APs and want to do some homebrew stuff… but I want to run Out of the Abyss.

I’ve read WotC’s past offerings. They’re okay and a good source of inspiration, full of content to steal. I’ve never liked one of them enough to run straight… but I want to run Out of the Abyss.

It’s good. There are oddities and problems but it’s really good. I’m uncertain how easy it would be to run for a new Dungeon Master, but it starts off simple enough that it should ease DMs into the craziness. It should be easy enough to manage in the beginning, especially with the absence of a background lore dump. The hardest part might be the NPCs. Because there are a lot of them to manage. Regardless, it’s the best of the storyline adventures. Hands down.

Pathfinder Review: Inner Sea Races

The latest hardcover release for the Pathfinder Campaign Setting line is Inner Sea Races, the follow-up and companion for Inner Sea Gods and spiritual companion to the Advanced Race Guide.

Released a good month ago, Inner Sea Races has been on my review plate for some time, but I haven’t made much progress due to the denseness of the book and general life. Inner Sea Races is a big book with a lot of text to absorb.

What Is ItImage may be NSFW.
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This 255-page book covers the races of the Inner Sea region of Golarion. Much like Inner Sea Gods took the deity and religion articles from the backs of Pathfinder Adventure Path volumes and collected them all in one place, Inner Sea Races takes the assorted <Race> of Golarion books from the Pathfinder Player Companion line and compiles them into a single source. And Unlike the Advanced Race Guide, the lore of the races is not generic but specific to the setting; the book is not about fantasy elves, but Golarion elves.

Inner Sea Races is divided into three sections: common races, uncommon races, and rare races. Common races are humans, dwarves, elves, gnomes, half-elves, half-orcs, and halflings. Each of these receives an 8 page write-up, except humans who have 4 pages for the generic race and 4 for each of the many ethnicities (there are a lot). Uncommon races include the aasimar, drow, geniekin, goblins, kobolds, orcs, and tieflings. Each uncommon race receives six pages. Rare rares are androids, catfolk, changelings, dhampirs, fetchlings, ghorans, gillmen, hobgoblins, ratfolk, and strix. These each receive two pages.  

There are also 40-odd pages of assorted crunch with traits, feats, spells and gear. The book ends with racial rules for a good 50 races, including all the races detailed in the book, some variations, and a few who were just given small paragraphs.

But it’s mostly 189-or-so pages of flavour.

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Clik here to view.The Good

The detail here is heavy. There’s a lot of text in this book. Each common race entry is broken up into a number of sub-sections, such as History, Physiology/Appearance, Life Cycle, Family, Society, Faith, Culture, Relations, and Adventurers. This gives a fairly comprehensive look that is significantly more detailed than the half-page blurb in the Core Rulebook or page in the Inner Sea World Guide. There is a LOT of lore and flavour text in this book.

These sections are a great way of introducing a player that is unfamiliar with Golarion to the races and ethnicities of the world, allowing them to better build a character that fits the world and isn’t a misplaced Lord of the Rings elf running around Absalom. And it’s certainly easier than trying to get a player to absorb the entire Inner Sea World Guide or even all 32-pages of Elves of Golarion.

I really like the variant sub-headings under the culture section, each highlighting a specific aspect unique to that race that needed expansion. For example, elves have Adaptability, Artistry, Decline, and Forlorn. It’s a great way of differentiating the races from each other, focusing on their interesting elements, and not trying to force each race to fill out a mandatory section on crafts or outsiders.

I like that adventurers were given a section of text. While murder-hobos are non-standard members of most races, knowing why a race sets out on an adventure is extremely useful. It’s especially handy and interesting for some of the non-standard races, as the reasons a kobold might become an adventurer or the worldview of a goblin PC are very different than those of the common races.

Also in the entries of the common races are roleplaying notes, which are basically long lists of stereotypes. This is a potential trigger, as not everyone will approve of cultural tendencies being listed so blatantly, since people are individuals and not lists of assumed cultural values. However, as a gamemaster and worldbuilder I find this useful as a rough guide for trends and values in a culture, allowing me to better portray generic NPCs. Knowing the stereotypes of a people is also handy for players, both for trying to match the assumptions of the world and “fit in”, or play against type: you cannot make your halfling stand out and be different if you are unaware of the baseline.

The book is an excellent summary of what came before. I’m sure there were some subtle shifts and changes to refocus the races, as what we know about halflings and kobolds in Golarion might have changed over the years. (I didn’t see anything, but I’m not a Golarion scholar.) Most noteworthy is the elven entry, as Elves of Golarion was published before the location of the elves’ home in absentia following Earthfall was revealed.

The art of the book is decent. The framing borders are not quite as good as Inner Sea Gods or amazing as the Hell’s Rebels adventure path, nor does it compare with the wealth of art in 5th Edition D&D books, but it’s a step up from the standard Pathfinder Roleplaying Game books. There’s still a focus on posing figures, but the small cultural pieces (scrolls, books, weapons, stuffed animals) nicely break up the walls of text. Each major race gets art of a male and female figure, which is some nice gender representation.

The BadImage may be NSFW.
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This book has a very niche audience. It’s not for generic Pathfinder RPG fans, instead being for fans of the Golarion campaign world. It has some use for players, but the cost of the book makes it unsuitable: you shouldn’t be expected to buy a $50 255-page book for 8-pages on a race. It’s really a book for the Golarion GM or fan to purchase and loan out to players. However, as all this information exists elsewhere and the majority are still available in print (and all in PDF), chances are the Pathfinder GM already has the information found in this book. Inner Sea Gods was very different, as it was not obvious which deity was in which volume of which AP (and getting that product required buying a lot of superfluous content), but it’s pretty easy to remember you want to consult Halflings of Golarion for information on halflings and buying that book won’t come with an adventure, some monsters, and a little fiction.

However, as the Player Companion books were 32-pages, this book feels significantly less comprehensive. (Except for humans, which receive twice as many pages as Humans of Golarion.)

The smaller entries for the Uncommon and Rare races mean these have a little more generic text and feel less Golarion specific. All the entries do have some generic information, especially any talk on physiology which will overlap with every prior description of the race. Were it not for the crunch (and the tables of ages & weights) this book could functionally replace the Advanced Race Guide.

There are a few newish races that stand out amongst the genre classics. Most are acceptable and seem to be the races people have latched onto and found interesting, which is nice. Fanservice isn’t always bad. But I’m not a huge fan of the strix. The name comes from classical mythology but the race seems very divorced from its roots beyond the avian connection. However, winged humans are a pretty iconic fantasy race and the mythological name makes them less forgettable, so my dislike is really personal baggage.

As the title suggests, this book is really focused on the Inner Sea region, and thus there is little on big name races who are distantly positioned, such as folk of the Dragon Empire. This is sad for fans of the kitsune or tengu. (Although, I saw crunch for both.) There’s also a couple pages dedicated to aliens races, which is a bit weird but I imagine makes someone happy. However, because there’s so little information, this doesn’t feel like a useful inclusion and I wonder if they could have skipped either the Dragon Empire or aliens and given the other twice the page count.  

While the flavour text is pulled/inspired by the ______ of Golarion series, I don’t recall seeing any reprinted mechanical options. This is good for people who have those books, but for those hoping to use this tome as a “best of” collection will be disappointed. If you’re looking for a way to add some race-based distinct elements to your character, the Player Companion line is still your best option.

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Clik here to view.The Ugly

Most of the new feats are teamwork feats. Teamwork feats are an interesting concept but I haven’t seen them used. Ever. They’re a curious design as they require two people to plan their character’s build at the same time, but my players level their characters away from the game table. And teamwork feats are especially useless in Pathfinder Society tables. Adding a racial restriction to teamwork feat just makes them seem even harder to implement. I can’t recall the last time two players in a regular group played the same race, and this seems doubly rare with the wealth of race options in Pathfinder. The feat section of the book is really far more suited to the Gamemaster, who can give them to NPCs.

Returning to the art, Paizo has long said that elves adapt and change their colouration based on their environment. They’ve often talked about dark skinned elves, pale arctic elves, and green-blue sea elves near the coast. But this is very seldom reflected in the art, which is typically of the standard Caucasian elves. You’d think a book on all the types of elves of the Inner Sea would change this, but there’s a single elf of colour (on page 195), and it could just be well tanned.

Criticising art is tricky because it’s so much a matter of personal taste. But it’s my blog, so I can nitpick away: I hated the art for the Varisian ethnicity. It was a little too exaggerated in terms of body proportion and the artist took the cue that Varisians were garish and made this almost comical. It’s too much. Colin Baker’s 6th Doctor would look at those outfits and go “whoa, tone it down a little!”

The book has some neat goblin magical items, with a personal favourite being the junkblade, which is evocative and fun. But the explicit prices of the Pathfinder magic item system always makes me wonder what goblin had 9,928 gp lying around to buy a sword?

There is a complete absence of maps in this book. This reinforces the audience of Inner Sea Races as the initiated. The book casually throws around locations and regions, but you either have to be very familiar with the world or have the Inner Sea World Guide at your side. I doubt I could easily give this book to my players, despite our last two campaigns taking place in Golarion, without them staring blanking at many of the references.

Earlier, I mentioned the strix and the new races, saying most were acceptable additions. I’d like to call out one particularly off race: the ghorans really stands out as an oddball entry. While the changeling, strix, and fetchling are equally newish, those races build on established folklore/gamelore, reappropriating classical names making them feel less tacked-on. But the ghoran doesn’t. It’s unconnected to any legends, and its name isn’t particularly evocative, failing to conjure mental images of “plant folk”. They have the same problem as 4th Edition D&D’s wilden, in that they exist to be the token “plant race”, but have no connection to the myriad existing plant monsters in the game. They’re not shambling men, treant saplings, or dryad-kin. The ghoran are also visually unappealing with a complicated and overdesigned look, which reminds me most of bad Star Trek Voyager aliens. Which is amusing as the race also touches on the Rubber-Forehead alien trope, as they’re intelligent sentient plants but they have two arms, two legs, five fingers, and completely human looking face complete with nose, brows, eyes, and even a mouth which they don’t really need as they’re freakin’ plants and don’t eat or breathe. (I shouldn’t complain too much, as the version in Inner Sea Bestiary has breasts. On a race that explicitly comes from seeds!) They really feel like someone’s pet race that they’re trying to make popular. That it comes at the expense of so many other potential races (gnolls, kitsune, tengu) makes it all the more problematic.

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The goblin entry. It made me laugh out loud. I’m a fan of all things Pathfinder goblin and this section was excellent.

I like the focus on emotion in orcs and half-orcs. Orcs are a race that is portrayed as savage and raises uncomfortable ideas regarding nature vs nurture and if an orc raised in a loving home would be good or prone to violence (and, thus, if it’d be a good or bad act to brutally slaughter them). Emphasising the intensity of their emotion gives them a different mindset than just being angry or stupid. It’s a reason they’re prone to rage.

Because I’m a Ravenloft junkie and like campaigns with an edge of horror, it’s always great to see a little love for dhampirs, changelings, and fetchlings. I also have a curious fondness for ratfolk, despite their relative newness to the game.  Given I complained about the ghorans and strix for being new, I’m aware this makes me a slight hypocrtite.

Some of the smaller additions to the book really impressed me, such as the expanded and surprisingly lengthy details on languages at the start of the book, describing who speaks what and related languages. I like it when settings explain where languages come from and root tongues: it makes things seem more unified and real. The book also has a much needed expanded reincarnation table, giving options for every race in this book. There has been a need for a revised table for the reincarnation spell for some time, and its absence was a problem with the Advanced Race Guide.

I was amused by the tengu illustration on page 217, which has to be the world’s fattest tengu. That’s an instant NPC if I ever saw one. It looks a little like if Bluto (from Popeye) was a bird.

There are lots of fun magic items (like the aforementioned junkblade), which really fit the tone of their source race. Because each race might only get one or two items, the most iconic idea is pushed to the forefront. There’s a lycanthrope skin for skinwalkers, the hobgoblin master’s brand, an eyepatch of infamy for your stereotypical one-eyed orc, bracelet of good luck charms for halflings, a Chelaxian binding contract, and for dhampirs who eschew killing undead there’s the amulet of undead persuasion.

Final Thoughts

It’s hard to summarize my thoughts regarding Inner Sea Races. I think it’s because the audience is tricky to pin down.

As a race book it’s good. There’s a lot of history and flavour in the book. But it is content we’ve seen before and in greater detail. For people with the existing race books this volume offers little. Which makes it a tricky sell for fans of Golarion, who are likely to have the existing books. However, it is worth noting that at least four of the ___ of Golarion series are sold out on the Paizo store, so Inner Sea Races becomes the only source of content for newcomers.  

Inner Sea Races is a dozen Player Companion books compressed into a single volume for easy transportation and for a third the price, a quick summary of what it means to be an elf or gnome in the world of Golarion. It’d be a handy book for people wishing to make a PC whose race really feels a part of the setting… if it didn’t also require a knowledge of the campaign setting. It this regard it pairs well with the Inner Sea Primer as a crash course into the world. However, if a player just wants information on a single race, the relevant Player Companion book are a better choice. However, the compressed nature of this book’s entries does make a race chapter easier to absorb than a 32-page book.

Normally I’d say this would be an excellent book for people playing the Pathfinder Society Organized Play program, as that campaign exclusively takes place on Golarion and they need some flavour but not a lot. But the crunch options in the book are particularly ill-suited for that campaign.

If you’re a newcomer to the Pathfinder game and want to embrace the world, you’ll likely find something of use in Inner Sea Races. If you’re a player in campaign that knows a reasonable amount regarding the world and wants to really make a race that fits the setting (either by conforming or contrasting with the racial tropes) then this book is of use – especially if you don’t know what race to play and just want to read until something catches your eye. If you’re a GM that wants to make a small racially exclusive task force work together nicely, then this is for you. If you’re a fan of Golarion but are missing several of the race-centric Player Companion volumes then this book has a lot of information. And if you’re a fan of campaign settings and like reading that material for fun, this is a solid read with constantly shifting subjects so if you find yourself uninterested in a race there’s always something new a couple pages away.

Review: Sword Coast Legends

Two video studies have teamed up to make Sword Coast Legends, the latest Dungeons & Dragons video game and first video game for the 5th Edition of the game.

Video game design studio n-Space  has a catalogue of 50+ games. In the past they have mostly ported existing games to other systems, particularly to handheld devices or older platforms, but have also worked on licensed games for Hannah Montana or Mary-Kate and Ashley (you need to start somewhere). Digital Extremes is the similar, having ported a few big name titles, but they also created and published Warframe.

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Sword Coast Legends is an isometric (or top down) video game where you control a party of adventurers in a hack-and-slash adventure along the Sword Coast region of the Forgotten Realms. It was hyped as resembling older Dungeons & Dragons video games such as Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights, and a staff connection to Dragon Age: Origins is also name dropped. The official video emphasises that this game returns you to the “classic” era of D&D cRPGs.

You build your primary character, choosing from the fighter, ranger, cleric, wizard, rogue, or paladin as your class, while available races are the elf, dwarf, human, halfling, or half-elf. The remainder of your party is a number of NPCs. However, there is also a strong multiplayer element, and you can introduce a second player at any time, even to the single-player game. In addition to the “single-player” campaign there is a Dungeon Master toolset that lets a player create an adventure for their friends. You can download these modules and play them independent of the creator, or you can get someone to DM in real time, adding hazards or controlling NPCs.

Sword Coast Legends is available on Steam for PC, but apparently also available on OS X, Linux, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

The Good

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The game has decent graphics. They’re not amazing, but I don’t expect fantastic close-up detail from a game primarily played from above. Detail would be lost. Similarly, fancy effects like flowing hair would be wasted.

The game follows the Baldur’s Gate method of gameplay where you can play in real time or pause the game at any time to issue commands. The standard BioWare approach. I was happy to see the pause command was mapped to the traditional Space Bar.

The action bar UI is rather nice. I appreciate the ease of switching between weapons and alternating between cantrips. It’s very visible and easy to tell what weapons and spells you’re using to auto-attack. When I fought monsters resistant to my default weapon, it was a simple matter to just switch to something more appropriate in real time. The action bar also nice and long, mapped to buttons but going from 1 to =, rather than just the 1 to 0 as is more common.

Character advancement is handled through ability trees. They’re really more ability paths, as I didn’t see much branching or the Dragon Age: Inquisition un-branching. Some are tied to classes while others overlap, so both the rogue and ranger can choose two-weapon fighting powers. You get three ability points each time you level, which is nice. You can pick a few low-level options or save your points for big, higher tier powers that require more points.

The NPC AI seemed decent. It wasn’t perfect, but I’ve seen sooooo much worse. For the most part my companions could be left alone in combat for short periods without doing something likely to get them killed. I have no idea how the game handles threat/aggro but it seems to work reasonably well: I never had to have the wizard run around from an enemy because they hit it first while the rest of the party chased the creature unloading spells yet being ignored.

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Clik here to view.The monsters look good. Or rather, they look like their 5th Edition counterparts from the Monster Manual. Most of the game looks like 5e, from the menu flourishes, trade dress, and art, much of which were pulled right from the book. To my knowledge, it’s the most a D&D video game has emulated the books.

In general the monsters feel fairly close to D&D, with some being resistant or vulnerable to different types of damage (fire, slashing) or immune to certain effects and conditions. The monsters even act familiar in play, with the gelatinous cube being invisible, the mimic hiding as a chest, and the ochre jelly splitting into smaller oozes. It’s great that the monsters are not just identical bags of hit points or are limited to replicate class abilities with different visual effects.

Most of the NPCs are unremarkable, but I found the dwarf rogue Larethar pretty fun. Something about his attitude just made me smile.

The DM tools. These have a bit of a learning curve and not all the tools and options are readily apparent. It’s very easy to miss aspects of the tools. You can do a surprising amount such as creating NPCs that give out quests then send you to locations you can mark on the map and unlock new areas as you progress. You can add monsters and unique creatures to the map. I didn’t spend nearly enough time to really feel I had mastered this system. I honestly want to play with it a little more, just to see what I can do.

There is a lot of NPC and even map customization. You can add details and items to a map, add enemies and some treasure chests, and make a personalized an enemy set: palette swapping some colours and giving some alternate powers. While you can’t move enemies from one set to another, you can just add a few where you want on the map. You can place a boss for your quest, choosing from a list of a half-dozen potential bosses or a custom monster you created earlier. There are some neat features here.

The Bad

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Clik here to view.I’ll start with the obvious complaint: there’s not a lot of D&D in the player characters. It’s a generic RPG really. And the little bits of D&D that are included aren’t always well handled. When you make a character, you pick familiar classes and ability scores, but those are in everything. The skill trees are filled with names that come from 5e, but what the ability does is often different. It takes more than naming to make something D&D, and just calling something a D&D fighter doesn’t make it feel like a D&D fighter. There are also plenty of powers with no counterpart in D&D, especially for the martial characters. And most abilities have a higher level variant; taking firebolt III feels odd.

While the ability scores are the classic 6, there’s no explanation of what ability scores are needed for which class or weapons. You can easily make a fighter that picks Strength as a dump stat and throws all their point-buy points into Charisma and Intelligence. There’s no walkthrough of D&D-isms, such as explaining that a Dex ranger with a bow needs to take finesse weapons to hit. Damage for weapons is visible when equipping weapons, but the attack numbers are hidden in mouseover text. There are hints and similar text but this is surprisingly useless. I almost wonder if there was some sort of downloadable manual I skipped. (Y’know, I don’t think I’ve ever downloaded a manual from a Steam game. Is that even possible?)

There’s no multiclassing in the game, but that’s not really missed. The skill trees make the classes seem small, as there is a lot of overlap and all your abilities come from skill choices. It would be easy to make a fighter and paladin or ranger and rogue that are identical in play. There are exclusive powers but these are still choices. A few free powers, even just at level one, to emphasise a class would have been nice.

All abilities are learned by these skill trees and there is no way to gain additional powers. There’s no scribing scrolls for wizards, although scrolls still exist in the game.

There’s also no easy way to specialize, and you can’t go “all in” down one tree. Most of the skills in a tree are locked until you hit a set level, so you have to branch out into a couple different trees. Early in the game you meet a Necromancer wizard companion (in a terrible way I’ll describe later) but he can only really learn a single necromancy spell beyond his cantrip for the next few levels, so he’s just as likely to play like an evoker and use fire magic as be a necromancer.

Abilities also have cooldowns, which is not particularly Vancian. This isn’t close to a deal breaker, as this is standard in D&D video games. I’d prefer actually replicating the rules, like Baldur’s Gate and many of the earlier SSI video games did (especially since they suggested that was what this game was and didn’t bother to correct anyone), but cooldowns can work. However, there’s no real at-will equivalents beyond the auto-attack, making combat static and boring, as you hit a few key powers, cycle between characters, and then wait. And wait. Watching the computer play. Neverwinter did this better, and I liked how they managed “daily” powers.

There’s also no skills in the game, just ability checks. Which feels rather 5e but isn’t explained. Dialogue choices are typically tied to Charisma (for Diplomacy) or Strength (for Intimidation). So you really have to always pick option with your highest stat rather than the one that fits your character. Playing the nice guy fighter? Sorry, you’ll have to Intimidate everyone you meet or have no real chance for success. I didn’t see a “Persuasive” style choice that lets you get better at talking. Or any real out-of-combat abilities really. Which might be a good thing because…

Monsters auto-level to match you. You need to optimize for combat, as selecting too many sub-optimal choices means you lag behind in the power curve and the game becomes harder. This also makes the balance of the game super important: if game is unbalanced it either gets easier and easier as you gain levels or harder and harder. However, if you are stuck it also becomes impossible to grind to get more powerful and brute force past the opposition. And it also results in oddities where low level monsters become unnaturally potent when facing a tough party, such as goblins and rats with more hit points than Tiamat.Image may be NSFW.
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Non-present companions talk to you via sending stones. Which is kinda neat but means you lose the replay value of different conversation pieces from different combinations of companions. If the dialogue or interaction of an NPC was essential to a mission, they should be mandatory. Really, it just felt like the game didn’t want to bother with alternate dialogue from different voice actors.

The game features some voice acting for key quests, but not all dialogue is acted. There are lots of quiet conversations, including all the sub-quests and side interactions/backstory of the NPCs. And your character is also silent. Partial voice acting isn’t that unusual, and it was the case with Divinity: Original Sin and Pillars of Eternity. But unlike those game, Sword Coast Legends wasn’t paid for by Kickstarter, and DOS is doing an enhanced version will full voice acting.

The game is filled with small nuisances. Riddled. Some design flaws and some quality-of-life issues. These include:

There’s no penalty for death, i.e. losing 1-¾ of your party in a fight. It’s just time tax where you wait to heal, which is the most annoying tax as it just makes you bored with an activity you’re explicitly doing for enjoyment during limited free time. But it’s often still faster then doing the fight again, so the pain is not enough to warrant a reload. I also didn’t see a “rest” option like is standard for D&D games (no Hit Dice or even Healing Surges). You either need to quaff one of the multitude of potions you gather or have a cleric spam Cure Wounds or other healing spells. Which are on a set recharge, even out of combat.  

You can’t leave or change maps except on the world map. If you travel to a dungeon, you need to walk to the exit and then walk across the outside map to find the world exit travel point. Slow and a pain in the butt.

When making a character there is no variation in body types. You are unable to make your hero a fat or skinny, tall or short, slim or athletic. You can only vary the face.

It’s harder to tell characters apart from above and gear only has minimal effect on appearance.

The game is very quick to hand out magic items, but most are super boring. Bonus elemental damage or resistances. The standard hack-and-slash magic items. The game lacks the unique and fun magic items that really define 5th Edition.

There’s no crafting system in the game. This is problematic as loot is random, so your combat effectiveness is dependant on random drops. I’ve seen a few reviews deride some of the special starting gear and how it was quickly replaced by items pulled from the bodies of rats and goblins, but I continued to use my starter gear for well into the game.

It took far, far too long to figure out how to move items on my hotbar (you hold for a second then move). Yes, accidental moving of iconics is a pain, but I prefer a lock/unlock button. Or a freakin’ hint advising you how to rearrange that interface you continually use for the entire game. The action bar also defaults to slotting recently picked-up consumables and all learned powers including cantrips, despite a toggle area to the side for the latter. I had a hotbar crowded with scrolls and unwanted potions for far too long.

The game has the standard giant sprawling Diablo-esque dungeons. Not a fan of the illogical design, but I’ll manage. However, in the map you can’t scroll to see if you missed an area. You have to move in the main screen and then look at the map. It made navigating annoying.

The story is linear. I never felt like my choices were making a real difference or had anything but a cosmetic effect. This even seemed to be lampshaded in the game. At one point you’re confronted by goblins. You can attack, bribe them, or try and turn them against the bandits by revealing betrayal. Regardless, they attack and you end up fighting the goblins. One of your companions remarks “I don’t know why I expected a different reaction.” Yeah… me either.

I don’t want to comment too much on the story, since I haven’t completed it yet, and thus there’s still time for a surprise twist or dramatic revelation, a Darth Revan was really Keyser Soze moment (I’m doubtful). However, so far it is unimpressive. You could win a game of Computer-RPG-Plot BINGO in the first hour: a legendary item fallen into myth, dream sequences complete with meaningless combat and reminders of “failures” (and since when do D&D elves dream?), a caravan with missing travellers, bandit ambush, and quests to collect mushrooms or recover lost cargo. You even reach a city and, of course, find the gate is sealed and access to the city is restricted.

I don’t see an alignment or reputation system in the game. Kill and steal as you will and remain that saintly Lawful Good…

Early on I missed a puzzle. Or rather, a “puzzle” as the solution was pretty obvious. A locked door that was “mechanically sealed” but the objects you needed to interact with didn’t show up via the Search skill and holding the object highlighting Alt button did nothing. So I assumed the door just opened elsewhere or need a key drooped from a named NPC. I eventually realized my error when I finished the dungeon and the quest remained unfinished. However, returning late created a bug, so the quest was uncompletable. Even half-assed QA should have revealed this problem, and a better game designer would have had party NPCs comment something to draw attention to the puzzle nature of the situation. A “Hrm. Maybe we should look around for a lever or something” dialogue window.

The Ugly

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Clik here to view.Moving is like Baldur’s Gate where you click a destination. There’s no walking a controlled character via WASD or holding a mouse button. When you move a character, they say one of 3-5 phrases every goddamn time. Ever. God. Damn. Time. As there’s no movement button you can hold down, so you hear the same phrases again and again and again.

The screen does not scroll with the mouse. It stops when you hit the edge. You need to use the WASD keys to move and Q & E to spin, which is awkward and unintuitive. Honestly, combining the WASD screen movement with mouse scroll would have been just fine.  

Character have a Search skill toggle, where you’re surrounded by a bubble representing the area you’re “searching” for traps or hidden items. Okay, this is neat and the FX is kinda cool. However, it’s slow. Really slow. There are higher levels of the skill that speed up this movement, but this is coming at the expense of more combat powers (see above). As this is how you find traps, it’s needed a lot when moving through the dungeon. But this makes actually playing the game drag painfully as you inch from place to place. However, as death doesn’t matter and healing is on a cooldown timer, traps don’t really matter. But, again, out of combat healing is slow.

Further frustrating the trap issue is the fact it’s easy to just walk right into a trap even while searching. The game doesn’t auto-pause when a trap is spotted and characters don’t stop moving. It also takes a second for a trap to spawn but characters walk faster than this delay, so I’d often have a character standing inside a trapped square as it’s becoming visible rather than the trap being at the edge of the bubble.

Loot in multiplayer is handled horribly. The game returns to a Diablo 2 style of whoever picks it up gets the loot. There’s also no way to trade loot between characters. Given the auto-levelling of monsters, getting necessary gear is essential. Losing a rare and essential drop to an ally who didn’t stop and check is painful.

Between stretches of quests you retire to your camp in the woods (rather than, I dunno, a convenient inn or small keep). There your companions all stand around one side of the campfire, swaying slightly but generally being motionless while conversing for long stretches of dialogue. It’s very weird and awkward.Image may be NSFW.
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Like most party games, there is a “follow” and “hold” option. However, turning on “hold” also curiously turns off tactics. So if you tell your party to wait while you lure a foe into a choke point, the party won’t defend themselves or use powers. So be sure to turn “follow” back on after queueing the attacks, or the cleric will fail to heal injured allies.

While somewhat standard, cut scenes reset the position of your party. This is always a dirty trick for difficulty in this type of game, so rather than be positioned in the obvious choke point you’re all clustered in fireball-receiving arrangement and surrounded. The only difficult fights I had in the game followed a conversation.

You meet many of your companions in an extremely haphazard way. Oh well, I met two companions in Baldur’s Gate on the road. But you meet the party wizard, Hommet, in a particularly terrible way: the middle of an enemy dungeon, during a chase, and shortly before facing the first boss of the game. And he admits to being a necromancer. There’s really no reason to trust him and not reject him, save the most metagamey of reasons: he’s the requisite 4th member of the party. In any other game I might have hesitated and wondered if this was about to lead to a sudden betrayal in the coming fight. But, of course, he didn’t.

The game is filled with glitches, both large and small. It often displaces the mouse cursor, so where the mouse is on the screen and where it is highlighting are two very different places. To click on a menu option the mouse arrow needs to be a couple inches higher.

The game is also not well optimized. It made my computer run very hot and I was worried for my brand new video card. I have a box powerful enough to tear through most nextgen games, and SCL did unkind things to my machine. It wasn’t even able to hit my desktop resolution.

I’m ending this section discussing the much-hyped Dungeon Master toolset. Or, as the director of the game said:

“One of the things I put to the designers when we framed this all up for them was, I want you to take this campaign, and I actually gave them the 5th edition starter set and I said I want you to take this campaign and I want you to reproduce it, I want you to reproduce it, and I want anybody to be able to reproduce it. And if they can’t, the tools aren’t done. And so uh, I think we got to a place where you can create that content real quickly and real easy and uh and just recreate your favorite homebrew or your favorite module or whatever your heart desires.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdUxKRlKTDU&feature=youtu.be&t=3m29s

So, by that definition, by the bar they set, are the tools done?

Big old nope.

First, the DM mode only has random dungeons. You can choose complexity and size but you’re stuck with what the game generates. That’s problematic. If you have a particular vision, be prepared to load and reload. And there are only a handful of tile sets available (eight) and creature sets (fourteen). This means you lose a lot of the flavour of a set dungeon, like the river and flooded chamber in Lost Mine of Phandelver or abandoned manor that becomes the Red Brand’s hideout. When looking at the map, there’s no overhead map to get a clear view of the area, so you need to scroll and explore to get a feel, which is annoying. And the “small” maps are not particularly small; there’s no tiny filler dungeons for short sidequests, like the game itself used (see the wolf cave and the slime cave outside Luskan).

There are limited number quests to work with: collecting dropped items, killing an enemy, or killing a boss. (So much for the “rescue” quest from Lost Mine of Phandelver or finding a clue). There is a wealth of absent monsters, and not just weird obscure creatures, but common ones like orcs and gnolls. I don’t entirely certain there’s all the options from the main story. (So no green dragon or orcs from Lost Mine of Phandelver). I expect microtransactions will cover these, as they add their own modules and content packs. I understand that microtransactions are the new standard pricing model, but these are annoying when you paid $30+ for the game itself; if the DM tools were free but required transactions, that’d be different.

There is no option for branching dialogue trees for the Dungeon Master. You can apparently have NPCs say something with character limit comparable to a couple tweets, but I could never find where this was or add any dialogue.

When making characters in DM mode, you can pick individual equipment from a giant scroll down list, which is extremely long. There’s no way to sort or limit to just boots or heavy armour.

I also couldn’t really find an adequate way to test my module to see if it worked. All I could do was load it in a solo game, but doing this didn’t work as I was one PC versus monsters meant to challenge a party, and wiped constantly. There was no way to bring my party, and testing with friends seems… well, silly, since you’d want them to play the finished version. I’d love a “god mode” for testing.

I know other games that allow some customization (Super Mario Maker comes to mind) require you to play through your level to prove it can be done. I’d love to see a similar validation requirement for these modules, preferably with a generic party of baseline adventurers.

The Awesome

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Clik here to view.The NPC/character maker in the DM tools is actually rather interesting and has some potential. You can give monsters powers from most skill trees, allowing some fun variety. It’s easy to make a goblin fighter or vampire wizard. You can shift the colour of items to a limited degree, and palette swap monsters to make very different variants.

Being able to watch players go through your game as an invisible Dungeon Master, possessing creatures and adding threats, seems like a lot of fun. And it looks easy to do. Hosting a game seems pretty simple.

The game has random dungeon crawls for quick play. You can play these solo (online still, and expect to die) or with a group of friends. Just want some quick time killing action? Here you go!

Because you have access to so much of the art assets, the NPC creator works as a pretty functional character visualizer. Handy for people who are terrible at drawing but want an image of their character. (I do wish there was more miscellaneous weapons beyond the rolling pin though, and more generic clothing. The ability to add scabbards and gear would be nice.)

I love the flexibility of multiplayer, and how you can bring someone else into your game at any time, even if partway through the playthrough. Each time you start playing you can opt to invite a friend or continue solo.

There’s a secret room in the first dungeon. While slightly obvious when consulting the map, I still like these small touches.

Final Thoughts

I feel misled and lied to regarding Sword Coast Legends. And needlessly so.

The game is a hack-and-slash dungeon crawl game. Which is fine. They could have pushed the game in that direction and sold it as a spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance. I played the heck out of that game and its sequel. And Diablo created an entire genre that still does well. But don’t suggest it’s a callback to earlier more tactical games when it’s really not.

But putting aside the poor hype aside and tenebrous D&D connections, is the game good? I’d still say no.

The story is weak. Nothing special. Maybe the promised Rage of Demons module (offered free to anyone who pre-ordered in response to the delay in release) will be better, but so far that’s absent.

While the game seems like more of an action hack-and-slash Diablo clone, the gameplay is often slow: healing is slow, searching is slow, waiting for cooldowns are slow. Attacking is aimed and passive and less the active clickfest of modern games. To say nothing of the awkward camera movement. It doesn’t compare well, especially to modern iterations like Diablo 3 or Torchlight.

Two or three years ago Sword Coast Legends could at *least* claim to be one of the few isometric RPGs on the market, with that style of game having fallen to the wayside in favour of more 3rd Person views. But recently other high profile games of that format have been released, including Divinity: Original Sin in 2014 and Pillars of Eternity earlier this year. Both of which received a great response from the community.

The big selling feature is the adventure designer. But this is not only inferior to the version included in Neverwinter Nights but to the one included in the Neverwinter MMO. At this point Neverwinter has been out for a couple year of bug fixes, improvements, and content increases to its adventure designer and is a Free-2-play game making it significantly cheaper than Sword Coast Legends as an online adventure tool.

As such, I cannot recommend this game. Maybe on a 75% off Steam sale. After some serious patching. And expansion of the DM Tools. Maybe.

Instead, go check out some of the older D&D games on Good Old Games (which *just* released a bunch of “new” ones) or the remastered version of Baldur’s Gate. Maybe check out Planescape: Torment or the Eye of the Beholder series. Or try Neverwinter. It’s free. Or check out the newly released Enhanced Edition of Divinity: Original Sin, which is reportedly free to anyone who already bought the PC version.

D&D Review: Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide

After the cancellation of its predecessor and a delay for an uncertain length of time, the first sourcebook for the 5th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons has been released: the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide, written by the same company as Out of the Abyss and likely meant to work well with the Rage of Demons storyline.

While the SCAG is a little late to really be a part of the current storyline and season of Organized Play, all of the recent D&D adventures have been set on the Sword Coast (even those prior to 5e’s full launch), making this a continually relevant sourcebook.  

What It IsImage may be NSFW.
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The Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide is a 160-page book written and edited by Green Ronin Publishishing under licence to Wizards of the Coast, who supervised the creation and playtesting. It retails for around $40 in the Lower 48, or $50 CAD for me. It’s a full colour hardcover book with slightly matte pages (it doesn’t look as dull as the Tyranny of Dragons paper, but this might be due to the full colour backgrounds to the pages).

The book is effectively an updated version of the Forgotten Realms Player’s Guide (published for 4e in 2008). It’s includes 95-pages describing the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, including 20-pages devoted just to the Gods. Also included are new races, class options, cantrips, and backgrounds. These semi-crunchy sections cover 52-pages, but there’s a lot of talk in that section devoted to the place of race and class options in the world.

The Good

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Clik here to view.As a player’s guide to the Realms and the Sword Coast region, the book is excellent. There’s a lot of flavour and small tidbits of lore, but not so much as to be overwhelming. Chapter One gives a full overview of the Faerûn, with each nation or small region receiving a couple paragraphs. Chapter Two details the Sword Coast region, going into much more detail, with a couple pages of solid text devoted to major cities and areas. This second chapter is also written in-character from the perspective of people from the Sword Coast, which adds some flavour and the potential of unreliable narration, giving DMs freedom to contradict the book. The initial 2/3rds of the book is great for anyone looking to build a Realmsian character to play in one of the storyline adventures (which all take place around the Sword Coast) or, to a lesser extent, a player in Adventurer’s League games.

Especially noteworthy in this regard is the deities section, which dominates the first chapter. This includes full write-ups for 43 deities, each given roughly 1/3 a page. There’s also an expanded chart of alignment, domains, and symbols for the gods as well as new charts for the non-human deities. Given whom you worship is important in the setting and most characters have a patron god, this is a nice summary for players.

The gazetteer includes some information summarizing the changes to the landscape from the Sundering. For the most part these can be summed up as “back to the way it was”. Paired with both the 4e realms sourcebook and an earlier campaign guide (your favourite from the various books & boxes) it’s enough to passably run an extended Forgotten Realms campaign.

The new mechanical options seem solid and balanced. There’s nothing that appears game breaking at first glance. The new subclasses all have a distinct flavour, and can mostly be described in narrative terms rather than simply mechanical, which is important. The new options also seem to fill a gap in the game, either narratively or mechanically. There are a couple options softer in the story department, but that serve a larger game niche (for example, the battlerager is the mobile barbarian and the order of the crown paladin is the dedicated tank). The book adds a new subclass for the barbarian, cleric, fighter, paladin, sorcerer, warlock, wizard, and two new subclasses for the monk and rogue.

The barbarian and wizard subclasses are race specific, with the battlerager barbarian restricted to dwarves and the bladesinger wizard being elven. I like this. Some freedom is given to Dungeon Masters to lift this restriction, but I enjoy restrictions as the default. And it encourages DMs to do the same with their own options, or even existing subclasses/classes.

Most of the new backgrounds are generic, and work easily in any campaign, which is a nice option; I appreciate a Realms flavour in many but more options for other games are desired. There are a few that are very specific to the Realms, but even these could be reflavoured easily. I’m uncertain if I wanted fewer or more Realms-specific backgrounds. But I appreciate the restraint in most cases, as we didn’t end up with multiple “new” backgrounds like, oh, “Candlekeep Sage” that are identical to the existing sage but with a *slightly* different flavour. A couple backgrounds even include variants, which I enjoy. I like that the system encourages tweaking existing backgrounds when possible.

The book includes updated versions of a couple subclasses featured in an Unearthed Arcana article from the Wizards of the Coast website: the storm sorcerer and swashbuckler rogue. For fans of those subclasses, it’s nice to have revisions. Especially for players who wanted to use these options in Organized Play, or in homegames with a DM that is wary of UA content.

There are variants for a couple races without subrace options, such as half-elves and tieflings. I was a little irked that these races didn’t have subraces built-in, as I wanted to avoid the 3e/Pathfinder design of swapping racial traits, as it can lead to mix-and-matching abilities to get an optimal version of the race. Thankfully, the variant half-elf skirts the issue by making only a single feature modular.

The Bad

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Clik here to view.There’s very little information on the lands beyond the Sword Coast. This is problematic for many of the nations, which have changed dramatically over the years. Little details like leadership are often missing or buried in the text. Most noteworthy is the Moonsea region, which is the focus of the Expeditions wing of the Adventurer’s League. The region only receives a quarter of a page, making the book somewhat of a poor world resource for AL players. However, this does give the Expeditions adventures and AL coordinators a little more latitude to get creative, and add their own details to that region. (If their additions will actually become canon or be forgotten remains to be seen.)

The in-character gazetteer is a little week. There are long stretches where it’s easy to forget it’s being written in-world. The narrator very rarely intrudes into the text. Which rather defeats the purpose of it being written in-character.

There’s so few new mechanical options for 5e, the game feels a little option starved. I appreciate the slow release schedule rather than waves and waves splatbooks, but I think we could have a *little* more. Similarly, this product is awkward as a splatbook as the crunch is world specific. This makes sense, given what the book is, but it’s still disappointing for people not playing in the Realms, which is very likely the majority of D&D players. The lack of splatbooks hurts some classes more than others, and there are still no additional builds for the bard or druid, while the ranger has only received support from Unearthed Arcana.

The battlerager barbarian is all about spiked armour. I’m not thrilled with class features that assume specific gear: what if the character finds really nice magic armour? Or is stripped of their equipment? Woe to the battlerager playing Out of the Abyss and relying on scavenged armaments.

Despite the FR focus of the book, a few of the subclasses are generic and don’t feel particularly connected to the Realms. Both monk paths are so-so in this regard, not really jumping out as part of the world. The Sun Soul monk is at least fun as the DragonBall ki blasting monk, but the Long Death monk is just odd with weak flavour: the how and why this monk gains its powers are funky. The Way of the Long Death is meant to be the “evil monk” build to contrast with the Sun Soul, but the Way of Shadow in the PHB seems better. Similarly, the warlork’s Undying patron is weak, with the best examples of patrons coming from Greyhawk rather than the Realms. A shadow weave pact tied to Shar or one that emulated the void from 4e’s Forgotten Realms Player’s Guide would have been preferable.

As mentioned among “the Good”, the book includes updated versions of the Unearthed Arcana playtest content. The negative flip side of this inclusion is less total content. I’d prefer the options included in UA be supplemental to material in books, and instead have the UA content be updated on the site at a later date. If WotC wants playtest feedback for a book’s content, I’m sure they could release that content separately. Doing so should also generate a stronger response, as well as feedback derived from actual testing, as people set-out to actually test the material at their tables.  

Not all of the new backgrounds contain personality traits. I imagine this was a space issue, but it’s still disappointing. While the core classes and races received some attention and description of their role in the world, I would have loved similar attention for the backgrounds. Where might sages be in the Sword Coast. What merchant guilds could one belong to? Or thieves’ guilds? If backgrounds truly are equal in importance to race and class, they should have been treated as such.

The book has no new DM mechanics or rules modules, such as crunch for wild magic zones, spellplague, or dead magic. (There’s also nothing on Spellscars.) This isn’t really a surprise given the focus on the book, but is a bit of a disappointment with no other campaign material on the horizon.

The Ugly

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Clik here to view.There’s no Shaundakul! Outrage! Okay, for those who don’t know, Shaundakul is the god of Wind, Exploration, Portals, Travellers, and Rangers. He’s effectively an adventurer god who was introduced in mid-2e and warranted an entry in the 3e Realms campaign book. And he’s obscure, so it makes sense he’d be omitted. But he was the patron god of my 2e ranger and a personal favourite, so I’ll darn well protest his exclusion.  

The book ignores the existence of Elemental Evil Player’s Companion, most notably the races. The genasi have long had a role in the Realms but receive no mention, and the SCAG repeats the deep gnome racial traits from the EEPC. I’d have rather have more new content than a gnome subclass I already own. Alternatively, they could have reprinted the aasimar racial traits from the Dungeon Master’s Guide, putting them in a book players are more likely permitted to reference.

The Waterdhavian noble background. This is incredibly redundant, with the noble background already in existence. They didn’t even bother just making it a variant of the noble. Boooo.

My biggest complaint shouldn’t be a surprise: the price of the book. All of the 5e books have a  steep price point but this is asking a lot for a 160-page book. It costs 4/5th what one of the core rulebooks cost but with less than 1/2 the content. Paizo charges $30 for similarly sized books and WotC was charging $35 for books this size under five years ago. For anyone desperate for new crunch, this price point is exceptionally high.

The Awesome

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Clik here to view.At the back of the book a few pages are dedicated to adjusting the new class options for other settings (Dragonlance, Greyhawk, and Eberron), and it also includes some thoughts on accommodating the content into homebrew worlds. This is nice, albeit odd in a book that is otherwise completely dedicated to the Realms, and a lot of space devoted to content that fills maybe 5-6 pages. (I like that they did it as a concept, but it’s an odd choice to devote 2% of the book to making 5% of the book work in other settings.)

While each of the classes get some description of how classes and class options fit into the world, warlock patrons are given names and descriptions. So your feypact warlock in the Realms doesn’t just have a deal with “faerie X” but Oberon the Green Lord. (However, the book then omits this for the new pact. Oops.)

There’s a sidebar with racial traits for the rare ghostwise halflings. It’s cool. Perhaps a little underpowered (maybe) but cool. And optional.

There are some nice maps in the book. Two actually: the traditional highly detailed map with cities, roads, & terrain and also a more stylized in-universe map. Both are cool in very different ways. The first map is one of the best maps of Faerûn I’ve seen a long time.

The main map is also used for small inserts in Chapter Two, when the book describes a region. Like Out of the Abyss, this is done in a stylized fashion that is very pretty, making the map look more like filler art, but useful filler.

The inheritor background is slick. A cool idea. It stretches the idea of a background as “what you did before you were an adventurer” but it’s pretty neat.

There is a small sidebar for DMs on “making the Realms your own”, encouraging them to tweak the setting. While many DMs have been doing this for years, sometimes it’s nice to have the reminder (let alone encouragement) that you are not restricted by the words on the page.

Final Thoughts

I liked this book. But I’m still conflicted on whether it was the book I wanted.

It’s unquestionably a good book. As mentioned, this book is really a updated version of the Forgotten Realms Player’s Guide. Arguably, it’s much better than that book, with stronger descriptions and more detail on the places, gods, and races. It is more focused than its predecessor on being a player-friendly book of lore. It’s probably a useful book to hand to any player new to the Realms, regardless of the era being played.

I’m uncertain if it’s the best choice for the first non-adventure book for 5th Edition. It’s great to give players involved in the Forgotten Realms a product that introduces them to the setting, but that’s weakened if there’s nothing comparable for the Dungeon Master to help them set a story in the Realms. It’s nice to have some new mechanical options for Realms characters, but that’s weakened by the need for more generic content. Conversely, new options are desirable, but paying $40 for a dozen pages of content is steep.

To some extent it makes sense as a business decision. There is a wealth of Forgotten Realms campaign books for past editions available from used game stores or as PDFs, so a new campaign guide is less needed. But making the first splatbook a sourcebook encourages people to buy that book even if they wouldn’t normally buy a setting book, introducing new people to the Realms and possibly making them fans of the setting.

But this is all beside the point and is pretty much completely and totally irrelevant to an actual review of this book. At the end of the day, this book is excellent at what it does and for what it is. It may be a poor splatbook, but that’s like calling an apple a poor orange. If you want a player’s guide to the Sword Coast region of the Forgotten Realms or an introduction to that setting, this is an excellent product.

Shameless Plug

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If you liked this review, you can support me and encourage future reviews. My book, Jester David’s How-To Guide to Fantasy Worldbuilding, is available for purchase. The electronic copy is available on Kindle, and DriveThurRPG. The PoD copy is available on Createspaceand Amazon. Purchases from DriveThru especially allow me to purchase new PDFs for review purposes.

The book is a compilation of my worldbuilding blog series, and all the entries have been updated, edited, and expanded. The final book features almost two-hundred pages of advice on making your own fantasy world.

Pathfinder Review: Bestiary 5

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Clik here to view.The common wisdom among d20 roleplaying gamers is that you can never have too many monsters. Paizo seems to be putting this to the test with Bestiary 5, which – despite the numeral in the name – is the seventh hardcover book of monsters for the Pathfinder Roleplaying game (and if you include softcover books, there’s probably three or four more, including Inner Sea Bestiary, Inner Sea NPC Codex, and Occult Bestiary).

It’s a lot of new monsters for the system, but likely still far behind the record set by 2nd Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.

What It Is

Bestiary 5 is a 319-page hardcover book (plus a 1-page of advertisement) with full colour pages that (unsurprisingly) looks a lot like Bestiary 1-4. By my count, it features over 275 monster stat blocks ranging in Challenge Rating from CR 1/6 to 24. The book includes 14 new animal companions and six new familiars. Nine monsters are given rules for use as Player Characters or NPCs, but half of these are reprinted from other sources. Most monsters receive a single page with a noteworthy few warranting a second page, while a handful of related monsters share a page.

Like Bestiary 3 and 4, the book reprints monsters found in prior Paizo products, mostly Adventure Path volumes but also several creatures from Inner Sea Bestiary. Inclusion here means these monsters will be added to the online Pathfinder Reference Document (PRD), making them easier to used in the Pathfinder Society Organized Play program and likely in other Adventure Paths. But for people who had those books, this bestiary has less new content.

The book ends with the universal monsters rules like all Paizo bestiary volumes. The pages of monster feats, simple templates, and monster creation rules repeated again, for the increasingly unlikely possibility this is someone’s first and only bestiary (which would be problematic as this book references rules, monsters, and powers from Bestiary 1, 2, and 4). A good 30-odd pages are devoted to this backmatter. There are a few new universal monster rules in this book, related to occult and psychic monsters.

The Good

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Clik here to view.Bestiary 5 features a solid mixture of Challenge Ratings, including both low level critters and high level threats. There are a couple monsters for every CRs from 1/4 all the way to 20. There are even a few Mythic monsters, although these are still fairly rare.

Bestiary 5 maintains the current format of Pathfinder’s monsters, which works for the most part. They haven’t decided to switch to the simple monster format from Pathfinder Unchained or get experimental. For the most part I like the layout and it works well for the requirements of Pathfinder. I’m particularly fond of the two-line description preceding each monster, which makes great read aloud text as a gamemaster.

Given this is the fifth Bestiary, there are precious few classic d20/D&D monsters left to be upgraded to Pathfinder, but a few managed to slip through the cracks. The cambion is finally updated, included as a type of demon. There are also three classic monsters, reprinted using the Tome of Horrors Complete as a reference. There’s also the firbolg, which is a creature from both D&D and mythology; I have a soft spot for names I recognise from my 2nd Edition Monstrous Manual.

Psychic monsters finally get their moment in Pathfinder. There are also a few token creatures from the psionic section of the 3.5e SRD: the brain mole, caller in darkness, and thought eater. These have been waiting patiently for Paizo to deal with psychic magic. There’s also a dash of some eastern mysticism with the India inspired Manasaputra. I’m unlikely to ever use these, but it’s great to see some love for non-Western religions.

Quite a few monsters are pulled from mythology. I (usually) appreciate mythological inspiration, as beasts of legend that have been around for generations tend to be more interesting and evocative than creatures created whole cloth by a game designer. There are cryptids from across the world, including some lesser known local legends.

The book has a lot of grid-filler monsters, such as a variety of low level dragon creatures. Because sometimes you want to pit a low level table against a draconic creature that isn’t a baby/wyrmling.

There are a lot of unusual oozes in this book. Oozes tend to be one-trick pony monsters that blob over their victim and slam or dissolve prey. This bestiary has several new oozes that act differently, including one that’s remotely humanoid, one made of hair, several tied to emotions ala Ghostbusters 2, and one that’s living gunpowder.

While this was hyped as the “occult/psychic bestiary”, this book also serves as the science fiction bestiary, with numerous alien creatures receiving stat blocks, along with a number of technological monsters, including a few different robots. Detailed are the iconic grey alien, reptoids, grey goo (ie a nanotechnological swarm), androids, and the just plain weird anunnaki. I doubt I’ll ever use these, and skimmed most these entries, but the Pathfinder ruleset is meant to be flexible and not everyone wants to use it for generic fantasy. This content likely has its audience. There seems to be a lot of 3rd Party Publishers doing science fantasy at the moment: Numenera seems to have started a trend. It makes this book a solid resources of a d20 Star Wars campaign or other sci-fi game.

The Bad

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Clik here to view.The book features a LOT of filler, both padding and expected monster types. There are the standard must-have monsters: new dinosaurs; three new demons, devils, and giants; new good outsiders such as angels, archons, and azatas; five new dragons (because dragons always need to come in groups of five). These seem included more to fill check-boxes than out of necessity or because of potent story need, hitting a few CRs that are not completely covered. The new giants seem particularly uninspired, and even lack the environmental hook that traditionally defines giant kin. There are also the myriad new undead spawned in increasingly specific situations, with most being variant ghosts or alternate power that are expanded into a full stat block.

As mentioned, while this book was justified as an “occult bestiary” at PaizoCon – updating the psychic monsters following Occult Adventures – but there’s far more sci-fi than mystical, more psionics than psychics. Given one of Paizo’s complaints of the former psychic rules was that they were too sci-fi, this feels off and ill fitting. There’s a couple dozen creatures with psychic powers but only half that number feel occult in nature, with more being extraterrestrial than spiritual. It really seems at odds with the spiritual and mystical presentation of psychic magic in Occult Adventures. This is especially curious given the dozen psionic creatures from the d20 SRD that were not updated in this bestiary. This bestiary really feels like a companion to last year’s Iron Gods Adventure Path.

Even if you expand the definition of “occult” to mysterious, otherworldly, and in possession of esoteric knowledge than another couple dozen monsters certainly qualify. But this is still under a fifth of the total monsters in the book.

Many of the aliens seem weird and I’m not sure of the inspiration. I’m uncertain what to make of the anunnaki, who look like the aliens from Prometheus of all things, but can change shape (and have a bite attack, which is all kinds of messed up for a civilized alien race). The name comes from Mesopotamian gods, but ties into ancient astronaut/ conspiracy theories, which makes them feel a little like Stargate villains.

While I’m quick to shout-out this book for drawing a lot of inspiration from mythological creatures, there are some pretty darn obscure monsters featured here. Some are interesting but we get a few familiar tropes, different culture’s versions of an evil hound or mismatched animal hybrids.

There’s also the sahkil, which are fallen psychopomps. This is an interesting idea, but in practice they’re just another subtype of evil outsider joining the seven or eight already in existence. The concept is neat as a villain or two-line variant, but not an entire monster type.

The Ugly

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Clik here to view.Many of the monsters feature precious little lore. This has been a problem with Pathfinder bestiaries since the beginning – the system’s large stat blocks devouring page space – but there are more instances in this book. I imagine some of this has to do with the crunchiness of the game: simple monsters powers have been done, so new monsters have to have more inventive, which means complexity. And there is an increased need to clarify effects to help adjudicate interactions with the game’s myriad other powers. But even comparing this product to Bestiary 4 shows a marked increase in monsters lacking useful lore, with twice as many creatures having limited descriptions (this is even when excluding constructs, dragons, and the few creatures who received a full page of lore in prior bestiaries).

While the limited lore has always been a weakness of the bestiaries, this seems particularly frustrating following the Dungeon & Dragon’s excellent 5th Edition Monster Manual and Paizo’s own Monster Codex. While matching past books in terms of design and format is admirable (and satisfying from an OCD perspective) Paizo cannot ignore innovations of their primary competitor, nor can they rest on their laurels and keep doing things the way they’ve always done things without striving for improvement. This is especially frustrating since monster lore is one of the things that initially set Pathfinder apart, with the goblins in Burnt Offerings demonstrating how flavour can make a common and mechanically uninteresting monster engaging and new. Mechanics and stat blocks make you able to use a monster in your game, but flavour makes you want to use a monster. There really needs to be a balance between lore and crunch, and this book just doesn’t hit find that mark.

The dragons have always particularly suffered for flavour; metallic and chromatic dragons at least received descriptions way back in Dragons Revisited in 2009 (for 3.5e D&D and rather out of date now in terms of both rules and lore), but the new dragons released since have been ignored. As of this writing, there are 15 true dragons described so sparsely that the flavour for each could fill a tweet with enough characters left over for a hashtag. With 10 previously published dragons starved of background and a solid role in the game, it seems unlikely we’ll learn more about esoteric dragons and how to actually use them in a campaign as more than big sacks of hit points to be murdered. Esoteric dragons in particular seem unneeded as 4/5ths are tied to planes, and could have easily been templates applied to existing dragons. I not even certain what separates a dream from a nightmare dragon apart from breath weapon and a few powers; is a nightmare dragon a fallen dream dragon or are they unrelated? There’s story there that needs to be filled.  

One particularly egregious example of limited lore is the devastator: a CR22/MR8 creature that receives a dragon-esque single sentence of lore. As an epic boss monster it needs at least a paragraph and could easily have warranted a second page. Especially since the devastator is sandwiched between the filleriffic demon and devil sections (such as the seraptis demon, which also receives a single sentence of lore, attributing their corruption to events that happen after their death, damning them forever because people reacted poorly to their suicide). As it is now, the devastator is a shallow creature with nothing to distract from its ridiculously over-designed appearance, resembling a bad ’90s Image Comics villain who would look more at home fighting Spawn than a party of 19th level fantasy adventurers.

Many of the monsters in this book also seem redundant, lacking a unique place in the world. For example, the Lovecraftian deep ones. Skum already filled this niche. Explicitly so, as they were used in the role of degenerate fishmen in the Innsmouth inspired Wake of the Watcher adventure. Yes, we now have the hybrid deep ones (with character rules), but this could effortlessly been hybrid skum. Similarly, the new dark folk, the Caligni, seems designed to be the playable dark folk, ignoring the existence of the fetchling. There’s also a page devoted to the polar bear. Which is markedly different from a regular bear… how? Couldn’t they just have slipped a simple template on a grizzly?

There’s also the muse, which seems rather needless as the role of inspiring fey is filled by the nymph (and the muse explicitly uses the nymph’s inspiring ability). The muse also uses sound as a weapon in curious ways, which is kinda neat, but really encourages you to use a muse in a combat encounter (especially with little lore to give you an alternative). It’s a very odd implementation of the muse concept, as it shoots sound bullets.

The corpse lotus is a problematic monster. It’s presented as an ambush predator that hides among flora, but it’s freakin’ huge (as in size Huge) and should be visible a dozen meters away.

The fext is rather hard to use. First is the art, which is another comically exaggerated design. It’s hilarious. The fext is also only killable with glass or obsidian weapons, but only the latter has game rules, which are unlikely to see use. Very unique vulnerabilities are great for unique villains but poor for generic monsters.

Speaking of awkward art, the leechroot is neat concept that really doesn’t come across in its illustration, being written as killer roots but resembling a bark cage on the page. The concept is interesting and reminds me of the killer branches and roots in Evil Dead but the picture is unclear.

Several of the new psychic monsters use a pool of Psychic Energy or PE, basically emulating Power Points from 2e/3e. Which is noteworthy for not being how psychic magic works in Pathfinder. This is super odd, given monsters traditionally use the same rules and the designers explicitly removed the point-based system from psychic magic.

This is not a stand alone book. There are numerous required books, including several other bestiaries and Occult Adventures, which is required to use some monsters in this book. I find this problematic as not everyone can reliably reference the PRD during play. Having run a couple Adventure Paths, I was surprised by a few monsters than made of use a feat or spell I was unfamiliar with but couldn’t quickly reference as the required book was being used by another player at the table.

The Awesome

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Clik here to view.Anyone who has glanced at the magical deck of many things has seen the “lesser death” card, which might arise and challenge the party. This finally gets a statblock alongside its big brother, the grim reaper. That’s kinda cool.

While it seems like a grid-filler creature, I was happy to see the aether elemental. Aether was the fifth element tacked on to the cosmos in Occult Adventures for telekinetic kineticists, so it was nice to see it receive some attention. It’s annoying when changes and additions to lore just get forgotten, and it seemed like this fate was befalling aether as all references to it were confined to the kineticist chapter.

While I’m often critical of made-up monsters, especially ones that are just weird mishmashes of tentacles and alien features, the dwiergeth caught my eye. It can swallow adventurers whole but stores them in an extradimensional space of teeth which is hard to escape from. That’s just creepy and fun (I just wish the concept was attached to a more visually evocative monster, or one with more story).

Several monsters that caught my eye and need a shout-out. Such as the giant mantis shrimp, which is almost certainly the result of the Oatmeal comic. There’s the shen dragon, which is a spiritual Chinese dragon, and appeals to the Dragonball fan in me. The taxadermic creature is just fun, and easy to work into any game, which is something I look for in monsters. I was also impressed by the two new colossus; fighting a walking house is evocative, as is the idea of a giant stone sphinx coming to life. House spirits are simple but common in folklore, and thus a neat addition to the game. And the emotion ooze struck me as entertaining.

The red panda illustration on page 113 is fierce yet adorable.

And a special mention of the muse art on page 179. While not a fan of the creature, I like that they went with a plus sized figure rather than the typical fey waif. It makes the muse resembler a greco-roman version of Wagner’s Brünnhilde, which works.

Final Thoughts

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Clik here to view.I’m not particularly impressed with Bestiary 5. Having looked at every monster in the book and tallied if I could consider putting it into a game, two-thirds the monsters in this book fell into the “nope” category. The hit:miss ratio in this book is unfortunately high. This is troublesome even for a book in a content sparse game system, which Pathfinder very much is not. When any given monster needs to compete with over 2000 other monsters, standing out becomes a challenge. At any given CR there might be 50 different monsters competing for use at the gametable, and only a dozen of each CR might get used in any given campaign. But… while the hit:miss ratio is unfavourable, there are a number of hits, and lots of monsters that will bring something interesting to your game.

One complaint I find myself focusing on is that all the other hardcovers products have a very distinct theme and focus – such as Mythic, the Occult, or Horror – so I don’t see why the monsters books couldn’t be less of a hodgepodge and more focused around a theme. I wonder if merging this book with Occult Bestiary and making that a larger hardcover while releasing a smaller Science Fiction Bestiary full of robots and aliens would have resulted in a more coherent and desirable product. Right now, gamers seeing occult monsters for a game of that theme need to purchase multiple books. While it’s desirable for a bestiary have broader appeal than just a single audience or tone, that shouldn’t come at the expense of the primary focus.

The recycling of monsters from the Inner Sea Bestiary feels like a particularly curious decision. Monsters from Adventure Paths seem fair game for reprinting, since finding those monsters can be tricky and buying APs for monsters is expensive for little content. But the Inner Sea Bestiary was already a monster book. If the problem was availability of that content, it should have been possible to add Inner Sea Bestiary to the PRD to make those monsters available for use in other products. If the Inner Sea Bestiary was out of print, reprinting might also make sense, but that product is still available in print. It also devalues the monsters (and point) of the Inner Sea Bestiary, which was monsters unique to the world and not generic; stripping out flavour and making them generic doesn’t add anything to the monsters.

It’s hard to know how to recommend a book like this…

It’s a book to think about if you want more monsters. But that much is obvious. If you don’t have a Pathfinder RPG Bestiary then I would recommend 1 before this book (or even 2, which was a necessary but less flash book). Even if you have a couple Bestiaries then 1-3 or the Codexes are superior purchases. I might even recommend the 3rd Party Tome of Horrors or Advanced Bestiary ahead of this book. If you only have the first 2 Bestiaries and want a fourth, this is certainly an alternative to Bestiary 3 & 4, especially as there’s a nice mix of CRs. Even if you’re looking for monsters to expand an occult themed game, then Occult Bestiary is your best bet followed by any of the other bestiaries, which are probably just as useful to your game (with the number of eastern monsters in Bestiary 3 or higher numbers of Lovecraftian critters in Bestiary 4 making those superior suggestions). It’s not even the best source for technological threats, as the Inner Sea Bestiary has what you need at half the price.

Bestiary 5 is a nice alternative for gamemasters who want something new, monsters unfamiliar to their players, that do different and surprising things. Which can be desirable after using the same book for several years. If you need more monsters, it’s a decent purchase and you’ll likely find more than enough monsters to justify purchasing the book.

Review: Realm Works

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Clik here to view.A computer program that has been on my radar for a while is Realm Works. I’ve heard it hyped in interviews and mentioned on podcasts and websites, for both Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder. Most recently because of a partnership with Paizo to deliver Golarion-centric Realm Works content.

But I haven’t seen many recent reviews of the program and thought an updated look was more than overdue. And I needed an excuse to pull the trigger on purchasing the software. And “writing a review” is a great excuse to spend money.

What It Is

Realm Works is a campaign management tool aimed at organizing the information from your adventures and setting/ campaign world. The software was designed by Lone Wolf Development, creators of the character generator program Hero Labs. Realm Works is locally used PC software for Windows. It does not require an internet connection after downloading & registering, but one is expected for patches and syncing. Once installed, you can run offline.

While useful during a session and able to display both handouts and maps (with a fog of war), Realm Works is not designed to run your game or serve as a virtual tabletop. It’s more like a character sheet for your campaign, the Dungeon Master equivalent of Hero Labs. It replaces the big binder of notes and world lore.

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Clik here to view.An apt comparison for Realm Works would be one of the campaign management websites, such as Obsidian Portal or Epic Words. With those sites you create a wiki for your world, track NPCs, treasure, locations, and the like. In many ways, Realm Works is a locally stored and more feature heavy version of those sites.

I have not currently tried it, but I believe City of Brass is a similar program; if you’re familiar with that, you likely have an idea regarding Realm Works. (Realm Works is also what Trapdoor Technologies’ DungeonScape/ Playbook was supposed to be, but never quite accomplished.)

At the risk of coming across as an advertisement, I’ll summarizing the program for those unaware of campaign management software. At its heart, Realm Works is a more robust version of a campaign wiki. A digital Dungeon Master’s notebook, and replacement for the campaign notes and campaign setting book (either printed or digital).

You create entries in various broad categories – called topics. There are topics as cities, groups (factions, families), nations, classes, races/species, events, and many more. The categories themselves are genre agnostic and you can use the Place topics for planets or planes, modern countries or feudal city-states. You can then populate each entry with information, descriptions, and details. Topics suggest various sections based on the category (such as culture & description for a ethnicity or climate & trade for a region), and there’s assorted space for tags and pictures. You can group topics as needed to keep the list of topics tiny, nesting urban neighbourhoods into that city, the city into nation, and the nation into a region.

The program is system neutral and there are separate libraries for mechanics and the world, but the two still interlink. So you can even put crunch and rule information into the program if needed (such as copying a rulebook, making custom content, or just listing house rules). And if you decide to swap between 5th Edition and Pathfinder, you can just change the mechanical sections, leaving other areas untouched.

You can choose what is visible to the players on an topic-by-topic basis (with the default being invisible so things aren’t spoiled because you forgot to unclick it). You can have a big Event hidden, and then reveal it to the party with a single click. But each section of that event topic can be visible or invisible, giving lots of granularity to the revealing of information. For example, if you have an Event called “The Assassination of King Roland”, you can keep it invisible until the news reaches the party, reveal more facts (or rumours) as they hear them (on a rumour by rumour basis), while keeping the true assassin and background hidden until needed. You can even do thinks like mark the truthfulness of each snippet.

One of the strongest features of the program is that it automatically cross references categories, creating links in an topic to other related topics. It’s like making a campaign wiki that automatically generates the links. If referencing “the Assassination of King Roland” in a nation or racial topic, it will make that reference into a link to the event, allowing you to move from one category to another.

The Good

A computer program lives and dies with its User Interface. Realm Works’ UI is simple and barebones but functional. There’s not a lot of shiny graphics but it works. It looks like office software more than an app. The UI is cleaner and simpler than HeroLabs, which can get a bit clunky and overwhelming at times.

After 10 minutes I had a grasp of the basics of the program. And after 30 minutes of entering data and making entries, I’d gotten a handle of some of the deeper functionality. Even then I still had a feeling there was a lot more the program was capable of, that I was just scratching the surface, but it wasn’t overwhelming. (It was certainly close though… there is a lot of stuff going on.)

Entering text is easy. There are some basic word processor tools allowing you to change font, text size, and bold or italicize text. It even accepts hotkeys, like Ctrl-B. This is a big advantage over making a website or wiki, where you often have to do a little code or avoid certain characters. The text is stored as HTML so you can’t get crazy with text effects and formatting, but there is a lot you can do.

(As an aside, I remember when I started using Obsidian Portal and copied my world over and found hyphenation in my text meant italics, and had to replace all uses of dashes with commas. Pain in the butt.)Image may be NSFW.
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The sheer number of sections in each topic was a little overwhelming at first, but once I accepted that I didn’t need to fill every box it became a little easier. And knowing where you have blanks is a nice encouragement to add more details (although, it can certainly be a trap, pushing you to overwrite). I didn’t see a way to rename categories though, which would be nice. Such as creating a “subrace” category for your Elf and Dwarf topics. But there’s a LOT of features I haven’t figured out yet, so that might just be overlooked. And, really, it doesn’t matter where the the information is so long as I can find it.

When you start cross-referencing, you can choose how many or few links you want. If you’re creating the Rivendell of your world and don’t want a hundred links to “elf” you can opt to just have the first reference be a link and skip the rest. And you can make links case sensitive so the town of Haven doesn’t link to every usage of “haven”.

Realm Works is easier to install on multiple machines than Hero Labs. This makes sense as Lone Wolf really doesn’t want people sharing HeroLabs with their entire group, as you buy the entire content of rulebooks. Sharing Realm Works is less likely, as pirating your GM copy means giving players access to all your secrets as they have full access to the material. There is the additional limit that each login to Realm Works requires a separate Windows login. As each purchase of Realm Works requires a product code to get a login, I’m uncertain why this is necessary: if you and a partner (or roommate) both run games and share a computer, you need to separately login to see your copy of Realms Works. I imagine it’s for privacy (so they don’t snoop through your work) but if your spouse is sneaking a peek at your campaign’s secrets you have larger issues in the marriage than RPG spoilers. Regardless of login issues, as I work on my desktop computer but use an ancient laptop when running games, I appreciate being able to install twice.

The game remembers what was being shown in Player View, even after closing and restarting. This initially irked me as I had to manually close windows, but I quickly realized the advantage that it would retain the display between game sessions allowing you to pick up where you left off. That’s a big plus.

A feature that I barely touched is storyboarding. Like the 4th Edition D&D program Master Plan, there are some features that let you outline your adventures. I prefer to brainstorm on paper. But there’s still some nice functionality there. While I’m mostly interested in Realm Works for managing the world and sharing information at the table, there’s a lot of story design and adventure planning tools.

The Bad

Realm Works is very, very time intensive. Even if you’ve made a world it can take hours to cut-and-paste entries into the right locations and hit the right check boxes. Depending on the work you’ve already done of course…

The amount of options provided to you means you could end up with some redundancy or information duplication. Halfway through transcribing your setting, you might decide that Section 3 is better for certain information in a topic than Section 2 decide to edit some entries. Or discover some heretofore unseen feature, category, or tag that encourages you to revise. Maybe you decide that a city-state should be under communities rather than nations or that a nation’s religion should be under “Philosophy” rather than “Culture”.  Because I like consistency, I spent as much time editing and re-editing “finished” topics in my world as making new ones. And I made the accident of listing my races under “Group: Ethnic” in the World library rather than Game System library where there was space for Race/Species. Then I decided each point of interest in my world should be its own snippet rather than one big lump, requiring some revision.Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

At $50, it’s pricey bit of software. As there is no demo, it also makes the pricey sticky, since you’re uncertain of how you’ll like the program until you pay.

As a comparison, $50 is over three years of Epic Words, a year and change of Ascendant membership for Obsidian Portal, or two years of City of Brass. Of course, this is before the subscription to the cloud sync subscription; this subscription is optional, and you could conceivably rely on a memory stick or Dropbox to move your world from computer to computer, but it’s handy but makes this program the expensive alternative.

When you start the program there are the usual tips and help boxes. But these are large walls of text without graphical cues. While useful, the amount of text is somewhat intimidating. A quick “how to get started” help box with some images would have been lovely. I imagine that’s what the videos are for, but the two ideas are not mutually exclusive (and having a link to the views at the end of an introduction would have been helpful for many).

Links only generate when you edit a topic. Typically this means making a change, but if you click on the tools icon you can get to the “quick edit” option and trigger a check for new links. This means if you’re progressing linearly through a setting, the later entries will be fully populated with links but the early entries will have significantly fewer as potentially linked topics did not exist. There’s the extra step of going back through every entry and editing it to generate links. Even with “quick edit” this is labour and step intensive. There might be a feature to do a scan of the entire world somewhere, but I haven’t found it.

When the program generates links, it only does so with text that matches the name of the category. So if you have an Elf racial entry, all references to “elf'” in groups, nations, races, or events will link back. But if you refer to “elves” it won’t. You need to manually enter additional names (elves, elven), and then make those invisible. It’s not hard, but it’s awkward.

(As a tip, I’d recommend doing the Half-Elf racial entry prior to the Elf and and being careful when populating links, otherwise Realm Works will mistakenly link the “elf” part of half-elf back to the Elf topic.)

There’s no real photo-editing features, so you need to edit and crop your world map into regional maps if you want images associated with nations (and thus store multiple copies of maps. Similarly, getting maps to show in Player View takes some work; bringing up a region with a map shows there’s an associated map, but it needs to be launched separately and can be finicky. I had some trouble and crashes getting that to work nicely.

The program likes to crash. It’s very crash prone. Thankfully, every time you leave a topic it saves, so I never lost any work. And it never just crashed out of the blue, I was always trying to load something or use an option. It never stopped responding when I was just typing. But it’s an incentive to write in another program and then cut-and-paste into Realm Works. Thankfully, it’s relatively quick to load and retains items in player view, so it’s quick to get moving again following a crash.

Currently, there’s no app or mobile support like there is for HeroLabs. This means you’re unable to work on the go, such as sneaking online during a lunch break to make an NPC. A disadvantage over websites and for people who have moved away from laptops at their gametable in favour of tablets. It worked reasonably well with a remote desktop program (I tried Chrome Remote Desktop as a test), but your mileage might vary. I wouldn’t try editing topics streaming to my iPad, but I could move options and pull up topics if needed.

Revealing information is all-or-nothing. You cannot reveal content on a player-by-player basis, having something be a secret to someone but not everyone.

The Ugly

Realm Works is PC only. Not a problem for me and mine, but the lack of Mac support will hurt a lot of gamers. If even a single member of your group is a Mac (or Linux) user this will be a sticking point, as they’ll be excluded.

The biggest problem with Realm Works over campaign websites (either gamer specific like Epic Words or just a Google Sites page) is that the information is local. There’s no way for players to check on their own, on their own device at the table or at home. This also means there’s no “log” or “adventurer’s journal” functionality to the program, which is a big plus to websites.

To access your realm, players need to purchase the Player’s Edition of Realm Works, which retails for $9.99 (slightly less when you buy a pack or multiple copies, but this requires some coordination and sharing of funds). Getting players to read your campaign information is tricky at the best of times, let alone getting them to pay for the privilege.

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Clik here to view.There’s an online version in the works, but it’s been in development for many months (it was initially supposed to be out in late 2014 and was previewed a year ago). The online version will likely be the game changer for Realm Works, even if it’s read only. Especially since that also means players can check a name or read a topic at the game table, and the lost journal functionality is restored.

There’s no way to “export” or “print” a realm. I’m not sure how a Realm saved as a PDF would look (or be desirable) but having an entire campaign’s worth of information trapped in proprietary software is… unnerving. If you want to revisit a campaign years down the line, you have to hope Realms Works is still available (or make continual copies of information added to your game in a text document).

Making Events is tricky since Realm Works defaults to a Gregorian calendar. You cannot just type in a date, and have to scroll back (like the Window desktop calendar) so setting an event 1000 years ago takes some time. Not being able to make your own calendar is irksome but not a deal breaker, but not being able to rename the years (from CE/BCE) is really annoying.

Further making the calendar more of an irritation is that whenever you make an NPC it assigns a default date to their date of birth, marriage, and death. I can see how knowing the exact DOB of NPCs is handy, but as it’s done automatically and is unable to be turned off quickly populates your timeline with a wave of unneeded information. And as you cannot leave an entry blank, everyone has a date of death entry even if they’re still alive.

The Awesome

Lone Wolf released a number of online help videos, showing how to use the program. I initially eschewed the videos, attempting to muddle my way through the program on my own to provide an informed review, complete with bonehead mistakes. But I’d recommend the videos for anyone getting started or curious of the program. Great stuff.

Realm Works is really set-up to take advantage of a multi-monitor system, such as a laptop hooked up to a television. With a click, you launch a second player view window in another monitor, which mirrors the player display in the main screen but remains on player view even if you shift to another topic. This makes it crazy easy to quickly pull up information for your players.

The program might be advantageous for people making a brand new campaign setting, especially if they’re less experienced at worldbuilding. The suggested sections and snippets in each topic give you an idea what information is needed to make a world and provides a framework, and can give some inspiration. It’s a lovely framework for details.Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

In the works is a marketplace, allowing you to buy worlds, locations, or adventures from other creatives. At the time of this writing it is not live, but this sounds pretty cool and an interesting alternative (or addition) to selling campaign settings just as PDFs. Lone Wolf has partnered with Paizo for this, so it’ll be possible to bring in some Golarion content. I’m envious of the future Rise of the Runelords Gms, able to run that AP with a full Realm Works integrated map of Sandpoint or Magnimar.

Because you can make NPCs, events, and locations and keep them invisible until needed, you can create a pool of possible characters, encounters, and adventure details that you can reveal whenever the players go off rails or wander in an unexpected direction. You can make characters with a name, personality, quirk, and backstory then when the players get really curious about the stableboy you can just grab Snard Torrinson and add a profession with a couple keystrokes. This would be super handy for a sandbox campaign. Or for people with variable amounts of free time where they can dump lots of time into Realm Works when free and rely on that later when busy.

Realm Works has some integration with Hero Labs. You can make a character in Hero Labs and load that portfolio into Realm Works. Then with one click you can pull up their statblock in Realm Works. Meanwhile, a different click launches Hero Labs going directly to that portfolio (and significantly faster than just loading Hero Labs, since it skips all the steps prior to loading a portfolio).

Final Thoughts

Realm Works is awesome for me. I’m pretty much the target audience, being a gamer using a Windows laptop hooked up to a TV by my gaming table to display content like maps or monster images. I’m excited to *really* integrate the program into my campaign. The tech is almost perfect. But… that “almost” there should probably be bolded. And maybe underlined.Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

There are some bugs and warts in the program, but most are ignorable. Small company and all. But many problems have been around since launch back in mid-2014 and Lone Wolf has been slow to implement fixes or new features.

There’s a lot of talk of the content market and sharing content, but that seems secondary to the main functions of improving your home game. It makes sense for Hero Labs to prioritize adding new content over new features, since users likely bought the program to manage the available options. But the opposite is true for Realm Works and the content market and licenced material is secondary to fixes and features.

The biggest catch for me is that the program doesn’t fully replace my need for a campaign website in two key ways: player journals and sharing world lore. Asking players to pay money for an unfamiliar program is tricky, especially when it doesn’t benefit them during play: players bringing laptops to the game went out of vogue half a decade ago. Half my players barely think about the game away from the table as it is, so even if I personally bought them the Player’s Edition it might not see much use. If they could bring themselves to instal unfamiliar software on their machines…

(I wonder if Lone Wolf could bundle one free copy of the Player’s Edition with the GM version, so one player could try it no-risk and hype it to the rest of the table.)

Part of me wants to recommend waiting for the online functionality before purchasing. So much usability would be added with that single feature, such as players being able to referencing information at the game table or at home without personal cost, and easily being able to write journal entries or take notes during play. And a web player view will partially alleviate the PC-only limit on the Player Edition of the software. This is probably the biggest missing feature of the program, and I’d take it over having customizable calendars, not having every single NPC having a set date of death, the ability to export, or other small quality-of-life fixes.

Arguably, making a world is time intensive, so one could purchase now and get started, being ready to move online when that feature goes live. Crossing fingers that it’s not another year away, of course.

But my opinions are not necessarily typical. Even without the online capability, Realm Works could be very useful to many groups.

Maybe your group is awesome, loves your world lore, and is happy to buy a copy of Realm Works to use at home (or on their Windows 10 Surface device). Maybe you have more disposable income than me and spending $25 four-pack player bundle that might never be used is no big thing.

For online campaigns, where players are on their computers anyway, Realm Works would be an excellent tool and a way to not rely on the virtual tabletop for a world maps, handouts, and lengthy text, saving that for the actual running on the game.

Additionally, when the content market goes live, there’ll be a lot more material to tap for people who don’t want to do it all themselves. There’s some fun stuff in the works, including books of NPCs, Green Ronin’s Freeport setting, and more, including the aforementioned content with Paizo. If you’re running in Freeport, Realm Works would be incredibly handy for keeping track of NPCs and locations.

Lastly, published adventures. If you’re running a prewritten adventure and own a PDF (or have a scanner and some OCR software) then Realm Works can be amazeballs. You can cut-and-paste much of the adventure into the program and run much of the adventure straight from a laptop, having all the information easily accessible with no page flipping. I’m planning on running Madness at Gardmore Abbey converted to 5th Edition and being able to just link all the locational information and maps is very easy and relatively quick. Which, given the adventure is spread out over four books, is handy. And I can give pages numbers for myself in Realm Works to make using the physical books or PDF even easier.

Realm Works is well worth the price of admission for me. And you can decide for yourself if you want to take the plunge, wait for the online component, or sit this program out.

Shameless Plug

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If you liked this review, you can support me and encourage future reviews.

I have a number of PDF products on the DMs Guild website. These include content originally made available on this site, and new content just for the Guild.

Additionally, my book, Jester David’s How-To Guide to Fantasy Worldbuilding, is available for purchase. The electronic copy is available on Kindle, and DriveThurRPG. The PoD copy is available on Createspaceand Amazon. Purchases from DriveThru especially allow me to purchase new PDFs for review purposes.

The book is a compilation of my worldbuilding blog series, and all the entries have been updated, edited, and expanded. The final book features almost two-hundred pages of advice on making your own fantasy world.

Review: Curse of Strahd

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Clik here to view.For the fourth storyline/ adventure path for 5th Edition, Wizards of the Coast moved the writing process in-house and brought back the original creators to expand on their creation – almost 33-years after its original publication – with Curse of Strahd.

As always, this is a heavy review of the product and will likely have spoilers for the adventure. If you plan on playing, I caution you not to read ahead or skip to my final thoughts.

But before I get into the review, be warned: I’m a huge Ravenloft junkie. It was the first campaign setting I bought, fourth D&D product I purchased, and first official setting I ran. I have on my shelf every Ravenloft product printed (as well as a few that were never officially printed). So this product hits pretty close to home, and I’m a little more defensive of the Ravenloft setting than other content, which will likely colour my review.

What Is It

Curse of Strahd is a 256-page hardcover adventure, written and published by WotC. The book takes characters from 1st level to roughly 10th level, but makes use of the optional milestone levelling in a few places, meaning Dungeon Masters wanting to use just experience points for advancement might need to add a few random encounters or side quests. Including at the back of the book is a poster map, with Castle Ravenloft on one side and a map of Barovia on the other, complete with map inserts of the various towns. The book includes a few magic items, a new background for players, and several new monsters, including four animated objects, the Barovia witch, tree blight, mongrelfolk, phantom warrior, were raven, and Strahd zombie. In addition there are seven unique NPCs. Plus Pidlwick II.  

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Clik here to view.The Curse of Strahd super-adventure is a retelling of the classic 1st Edition module I6: Ravenloft, originally published in 1983. This is the third such retelling, preceded by House of Strahd for 2nd Edition, and Expedition to Castle Ravenloft for 3rd. Excluding the Silver Edition module, which was just a reprint.

I6: Ravenloft is one of the most popular adventure modules of all time, and was adapted into a Choose-Your-Own adventure style book, Master of Ravenloft, in 1986, expanded into the Ravenloft Campaign Setting in the 1990, and used to inspire the Castle Ravenloft board game in 2010.

Like 2006’s Expedition (which was a roughly 221-pages, running from roughly 6th level to 10th level), Curse of Strahd takes the classic adventure and expands the module, adding more content prior to the dungeon crawl through Castle Ravenloft and presumably climaxing in a confrontation with Strahd. In both cases, the adventure is presented as the first time adventurers have faced the count, being a reimagining rather than a sequel.  

The Good

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Clik here to view.As always, the production values of the book are superb. There is excellent art throughout, and the book has the now-standard 5th Edition ink splatter design, occasionally supplemented with appropriate bloodstains. I didn’t notice any obvious typos or textual problems. A high quality, professional work all around.  

The adventure is a large sandbox adventure, and players can explore the region of Barovia on their own terms. There are frequent hooks to direct players from one area to another or send adventures to key locations, which makes this a well designed sandbox as it doesn’t rely on the players to just get curious or abandon plot hooks to see the most interesting locations. Unlike prior sandbox adventures, the book provides a chart that gives the average level of threats in each region.Additionally, a number of side quests and areas are teased throughout the adventure, like the Blinsky toys, the Wizard of Wines winery, and certain pies. The various sub-adventures in the sandbox feel connected and real, rather than being isolated little dungeons existing in a vacuum (for the most part).

The book includes optional DM rules and advice, such as tips for running a horror campaign, some altered magic rules and resurrection madness, as well as rules for running a Tarokka fortune card reading. (Cards sold separately.) Like the original adventure, a Tarokka reading is part of the plot and provides a random element to the location of treasure and identity of reliable allies.

The book also includes a short guide of the region of Barovia, including some details on the Vistani gypsies. The adventure also describes three towns in the region in reasonable detail, with complete maps and some NPCs. Although exploring the region encompasses the bulk of the adventure. There are an assortment of locations labeled A to Z that are detailed in order through the book, so the location of an encounter in the book is determined based on the letter it was assigned rather than the challenge of the encounters or where the encounters are expected to fall in the campaign. Interestingly, when possible, the letter assigned seems to correspond to the first letter of the locales name. This means locations are scattered randomly, but the naming often makes sense.

The monsters in the back are given lots of detail and description, provided full monster write-ups rather than a small paragraph of fluff and a statblock. Most are an illustration away from being pulled straight from the Monster Manual. Of the new monsters, mongrelfolk and wereravens get the most love, with both being found in multiple places throughout the adventure. Wereravens are almost are present as vampires in the adventure.

The adventure and dungeons are decent. Better than that actually. There’s excellent atmosphere throughout, with a goodly amount of creep in every encounter and scene, with a tonne of small details and unnerving featues. The dungeon chambers aren’t just room after room of monsters broken by empty descriptor rooms serving a vague purpose. Instead, the empty rooms maintain the tone and establish an atmosphere, and there are assorted traps and magical effects. There is a sense of wonder to many of the magical traps, with lots of unique effects. Not every dungeon need involve fighting, and I can imagine negotiation or stealth could factor into more than one. The adventure assumed combat (because it has to) but it doesn’t mandate combat and some roleplaying details are given for many of the monsters, who often feel like individuals and not just sacks of experience to be slaughtered. Very old school, and yet very modern. This is easily, hands down, the best set of dungeons published for 5e, being far more interesting, unique, and evocative than the straight fights of Princes of the Apocalypse.

Even elements of the original are improved and tightened. The treasure of Castle Ravenloft are expanded beyond the walls of the castle, and can be found scattered across the land. And formerly unimpressive or bland rooms of the castle are expanded, with room descriptions and details punched up, and NPCs given more life. Tricky areas (like certain traps) are given much more detail, making them actually useable.

The expansion sidequests of the adventure touch on many Gothic/ horror tropes. This makes the entire adventure feel much like a microcosm of the entire campaign setting. There are werewolf packs in the woods, a haunted manor full of ghosts, a coven of witches, and a crazed healer making flesh golems. Some are just what you would expect but others are surprising, like the golem surgeon who is very different than Frankenstein.

The book also has a number of nods to the Ravenloft campaign setting. Most of these are just Easter Eggs or borrowed lore, but a few are used to expand the setting and give Barovia more history and depth. The Wachter family are particularly noteworthy in that regard.

The Bad

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Clik here to view.The colouring of the page backgrounds can be dark in places, occasionally blending with text to give the impression the text is slightly smeared. A couple pages in my printing seemed discoloured, with one having a very distinct red hue. Odd. But this never really affected the legibility, so it’s a minor quibble.

Strahd looks too young throughout the book. He was meant to be old. Middle aged at least, and a harden middle aged after a lifetime of war. That’s explicitly stated as one of the reasons (if not the reason) Tatyana rejected him in favour of his younger brother Sergei. The depictions of Strahd are excellently drawn (and a few are amazing pieces of art), but he’s still more Lestat than Dracula. This is curious given the emphasis Tracy Hickman gives in the introduction to returning Strahd to his monstrous roots, as he’s a very romantic looking character.

The opening of the adventure is a little soft. There’s the traditional invitation – ala the original module – but this doesn’t work as well when characters aren’t going to immediately head to the castle. There’s also a hook involving the factions from the Adventurer’s Guild and the railroady as heck Death House prequel adventure (that, curiously, dumps people in the middle of the Village of Barovia when finished rather the edge of the land) plus a couple other weak hooks, but most just dump the players at the edge of the land with little direction. Even in a sandbox you need a rough goal to start you off.

Most of the locations are seeded throughout the adventure, but the connections of a few are weak. I didn’t see much reason for adventurers to explore van Richten’s tower, other than general curiosity and the metagamey reason that if it exists it should be looted and explored. The haunted manor of Argynvostholt is also somewhat weak, with the climax of that requiring a fairly deep delve into Castle Ravenloft. However, the manor accommodates groups two levels lower than ones ready to head into Ravenloft and the Castle is designed to discourage people from easily leaving once they’ve entered. It doesn’t seem likely that the party will stop their delving of the Castle to spend a couple days putting ghosts to rest (and let the defenders regroup and heal). That plot seems likely to be resolved after the climax of the adventure. But continuing to play after defeating Strahd feels like an anticlimax (especially since, at that point, the adventure feels “done” and there’ll be pressure to move on to the next campaign or storyline).

Similarly, the Temple of Amber is positioned high in the level range to either follow the Castle or be explored between trips into Ravenloft. But, again, once the delve into Ravenloft has begun and the end of the campaign is in sight, the party is unlikely to just stop. I didn’t even really see convincing reasons to explore the Temple, apart from being teleported there from inside the Castle.

The largest flaw of the adventure is that is a retread of an adventure that has been retread twice prior. Many players will have experienced the climax of this adventure already. This is fourth version of the same damn story. Unlike Princes of the Apocalypse, which took the classic adventure and set it in a new campaign setting, with new dungeons, new opponents, and climaxed in a fight a completely different end boss, this is pretty much the exact same thing we’ve seen before only with an extended opening.

It’s really not that hard to update classic adventures to 5e. During Mike Mearls’ Reddit AMA updating classic adventures was touched on, with Mearls saying “I’d suggest extending the adventure with new content rather than just copying it, because updates to 5e are fairly easy. I think you’d need to add a personal spin to it to get attention.” The centerpiece and climax of the campaign – the delve through Castle Ravenloft – is functionally identical to the original, and everything prior is just adventures to get the characters to the right level (the definition of filler). Very little “personal spin” has been added to the delve through Ravenloft.

I can’t help but think about the missed opportunity for a sequel, an adventure that assumes the events of I6 took place and does different things with the castle and advancement of the Strahd story.

Also directly updated is the classic isometric castle map. Which is not a bad thing, being an iconic part of the adventure and a decent map (albeit with a lot of odd twists and turns. I’m not certain how people who lived in the castle were expected to navigate its halls). However, unlike Expedition to Castle Ravenloft there are no top-down companion maps for encounters. So, sadly, people running this on a VTT will need to find or make their own maps, as tokens won’t work well on the isometric maps. (Using the maps from Expedition also aren’t an option; WotC released those as a web expansion, but they were low-rez and included the monster tokens, making them not at all player friendly.)

Curse of Strahd retains some of the more the curious elements of the old adventure, such as the height of the castle, which is significantly taller than any mundane castle. The walls of Castle Ravenloft are twice as tall as typical medieval fortifications and each floor of the castle 40 or 50 feet high for no good reason. Also retained are the needless humourous crypts in the castle. I’m of the school of thought that humour is the antithesis of horror, and a cheesy meta pun just takes people out of the game. It’s not so bad for crypts like #16: Elsa Fallona von Twitterberg (beloved actor): She had many followers (it was just Elsa Fallona (beloved actor) in the original), as I can just skip the groan worthy social media joke. But Crypt 33 and “Sir Klutz Tripalotsky” is harder as I need to make-up a new name – possibly on the fly – or accept the tension being drained as the table rolls their eyes at the gag of a knight tripping and impaling himself with his own sword.

The Ugly

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Clik here to view.The accompanying poster map is glued into the spine and pulled out by perforation. This leaves a bit of map left in the book, and also risks tearing the map if not amazingly careful upon extraction (the perforation is good, but I still turned to an X-Acto knife for a stubborn middle part). This reduces the risk of map theft or staining from a removable adhesive, but I dislike the 1/2 cm bit of paper sticking jutting from the inside spine of the book.

Strahd’s statblock is a little anemic. He’s basically the spellcasting variant vampire from the Monster Manual with a few different spells, a higher Intelligence, a few new skills, and some extra necrotic damage on a hit. The rest of the book doesn’t shy away from using a one-paragraph modification of an existing statblock rather than making a brand new monster, but Strahd has fewer changes than some of the Vistani or dusk elf NPCs. As it is, CR 13 always seems a little low for regular MM vampires, and being a modification of that seems low for Strahd. He has the hit points of a CR 10 monster (and I was in a game where a party with an average level of <10 ripped apart a vampire backed up by waves of spawn, despite the group not being optimized for vampire slayage. By the time they get to Castle Ravenloft, the adventurers should be kitted out for killing undead. A party that gets lucky on initiative will rip right through Strahd. He could use some more hit points…

The book plays fast and loose with Ravenloft setting lore. Which isn’t surprising as it’s a retelling of the stand-alone adventure, and just mines the campaign setting for ideas, but it’s still unfortunate. Reducing a campaign setting to inspiration fodder for a nostalgia driven rehashing of an adventure.

To give a few examples, the ring of choking fog no longer encircles the Village of Barovia but instead the province, and Vistani potions do nothing against the fog. Madame Eva is an entirely different character, and not the Raunie of the Zarovan Vistani (but at least she’s not a hag like in Expedition). There’s no mention of Sturm von Zarovich, the middle child between Strahd and Sergei, and the von Zarovich lineage is dead.

This reimagining makes the timeline wonky as well. In the timeline of the Ravenloft Campaign setting, Ireena Kolyana wasn’t the current reincarnation of Tatyana as the events of the I6 adventure were assumed to have taken place in the past (year 528 according to the original Black Box Campaign Setting) but Rudolph van Richten was a more modern figure, who didn’t start fighting monsters until the year 706. And egregiously, van Richten is presented as a spellcaster when previously he was a straight rogue. Boo. (And is acting wildly out of character to say the least.) This feels akin to retelling the Time of Troubles adventures for the Forgotten Realms, but including Havilar and Farideh from the Brimstone Angels book series, only statting-up Havilar as a bard.

I’m not opposed to additions to the lore. For instance, the book introduces the idea of Mother Night as an ancient Barovia goddess and counterpart to the Morninglord. Which is fine. Adding a new god is an additive change and enriches the world. Cool. But making the Morninglord an ancient Barovian deity rather than a cult inspired by the presence of a sun elf vampire and distorted teachings of Lathander that began decades after Strahd’s reign is needlessly revisionary.

Arguably the largest victim of the canon revision is Strahd himself. There’s no mention of Strahd driving away the invading Tergs, and instead he’s described as making some generic warfare (and portrayed more as a conqueror). Strahd is also pretty damn evil prior to murdering Sergei. Super evil. He mutilates a silver dragon, and was already seeking immortality from evil beings prior to the Sergei’s Wedding (The Black Wedding?) He forges a pack directly with vestiges in the Amber Temple prior, and Tatyana’s rejection is just the convenient excuse for what he was already planning. This sucks all the tragedy out of Strahd’s story as he didn’t fall from nobility, he wasn’t driven to evil through rejection and lost love. He wasn’t a man that became a monster, but a monster that just became a different kind of monster. Strahd’s goals in the adventure are also lackluster, with one of his ambitions being to find a replacement for himself to rule over Barovia now his bloodline is dead. But that seems like a very un-Strahd of a goal; he literally identifies and equates himself with Barovia, and I don’t see why he would ever want to abdicate. And, as evil schemes go, it’s decidedly lacking terms of both scheming and evil. His motivations beyond Tatyana need a LOT more oomf.

The previous backstory of Strahd was also intentionally vague on how he became a vampire, if the “Death” referred to in the Tome of Strahd was the infamous Dark Powers of Ravenloft or another force. Curse of Strahd outright says that “Death” was in fact the Dark Powers, and then goes on to mention they’re from the Shadowfell. And later it clarifies Strahd made his pact was made in the Amber Temple with the vestiges within, pretty much revealing the nature of the Dark Powers as the named vestiges of that temple. Revealing anything about the Dark Powers is kinda the big “no no” of the Ravenloft campaign setting (like revealing the cause of the Day of Mourning in Eberron) and the one product that did so was instantly hit with the “non-canon bat”.

The Awesome

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Clik here to view.Returning to the art, the cover is decent but the piece on page 8 is amazeballs. It’s a fantastic piece and one of my favourite illustrations of Strahd.

The NPCs in the book have full histories and background, but also list their Bond, Ideal, and Flaw. I’m a little stunned it took this long to actually include the NPC information the Dungeon Master’s Guide recommended every NPC should have. It’s great to see.

The monster selection throughout the adventure is nicely done. There is limited aberrations and outsiders, with precious few demons & devils. Expedition to Castle Ravenloft took the alternate route that if it was horrifying, it fit the adventure, so there was a lot more just Evil stuff and Lovecraftian monstrosities in a Gothic horror adventure. And not all monsters are what you would expect, such as the nature of the surprise villains in the Abbey of Saint Markov.

One of the revisions in the lore is that only 1 in 10 Barovians has a soul, and the rest are simply husks. Given the low population of the region, this means there are precious few people with souls (especially since everything seems to be hunting them in particular). Like maybe 300. But it’s a cool that rather works with the setting; another good example of additive rather than revisionary lore. Although I might reduce the number of soulless to a more reasonable half, maybe 75% at the very most.

Bonegrinder and the pies is fun and creepy. It’s a nice intersection of dark fairy tale elements and a more modern (and musical) horror, but works so very well. I just hope people running the adventure read ahead to this section when their player’s get peckish and decide to have the pie.

Baba Lysaga is a fun way to do Baba Yaga in Ravenloft without just adding Baba Yaga to Ravenloft. As Eastern European folklore, Baba Yaga really fits the tone of Ravenloft and I’m rather surprised she hasn’t really be added to the Mists prior. I’m only sad this section is so small, and feels like more could have been done with Baba Lysaga.

There are a number of handouts included at the back of the book, which are also available on the D&D website, along with black-and-white copies of the various maps (beside a link to the artist’s website so you can purchase higher rez colour versions. Classy.) I always appreciate when bits of the adventure you want to copy are released as a web enhancement. Unlike the first two adventures, there’s no web enhancement that includes all the monsters and magic items not found in the Basic rules. But between the Basic Rules and System Reference Document, most should be covered.

Final Thoughts

For fans of the Ravenloft adventure, this is everything you loved and more. For those who have never experienced Castle Ravenloft before, this is the classic experience in entirety, given a polish and tweak, with so much more included prior to tackling the castle. The adventure is atmospheric, with lots of amazing descriptions and imagery and lots of little details that rewards inquisitive and cautious players. And at many times it’s quite deadly, encouraging intelligent play and cunning plans over simply kicking in doors.

But I still have problems with some elements of the adventure, specifically when it connects to the campaign setting (or rather, how it doesn’t and just steals names & ideas from the setting). I find it unfortunate that the adventure was designed in such a way that the biggest fans of the material will take the most umbrage with the product. However, these complaints are largely independent of the quality of adventure itself and are a complete and total non-issues for anyone who does not care about the campaign setting.

I would have preferred a new story, a Return to Castle Ravenloft that tells the tale of a resurrected Strahd reclaiming his kingdom and taking revenge on the ancestors of his killers. Or other twist on the classic tale and does something new with Count von Zarovich and would surprise those familiar with the original, in addition to entertaining the uninitiated.

Shameless Plug

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Clik here to view.

If you liked this review, you can support me and encourage future reviews.

I have a number of PDF products on the DMs Guild website including the Ravenloft product Heroes of the Mists.

Additionally, my book, Jester David’s How-To Guide to Fantasy Worldbuilding, is available for purchase. The electronic copy is available on Kindle, and DriveThurRPG. The PoD copy is available on Createspaceand Amazon. Purchases from DriveThru especially allow me to purchase new PDFs for review purposes.

The book is a compilation of my worldbuilding blog series, and all the entries have been updated, edited, and expanded. The final book features almost two-hundred pages of advice on making your own fantasy world.

Review: Amethyst Quintessence

NImage may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.ewly released by Dias Ex Machina is Amethyst Quintessence, designed for the 5th Edition of the world’s oldest role-playing game (aka Dungeons & Dragons). Amethyst Quintessence is published under the Open Game Licence at Drive-Thru RPG, as both a PDF and print-on-demand book.

The Amethyst setting is technically Earth, albeit a future Earth that is divided between technology and magic. It’s a setting where law wars with order, as magic returned to our world and caused an apocalypse. It’s somewhat similar to Palladium Game’s RIFTs setting in that you can have wizards fighting alongside people with railguns against giant mechs and dragons. Amethyst was originally published for the 3.5 Edition of D&D, but was quickly updated to 4th Edition. This update was funded by a Kickstarter,  and its success means the setting will eventually be supported by six different game systems, including Savage Worlds, FATE, and 13th Age.This review focuses solely on the 5th Edition product.

Disclaimer: I received a free PDF review copy of the product.

What Is It?

Amethyst Quintessence is a 413-page full colour PDF and print-on-demand hardcover book. The book is described as a “labour of love”, with only a handful of writers, editors, and artists involved in the product. The whole book looks professional, with a textured background that doesn’t detract or interfere with the reading.

The book is filled with artwork, a surprising amount given the limited number of contributing artists. The art is excellent. A few pieces are repeated, but as these are repositioned and cropped to highlight different aspects this is mostly inoffensive (and I’m not going to fault a smaller publisher for maximizing use of their art budget). I imagine much of the art is recycled from past versions of Amethyst and shared between the various versions of the setting, but since I only have this one book (and imagine few people will buy multiples), this is a non-issue.

Included in Amethyst Quintessence are 10 new races, which include 8 new fae races along with kodiaks (bear men) and half-fae. Humans are also described but have no racial rules. Included are 32 backgrounds for characters, and 14 “Organizations”, which are basically a group background. There are a number of new options for existing 5e classes, including 8 fighter martial archetypes, 4 rogue roguish archetypes, and 3 wizard schools. And there are 8 new classes unique to the setting: grounder, gunslinger, heavy, marshal, martial artist, medic, sniper, and techie. These eight are supplemented with 15 archetypes shared between them. The equipment section is filled with gear, more than I really want to summarize, including weapons, mechs, and vehicles. Lastly, the book has 30-odd new monster statblocks.

The Good

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Clik here to view.The book is filled with flavour. As the setting is really a baby of the writer, the tone is strong and consistent. It’s a singular vision. Each chapter begins with a few pages of fiction helping to establish tone and introduce the concepts and feeling of the world. There’s more fiction than I would normally like, but because the setting is so unique the extra fluff is beneficial. The product is equal parts sourcebook and campaign setting – albeit significantly broader in scope than something like Sword Coast Legends. Even with the continental view, there’s a lot of detail on the key areas of future North America.

Despite being a campaign setting, there’s a lot of new crunch, making this product somewhat desirable for someone looking for new mechanics, especially for someone planning on using the 5th Edition ruleset for a modern or near-present science fiction/fantasy. For a campaign adapting or expanding Keep on the Borderlands or the 2nd Edition Boxed Set Tale of the Comet this book would be incredibly useful.

Gear is divided into tech levels, which is pretty standard for science fiction games, but Amethyst Quintessence equates tech level with magic item rarity, which is a pretty elegant way of distinguishing common technology and more exotic tech. Some more advanced tech is treated as being multiple magic items, which is a little odd, but keeps things simple.

The class design is funky, as all the “modern” classes draw from the same pool of shared archetypes. But this allows some neat synergizing of abilities or playing against type. It’s a neat way of being flexible and adding a wide variety of different options without adding too much bloat. A few of the new classes might even work in a regular D&D campaign. Some class features and options might require a little work to strip out the assumed tech or reflavour chemistry as alchemy or herbalism, but this would be significantly less work than attempting to design one’s own class. The gunslinger could work in any setting with emerging guns, such as Ravenloft or Azeroth. The marshal is an alternative to the warlord for those who like that style of class and are unsatisifed by the Purple Dragon Knight. The martial artist is a good alternative to the more mystical monk, fitting the role of a brawler or pugilist. And the techie could be tweaked to be a gadgeteer or engineer, like the archetypal Dragonlance gnomish tinkerer.

The new backgrounds are broke as heck. 5e backgrounds give a very, very minor bonus that is mostly flavour, while the Amethyst actually have a mechanical and even combat impact. However, I actually like this; Amethyst backgrounds are very world-centric and would not translate to other settings, so they don’t need to be balanced against the generic backgrounds. These backgrounds occupy a similar design space as standard backgrounds, but are less generic (having prerequisites) while also informing players of their character’s role in the world. They’re a micro-player’s guide in a class choice. It’s actually a nice way to impart necessary world lore to players. There’s a little power creep, but it’s spread across all players and won’t likely break the system.

The setting itself is decent. It’s not quite my cup of tea but there’s a fair amount of information. I’m not sure I’d want to run the setting with just this product, but I imagine it could be done. For a combination setting/rule update, this book does contain a fair amount of world lore. There’s more than enough to work on, and more than most players will be able to absorb. Because a lot of the information is repeated in backgrounds and racial entries, it should be possible to show those sections to players as a rough overview.

The monsters of the setting also have a singular origin. Not every monster in the 5e game system “fits” the world, but enough do; there’s a fairly lengthy list of monsters that are found in the world, along with a keyword denoting their place and history. The setting doesn’t require a unique bestiary to run, or require you to toss out your Monster Manual.

Culture is a huge focus of the setting, which is a little different from the geographical and location focus of many other campaign settings. The various fae races each have a LOT of great cultural information, including body language, taboos, gestures, and the like. There’s an entire chapter on culture, including religion, worldview, and languages. This really makes the assorted fae races feel like they’re part of another culture that is unrelated to humanity and not just humans that live longer or have pointed ears and a nature fetish. It’s frankly amazing work, and great inspiration for any game, including home games and even other campaign settings.

The setting also has the neat wrinkle that magic and technology don’t play nice together, with spells and even the presence of supernatural beings disrupting technology. This reminds me of the Dresden Files series but is an old idea. It’s well implemented and a big part of the setting, although it sadly means you won’t have mechaknights riding on dragons who have laser cannons mounted underneath them. I like the conflict this brings to the world, with the world being divided not between good and evil but order and chaos, fantasy and science. Although, there’s still a pretty evil Big Bad force at play, that almost seems at odds with the general grey tone of much of the rest of the morality.

The Bad

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Clik here to view.The setting and its lore is very… unique. This isn’t a world where the myths and legends of the past were all real, but one where magic died before humanity even existed yet somehow influenced our psyche so we have a race memory (or something) of dragons and elves. It’s odd, and not what one might expect.

Related to the setting lore are the wide number of assorted fae, with all non-human races effectively being a variety of “fae”. Amethyst dumps all the existing “civilized” races from elves and dwarves to kobolds and goblins, and replaces them with races unique to the setting. Instead of goblins (and kobolds) there are the puggs, bogs, and skeggs. Some of this works, but sometimes it seems unnecessary given how differently you can present something like a “goblin” with some variant art and culture (see Pathfinder for an example). Dropping the common names feels unnecessary, and requires a tonne of new memorization for players and DMs. It’s pretty easy to map the fae into their existing archetypes, albeit not their appearance (chaparrans fill the role of wood elves, damaskans are high elves, gimfen are halfling/gnomes, laudenians narros are dwarves, pagus are orcs, tenenbri are drow, and tilen are vampires. Only the laudenians don’t easily map, but are pretty much another high elf variant). Having run a few Dragonlance campaigns, it was difficult getting players to recall the subtle differences between kagonesti, silvanesti, and qualinesti – which were just different names for wood, grey, and high elves. However, if the players are Bastion humans and unfamiliar with the fae, the uncommon names and different abilities will help the alien tone, taking players out of their comfort zone

The new race names are just the most ready example of the wealth of new proper names. There’s a lot of other new terms and jargon thrown at you. Even the place names have changed, which strips away a little of the usability of setting the book in the “real” world. The book includes a glossary, but this is spread out over several (non-consecutive) pages. A glossary cheat-sheet as a separate hand-out would be awesome.

With the amount of new mechanical content added, it shouldn’t be a surprise that much of it is so-so. There’s only so much one designer can do, especially without heavy playtesters; it’s hard to gauge the effectiveness of each option without playing, but some outliers stood out. Most notable is the fighter archetype designed to operate as part of a shield phalanx. This should be a desirable subclass to purchase, as a shield-based fighter build is otherwise absent from the game. However, this option relies on fighting beside allies with shields, which isn’t particularly likely to happen: PCs seldom share a role and class. Having multiple front line tanks that use shields is going to be unusually in terms of party composition, let alone the three needed for the fighter to use a key class feature. Theoretically, this could be more useful for an NPCs, but 5th Editions NPCs don’t use PC abilities by default, and are designed as monsters.

There’s also a lot of new feats, including racial and background feats. Most of these feel pretty small and generic, often having a stat boost to bring the feat’s power level closer to the 5e baseline, and several have other feats as prerequisites. I wonder if combining the feats into fewer larger and more interesting feats would have been superior design. A character might only choose three or four feats during their entire adventuring career, and focusing just on racial feats seems unlikely. Many also bend bounded accuracy, allowing characters to raise their ability score cap, which might make some DMs leery.  

Piloting vehicles and using electronics are also treated as skills. However, 5e skills seldom require an item to use the skill. Object using talents are instead proficiency with an object’s use being tool or kit proficiencies in 5e. Admittedly something like using computers or tinkering could go either way – either a tool proficiency or a skill – but since it’s not the call I’d personally make I’m putting it in with the “Bad”. Reviewer’s fiat.

The Ugly

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Clik here to view.Curiously, the book doesn’t include human racial traits. This is likely because it was written before the 5e SRD was released, and they opted not to re-do the layout to add a couple pages. (Similarly, the legal notice in the book also didn’t include either the 3e or 5e SRD in the OGL text.)

Many of the the names of feats and features (both racial & class) are slightly humorous, being winking and referential. I think this lacks subtlety and find it offputting. I don’t need a class feature to literally be called “gun fu” to know that the feature allows the character to mix martial arts and firearms.

The monsters of the setting seem very “4e” in presentation. 5e focused on generic NPCs that could become any of the common civilized races, so a bandit can become a goblin bandit or a elf bandit with a small tweak. The system moved away from multiple statblocks for each race, with a goblin statblock for each level range. Amethyst Quintessence doesn’t do this, so we have four pagus statblocks and three skeggs. And all three skeggs are roughly the same CR, as if designed for a single encounter rather than spread out over multiple levels.

I was disappointed by the absence of a full world map. One of the neats things in a post-apocalyptic setting is comparing our Earth to the altered cartography. There is a continental map, but this map is a little detail sparse; I would have liked some more points of interest and odd details that serve as adventure hooks.

The character sheet is just the official 5e character sheet with a hue shift and the Amethyst logo added. I wonder at the legality of reprinting that in the book (i.e. for non-personal use).

The Awesome

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Clik here to view.Each of the racial entries tells why that race is “the best”. This reminds me of the alignment section of the 3e PHB, which I found fun. So points for positive association. But I do like how that sold the races: it told you why each race was cool, encouraging you to play it while presenting their strengths and roleplaying hooks.

The book has bear folk! This is pretty cool and different, not being a typical fantasy race. The Kodiaks would be a fun addition to any setting (potentially with a Slavic in tone/accent), being different than the typical half-orc or goliath big brute. Kodiaks are distinguished by sexually dimorphism rather than a cultural subrace with the men being societally dominant. So trigger warning. (Male bears are potentially twice the size of females, so some dimorphism isn’t a deal breaker for me. But your mileage may vary.) As a nitpick though, female kodiaks are also incorrectly called “sloths”: female bears are sows, while “sloths” is the term for groups of bears.

The book introduces “Organizations”, which are a secondary background with a singular benefit. This is a pretty cool idea and I kinda want to steal the concept. It’s a neat way to build a party and award a large purchase that might not otherwise be attainable at 1st level.

There’s a lovely global feel to the book despite the setting details focusing on the former North America. The future isn’t a monoculture and non-Western ideas exist and survive. I love that the book gives almost equal attention to Chinese folk religions and Shinto as it does to Christianity and Islam.  

The Campaign chapter of the book really focuses on the themes of the setting. It doesn’t just explain the setting but the feel of the setting and an Amethyst campaign.

Final Thoughts

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Clik here to view.It’s hard to quantify how I feel about Amethyst Quintessence.

It’s a beautiful book that looks far better than it has any right to based on the size of the publisher. The crunch ranges from decent to sub-par, but never veers into outright “bad”. The sheer amount of new content written by so few people is itself an accomplishment. (Especially since 5e system mastery was unlikely given the number of other game systems the same people were developing products for. I know from experience that trying to design for Pathfinder and 5e at the same time and keeping the rules separate in your head is difficult.) So kudos are deserved.

However, the setting didn’t grip me. I love me a good campaign setting product, but Amethyst just didn’t grab my attention or make me want to keep reading. But this is a super-personal taste issue, as post-apocalyptic science fantasy really isn’t the type of game I want to run. Amethyst Quintessence was always going to be a book that had to work extra hard for my interest. The flavour of the races was excellent, but I just couldn’t get interested and found the number of new names frustrating; without a basis in myth there was no mnemonic or association I could make between the names and what they represented. Learning the race names is just rote learning, which isn’t particularly engaging.

For someone who does wants a little science fantasy in their RPG, Amethyst Quintessence might be exactly what you want in a setting. It’s a good product for someone who likes the 5e ruleset but is tired of generic swords & sorcery fantasy worlds or wants a drastic change of pace for their game. It’s also a good book for fans of the d20 Modern Urban Arcana campaign. I imagine you could adapt Amethyst Quintessence for a Titansgrave or Numenera d20 campaign, and maybe even a Shadowrun game. It’d even work as the basis for a science fiction 5e campaign, dumping the magic for tech.

Even for someone just sticking to standard generic fantasy, there’s plenty enough mechanical options between the new races, classes, and subclasses in the book. It’d be a worthwhile purchase, even if you plan to dump all the tech and world lore. Some customization would be necessary, but that’s easier than making your own content.

But the above are a lot of conditionals. The $20 price tag of the PDF (which is fair given the size of the book and work involved) makes it a little harder to justify if you just want a warlord and engineer, so some desire to have new races and tech – if not the world itself – might be necessary to  justify the purchase.
Unless you’re already an Amethyst fan from the past and like 5th Edition. In which case, buy this book right now. It’s does everything you’d want it to, and does it well.

Shameless Plug

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Clik here to view.

If you liked this review, you can support me and encourage future reviews.

I have a number of PDF products on the DMs Guild website including the Ravenloft product Heroes of the Mists and a book of Variant Rules.

Additionally, my book, Jester David’s How-To Guide to Fantasy Worldbuilding, is available for purchase. The electronic copy is available on Kindle, and DriveThurRPG. The PoD copy is available on Createspaceand Amazon. Purchases from DriveThru especially allow me to purchase new PDFs for review purposes.

The book is a compilation of my worldbuilding blog series, and all the entries have been updated, edited, and expanded. The final book features almost two-hundred pages of advice on making your own fantasy world.

Pathfinder Review: Ultimate Intrigue

The spring release for the Pathfinder Roleplay Game is Ultimate Intrigue, which is the counterpart to Ultimate Magic  and Ultimate Combat. It’s the twenty-fifth hardcover book for Pathfinder, or, alternatively, it’s something like Paizo’s 170th Pathfinder RPG book.

What Is It

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Clik here to view.Ultimate Intrigue is a 253-page full colour hardcover book. It focuses on skills and interaction in the same way as Ultimate Combat focused on violence and weapons or Ultimate Magic focused on spells and casting. Like those two books, Ultimate Intrigue introduces a new class as well as new feats, spells, and magic items. There are archetypes for 24 of the now 36 Pathfinder classes.

This book also includes subsystems, including a lengthy section on verbal duels. The two chapters of Mastering Intrigue and Social Combat are a mixture of advice and these additive subsystems. There are no alternative rules in Ultimate Intrigue, like the various rules of Ultimate Combat or the Words of Power rules from Ultimate Magic.

The Vigilante

Ultimate Intrigue adds the vigilante class to the game, giving its role as “skilled at negotiating delicate social situations and courtly intrigue, but they can also serve as stealthy spies or even brutish warriors”.

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Clik here to view.The signature ability of the vigilante, and arguably the reason for its existence, is Dual Identity. The class is defined by a secret identity, which allows it to change its alignment; Dual Identity mostly exists to evade scrying and detection magic that would otherwise reveal the identity of the masked hero. I.e. if ouija boards actually worked, any villain could just consult one and ask “Who is Batman?” This also makes the vigilante a good tool for Gamemasters in a mystery campaign, and even its existence can cast some doubt on the reliability of divination magic.

Pathfinder has always worn its pulp inspiration on its sleeve, and masked vigilantes are trope of that genre, with the Shadow, Zorro, Lone Ranger and even the Scarlet Pimpernel being popular examples, predating comics and characters such as Batman.

In addition to their twin identities, the vigilante gains a number of social talents (useful in their civilian guise) and vigilante talents (useful in their caped crusader outfit). Half the social talents are related to the Renown talent, which is a little like the Reputation subsystem, and makes them automatically liked. These talents grant the character things a safe house, aliases, the ability to seem supernaturally innocent, and bonuses to social skills. Vigilante abilities are divided between “avenger” and “stalker” abilities, which are almost a 5th Edition D&D subclass. Avenger vigilantes have a higher attack bonus while stalkers deal roguelike bonus damage. There are some 50 talents, with 9 limited to avengers, and 12 stalker talents

There’s some neat vigilante talents. They can ignore armour penalties, become amazing at stealth, slam enemies together, turn random items into weapons, have thrown weapons return to their hand, and use foes as shields. And depending on their vigilante flavour, talents can be swapped with combat feats or rogue talents, making it a very flexible class (albeit one with a lot of potential options every other level).  But there also some pretty niche ones that feel like filler. I can see why Chase Master is appealing – as the vigilante seems like the class that should rock chases – but very situational (this and getting Improved Unarmed Attack Strike feel like things all vigilante’s should get). There are some talents which feel too good. The ability to charge and make a full attack is pretty potent. Given talents are kinda sorta meant to be equivalent to a feat, it seems odd that Shield of Blades, Shield of Fury, and Signature weapon give you a feat plus secondary bonuses. Signature Weapon gives two feats at the same time.

Apart from talents, vigilantes get only a handful of minor abilities. They’re harder to Intimidate, and are really good at surprising people, gain bonuses to attack people they surprise, and are eventually able to Intimidate the surprised for free.

The 17th level ability of the vigilante allows them to stun opponents they surprise, with a Will save negating. However, the creature receives a +4 bonus if their Hit Dice are higher than the vigilante’s class level. And, at 17th level, you will never fight anything with fewer Hit Dice than you. The Bestiary advices CR 17 monsters to have HD ranging from 21 to 28, and even a CR 17 NPC has at least 18 Hit Dice.

The capstone ability of the vigilante allows them to study an opponent, granting a number of different bonuses to an attack that can be mix-and-matched. As an example, after 5 rounds studying an opponent, a vigilante can give themselves a +8 to the attack, treat the roll as 2 high (no natural 1s) and add 6d6 damage to the attack. Plus all the regular bonuses for their surprise attack. This really makes the vigilante master of the alpha strike. Although, this capstone (along with the 5th, 11th, and 17th level abilities) really favour the stalker vigilante, who gains more bonuses when they surprise enemies. The avenger vigilante just gets full BAB and talents, so there’s less incentive to stay in the class rather than shift to rogue or fighter or brawler.

The Good

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Clik here to view.The book has a solid focus. Attention is continually paid to skills, with a decided slant to stealth or the social skills (Intimidate, Bluff, Diplomacy, and Sense Motive). Even archetypes regularly swap out or add class skills. The book feels consistent and thematic.  

The new archetypes and other rules options are very specific but often very creative, mostly in mechanics but occasionally also in flavour. Because the “easy” content has been done, these archetypes have to work harder to justify their existence, so most do something interesting or take the class in a different direction. There’s some neat and inventive stuff there.

The book even includes some very different ranger combat styles, adding more intrigue or courtly options instead of the standard archery or fighting with two weapons.

The feats in this book are more universal. Many have prerequisites, but they are generic and fewer class specific ones. This is a nice change from the Advanced Class Guide and Occult Adventures where most of the feats were for classes from that book. There may only be a couple feats just for vigilantes.

The Spells of Intrigue subsection is six pages of debate-resolving discussion. It basically breaks down and explains how the various divination and mind altering magics work and answers questions raised at the game table. It’s almost a long-form FAQ on the topic. Very handy. It’s nice to have a reminder that charm person isn’t mind control.

The book talks about various types of intrigue game, and doesn’t just focus on the typical usage (i.e. drama among the nobility) but also moves to the unexpected and non-standard (i.e. criminals or investigation). This includes both the advice but also the archetypes and feats. There are noble archetypes, criminal archetypes, and investigative archetypes to name just a few.

The organizational variant of the Influence subsystem is rather slick. It’s also fairly system agnostic and could be pulled into a D&D campaign. List of favours and the ranking is useful. It’s somewhat comparable to the faction system of 5th Edition D&D, but with the neat added twist of negative ranks. It reminds me of reputation in MMOs like World of Warcraft, but simpler and less grindy.

Page 126 has a sizable sidebar on Disguise and Stealth by groups and not individuals. It’s almost a full page (and I almost wish it had been expanded into a full page or two-page breakdown, maybe with some optional rules or expanded advice). Good stuff.

The Skills in Combat section gives some great advice and breakdowns of the uses for skills, clarifying the rules and breaking down the uses. Perception and Stealth is particularly useful, but the whole section is must-read material for GMs.

There is expanded details on Leadership, aka the most powerful feat in the game. It breaks down the assorted modifiers for a character’s leadership and provides alternate monstrous cohorts, so instead of a classed humanoid the player can have an azer or siren or flumph. It also reprints a few of the variant Leaderships from the various Player Companion books, collecting them all in one place. While I normally frown on too much reprinting in the RPG line, collecting these feats does make sense, and this is as good a place as any for a Leadership expansion (I do wish there were some optional rules in this section adjusting the Leadership feat. Reducing the xp gained by the party because they effectively have an extra PC would be nice.)

The Bad

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Clik here to view.Ultimate Intrigue includes numerous ways to boost skill checks. However, skill check bonuses are already pretty rampant in the game, being valued less than attack bonuses or ability bonuses (10 to 20 times less gp for magic items that give a skill bonus). You can break the math of the game quite readily when you focus on a skill or two.

(Although, ironically, the feyspeaker druid archetype gets a couple extra skills per level and added skills but loses a lot in the process, including a reduction of BAB and the Nature Sense feature.)

Demoralizing is big in this book. While also common with the swashbuckler, the vigilante and a number of other options in this book push demoralizing to the forefront. There’s a lot more demoralizing going on in Pathfinder. Which is unfortunate as the save for that ability is non-standard and requires on-the-fly math. It’s an awkward mechanic.

The social talents of the vigilante are rather weak, especially for Pathfinder Society. The vigilante in generally is a pretty awkward fit, but half the social talents are related to “renown”, which really might not work in Society play. Really, the social vigilante really doesn’t work in all but two or three Adventure Paths, as enough time is just not spent in cities. (And it really doesn’t help the verisimilitude of Dual Identity to have the hero and their secret identity to arrive in town at exactly the same time.) 

While I do like the Organizational Influence system and larger Influence system, Pathfinder already had an influence system with Fame/Renown. Expanding that system seems like it would have been more useful than replacing it with an incompatible variant. Similarly, Pursuits are basically overland Chases and could have been an expansion of that subsystem, possibly with optional rules in sidebars expanding it.

The book has lots of subsystems and new optional rules but no real variant rules that replace the existing rules. For example, there’s no variant of Stealth or Diplomacy. In the case of the later, you can use the multi-page Influence system, but this is very detailed and not something that can really be done ad hoc. Alternate ways to handle skills without lengthy mini-games would have been nice.Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Several of the subsystems replace single checks with multiple successes, including the Pursuits, Research, and Individual Influence. These are somewhat similar to the 4th Edition Skill Challenge system (or Complex Skill Checks from 3e’s Unearthed Arcana). Rather than three incompatible and self-contained 6-page Skill Challenges subsystems, they probably could have just had one lengthy 12-page section on Complex Skill checks with one or two-page options on various types of Complex Skill Checks. It would be more flexible and compatible, and easier to use at the table since it wouldn’t require learning multiple different ways of task resolution. And since it would be building on two prior editions of the rule set, it could have made use reams of feedback and play experience.

Most of the subchapters are six pages, even if the topic could have used less. I imagine this was the mandated length (possibly for ease in managing freelancers) and there was a set word count. But this inflexible length feels needless and results in some sections getting fewer pages than they warranted and some receiving too many. For example, the Nemesis section is just okay: it’s good to have some advice on the topic but I don’t think six pages was really remotely necessary, especially when 2/3rds was “strategems” than are just an awkward attempt at codifying xp rewards or quests not initiated by the players but their opponent. It’s several pages that could have been put to better use elsewhere.

A lot of other books are assumed, including but not limited to the Advanced Player’s Guide, the Advanced Class Guide, Occult Adventures, Advanced Race Guide, Ultimate Combat, Ultimate Equipment, and Ultimate Magic. Because it makes use of the unchained summoner, Pathfinder Unchained should also be on that list. While the online Pathfinder Reference Document makes it possible to use this book without those others it’s not ideal since not everyone has reliable internet access at the game table. Ultimate Intrigue really assumes you have a fairly complete collection of Pathfinder RPG books.

The crunch often has some of the same weakness of the other more recent Pathfinder releases. The text of new mechanics and spells can get pretty specific, full of clarifying statements and caveats to make sure the rule cannot be misread and limit potential abusive combinations. It’s heavy reading. There’s also quite a bit of mix-and-matching of class features: classes getting a dash of another class. With multiclassing being as easy as it is in Pathfinder, overlap feels redundant. It also makes classes less unique, as they have fewer abilities only they have access to.Image may be NSFW.
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Because there’s so much new content, there’s a high percentage of filler. Several of the vigilante archetypes are thematically weak. The warlock is just a vigilante that has some arcane spellcasting, the zealot is the divine variant, and the psychometrists is an occult vigilante. Similarly, many feats just aren’t worth their cost, being useful but super situational… or just not that useful at all. The feat that’s really good if you’re feinting and fighting an opponent with teamwork feats or a flank buddy; the feat that lets you attempt to throw an enemy into an area of effect spell; the feat that grants you a fighting style only if you are in a city (because being in ruin will change how you punch someone).

One feat that really jumped out at me is Darkness Trick. The feat that lets you turn off the glow of a magical weapon if you can cast darkness (which means, RAW if you’re a prepared caster, you have to have it prepared, because anytime it’s not memorized you can’t cast the spell and thus do not meet the prerequisites). Handy and useful, since you have a non-glowing weapon ready, but it would be just as effective to take Quick Draw.

The book also reprints Fencing Grace from Advanced Class Origins, but chooses to reduce its power and add limits: errata could have been handled via an update. I imagine putting it into a hardcover book means it’s available for PFS module authors, but that’s such a small subset of the fanbase. Reprinting content from an Adventure Path is permissible since it’s not clear what monster is where, but you know the Advanced Class Guide expansion book has swashbuckler content; what’s the point of putting feats in other books if they don’t “count”?

The Ugly

The absence of roleplaying mechanics and subsystems stood out to me. Not just rules that let you replace roleplaying with rollplaying, but subsystems and advice on adjudicating how well someone is roleplaying, rewarding roleplay, and such. Now, the common counterpoint to this is that roleplaying doesn’t need mechanics. However, modern narrative roleplaying games like Fate show that you very much can add plot manipulation to roleplaying games (although, Plot Point type games have been around for ages). A book on intrigue, stealthy, and spying would have been the perfect place to add narrative control and roleplaying reward mechanics to the Pathfinder system. Especially in Heists, which often have a twist revealing the reversal was foreseen and planned for: the book mentions having a “contingency” ready, but this feels undefined and almost an afterthought. A more fleshed out “flashback” mechanic would been lovely to include, and is the sort of thing that requires the balancing skill of a professional designer.

There’s no real content for the fighter or barbarian, the two classes that needed the most love to fit into an intrigue based game. There’s a couple feats that kinda count as fighter options, letting you use your BAB instead of skill ranks when using skills, but they really feel designed for the avenger vigilante. For example, Martial Dominance lets a full BAB class get a bonus to intimidate equal to their level (although, since the character’s Charisma is likely poor, they’re still better off letting the Small gnome bard intimidate people).

The vigilante class seems to exists for two very bland reasons: symmetry – as the other Ultimate books had a class – and because the rules as written make superheroes impossible due to readily available divination spells. However, since a vigilante requires a very specific type of campaign to exist anyway, giving advice on how to vary the divination spells seems like an easier tactic than spending 20 pages on a new class. The vigilante effectively exists because Paizo assumes you’re not going to house rule the game or remove options to match the campaign’s tone. The vigilante doesn’t really solve the divination problem: in a fantasy world where scrying magic is easily available and the powers of a vigilante as known as that of a fighter or cleric (or, at least, as known as a bloodrager or psychic) then you just need to scry on likely suspects when you know the vigilante is active and find out who ceases to exist.Image may be NSFW.
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As an alternative to house rules, the vigilante could easily have been a prestige class. After all, what does a first level vigilante look like? A first level character is the hero during the first 30 minutes of the movie, when they’re training and testing their powers before they get their costume. The prestige class aspects are especially prominent when everything you need to be to act as a vigilante can be attained in a 1 or 2 level dip into the class. The capstone ability is a slight variant of the assassin’s deathblow ability, so a rogue/assassin with a couple levels of vigilante has most of the same tricks. While a full vigilante class could very well work well, it feels more like a niche offering from a 3rd Party Publisher than something that should be official content.

Several of the feats reduce options, taking actions that might otherwise have been attempted and moving them into a feat. While this codifies the rules, it does mean the action cannot be attempted without the feat, reducing player creativity. Want to convince people to stop fighting? You should have taken the Call Truce feat. Want to lie and trick someone into thinking you cast a hostile spell on them? You need Feign Curse. Want to determine how two characters feel about each other with your high Sense Motive character? You require the Sense Relationships feat. Trying to help an ally using Disguise with the Bluff skill? You need the Willing Accomplice feat.

Lastly, the Misdirected Tactics feat seems to have similar problems to the Crane Wing, in that it all but shuts down an attacker with a single big attack. Because it’s paring a skill check with an attack bonus, the player has an advantage, especially since a rogue or bard’s Bluff bonus will likely be significantly higher than a foe’s attack bonus.

And, as a nitpick, at the end of the Social Combat section that are a couple of the most generic pieces of art ever, that look like superfluous pieces added to fill space. The most bland and generic “here’s our iconic posing” shots imaginable.  

The Awesome

A few archetypes really leapt out at me. The metamorph alchemist is pretty much an alchemist in name only. It’s the dedicated shapeshifter class Pathfinder/3e has always needed (and done in half a page). And there’s also the skinshaper druid that also does the same concept with a slightly different interpretation.

There’s a lot of fey in the book. I like my fey flavour, and this has been lacking in the past. The First World/ Faerie is an underused part of Pathfinder/ D&D. There’s a fey eidelon for the summoner, a feyspeaker druid, a fey trickster mesmerist, and a courtly hunter, whose name really doesn’t emphasise what it does nearly enough.

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Clik here to view.A quick rundown of other neat archetypes that jumped out at me. As a horror/ Ravenloft junkie, I liked the sorrowsoul bard, which has been described as the emo. The grey paladin allows a shift in the paladin’s alignment, which isn’t new to D&D but is a big change for Pathfinder, which has otherwise stuck firm to the paladin = Lawful Good requirement. Similarly, there’s a Lawful Evil antipaladin build, which is needed but pretty barebones, possibly being incomplete. The magic child archetype for the vigilante is going to make a LOT of people happy, and it even has a small animal guide. The spiritualist archetypes are nice and evocative, taking the “spirit” in a different direction. (Although shadow caller could easily have been a summoner build… and might have already.) Lastly, the wildsoul vigilante adds animal powers to the class; while cheesy as eff and as subtle as a oversized prop comedy brick to the head, there is an arachnid version. It’s the Spider-man archetype. Too bad to do whatever a Spider-man can you need to be 18th level.

Feinting is a huge part of this book. The action requirement and prerequisites always made feinting seem inoptimal for most classes, a rogue trick that made them lose iteratives and offhand attacks. But there’s some interesting uses here, and Ranged Feint is a nice option for archer rogues to regularly get sneak from a safe distance.

As always, there are some nice pieces of art. I’ll mention a few of the more interesting pieces. The iconic inquisitor and arcanist talking down an angry mob on page 167 tells a story in one picture. The hat swapping on page 183 is hilarious, as is the cavalier and the pig on page 207. So much of the enjoyment gained from the art is that Pathfinder fans know the iconics and their personalities, which makes the sight of Alain the cavalier (who is kind of a dick) holding a pig all the more amusing. To say nothing of the wealth of drama on page 219, which has an entire extra layer of meaning if you read the Pathfinder comics.

The researching section is kinda neat. Researching can be a big part of RPGs: hunting down monster lore, the weaknesses of a Big Bad, the history of a region, and the like. But it can be pretty anticlimactic in play, reduced to a die roll or a narrated cut scene (time passes… you find a book).

Final Thoughts

A book with an intrigue theme is one I’ve pushed for several times over the years, starting in late 3e when I thought Heroes of Intrigue would be a good counterpart to Heroes of Battle and Heroes of Horror. It was a book I was hoping to see for Pathfinder years ago, and one I really wanted to tear into and love, but currently find myself unexited by.

First, this book just feels outdated, the counterpart to books released in 2011. The look of the book matches those books, save a few very small touches (the iconic’s gear in the class section, the magic item statblocks, and the pictures of iconics in the spell lists). If not for the many references to classes from other books, this book could have been released half a decade ago. While not bad per se, it feels safe and unimaginative, which is disappointing from a company known for taking changes and raising the bar.

Feats, classes, spells, and magic items encompass 148 of the book’s 253 pages of content. That’s 59% of the book, and a *lot* of new content for a game system that is already bursting at the seams with player content. And twenty of those pages are focused on the vigilante, an arguably unneeded class. This feels very paradoxical. An intrigue campaign is one very focused on role-playing and narrative and this book focuses on combat crunch, at best applying those mechanics to allow you to “win” roleplaying using combat resolution systems.

The other three Ultimate books were necessary crunch for a game system that had lost all of its options. But with more Pathfinder RPG content now available than there was for 3rd Edition D&D, this product simply isn’t what the Pathfinder RPG needs at this time. I wonder if this product would have been better as Intrigue Adventures, instead focusing on adjusting the campaign with more advice on running intrigue games (being more of a DM product) than being an Ultimate book released a couple years too late. Really, this is a book designed to help players run intrigue focused characters in an intrigue focused campaign, but there’s very little advice (maybe 3 1/2 pages) to help GMs run an intrigue campaign with Pathfinder. Intrigue and social campaigns can be tricky, and advice on planning that kind of campaign would have been super handy. It’s not a subject I’m particularly well versed in or that many books have covered before; this book could have easily become the definitive book for running intrigue RPG games.

In the end, Ultimate Intrigue excellent but unremarkable book. It’s great if you want to play in an intrigue or skill heavy game but not really a great book if you want to run a intrigue or skill heavy game. It includes a lot of content that works best if you already own a heck of a lot of content, and has a lot of new and unrelated subsystems.  

5e Review: Tome of Beasts

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Clik here to view.Kobold Press has published several small products for the 5th Edition of “the world’s Oldest Role-Playing Game” aka Dungeons & Dragons. Their previous efforts were small player accessories of races and a few adventures. Last year they Kickstarted a larger product: the Tome of Beasts, a hefty book of monsters for 5e.

Initially asking for $20,000, by the end of the pledging process, Kobold Press had cleared over $191,000. Advertised as “300+ new monsters for 5e” the success of the Kickstarter changed the product’s tagline to “400+ new monsters”. The final product is larger than the official Monster Manual, having 430 pages of content compared to the MM’s 350.

The book is finally coming out in print (and only a couple months late, which is pretty good all things considered) the Tome of Beasts has 350 new types of monster with 13 NPCs and a total of slightly over 410 stat blocks. 45 monsters are CR 14 or higher and over 40 have legendary actions. Additionally, 20 monsters in the book were submitted by Kickstarter backers, chosen from over a hundred submissions.

Disclaimer

I not only backed the product on Kickstarter, two of my monsters are in the book: a monster I designed for one of Kobold Press’ Monarch of Monsters contests made it in, as did my backer submitted monster.

As such, there *might* be some subconscious bias in my review. But I’m a harsh critic and a nitpicky bastard, so hopefully that will cancel out any desire to be overly favourable to the product.

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Clik here to view.The Good

The PDF has high production values, with full colour art and headers. The pages are mostly white, but each page has a subtle duplication of the monster illustration adding some contrast to the pages. It’s not quite a stylistic parchment background, but it’s clean. The text is legible, being small but not quite drifting into micro-print, even in the statblocks. There the standard font variation between flavour text and statblock, with the former having a serif font, making it easy to tell at a glance if text is part of the monster’s stats or not. This is pretty typical, but still appreciated.

(As of this writing I have not received my physical copy and cannot attest to the binding, paper quality, etc. However, from past experiences with Kobold Products, I expect the physical book to be high quality, so I’m comfortable posting this review.)

The monsters are presented similar to the monsters in the Monster Manual, with the flavour text following the name and preceding the stat blocks. The flavour is broken into subparagraphs with bolded first lines that provide a brief topical description: how WotC has been presenting monsters since late 4th Edition with the Monsters Vault. Each monster is given a couple paragraphs of lore. I appreciate this emulation of formatting, not just because I like products to match and look similar, but because it shows Kobold Press was actively paying attention to the presentation of the edition rather than just quickly converting mechanics. As a point of comparison, Fifth Edition Foes by Necromancer games not only continued the 3e/Pathfinder formatting of presenting the monster first followed by flavour text devoid of descriptors, but that book had some pretty short and sad examples of fluff. I’ve commented before that I add monsters to an adventure because they fit the narrative. Whether or not I use a monster at my table is pretty heavily dependant on its flavour text, and skimping on that text – no matter how cool the monster’s abilities might be – results in a monster might as well not exist for the use it will see at my table.

Backers of the book’s Kickstarter received several monsters early, so they could playtest the creatures prior to publication. I imagine all (or most) of the monsters in the book have been tested and retested. And it shows. The abilities of the monsters are tight and legible. These all seem to be monsters that would run quickly and easily at my table, and all seem to be about the right CR (although that’s really hard to gauge, especially at higher levels…) .

Included in many monster entries are sidebars with comments on language, small background information, and how the monster fits the Midgard setting. And in one instance, an entirely different monster. I appreciate that the setting details were included for fans of that world, as they also providing an extra example of how the creature place in a larger world. I appreciate that Kobold Press didn’t assuming people were using their setting.

Despite the name, the book isn’t just beasts (or even primarily beasts). There’s a wide range of different monsters from several different terrains. Ice/cold climates are well represented, as are arid/desert biomes, and clockwork constructs. These themes owing to the monsters’ origins in prior Midgard campaign setting products, especially the recent  Southlands spinoff. In addition to the various new humanoids, there are new variants of classical humanoids, such as a new gnoll, more ghouls, and (of course) kobolds.

Included in the book are a handful of creatures pulled from the pages of Lovecraft: spawn of Cthulhu, deep ones, shoggoth, mi-go, denizens of leng, and gugs. D&D and Cthulhu have always been closely tied, but these are so often excluded from official products, making them a pleasant addition.

The book ends with a chart of NPC features, for taking monsters and mapping them onto NPCs statblocks. So you can make a darakhul knight or bearfolk archmage. An excellent addition.

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The monster stat blocks are not contained in text boxes, like the 5e Monster Manual. A few stat blocks even cross pages. This is  minor complaint, as not every WotC product uses the boxes. But I enjoy the visual separation of monsters and find it quicker to find where the monster’s mechanics begin. Similarly, a couple monsters have mechanics in their fluff text, which should probably have been included in sidebars instead. Thankfully this is rare.  

While criticizing the formatting of the monster entries, the first couple line of each monster entry is bolded and italicized. This is a holdover from Pathfinder, where it was supposed to be a description of the monster. However, unlike the Pathfinder blurbs that are effectively read aloud text, these sometimes have introductory or background information on the creature rather than just a physical description. After seven years of Pathfinder, my brain has conditioned itself to skip or skim that text, so having to purposely read it now is awkward.

Monsters with resistances continue to use the phrase “from nonmagical weapons” rather than “from nonmagical attacks” as WotC moved away from, as seen in the updated version of the Monster Manual or DM Basic Rules. Because not all instances of bludgeoning damage can come from a weapon.

A few monsters in the book seem placed in odd locations. The dune mimic could have been “mimic, dune” especially with the later “mimic, maps” entry. Oddly, one of the few oozes in the book is the corrupting ooze, which is the sole ooze under the “ooze,____”. And I’m not sure why the spider thief isn’t with the other clockworks.

One of the best things about monster design in 5e is how easy it is to tweak or customize monsters, by adding a single trait or swapping powers, such as the poltergeist being a variant spectre. Saddly, there are precious few variant monsters in this book, which feels like a missed opportunity. While there are few monsters that feel like they could have been variants of existing monsters, these are uncommon.  

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Clik here to view.The Ugly

The Tome of Beasts has a very eclectic mix of monsters. There is a lot of what I would term “filler”. And there is a plethora of new humanoids. Too many humanoids is a pet peeve of mine: even in a large fantasy world there’s just note enough space for too many independent humanoids races. It gets silly to have a unique race and culture in every valley or dale. 

There’s quite a bit of redundancy. Did we need groundhog people and hedgehog people and lemurfolk? Multiple different bird folk and insect people. There’s also the usual variants of undead: every way someone can die seems to create a slightly different form of living dead. As an example, there’s the rusalkas and drowned maiden, both of whom are undead people who died from drowning and attack via kissing. Similarly, there are also three or four sexy fey who dwell near water. These are all female of course as inherently female monsters either have to be supernaturally beautiful or supernaturally ugly (like the qwyllion, which is a nymph that went evil and thus became ugly).

I image many monsters were included because they already had art, which is one of the more expensive parts of producing a game product. This does mean monsters were included not because they were the most compelling additions or interesting creatures, but because pictures already existed. (For those will previous Kobold Press products, I expect you will see a lot of familiar illustrations.) As such, there are also a lot of campaign specific creatures: the monsters here are ones created to complement Midgard. While the lore tries its best to be setting agnostic, this is a Midgard Campaign Setting book in everything but name.

There’s only a handful of mythological creatures in the book, creatures of folklore and legend. It’s far from comprehensive. This is likely because past monster products by Kobold Press were released for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, which already covered most of the classical monsters with their three or four Bestiaries, leaving Kobold Press to invent their own monsters, create new variants, or find more obscure content. But apart from the Monster Manual, this is the first real must-have monster product for 5e, so the continued absence of semiclassical monsters feels more noteworthy. It feels odd to have a couple variant nymphs when there’s still no base nymph.

The book also falls into the trap of secondary monster books by included new subtypes of existing monsters. We have six new demons, nine new devils, six new dragons, five new giants, six new golems, and four new hags. It’s like having new golems and giants is a mandatory requirement of a monster product; I’ve never seen anyone excited for new giants or dragons. And because of the points mentioned above, most are not what you would initially expect from new golems, giants, or dragons.

There is no chart of creature by either type or terrain. Boo! Sometimes you just need a fey creature of the appropriate CR. I imagine this could be an easy Web Enhancement on the website.

The demon lord Qorgeth has no motivation and limited lore. I suppose it is a demon, who aren’t known for deep motivations or layered plans at the best of times, but it should be more than just a creepier version of a Purple Worm that just wriggles around until smacked by the PCs. This drew my attention as its art is nightmare inducing and quite large, so I wanted to know what it’s deal was, only to find precious little.

There are some Mythos Monsters in the book, but not every creation made it in. There are no yithians, nightgaunts, flying polyps, or spawn of shub-niggurath. This is getting a mention solely because my personal fave, elder things, are also absent. Boo again!

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The book has numerous high level threats, which were few and far between in the Monster Manual. Now that more campaigns are hitting higher levels, this feels more necessary. Not to keep pooping on Fifth Edition Foes, but its lack of high level opponents was a sizable flaw with that book. With over 75 monsters of above CR 10, this book is the authoritative source of end-game content for 5e. Heck, there are more CR 20+ monsters in Tome of Beasts then there were CR 10+ in Fifth Edition Foes.  

The Monster by Challenge Rating chart and Table of Contents is hyperlinked. For a PDF user who often breaks out the iPad at the game table or on the go, this is awesome. I’m always surprised more professional PDFs don’t take advantage of the benefits of the format.

The book features over 40 new fey, which are a monster type that often does not see a lot of love or attention. This is exciting for fans of the First World/ Faerie/ Feywild. There are even Fey Lords and Ladies; demon lords, archdevils, and the like are regularly given stat blocks in prior editions of the game but this is the first archfey I can recall seeing. It’s certainly a notable absence and a welcome addition.

While on the subject of fey, cold iron returns! The Fey Lords and Ladies section includes a sidebar on cold iron, which bypasses the resistances of fey. I’m glad to see this return to the game, and was saddened by the absence of cold iron in the base rules. I like the silver/cold iron distinction between devils and demons but can live without it with demons. However, cold iron seems far more necessary when dealing with fey. Its placement in a monster entry is unfortunate, as there are a number of fey throughout the book that are susceptible to cold iron, and it’s not apparent this sidebar is included. But I can’t think of a better place in the book.

The art in this book is seriously top notch. It bears repeating. This is a very pretty and well illustrated book.

Blemmyes! A semi-classic monster from real world western mythology that is oft forgotten. I wrote them up myself once.But it’s great to see them in a professional product.

Final Thoughts

This is an excellent third or fourth monster book for a game that only had one book of monsters.

Okay… while I kvetch, it IS still an excellent book. And while I argue that it could be better – that there are a lot of monsters from myth or the history of the game that could have been included – I honestly cannot fault Kobold Press for opting to convert monsters they had already published. And while the book is certainly influenced by the Midgard Campaign, the presence of the world is not overt and focus on *ahem* Midgardian monsters is simply the result of those monsters more easily and cheaply updated.

Of its 350 new types of monsters in the Tome of Beasts, there are easily 145 are monsters I would definetly use (or to to find a flimsy excuse to use) and an additional 135 I could give or take depending on the situation. This leaves just 70 monsters I consider uninteresting, redundant, or just plain lame. This is a very reasonable hit:miss ratio, and I expect to get a lot of use out of this product, especially when my campaign gets higher in levels.

This book is a must for campaigns nearing the teen-levels, or for a game with experienced players who are no longer surprised by standard monsters, or for Dungeon Master that want an increased presence of fey. While you’re unlikely to enjoy every monster in this book, there WILL be lots of monsters you do like. 

Shameless Plug

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If you liked this review, you can support me and encourage future reviews.

I have a number of PDF products on the DMs Guild website including the Ravenloft product Heroes of the Mists and a book of Variant Rules.

Additionally, my book, Jester David’s How-To Guide to Fantasy Worldbuilding, is available for purchase. The electronic copy is available on Kindle, and DriveThurRPG. The PoD copy is available on Createspaceand Amazon. Purchases from DriveThru especially allow me to purchase new PDFs for review purposes.

The book is a compilation of my worldbuilding blog series, and all the entries have been updated, edited, and expanded. The final book features almost two-hundred pages of advice on making your own fantasy world.

Ultimate NPCs: Skulduggery

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Clik here to view.The book Ultimate NPCs: Skulduggery is slowly hitting mailboxes, the PDF having hit inboxes a few weeks back. It is part of publisher Nord Games’ “Gamemaster’s Toolbox” line of products, the first book that I’m aware of from the fledgling publisher, whose previous experiences were bookmarks and cards.

The book was funded by a successful Kickstarter where 1,335 people pledged over $60,000, shattering the $10,000 goal. The book was released for both 5th Edition and the Pathfinder RPG, and is available as PDF, softcover, and hardcover.

My physical copy has not arrived and I wanted to judge that in my review, especially as the company is new and an unknown to me. However, Nord Games just launched its second Kickstarter for an adversary book – Ultimate Bestiary: Revenge of the Horde and I thought a review of the first would be informative for people considering backing the second who might still unfamiliar with the publisher.

–edit 08/10/16 —
My physical book arrived and review was added to reflect this. 

Ultimate NPCs: Skulduggery is a 232 page PDF with the last nine pages including two blank pages (?), two pages of legal, and five pages of backer names, for roughly 223 pages are content. Included are thirty different NPCs, each given statistics for level 1, 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20. These are evenly divided between good, neutral, and evil alignments. After the unique named NPCs, the book provides several generic NPCs, like those at the back of the Monster Manual, with five each of brigands, ruffians, swindlers, assassins, and bandits, while three each of the brigand, ruffian, thief, bandit, and assassin bosses. Wrapping up the book are over thirty new items that are a combination of magic and mundane, and a dozen new spells.

The Good

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Clik here to view.The art is excellent. I’ll reiterate this again at the end in the “Awesome” category, because it is more awesome that merely good, but I wanted to start off with the product’s biggest strength: the whole book looks amazing. The art, the textured backgrounds, the ink splatters and little flourishes… it’s easily one of the prettier RPG books I’ve seen by a 3rd Party publisher. Heck, there’s a lot of first party books that are less impressive looking.

Each named NPC has a unique background. Typically around half a column. The NPCs all make use of the personal characteristics that were added to 5e, and come complete with personality traits, bonds, flaws, and ideals. Many of these are even unique to the NPC rather than just being traits previously published. These backgrounds try their best to be generic, and should be able to fit into most any setting. While these will not be universally valid (most won’t fit my world), they should work with the vast majority of campaigns.

Each named NPC is also provided with roleplaying notes with suggestions for how the character will act. Many have adventure hooks as well. Filling out some of the page space is a small little story or short narrative, further fleshing the backstory and motivations of the character.

At the start of each section are several roguish organizations, such as thieves’ or assassins’ guilds, with four for each of the moral alignment: good, neutral, evil. Most of these are decent and diverse, they’re not just variations on the same theme. It’s nice to have some less than honest groups that are technically good and noble. Most of the guilds are also tied to one or two of the named NPCS, perhaps being a member or ever the leader/founder. This provides a nice, elegant way to introduce either the group or the NPC in a campaign.

Following the groups, each of the three sections has a table of its ten associated NPCs, listed with their class, alignment, background, occupation, and page. This is handy for quickly rolling an NPC randomly, or for when you need a scoundrel fighter.

While a book of non-player characters, the assorted good and neutral NPCs are very useful as quick PCs, replacing a dead character for a session or serving as the character for a guest player. This makes the book more broadly useful, if you as a DM don’t mind a guest reading the backgrounds.

The generic NPCs at the back are all pretty decent. I can see using these, and it’s fairly handy that they’re all similar in build and abilities, so running a group of mixed CRs is easy. Plus, at the start of the chapter are some pre-built encounter groups, so you can easily produce a random encounter with some bandits or thieves.

The Bad

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Clik here to view.The art is great, but it’s often a little on the small side, compacted so much of the detail is lost. It’s so good it needs a little more room to show off.

Each NPC’s entry expands on their assorted personality traits, turning what should be a quick tag or sound bite into a lengthier paragraph. This feels unnecessary; this extra detail should have just been worked into the background or roleplaying notes. If you need to explain an ideal or bond, then that trait should be rephrased. This is especially noteworthy as each NPC only has a single personality trait: an oft overlooked rule is that each character is meant to have two personality traits (see p123 of the PHB). Not a huge error, but sadly it is probably the least significant rules errors in the book.

There are numerous small formatting errors. Such as one NPC referring to “Dark Vision” as two words, and both capitalized when it should be lowercase. Similarly, it’s written as “Passive Perception” while only the skill should be capitalized, and spell names in stat blocks are also capitalized. Spells and magic items are italicized, as has been the format since 3e (magic is in italics) but mundane items are also italicized making them appear magic. In contrast, there is no italicization in attacks, such as “Longsword. Melee Weapon Attack”.

Unique magic items and equipment is not referenced in the stat blocks but contained in a small text box following the stat blocks. Full details are only included in the item’s description at the end of the book, requiring flipping at the table. This is annoying since there’s usually plenty of room to have included unique personal as a small sidebar in the character’s entry.

Mentioning one item quickly, I found it odd that “poppy milk vial” is treated as a magic potion rather than a poison. Also, it is described as an “elixir”, which is not a type of magic item: the term is “potion”.

The Ugly

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.The math is off in places. Dice averages are wrong throughout the book, as the author rounded up for weapon damage (1d6 becomes 4 instead of 3.5), but for some reason in the generic NPCs it was always rounded down reducing their hit points. In the named NPCs I noticed a couple instances of inaccurate hit points.

There are other small errors in the stat blocks. For example, one NPC has a Con of 20 but the bonus given is +3… across three different levels (they changed the number with a stat boost but forgot to change the bonus then cut-and-pasted twice). Another doesn’t include the bonuses from the Dueling Fighting Style in their attacks, while a similar NPC includes the bonus damage to both one and two-handed attacks with the weapon.

A potentially divisive complaint now: the NPCs just use the PC rules. This isn’t a book of NPCs so much as pregenerated PCs who are formatted like NPCs. This is very Pathfinder RPG design, making this very much a Pathfinder RPG product that is simply formatted like 5e.

I say this is “divisive” as not everyone believes NPCs should be designed like monster and have abilities different than PCs. Which is fair, as humanoid creatures shouldn’t have spells or cool abilities that players cannot learn. But these NPCs could have been heavily inspired by PC class options without just being classed characters, abilities that *seem* like PC players at the table but work differently from the DM’s perspective.

Related to copying PC powers, there are almost no custom rules traits in any of the NPCs, and they very much are just characters right out of the book, and when changes are made these are small. A character was lamed in their backstory (so much so they had to retire as an assassin) but doesn’t have related traits, just a slower speed. Given the character can still Dash as a bonus action, they don’t feel particularly slow or ineffective. These are not individuals, but generic pregenerated PCs with solid backgrounds. The book does not even make use of multiclassing or feats to vary the characters.

Arguably, using the full PC rules does allow a guest player to be as effective as any other character, and these characters to more easily port from NPC to PC status. However, the greater complexity of the characters makes them more difficult to run on the fly, both for the DM and a player grabbing one cold. This is undesirable. NPCs simply do not require the same level of complexity or breadth of abilities as Player Characters, especially in terms of background features, non-combat options, skills, saving throws and abilities usable with a bonus actions abilities.

For example the named NPC all lack the multiattack option, instead having “Extra Attack”, occasionally supplemented with a summary of the two-weapon fighting rules in their traits. It would have been easier to make this multiattack and include the reference to the bonus action offhand attack there. Or omit other bonus action features and just include a single offhand attack in multiattack. Similarly, you don’t need to include both the Cunning Action feature AND the Fast Hands Thief subclass feature: just include the benefits of the latter in the former.

While complaining about the formatting using class features, two named NPCs use superiority dice. They’re Battle Masters (which is super important in a way I’ll get back to at the end of this section). In the traits section of the stat block, each maneuver is listed as a trait rather than being indented under the Combat Superiority feature (like spells typically are… even if they aren’t in this product), which would make them significantly easier to locate and use. It’s hard to know where their maneuvers end and new abilities begin.

The general arrangement of traits in the stat blocks is awkward. Few monsters have more than a half-dozen traits (see the flesh golem for a trait heavy monster), but those that do then to have their biggest traits at the top (generally the active ones), and the rest sorted alphabetically. The NPCs in this book have their traits sorted by race, background, and the class features in level order. This can bury important traits in the middle of the stat block.

Using PC rules for the NPCs also means they bend the monster design rules: NPCs use proficiency based on the CR not their class levels, so these classed NPCs have a higher than expected hit rate, which will skew their damage and, based on the monster design rules, should also have increased their CR, which does not seem to be taken into account. So CRs for all the NPCs above level 12 are wrong.

Thankfully, the generic NPCs in the back of the book are better, being closer in design to the NPCs at the back of the Monster Manual. I say “closer” because the NPCs are just less overtly fully classed PCs, and for the most part the abilities still copy player character abilities. It’s less obvious but still awkward in places: the thieves all copy the full text of the rogue’s Sneak Attack feature (rather than the abridged version featured in the Monster Manual‘s spy NPC). If you’re only giving the NPCs a dagger as a weapon, you don’t need to mention sneak attack only works with finesse or ranged weapons!

There are even some unique traits in the generic NPCs, such as three bandit boss’ Commander feature, which is a variant of Leadership action. Only for the bandits it’s a bonus action rather than an action, is usable at-will rather than recharging on a short rest, and affects allies within 120 feet rather than 30. Oh, at the intermediate bandit boss’ goes up to a d6 while the advanced goes to a d8. Yeah… with bounded accuracy, the d4 to attacks is always good and didn’t need to increase.

Moving on from PC/NPC symmetry, the 30 named NPCs are all given the exact same range of level. However, not all the characters are suited to all levels. The master assassin that co-founded a guild of assassins probably doesn’t need a level 1 or level 4 stat block. In contrast, the abandoned youth living on the streets works fine as a level 1 and 4 rogue but less so as level 16 and 20. When you’re a level 20 thief, you shouldn’t be making your living picking pockets in the streets with your gear being “Tattered Clothes, Shank…”. (But, it *is* capitalized, so it must be a proper name. I guess “Tattered Clothes” is an expensive brand name like “Calvin Klein”.)

The new spells lack class spell lists. So they exist but no characters can select them. Some of the spells are just poor. Fade is the same level as invisibility but just grants “advantage on stealth checks” (which, I imagine, is meant to mean Dexterity (Stealth) checks) and only for 1 minute rather than the hour of invisibility. And unlock is just knock but a level lower and less noisy. Both go directly against the design of 5e where they didn’t want a wizard with the right spells to replace the rogue.

The PDF has no hyperlinks either – which feels like a bigger deal coming straight off of the heavily hyperlinked Tome of Beasts – but really isn’t that uncommon in the industry. However, the PDF has no bookmarks, which is pretty basic formatting to include and makes the PDF much harder to use at the table. The PDF I received is also missing the covers.

Edit: I was informed that the PDF had been quickly updated to include both covers and bookmarks. Apparently within a couple days. So good on Nord Games for that.
Despite not having registered an account, I was able to quickly sign-up and require the updated file, which does indeed have a cover and bookmarks.

The random encounter table on page 5 is useful, but asks for a d30, which is just plain weird. (I would have gone with a d00 and ended with “roll twice” and “roll three times” to round out the extra numbers.)

The assorted items include prices even if they’re magic, which goes against the standard 5e magic item design.

The formatting is inconsistent. In some instances paragraphs are indented, in others there’s simply a wider space between paragraphs (which is slightly harder to read). But it varies from section to section, with at several instances of the short fiction having some paragraphs indented and some not indented.

The NPC, Ka’laera, is ostensibly a doppelganger. Or something. It’s not at all clear. Of course, since she uses straight PC rules, she lacks the innate Hit Dice of a doppelganger and its darkvision. But for some reason Read Thoughts is a trait not an action.

Lastly and most egregiously, the book includes subclass content that was not released in the SRD, such as the Arcane Trickster, the Assassin, and the aforementioned Battle Master. This book is in flagrant violation of the Open Game Licence and, by extension, copyright laws.

The Awesome

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Clik here to view.As I mentioned at the start, the book looks amazeballs. This goes so much beyond just the page background and character art. There are lots of small details in the background of pages: ink blots, cards, notes, sketches and the like. These are often specific to the character, and every page looks just slightly different. This is excellent and whomever did the layout of this product did a fantastic job.

The book starts with a two-page spread atop the legal, credits, and table of contents. This is not only beautiful but crams in over a half-dozen characters from the book in a single scene. It’s a very nice piece.

The generic NPC swindlers contain a list of sample cons. And the start of the section has a random table of preferred scams. These are a pretty cool addition.

Each generic NPC section begins with a table of random possessions, which is handy and makes these NPCs potentially more than just a random encounter.

There’s a lot of neat accessories on the website if desired, including bookmarks, character cards, and even filled-in character sheets (although, at $5 the latter seems pricey for what amounts to a time saving web enhancement type product). I’m a sucker for small game aids, and having face cards for the NPCs is useful, providing a nice visual reminder.

–Edit–

Having received the physical book, it’s actually quite good quality. Despite the small size on the PDF, the picture pop nicely in the physical book, diminishing my complaint regarding the size of the art. The pages have some nice heft, the glue seems sturdy, and the cover is a good thick stock but not too stiff. The paper is a nice, professional glossy paper. Overall, the presentation is really good and makes for a very impressive product. 

Final Thoughts

Sadly, I cannot recommend this product.

On the surface it looks amazing. It is a very pretty book. But like the rogues that populate it, looks can be deceiving.

There’s enough generic NPCs and useful content in this book that I imagine my hard copy will see some use, but as I’ll have to check the math, CR, and dodge errors I’m thankful I opted to only get the softcover rather than splurge on the hardcover (I’m honestly wondering if just getting the PDF would not have been better). But even if I ignore the mechanics, having NPCs (with names and backstories) can be extremely useful, so I do not regret my purchase.

My big nitpick is the NPCs designed like PCs. If you don’t have a problem with that, then this book will certainly have more appeal to you. However, even ignoring that issue there are other complaints: the formatting and attention to detail is sloppy; there are a number of mathematical and editing errors; it regularly doesn’t always follow the 5th edition design; and the limited new mechanics include numerous flaws. But all that is before getting to the fact this product violates the Open Gaming Licence by copying Closed Content not found in the 5.0 SRD.

To be brutally honest… this product feels like an early Third Edition 3rd Party Product released during the OGL glut, an amateur product by untested designers and writers, albeit one with modern layout and slick production values. I’m sorry to say this about the folk at Nord Games – who undoubtedly worked their collective asses off for this product – but I’m not going to self-censor my review to spare their feelings.

Nord Games’ next product is 5th Edition specific, and does not include a Pathfinder option. As this is their second product, it *possible* they may have learned more about the formatting and the design of 5e (and hopefully the Open Game Licence). The numerous other formatting errors and mathematical mistakes show a lack of attention to detail that is still extremely worrisome. However, they also won’t be trying to write two books at the same time. More time and dedicated focus will almost certainly yield a superior product. And it might allow the product to follow 5e design tenets more tightly, not feeling obligated to match the Pathfinder version as closely.

I am uncertain if I will end up backing Revenge of the Horde and if I do it is unlikely I’ll pledge higher than the PDF level. However, my interactions with individuals at Nord Games has been uniformly positive, and they do seem to have an honest desire to make good RPG products, being active on forums and addressing complaints on Kickstarter. Plus, while this was their third Kickstarter it was their first book Kickstarter, and they managed to get the rewards close to their estimated date (comparable to more seasoned publishers like Kobold Press). So while I am extremely critical of this product, I’m hopeful that this time next year, I can write a review of Revenge of the Horde that includes the phrase “most improved publisher of the year”.

Shameless Plug

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Clik here to view.

If you liked this review, you can support me and encourage future reviews.

I have a number of PDF products on the DMs Guild website including the Ravenloft product Heroes of the Mists and a book of Variant Rules.

Additionally, my book, Jester David’s How-To Guide to Fantasy Worldbuilding, is available for purchase. The electronic copy is available on Kindle, and DriveThurRPG. The PoD copy is available on Createspaceand Amazon. Purchases from DriveThru especially allow me to purchase new PDFs for review purposes.

The book is a compilation of my worldbuilding blog series, and all the entries have been updated, edited, and expanded. The final book features almost two-hundred pages of advice on making your own fantasy world.

Pathfinder Review: Horror Adventures

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Clik here to view.The big GenCon 2016 release from Paizo Inc is Horror Adventures, the latest in their “skin books” that allow gamemasters to customize their campaign’s tone (aka “reskin”).

I’m a big horror RPG enthusiast, and a diehard Ravenloft fan, so I was really excited for this book. I would have killed to have this book back in 2011, when I was running my Ravenloft homegame.

Horror Adventures is a full colour hardcover book with 253-pages of content plus an index. This is roughly broken up into 34 pages on horror character (with 24 pages specifically on on corruption),  32 pages of class archetypes,  16 pages of feats, 24 pages spells, 52 pages on horror rules, 20 pages on running horror campaigns, and 16 pages of magic items. This is rounded out by a few new monster templates, 7 new monsters, and a couple pages of inspirational material.

The Good

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Clik here to view.A book focused on horror should have a distinct gamemaster focus, which this product has; Horror Adventures has a lot of new options for opponents. Despite the biggest section of this book being class archetypes, many of these are not just for PCs and are outright villainous options. There are several class options that require an evil alignment, and many are just ill suited for the adventuring life.

Archetypes in the Pathfinder RPG have been stretched a little thin, becoming increasingly niche. However, as the vast majority are heroic, evil options open up a unique design space, drawing upon very different tropes for inspiration. Horror also focuses this theme for some pretty interesting archetypes. Villain archetypes can also bend the power curve a little, since villains don’t need to be as balanced as player characters: they’re only in play for one or two encounters rather than every single encounter for potentially an entire campaign.

Similarly, there are a number of monster feats. Feats in monsters can be a little tricky, adding complexity for very little gain, especially at high levels. But when modifying monsters, feats are a neat way of customizing monsters without having to make up and design an option from scratch and calculate how much it affects the monster’s challenge.

Many of the spells in the book are also villainous and just plain creepy. They provide useful methods of surprising players. There are the standard heroic options as well, designed to counter horrific monsters, but these feel like a minority. This isn’t the best book of spells for fighting enemies.

Also included in the book is a sizable section on curses. There are a number of new curses, which are designed a little like poisons or diseases, with an effect and a cure. The set DC makes them pretty useless- effective only in a very particular level band – but that’s easy enough for a GM to change. There’s even advice on making curses, with a good half-page on breaking curses. This is a nice addition as too often the remove curse spell is just the default method or removing curses, which has the disadvantage of being both bland and troublesome if you lack that spell. This section even includes a number of cursed items and lands, because sometimes a region just needs to literally be cursed. Great inspiration and advice for any gamemaster (or Dungeon Master).

Environments are included, which are an often underused part of the game. Interesting terrain can make or break an encounter, but always gets far less attention than monsters. These are both positive and negative, such as holy ground or divining water. There’s even some advice/rules on how long it takes to dig a grave. That’s pretty cool.

There are a handful of haunt options, expanding on the rules from Occult Adventures. Haunts are a lovely bit of design added to the Pathfinder RPG before there was a Pathfinder RPG, effectively being spontaneous magical traps. These have been revised and updated of late, and this book includes a surprising number of new haunts at a wide range of challenge ratings. Some are particularly creepy and evocative.

The Bad

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Clik here to view.This book features another variant on sanity/ insanity. This feels included to satisfy a check-box of what should be part of a horror RPG book. With the subsystem in Gamemastery Guide and the Carrion Crown adventure path, this marks the third distinct Pathfinder RPG sanity systems I’m aware of. Plus the insanity spell. It’s useful, but as its only given two pages, the section is ridiculously small with not enough to really use in an extended campaign. After first level, only monsters cause sanity loss. It’s barebones, almost wasted and unlikely to be expanded since this book is the place for expanded sanity rules and most optional rulesets are never returned to.

Further making this feel awkward, the accompanying madnesses are later in the book, requiring flipping. The art on this section is also ridiculously generic. It feels like filler art, possibly left over from Occult Adventures.

As I mentioned earlier, many of the archtypes in this book are for villains. However, they’re included in what is ostensibly the player section for all to see, taking some of the surprise out of their mechanics. Plus, if I’m making a custom villain, I don’t *really* need to follow the class rules to give a villain a unique power or tweak their abilities. So long as an enemy is the appropriate CR it’s fine to have a unique variant. This happens all the time in Paizo’s own adventures: the very first Adventure Path volume had a three-armed Medium-sized fire breathing goblin. There’s this curious design tenet in 3.X where a humanoid NPC can’t have an ability that a humanoid PC can’t also acquire: NPC fighters should not do things PC fighters cannot. However, if you’re just inventing a class archetype that only NPCs can take… what’s the difference between a unique power? (Other than the option that evil PCs in a villainous campaign can take the options. But that’s a rather niche argument, even with the Hell’s Vengeance adventure path…)

I suppose I would have rather seen these options akin to simple templates. Ways of quickly customizing NPCs, which also has the advantage of making them quicker and easier to use, rather than having to build a PC to use as a villain. More than other types of campaign, horror adventures often end with a singular and deadly foe, and more ways to make that opponent deadly, memorable, and unique would have been nice.

While I’m whining, I’m not sure why this book really even needed player content at all. This feels like a book that could have been aimed exclusively at DMs. There’s no shortage of monster fighting or semi-horrific archetypes for players, especially with last year’s Occult Adventures. Player content could have been handled in one of the two other supplementary books. This is why the Haunted Heroes Handbook exists. The Pathfinder RPG is already arguably one of the most well supported RPGs in gaming history, possibly second only to RIFTS, so a second GM-only book (that isn’t a Bestiary) might be nice…

In the spells section, there’s a curious sidebar on casting evil spells, and how doing it once or twice isn’t necessarily eeeevil, that casting one to protect people might not be bad. However, given the preparatory nature of Pathfinder’s spellcasting, this is a little odd: spellcasting tends to be premeditated. If you cast an evil spell to protect people, you do so because you prepared that spell rather than any other spell. I hope the wizard in the example was casting animating dead via a scroll. The sidebar seems to exist as an excuse for players to point to, arguing against their GMs. Not something I want to encourage…

The book uses the disease rules from Pathfinder Unchained. Thankfully,  those rules are reprinted, so that book is not necessary. (Probably why this book isn’t included in the list of eleven books referenced at the front.) These rules are pretty chunky, spreading out the rules in multiple sections and trying to fit diseases into various templates. It feels overly complicated for a simple concept. Not really a fan.

The Ugly

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Clik here to view.There are expanded/ revised rules for fear. This makes sense given the focus of the book, but it does so by increasing the conditions from three to six. Ironically, one of the changes Pathfinder made from 3.5e was reducing the types of fear from four conditions to three. Heck, I can never differentiate the three existing, and even the Condition Cards product only really details two of the types. A revision of the fear system might have been nice, but imagine that would have to dance around too many feats and spells to be possible. A way to differentiate between magical and mundane fear would have been interesting, or ways of players being stricken with fear in a roleplaying sense, being afraid without being frightened.

Corruption was the big selling part of the book. When the book was announced at GenCon 2015 this is all that was talked about, and it’s the first bullet point in the book’s rear cover (and focus of back illustration). Corruption: become a monster. However, this is a very small section, dwarfed by the new archteypes and equal in pages to the new spells. It’s a tenth of the overall book, which is a serious disappointment.

While most of the corruptions are iconic, “hive” is a curious addition. It comes at the expense of other corruptions, like a madness corruption inspired by Jekyll & Hyde, an ancient dead/mummy, and the like. I imagine it was to fill a need for more body horror, but it just feels like filler.

There’s not really many choices in the corruptions. There’s often just enough manifestations to hit every level. So at higher levels you often have to choose between powers you skipped earlier. Since corruption is tied to your character’s levels, you only get so many powers, but for balance reasons the options are very low power, quickly becoming an insignificant part of the character at high levels. Like getting DR 2/ Cold Iron or the ability to make a touch attack that deals 1d4+1 damage at 7th level. While presented as a way to play monsters, most of the powers are only inspired by monster’s abilities. (Ironically, while NPCs made via this book have to follow PC rules, PCs cannot follow the rules of NPC monsters.

Some of the corruptions seem to set-up the PC for failure. The deep one corruption requires you to immerse yourself in saline water every day, such as a salt water sea or ocean. However, the iconic location for horror in Golarion only has a freshwater lake by the otherwise landlocked nation, making that corruption a trap that results in your PC becoming an NPC in under a week.

At PaizoCon, the writers of the book talked about how they linked each iconic character with a particular corruption for story reasons. There’s reason for why each character is affected by that particular corruption. But this is completely absent from the book itself. For all the impact that has on the product, the choices might as well have been random. Paizo works hard on their story and their setting, but the rulebooks are very generic and setting neutral, which just seems less and less appropriate.

Fleshcrafting is odd. I love that this is a topic in the book, as twisted spellcrafters altering creatures into other creatures is such a trope: that’s ostensibly where the owlbear came from. But there’s never been rules for it. However, here, fleshcrafting is treated like a magic item with an associated penalty: the crafter gets the feat and “crafts” a hideous crab claw onto you, for the appropriate price in gold pieces. So evil fleshcrafters are spending a freakin’ fortune on their crazy experiments. Which also prices fleshcrafting out of NPC gear except at high levels. At 22k the burrowing claws are the entire wealth of an level 13 NPC and should be better than a +3 weapon. There’s a simple template at the back meant to cover doing it to monsters, but it just boosts some stats and changes a mode of movement, and lacks the neat customization and weirdness of adding body parts. I’m uncertain what giving a regular creature fleshwarped mods would do to its CR, if anything, which makes this awkward to use. And, like sanity, it really doesn’t get enough pages to really do justice to the topic.

There’s a four page section on “rules improvisation” which is – in theory – meant to give advice on quickly adjudicating situations rather than breaking tension with page flipping. Useful in a horror game. And then the following three-and-a-half pages give examples of how to use the existing rules for certain situations. This doesn’t sit as well for me because the advice is effectively “gain system mastery”, which isn’t very useful, especially for such a complex system as Pathfinder. Not just because system mastery is hard, but if you’re relying on obscure rules… you’re not really improvising. Plus, focusing on the rules reduces horror situations to mechanically puzzles: how can I use my knowledge of the rules to escape. It takes the player out of the situation and moves them to the table where they’re looking at numbers on a character sheet. Because the focus of this sections is on the examples more than the advice, this section is effectively “here are rules for being buried alive or burned at the stake”.

The Awesome

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Clik here to view.Horror Adventures includes rules for domains of evil, which are described as pockets of supernatural activity. This is a very deliberate nod to Ravenloft. Similarly, there is a dread lord template in the monster section for the masters of these domains. Cool.

The beginning of the Running Horror Adventures chapter has some great advice on horror games. Most of this chapter is pretty awesome, and arguably a must-read for anyone planning a horror game, regardless of system. It breaks down the horror subgenres with descriptions of their characteristics, along with storytelling suggestions and monsters that work. There is excellent advice on atmosphere, simple DM tips, and storytelling suggestions. It advises on how to write a horror adventure, how to scare heroes, and how to encourage roleplaying and terror.

In two places of this section, Horror Adventures deals with consent and crossing the line: initially, on a half-page section on consent and a second time in a sidebar further in the book. I’m torn on these inclusions. I think they’re a good addition and say some things that need to be said. But… I’m not sure the people who need this advice are going to learn it via reading; this advice will very likely fall on deaf ears, making these sections wasted. However, I’m not going to fault the authors for trying, and attempting positive change is admirable and to be encouraged. So the discussion on “consent” is here in the “Awesome” section.

The equipment has torture implements. This is some *ahem* fun stuff, with detailed descriptions for people unwilling to delve into the Wikipedia articles on the topic. Most tend to do particularly minor damage though, and feel significantly less intimidating than they likely should be. It’s easy enough to house rule them into dealing Con damage or the like.

There’s no shortage of nods to horror films and literature in this book. It’s probably the most Easter Egg heavy product I’ve seen from Paizo. To name just a few, reanimating fluid is a nice nod to Herbert West – Reanimator; the hive monster are basically xenomorphs from Alien; the implacable stalker is every slasher movie villain that comes back in sequel after sequel; there’s a Hellraiser-esque puzzle box; and the trompe l’oeil feels like a reference to Picture of Dorian Gray (which is a “horror” in the sense it was made into a number or horror films).

The book ends with a series of inspirations, broken up by their horror subgenre. Both film and books are included. This is almost a checklist of movies to enjoy.

Final Thoughts

It’s hard to summarize my feelings on this product. I have a huge soft spot for horror this is a product almost aimed at me. It has useful advice on running a horror game, rules options for villains, and ways of turning players into monsters. All very cool.

But the actual execution…

The keystone of the book is the corruption subsystem. But at 24-pages, this could have been a single, focused Player Companion product. Heck, with 32-pages, the topic would have received almost ten more pages of detail in such a product. It feels ill served here. Barebones: the minimum amount of content for each option. The rules themselves are a compromise between balance and new options, with balance winning more often than not. The execution feels safe, as if terrified of breaking the balance of the game or making one character significantly better than another (ironic give the range of power levels in Pathfinder, and doubly ironic after Mythic proved even more balance shattering than expected).

Compromise seems to be a theme of the book. The new fear rules tries to add depth to being scared without changing any existing options. The sanity rules are a compromise of space. The new class options are a compromise between new villain options and providing splatbook material for players.

I didn’t walk away from the book thinking “this was the best horror themed RPG book I’ve read”. I wasn’t the definitive work on horror. It was decent, but not game changing.

For Pathfinder GMs, I would recommend this book. For people planning a horror themed campaign, I would recommend getting the PDF. For Pathfinder players in general I would advise against this product, doubly so for Pathfinder Society players, as so many options are evil themed and thus inappropriate for that campaign (a third of the archtyepes are not allowed in the campaign, so the book becomes a minigame of  “pick the legal content”). The advice is good. And the archetypes are good and different, providing some nice villainous alternatives. And to the book’s credit it doesn’t try and provide archetypes for every single class (or even the majority of classes). So even if you don’t plan on ever using the corruption mechanic, this is a useful book.

Shameless Plug

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Clik here to view.

If you liked this review, you can support me and encourage future reviews.

I have a number of PDF products on the DMs Guild website including the Giant Killer’s Companion.

Additionally, my book, Jester David’s How-To Guide to Fantasy Worldbuilding, is available for purchase. The electronic copy is available on Kindle, and DriveThurRPG. The PoD copy is available on Createspaceand Amazon. Purchases from DriveThru especially allow me to purchase new PDFs for review purposes.

The book is a compilation of my worldbuilding blog series, and all the entries have been updated, edited, and expanded. The final book features almost two-hundred pages of advice on making your own fantasy world.

Review: Storm King’s Thunder

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Clik here to view.The fifth story-line adventure for 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons is Storm King’s Thunder, which evokes memories and concepts from the classic adventure series, Against the Giants, adventures G1 through G3 for 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Initially published as three separate modules way back in 1978 (Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl, and Hall of the Fire Giant King) the small adventures were compiled and republished in 1981, becoming the first “classics” of D&D to warrant republication. Hall of the Fire Giant King also gave us King Snurre, arguably the first named D&D villain, memorable in his white dragon pelt (now further immortalized on the cover of the 5e Player’s Handbook).

TSR reprinted the giant series once again in 1986 with the combo superadventure Queen of the Spiders, as the original Giants series led into the equally famous D-module series. Wizards of the Coast has also previously returned to the classic adventure twice before: first in 1999 for 2nd Edition and again for 4th Edition with Revenge of the Giants. For this, WotC author Chris Perkins added Warrens of the Stone Giant Thane to the mix, created for Dungeon Magazine.

Unlike either version of Against the Giants or Queen of the Spiders, Storm King’s Thunder is not a reprint of the existing adventure but a complete reimagining. This is also markedly different from Curse of Strahd, which was just a reprint with bonus material at the beginning. In addition to the three new dungeons for the hill, frost, and fire giants there are also lairs for stone, cloud, and storm giant clans. All five big giants are represented.

The Good

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Clik here to view.As mentioned above, Storm King’s Thunder is not just Against the Giants redux, but instead features a brand new story. The High God of the giants has broken the ordning: the divine mandated caste structuring of giants which determines the place of each type of giant in the overall hierarchy as well as each giant in their clans. Which is cool, but this is effectively just the backstory to SKT. This overarching plot doesn’t largely feature into the adventure itself instead as a background motivation. This makes Storm King’s Thunder just one story in this larger tale. Unlike past story-line adventures, the main plot of the “event” is not addressed or highlighted by this adventure. Somewhat like Tyranny of Dragons or Rage of Demons, this tale is expansive enough to work nicely as part of a larger canvas, spreading out to the Adventurer’s League modules and the Neverwinter video game, which can tell their own stories set during this event. This makes this story-line feels more like a historical event or incident, and less like three or four retellings of the same event, the opposite of Rage of Demons where Drizzt, the heroes of Neverwinter, and the PCs all separately fought and defeated Demogorgon.

Storm King’s Thunder is also somewhat of a sequel to Tyranny of Dragons, which creates some neat continuity in the neo-Forgotten Realms. It makes the events of that story have an impact, even if there were no lasting changes to the Realms as a result. It highlights how you don’t have to make sweeping changes with a Realms Shaking Event (or “blow up the moon”) to make an impact.

This adventure makes good use of bounded accuracy,  when you fight giants early in the adventure, and again when you face an ancient dragon. While these encounters take place at too low of a level for characters to theoretically win a fair fight, NPCs are provided to even the odds. Being able to use numbers to the advantage of the heroes is a nice perk of the system.

The centerpiece of the adventure is an expansive sandbox exploration of the North, that leads to the next chapter, before you return to exploring. It’s very freeform, and even the slight rails largelu unseen as the party can choose their own path. There are numerous plot hooks that direct adventurers between the various locations, and far more areas and locales than one party can experience in a single playthrough. In theory, you could run the initial half of this adventure up to three times with very little overlap until the end. This is also handy as the encounters in this adventure are challenging and potentially deadly, so there is almost a built-in method of recovering from a TPK.

Because there’s so much modularity (three starter towns, five different giant clanholds) the adventure is very easy to pillage for information and locations. You can steal multiple settlements, NPCs, and three or four big dungeons for a home game and still be able to play through this adventure without issue.

The book features a number of excellent maps, including a new Mike Schley map of the North. This map has a nice wide gutter, lots of white space between the pages: very likely in response to feedback from Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide. The few Jared Blando maps are also pretty useful; sometimes his maps skew more towards art than usability at the table, but these are decent and functional (while still being lovely).

The Bad

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Clik here to view.Despite being one of the broader stories, ironically, there’s no larger story-line name: Storm King’s Thunder is both the event and the adventure. Contrast this with Rage of Demons whose main story was told in the Out of the Abyss adventure. This is easier to remember (one name rather than two) but of all story-lines, Storm King’s Thunder the hardcover adventure feels like its tale is secondary to the event, and the giant themed adventures in Neverwinter will have much less to do with the eponymous Storm King.

Because this superadventure is based around one small story in a larger event, there’s less resolution in this adventure. Like actually none. At the end, the ordning is still broken, and giant hierarchy remains in flux. This could be resolved in a novel or even a video game, but that seems to unfortunately sideline the primary heroes of D&D: the players. The conclusion paragraph even mentions this somewhat, leaving it open ended if the Storm King is right and the god will restore things or not. However, this is incredibly unsatisfying, as the ordning will invariably and inevitably be mentioned in later Realms products, so the lack of a resolution feels like an oversight. Especially as I highly doubt the breaking of the ordning will have lasting impact: changing the CRs of giants is unlikely, so it’s highly improbably that hill giants will replace storm giants at the apex of giantkind. This makes Storm King’s Thunder feels somewhat like a bad sitcom episode that doesn’t get around to resolving the change before the reset button is hit for the next episode. (“So the children learned how to function as a society, and eventually they were rescued by, oh, let’s say… Moe.”)

The restoration of the ordning or potential restructuring of giant hierarchy feels like a missed opportunity. It would be fun way to work one of the newer giant types into the mix. Such as having death giants sneak their way into the top spot or something. Or, in a homage to 1st Edition giants, some hill giants might ascend in status to be mountain giants, becoming the mightiest of giants.

The adventure is also a little light on plot hooks. It’s assumed that the party just decide to murderhobo their way through much of the adventure’s opening with little motivation, especially in the introductory adventure. For situations like that, I miss Paizo’s Adventure Paths, which all have free Player’s Guide PDFs outlining potential motivations for the characters, including traits that serve as personal character hooks. Some guidelines for good character tropes and archetypes for this adventure would be nice. (Wanted: Brave Adventures. Must be interested in looting the tombs of dead barbarians, but also selflessly defending towns from far superior threats. Disliking giants a plus.)

Because of the structuring of the chapters, there’s some story issues. The big sandbox description of the North comes before the real reasons why you want to sandbox through the North. If this were a Pathfinder AP, the North section would be its own 64-page companion product, and the adventure would just detail the burial mounds and refer you to the accessory for side explorations. Which would also free up a few dozen pages for more relevant adventure information and encounters. I’m not sure if I’d prefer the setting sandbox separate or not, but I do know I reread and re-reread Chapter 2 and chunks of Chapter 3 looking for the reason the Uthgardt burial mounds were so important and why the adventures were expected to be looting them (apart from “because they’re there”).

Similarly, the end of the adventure is weak. When the adventure needs to get on the rails for the climax, the adventure struggles with providing enough content and direction. If you don’t take the single provided hook (or repeatedly fail the single possible check to advance the story) you very quickly hit a wall. It’s terrible adventure design. Which could be excusable if the story was decent but the “killer accidently dropped a very obvious and identifiable item” is horribly cliché. It’s so obvious, my players might dismiss it as too obvious, viewing it as a red herring.

But, of course, much of this is moot: if the players just charge into the storm giant’s hold and start killing giants, like they’ve done in probably every other encounter location, they’ll be dismissed as assassins and not even receive the final clue, prematurely ending the adventure.

Following this, you’re given another very odd and tentative clue that guides you to the next encounter location and then you just wander around the ocean having random encounters until the bad guy’s ship “spawns”. I wish I was joking about that. So long as you’re in the right area, you just lurk until it randomly appears, which could be a long or short period of time which is randomly determined. It’s very literally a spawn timer.  

A lot of the potential treasure at the start of the adventure assumes you’re going to just rummage through a city, looting people’s houses. This is especially cold when you save these people later, and might escort them back to their pillaged homes.

The Ugly

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Clik here to view.I’m not a fan of how several WotC superadventures ostensibly begin at level 4 or 5 but also include a prequel adventure that fills the gap between level 1 and the start. If you’re going to start the actual adventure at 5th level then the adventurers should start at 5th level. As this adventure in particular focuses on high CR creatures like giants, it makes sense to start at a higher levels. The prequel adventures was released digitally for free, so it would have been easy enough to just include a URL in the book or direct people to the Dungeon Master’s Guild. Omitting the intro adventures would free up several pages for more high level adventure content and giant killing action (18 to be precise).

A related complaint is that in many sections there’s precious little experience, forcing Dungeon Masters to rely on milestone levelling. This is especially pronounced at the end when as few as two or three fights might lead grant players a level. While I know many DMs have switched to milestones, I’d prefer it remaining an option, to give DMs the choice to play straight and use xp or ignore encounters and level depending on the story, rather than mandating an optional rule.

Returning to the plot, very little of Storm King’s Thunder actually seems to relate to the breaking of the ordning. It feels like much of the actual plot of the adventure (the absence of the Storm King) would work just as well without that backstory, with the giants just being giants behaving badly because the king is missing. Which also makes the climax of the adventure come out of left field. The adventurers and party find out about the breaking or the ordning and abduction of Hekaton at the same time, but they have little reason to ask about the storm giants, and every reason to focus on all the other giants. The one question players are very likely to ask the giant oracle, “how do we restore the ordning?” isn’t answered. And Hekaton’s disappearance really seems like the least pressing issue compared to all the other giants that are an immediate threat.

There are also two other fundamental problems with the plot. The first is why is Hekaton even alive? Nothing is gained by keeping the giant alive. And the creature responsible for holding home doesn’t need him alive: it very happily kills him if adventurers rescue him and tarry. Second, what are the two evil sisters doing? Their scheme doesn’t seem to benefit them remotely, as it doesn’t get them the crown. But they have no schemes, not active attempts to disrupt things, and there’s really no reason to think them anything but paranoid storm giants (reasonable after the death of their mother) and victims of the scheme of the blue dragon. They never really do anything. They’re entirely superfluous to the plot.

Included in the magic item section of the book are several runic items. These allow you to transfer the properties of the rune to a location or a nonmagical item. This is okay, but there’s not many options. It’s a neat idea that feels a little under-served. But we’re highly unlikely to ever see more runes in future products, so it feels like a preview for a rules expansion that doesn’t exist.

The Awesome

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Clik here to view.The end of the adventure includes a small section on Linked Adventures: how to tie Storm King’s Thunder to prior story-lines, to use them as introductory experience (levels 1 to 5) or enable people to skip from the game they’re playing to the new story-line. It’s a pretty cool idea, and shows the various connections between Storm King’s Thunder and the adventures of the past.

The book begins with cast of characters, identified as the “Dramatis Personae”. This highlights the the characters and their location, while also showing off the adventure’s Shakespearean inspiration. Plus, it’s super handy to know where to look for more information on characters.

There’s a pretty awesome adventure flowchart early in the book. Given the potential nonlinear chapter order, this is handy. I’m sure many groups would have liked a similar chart of Curse of Strahd or Princes of the Apocalypse.

The second chapter features ogre goblin huckers. That’s ogres mounted with trebuchets that launch goblins, being far more effective at harming goblins than their targets. The sole advantage seems to be the self-loading feature. Silly goblins.

The fire giant duke has a maul with a cage for a head that holds a prisoner. That’s just cool.  Duke Zalto also has an alliance with the drow, which serves as the connection between this adventure and Out of the Abyss but also a nod to the drow being a part of the original Hall of the Fire Giant King module. 

There’s a number of fairy tale references in the book, including a castle in the clouds and a golden goose, albeit in a nonliving variety. I enjoy this, owing to the folklore origins of a couple of the giants. More than other monsters, giants owe as much to fairy tales as mythology.

Partway through the adventure you acquire a frost giant ally, Harshnag. He’s been an established character in the Forgotten Realms since 2e and a member of Waterdeep’s Gray Hands (recently renamed Force Grey for… reasons).

The book has lots of NPCs with fun and evocative names, especially its goblins. And many modified monsters. I remain a fan of how 5e quickly modifies and customizes monsters with a few bullet points. This is used to great effect in this adventure. One neat example is how the adventure makes sea elves by just tweaking the merefolk entry.

The formatting and presentation of the dungeons is excellent. Each dungeon has a sidebar summarizing its traits, such as illumination and the walls, and there is a second box that summaries the contents of each room. At a glance you can tell what monsters are where. Handy.

At the end of the book are new options for modifying giant, alternate powers to customize giants. I wish this had been done for past adventures as well.

I love that the map for Grudd Haug, the den of the hill giants, includes both an map and an illustration of the building and terrain. It’s excellent, and something I can show my player.

Lastly, you get a flying ship. Any adventure with an airship gets a big thumb’s up.

Final Thoughts

I was worried at the thought of an Against the Giants: Take Four, as we’ve seen this adventure before and there was not much substance. Storm King’s Thunder really goes all out in giving the adventure a different story, just using the original for inspiration rather than simply updating the stat blocks.

The dungeons are excellent, and you can use this product to update the classics or embrace the wholly new experience. Each of the dungeons is radically different, and there’s a lot of unique flavour. A heck of a lot of work went into making cool giant clanholds, complete with some amazing maps. The book is also incredibly useful to Realms fans as a guide to the Northlands. And there are a number of fairly detailed settlements, completely with NPCs. For DMs planning on stripping this adventure for inspiration, it’s a fabulous product.

If the product has a flaw it’s too much story. There’s lots going on beyond the Breaking of the Ordning: the missing Storm King, traitorous daughters, a dragon, a kraken, plus the Rod of Seven Parts story seen in both Force Grey: Giant Hunters and Acquisitions Incorporated the Series.

The adventure was hyped as being inspired by Shakespeare – which I won’t dispute – but the play in question is actually Much Ado About Nothing. The ordning breaks and just kinda sorta gets fixed off camera. The evil daughters don’t do anything and may or may not receive their comeuppance. The kraken is very likely unseen. And the main plot of the adventure – the kidnapping of the king – could easily be missed if players too distracted by the very real threat of evil giants that need to be put down. 

While there are all serious problems with the plot of the adventure, you can still run it just fine pretty much as-is. You just need to seed and foreshadow the Storm King. Play around in the royal court a little more. Perhaps have the sisters doing some scheming or trying to betray the adventurers in the final moments. A good DM can easily work around these problems.

Honestly, there’s probably room for a great Dungeon Master’s Guild product that replaces the final two or three chapters of this adventure with something related to the ordning. Perhaps heading to the “Hold of the Storm Giants” to find an altar to the High Father, where you can plead with the giant god to change their mind, followed by a quest to prove their worthiness. But the fact you could just entirely swap out the climax to this adventure and your players would never know is incredibly problematic.

Shameless Plug

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Clik here to view.

If you liked this review, you can support me and encourage future reviews.

I have a number of PDF products on the DMs Guild website including the 5 Minute Workday Presents line, with such products as Giant Killer’s Companion, Traps, Diseases, Legendary Monsters, and Variant Rules.

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Review: Adventures in Middle Earth Player’s Guide

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Clik here to view.Published by the British RPG studio, Cubicle 7, the first book in the Adventures in Middle Earth product line is the Player’s Guide. Cubicle 7 current publishes of the One Ring roleplaying game also set in Middle Earth as well as the licensed Doctor Who RPG, both using a house system. Adventures in Middle Earth is different in that it used the OGL and 5th Edition ruleset developed for Dungeons & Dragons. It’s 5e Middle Earth.

The Player’s Guide is a 224-page product, currently available as a PDF but soon to be available as a physical book. It’s full colour book that features eleven cultures (read: races), six classes, thirteen backgrounds, and sixty Virtues (read: feats), and is presented as the sole book required for characters. While a 5e Player’s Handbook is required to play the game and for the rules, the only options you’re expected to take are in the AiME Player’s Guide; it doesn’t expect you to mix-and-match classes or backgrounds or feats from other sources.

The Good

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Clik here to view.The book focuses on “the Wilderland”, the region around the Misty Mountains and Mirkwood forest, which lies north of Rohan and south of Angmar. It’s the region all of The Hobbit takes place, and both the opening and ending of Lord of the Rings. The book assumes campaigns are set in the period 5 years after the death of Smaug (the end of The Hobbit) and 55 years before the start of Lord of the Rings, give or take (as campaigns are assumed to sprawl over several years). This is a familiar era, where there’s still a looming threat, but allows the PCs to be the hero of their story.

There is excellent art throughout the book, with drawn illustrations instead of the movie stills of past products. The art has a very classical/ traditional feel: it reminds me of assorted Tolkien/ Art of Middle Earth calendars. It’s lovely in a way that is unlike typical Dungeons & Dragons books, focusing as much on the landscape, terrain, and buildings as people in armour. Most of the art in the book is in colour, but a few are black-and-white illustrations, but this typically seems stylistic and not a limitation of budget. It’s a beautiful book. Personally, I’m rather glad I have the PDF, as I can screenshot a few choice images for use as reference pictures for my home game.

Cubicle 7 knows their Tolkien. Having written their own RPG set in Middle Earth, they’ve had plenty of time to do research and hunt down quotes and passages, and this shows. This book is filled with lore from The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. (But not The Silmarillion, which has never been licensed; the book is limited to content found in the Appendix at the end of Return of the King.) The authors know the material, and know it well enough to easily summarize and relate it to the reader. The book is informative without reading like an encyclopedia.

Going hand-in-hand with the above, the 5th Edition ruleset has been reworked to match the assumptions of Middle Earth. For example, weapons and armour were altered to match the world. It’s small but important, as plate armour wasn’t mentioned in the books, with mail and chain referenced instead. Similarly, there’s no spellcasting per se. The book makes no attempt at a wizard class or offensive magic user. Some small magic is added via virtues/feats, but this is small and not particularly flashy. This is the big revision to the rules, but potentially useful for anyone wanting a magic-lite game system, even those for other worlds such as a Song of Ice and Fire.  

While the Player’s Guide uses the term “men” for “humans”, it at least acknowledges the sexism of this and admits doing so as that’s the term used in Tolkien’s works. Every time I see “men” in place of “people” or “humans”, part of me winces slightly, but I can respect trying to stay true to the source material rather than rewriting an author. (I’m also aware “men” actually does mean “people” and we’ve just gotten lazy and omitted the prefix “were” for male humans, but that doesn’t change the modern connotations.)

The book adds a few new rule subsystems: Shadow, Fellowship phase, and the Journey. Shadow deals with corruption: being drawn into the darkness, succumbing to inner frailty, or being worn down by continual exposure to horror and tragedy. This might be useful for lots campaigns. The Fellowship phase aspect could be very useful, serving as a variant on the downtime days rules. It’s a tempting addition. The Journey subsystem is also interesting, easily slotting into other campaigns. It doesn’t replace random encounters or events during an exploratory expedition, but adds some random chance for the tone of how the journey starts and ends, as well as the number of encounters. Rather than periodically rolling for random encounters every so often, a roll at the start of the journey determines how many encounters occur.   

The Bad

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Clik here to view.At $20, the PDF is a little steep, especially for a game that expects you to have a number of other products (i.e. all the other 5e material), and likely at least one other Adventures in Middle Earth book aimed at gamemasters (the forthcoming Loremaster’s Guide). The price moves it out of the realm of impulse purchases, instead it’s a book only purchased if you’re certain it will see use.

The Player’s Guide doesn’t mention “5th edition” D&D. At all. Or even “the 5th Edition of the world’s oldest RPG” and that the book requires the use of the 5e Player’s Handbook or ruleset. This might be on the back cover, which was not included in the PDF I purchased. Given this book doesn’t include the full rules for play, this might easily confuse a casual gamer purchasing this product in a store. It’s not a big problem as the D&D Basic Rules are a free PDF, but this isn’t communicated in any way.

I wonder if this product was written prior to the release of the SRD in January of this year. It seems likely some work was done prior, as it was released less than a year after. This product having been planned earlier might explain while so much content is rewritten (all the classes and subclasses, all the feats, etc). And maybe even why elements like feats became virtues, and the terms for personality traits in backgrounds all needlessly changed. Especially as this design change unfortunately makes the backgrounds more difficult to use in other worlds or campaigns, limiting the use of the book.

Virtues are so-so. Most don’t quite feel as good or comprehensive as 5e feats, and thus aren’t great replacements for ability score boosts. A few also assume the use of the various subsystems, making them harder to use in a generic setting. I can’t fai

While I like the idea of the corruption system, which also serves as a replacement for alignment, it’s a pretty harsh system. It quickly renders you less effective in combat before you start gaining more flavourful flaws, which feels slightly backwards. And recovering from corruption can only happen during a Fellowship Phase, or between adventurers. This could be a long time.

The Fellowship Phase is interesting, but does its own thing separate from downtime days. The authors chose to convert their own system into 5e rather than adapting or expanding the existing rules. Building onto the downtime days system would have made the system feel more apart of 5th Edition, and also allow DMs to bring in other uses of downtime days from other sources.

Similar to the above, the information given to Journeys feels slightly anemic. It’s a few tables, making it easy to exhaust the options or get the same option repeatedly. Rolling for the start of journeys is also curiously designed, being a d12 + Survival + ½ Wisdom. Which feels clumsy when it could have been a Wisdom (Survival) check, with an expanded table.

Included in the subsystems is a chapter on Audiences, which is effectively an expanded section on diplomacy/ persuasion. It has a lengthy chart on the various reputations and interactions between races, establishing how dwarves feel about elves, and elves feel about hobbits, along with DCs to interact with people based on these opinions. It’s a little codified for my tastes. Hard DCs for Diplomacy checks are a 3e-ism I was glad the game moved away from: fixed DCs tend to benefit Min Maxers more than the narrative and just result in book flipping.

The game seems to assume variant rules, especially with healing, but this is unclear. The product feels incomplete. I imagine the Loremaster’s Guide will help with this, and some of that rules content might be included there, along with monsters and advice on creating a campaign, but that’s some time away. It feel like I’m trying to judge an unfinished product.

The Ugly

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Clik here to view.Balance is an issue throughout the book. It doesn’t feel like the authors really had a solid idea of how 5th Edition runs or how to design content for that rule system just yet. 5e is fairly loose in terms of balance compared to 4e, 13th Age, or other balance-orientated systems, but is pretty steady compared to almost any other RPG, where character power level (especially in combat) can vary wildly. This book feels like it was designed like the latter type of RPG, with the option of designing characters that are ineffective in battle. If planning on running a campaign that is combat-lite, this shouldn’t be an issue. If you plan on running a more typical D&D game in Middle Earth, then this will be an issue.

For example, the warden is a spell-less bard without remotely enough class features to replace lost spellcasting. It’s pretty much just the bard without spells, *slightly* better weapon choices, and the ability to hear rumours. The scholar, which ostensibly replaces the wizard and cleric, is pretty anemic. Meanwhile, the warrior looks comparable to the fighter, if not tougher. Which, amusingly, seems to make the game match the movies, as people are really encouraged to be martial types who attack with a single big weapon. For anyone hoping to use this book as a method of getting low magic classes for a campaign setting, this is a bit of a disappointment.

The Dúnedain culture/ race is just outright better than all the other human races: it has better stats (four pluses rather than three) and an extra skill. This sorta matches the books but doesn’t seem suited to a game. You don’t want to penalize players for picking a different race.

There’s no open content in the book. Coming off the incredibly open Pathfinder and the surprisingly open 5th Edition, the fact this entire book is labeled as “closed content” is a surprise. It’s also unfortunate, as it means no one can expand on the few options provided in the book, making new scholar subclasses or Journey tables. (Or for people looking to expand/revise on the low magic options in the book.)

The Awesome

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Clik here to view.Each class has a weakness associated with it, associated with a particular Shadow corruption. It’s a neat way of divvying up weaknesses without having that be a separate step or random. I enjoy the idea that a character’s strengths also determine their weaknesses. It’s a very Shadows of Esteren idea.

Starting wealth is tied to race, which provides different class packages. While it shifts the balance of some races, it’s is a neat idea and reinforces each race’s place in the world. I enjoy that not every character starts with the exact same amount of gold. (I wonder if backgrounds might have been a better way of making wealth variable…)

The equipment section includes both fireworks and assorted herbs that have mechanical effects. Being able to offer names for herbs used in salves is a fun idea, and this section will be stolen for use at my table.

The book introduces new mechanics tied to inspiration, where you can spend the inspiration for this other bonus rather than just advantage. It’s an idea I rather like (and used once myself in my Ravenloft document). I think a few of these are a little strong, as advantage is equivalent to a +5 to a roll against an average DC, but as inspiration is dependant on the DM, it’s easy to control usage of the ability and correct imbalance.

Cubicle 7 is affiliated with the Bits & Mortar program, which allows participating stores to collect e-mails when they sell a hard copy, contacting Cubicle 7 who then sends out free PDFs. You support local game stores and get the digital product. For free! Very slick. (A semi-local store is even involved in the program, which I will have to remember this in the future.)

Final Thoughts

When I heard about this book I was excited. Partly because there’s two types of Middle Earth fans now: people who like the books and people who like the movies. There’s room for two stylistically different Middle Earth RPGs: one that focuses on the journey and wonder and magic, and one that’s more action orientated. In much the same way The Hobbit is a more traditional fairy tale and Lord of the Rings is straight high fantasy. There’s room for the stand alone literary One Ring RPG and the 5e OGL monster killing RPG. But I’m not sure this product really works to fill that second niche.

This is the big flaw in the  Adventures in Middle Earth Player’s Guide. It adapts 5th Edition to work with Middle Earth but doesn’t really work to the strengths or design goals of the system or accommodate any existing material. Too often it tries to remake the wheel rather than work with existing frameworks. Which also makes the book a less desirable purchase for fans looking for more 5th Edition content, or hoping to use the book as a sourcebook for homebrew low magic games. I was personally hoping to find some neat optional rules, such as an expanded downtime system, interesting dwarfcraft weapons and armour rules, new backgrounds, and corruption rules that might be potentially useful for my homegame. But I’m not sure how much content here is useful.

For fans of Middle Earth looking for an RPG experience, the One Ring game is still the better choice. For people who want a Middle Earth RPG who dislike the One Ring, I’m not certain this product is different enough. This book is best suited for people looking for a Tolkien experience but unwilling to learn a new ruleset (possibly for a mini-campaign or as part of a break in a regular D&D campaign).If you’re not looking to adventure in Middle Earth using a variant of the 5e rules, than this product probably isn’t for you.

D&D Review: Volo’s Guide to Monsters

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Clik here to view.The first major monster expansion by Wizards of the Coast for 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons (and the second official accessory for the tabletop RPG game), Volo’s Guide to Monsters is an odd duck of a product. It’s a hybrid of a Monster Manual 2 and a book of monstrous player options (like 2e’s Complete Book of Humanoids or 3e’s Savage Species) and monster ecology books, such as the articles published in Dragon or the various Revisited books published by Paizo.

Ostensibly, Volo’s Guide to Monsters also throws the old Volo’s Guide to _____ from 2nd Edition into the mix. These guidebooks were ostensibly written by Volothamp “Volo” Geddarm, a troublesome scholar renowned for both getting into trouble and getting adventurers into trouble on his behalf, who writes travelogs of his journeys. Most of Volo’s works were in-character tomes that served as world books to regions of the Forgotten Realms.

Volo’s Guide to Monsters is a 224-page hardcover book. The 100-page first chapter (Monster Lore) is very much like the aforementioned monster ecology articles with a dash of the Volo’s Guides, with little notes written by both Volo and the Sage of Shadowdale, Elminster (or, more accurately, Ed Greenwood, creator of both characters and the Forgotten Realms). Volo writes lore for the monsters with his particularly brand of unreliable narration while Elminster corrects him. This chapter provides almost a dozen pages of lore for each beholders, orcs, gnolls, yuan-ti, Mind Flayers, goblinoids, kobolds, and hags. The 18-page second chapter (Character Races) includes seven new Player Character races: aasimar (updated from the DMG), firbolg, goliaths, kenku, lizardfolk, tabaxi (catfolk), and tritons. Each of these is given a full race write up and lore. Also included in this chapter are the goblin, hobgoblin, bugbear, kobold, orc, and yuan-ti pureblood, which receive quick listings of their racial traits. The final 100 pages of the book are devoted to “new” monsters, the vast majority of which are updated from past editions of the game (if not all of them). There’s 50-odd new types of monster, several new variants of existing monsters, with these variants focusing on the eight featured monsters (orcs, kobolds, etc).

Variant Cover

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Clik here to view.In an experiment, Wizards of the Coast has also released a rare “limited edition” cover for the book, exclusive to Wizards Play Network game stores. It’s a slick little black-and-grey number that’s a mix of matte and glossy with silvery highlights. And I’m terrified to handle it for long periods out of fear of rubbing off the details, scuffing the matte, scratching the silver, or generally ruining it. I just bought a book I’m unlikely to regularly use at my table.

I imagine more than a couple OCD collectors like myself will pick up a second copy for use at the table, a copy that can take a little more abuse. I haven’t ordered one yet, and might do so from Amazon to save a few bucks on a superfluous book.

I have mixed feelings about this move. It’s a slick cover, but I think I’d have liked it almost as much if it had the regular book cover texture, and I’d be much more likely to actually use the book. It’s a neat way to get people out to game stores to buy their copies, but I imagine quite a few were doing that anyway. And getting people to buy multiple copies seems like a particularly pragmatic and mercenary way of boosting sales; I’m not a fan of that move with $5 comics and am even less a fan with $50 books

The Good

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Clik here to view.The hook of the book is its in-character nature, as it is supposedly written by Volo and edited by Elminster. Copies of Volo’s Guide to Monsters now exist in the Forgotten Realms. However, the presence of both authors is rather muted, limited to assorted small sidebars. This certainly helps the book in terms of readability and maintaining and consistent tone: that of a generic D&D accessory. If the lore chapter were entirely written as Volo the book would be harder to read, the information harder to absorb, and generally the tone jarring when alternating between this book and any other D&D book. And this way the book doesn’t need to worry about mixing game knowledge and in-world knowledge. And as Volo and Elminster’s thoughts are mostly found in little side notes, they’re easy to ignore if so desired.

Visually the book is solid. There more pieces of art that feature the world – more locales and scenes of drama – and fewer pieces that are just “generic adventure X”. I also enjoy how the look of the pages changes between chapters. The background hue of the pages shifts dramatically between Chapters one and two, when the book moves from DM content to player content, and again when the book becomes a bestiary, evoking the Monster Manual‘s layout. If you cracked the glue on both your MM and this book, you could easily slip these pages together and be unable to tell the difference (if you ignored pages numbers that is). I appreciate the consistent look.

There’s lots of useful details in the lore sections. The inclusion of random personality traits and names is handy. And useful: you never know when the PCs will decide to take a prisoner. It can turn a random encounter into part of the campaign. (I’ve already used this once, rolling randomly for a kobold name.)

The beholder section really focuses on their psychology, which is useful for creatures as alien as them. They’re much more complicated than orcs and gnolls. But the true standout section here is information on beholder’s lairs: that they will design lairs with flight in mind and to accommodate their distinct body shape is good information to remember. And there are trap ideas given, which are interesting, and good inspiration for more traps in general. Trap ideas are always good.

The inclusion of giants in this book pairs it nicely with Storm King’s Thunder. The giant’s chapter has a fairly length Realms-specific origin for the giants, but it gives some advice on how to adapt to other settings. And it’s far enough in the distant that it could be dismissed as myth, or added into any world without impacting the current status quo.

A number of creatures in the first chapter and given variant abilities! There are variant eye rays  for beholders (allowing you to swap out eyebeam powers for different spells); alternate coven spells for hags and new lair actions for elder hags, which is very useful; and a bunch of new actions for the yuan-ti. This stuff is golden and is what I wanted  out of this book: a way to make the existing monsters more interesting.

The new player options are mostly solid additions. While I don’t like reprinting options, putting the aasimar in a book rather than the Dungeon Master’s Guide is a good idea (although… this is still mostly a monster book). The firbolg is a neat addition, although it’s very different than past versions of the race (although that differed quite a bit from the mythological roots). More effort could have been made to bridge the concepts. I’m a fan of the kenku, so seeing them in the book is a big plus. Also, I like the restraint in adding new races pulled from established D&D lore rather than inventing a new race wholecloth, which then has to be forced into DM’s campaign setting.

The hit-to-miss ration of monsters is really, really good. Of the over 100 monsters in the book, probably less than 10 are disappointing. There’s a lot of classic and interesting monsters here that I would not have objected to seeing in the Monster Manual.

The Bad

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Clik here to view.The name of the book and introduction imply that Volo will have a large presence in the book, which isn’t so: the majority of the text isn’t written in character. While I listed this as a “good” it’s also worthy of a mention here. The lack of emphasis on a first person tone makes it harder for a DM to change the lore based on “unreliable narration” and makes the presence of Volo in Volo’s Guide to Monsters largely secondary; the book is very much misnamed. More could have been done to insert Volo into the book. Perhaps each monster lore section could have had a page (or even half-page) of straight text from Volo introducing the monster with some flavour.

Not all entries have the same information. For example, there are no giant names, no traits and names for goblinoids, and no personality traits for kobolds. Not every entry is given the same amount of pages either, with gnolls and kobolds receiving fewer pages and giants receiving the most. I don’t think the entries should have been required to have the same amount of pages, the kobold entry does suffer due to the fewer pages.

While most of the lore is solid, the entries on goblins, orcs, and kobolds are a little weak. The goblinoid entry really doesn’t connect the three disparate goblin races together, so they still seem unrelated. They might as well be three unrelated humanoid races, such as halflings, dwarves, and elves (as the text itself comments). The goblinoid and orc entries also have a strong religious slant, really focusing on their deities, which makes these entries far less generic and harder to use in other worlds. Even the description of orcs as the “godsworn” seems a little forced, like WotC is trying too hard to find a role for D&D orcs that is different from the orcs of Warcraft or Middle Earth. I found the weakest part to be the kobold entry. The book doesn’t really bring kobolds to life or do anything new or interesting with them. They’re just there. Even the suggested traps are a little rote and cliche.

Variant abilities are included for less than half the creatures in the lore chapter. Where is the variant bugbear garotter or sniper actions? The gnoll berserker rages? The orc soldier’s defensive skill? This is a huge missed opportunity.

The beholder chapter has an image of an eye of frost (occasionally called a “snowball”). Along with the eye of flame this is one of the common variants of the beholder that popped up during 4e but there’s not statblock give, or even variant eyebeam powers that allow you to make an eye of frost or flame. Sad.

Beholder reproduction is weird. It drives a little of the beholder chapter but doesn’t seem to conform to known lore. It’s just… weird. The book also dropping the distinction between sane and regular beholders. Generally dislike when D&D lore is rewritten and altered. Between this book, I, Tyrant and Lords of Madness  there was a lot of established beholder lore thrown under the bus because one of the writers like the hook of beholders being nightmares made flesh (which is already an existing monster: the feyr .)

While I rant about beholders, I’m really not a fan of the inclusion of Xanathar’s Guild.  It’s of limited use for everyone, even those DMs running in the Realms as the guild is already well documented elsewhere. Giving it a full page and a half is likely overkill for what could have been an interesting half or quarter page section, freeing up space for myriad different subjects.

Speaking of wasted space, the giant section devotes a large bit to a glossary of giant words. I find this stuff interesting, but generally useless in play as I’m never going to cross-reference a book in play to find an appropriate word. The words are also a mishmash of Swedish, Icelandic, old English and other languages, making several sound like muddled English. Throwing out a few giant words runs the risk of having the DM sound like the Swedish chef from the Muppets.

The book also reprints goliaths, which were already available in the Elemental Evil Player’s Companion.

In terms of racial balance, the kenku seem a little weak, while the bugbears seem a little strong.

The book provides player stats for monstrous humanoids from the Monster Manual but omits the humanoids from this book. Darklings (aka dark ones aka dark creepers and dark stalkers) would have been a neat race to open up for players, as would the froggy grung. And the absence of playable gnolls is an issue for many. (Thankfully, other people have you covered for gnolls)

The cover art of the regular edition of the book is pretty unfortunately cropped. Some of the details (like the second giant in the background being waved back) are lost due to the cropping and placement of the title.

There are some recycled pieces of art in the book, which is unfortunate. This is especially noticeable in the Nonplayer Character section. The bard artwork is especially dated.

The Ugly

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Clik here to view.My biggest complaint about the book is that it includes a LOT of low CR monsters and precious few high-CR monsters, which is the exact opposite of what the game needs at this moment. 75 of the book’s 125 statblocks are CR 5 or lower. There’s only 17 monsters of CR 10 or higher (and one of those just modifies the lich statblock from the MM).

There’s a few odd choices of monster. With literally hundreds of excellent first rate monsters to choose from, some odd selections were made of what to include. Meanwhile, there are still a lot of quote-unquote classical monsters that have still not been updated. Just skimming through the 1e Monster Manual (and skipping beasts and archdevils) there’s the brownie, brain mole, dragonne, ear seekers, eye of the deep, lammasu, leprechaun, locathah, neo-otyugh, nixie, nymph, shedu, su-monster, sylph, thought eater, and wind walker. (I don’t think I recall the wind walker. Was this guy ever updated? The lack of art likely hurts, that and its late place in the book make it super forgettable.) Instead of the above, we get reprinted guard drakes, firenewts, xvart, deep scion, korred, and sea spawn.

As a personal dislike, there’s no grippli. Instead have the grung, which Chris Lindsay can be blamed for. It’s his prerogative as the design to slip in the obscure monsters he likes. But it’s also my prerogative as the reviewer to complain about that option by name. The inclusion of the grung pretty much means no grippli in the foreseeable future, as there’s no need for two small, tropical tree frog people.

The Awesome

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Clik here to view.After so many additional monster books by Paizo and WotC I’m rather excited by what is not in this book, specifically new types of giants, dragons, devils, or golems. The few new giant statblocks are all of existing types (even if it would be neat to see the return of mountain giants, death giants, or voadkyn).

The chart of physical characteristics for beholders and yuan-ti rocks. These creatures are meant to be unique and varied, and these charts are a neat way of encouraging physical diversity among those critters.  

Similarly, there are a few tables of random treasures or items for various monsters. These are a little like the trinket table in the Player’s Handbook but more focused and flavourful.

There’s a random warband builder for gnolls. It’s neat but unlikely to see much use compared to the actual encounter building rules. But, it’s a random encounter table for an entire warband, complete with associated monsters. That’s cool.

The picture of the kobold inventor has a stick with a scorpion tied to it (also in the statblock), which is a lovely callback to the kobold illustration from the 2nd edition Monstrous Manual.

I love the out of combat uses described for beholder’s eye rays.

The maps of lairs can be a little fancier and ornate, being examples and sources of inspiration more than adventure locations; Jared Blando’s art is well suited to these maps, and there are some excellent and inventive pieces. I’m particularly fond of the creepy and alien mind flayer lair

The mind flayer entry has a few magic items. Very cool.

I adore that the writers went with the more obscure tabaxi rather than just having generic “catfolk” in the book. And their ability to rapidly move every other round is distinct and useful.

Edit: I forgot to call out the hag entry. Hags are an oddball choice for the book, not being an “IP” monster, like the gith, or a classical fantasy race with unique D&D , like the minotaurs. They’re classical but not as iconic in D&D. But the book knocks them out of the part with the details on pacts, vehicles, hierarchy, and the like.

Final Thoughts

Volo’s Guide to Monsters is decent. Above average but not exceptional.

The name implies the presence of a first person narration that just is not there. These little first person footnotes are really confined to small sidebars, which already existed in the Monster Manual.

The lore sections of the book are uneven, and not all of the features races are well served. The book really shines when it focuses on the elements unique to D&D: the giant ordning, mind flayers, yuan-ti, demonic gnolls but stumbles when it tries to make the more generic monsters interesting while also tying them to D&D lore.

However, the book is much more interesting than just a straight new monster book. All past attempts at making a Monster Manual 2 stumble over the necessity of fitting 300 new monsters into the game, leading to poor design and loads of filler. By focusing on fewer monsters, the ones in this book are much more desirable and there are fewer monsters just filling the pages. And the increased lore encourages you to use some of the most classic monsters in your game, providing adventure hooks and the inspiration for their lairs.

I would have still liked to see a focus on monsters with a higher CR.

Shameless Plug

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Clik here to view.

If you liked this review, you can support me and encourage future reviews.

I have a number of PDF products on the DMs Guild website including the 5 Minute Workday Presents line, with such products as Giant Killer’s Companion, Traps, Diseases, Legendary Monsters, and Variant Rules.

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D&D Review: Tales From the Yawning Portal

Wizards of the Coast has been keeping us fans on our toes with unexpected products that seldom fit into the comfortable expected boxes built by prior editions. Or, as their latest adventure module has demonstrated, even the pattern established by prior releases from this edition. Rather than a new storyline adventure inspired by a classical module, WotC is releasing Tales From the Yawning Portal, a collection of seven classic adventures updated to the current rule set.

What It Is

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Clik here to view.Tales From the Yawning Portal is a 248-page full colour hardcover book featuring four adventures from 1st Edition and two from 3rd Edition that have been updated to 5th Edition, along with one adventure from the D&D Next playtest. The adventures have been edited (or rather re-edited) to conform with modern standards of presentation and to be *slightly* more similar in tone, but are otherwise largely identical to their original publication. For example, read aloud text (aka grey boxed text) has been added to at least two adventures, which previously predates that innovation in adventure module design. Monsters matching the originals are used whenever possible, with close substitutions when the original has not been updated. The book features all new art, with a few updates of classic pieces, and other times featuring scenes not previously depicted.

As this product features such diverse adventures, before reviewing the product as a whole I’ll devote a few words to each of the included adventures. In order of appearance/ level range:

Sunless Citadel

Originally 28-pages for levels 1 to 3, now 23-pages.

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Clik here to view.The first adventure published for 3rd Edition D&D, this adventure introduced many players to Dungeons & Dragons. It’s certainly been played enough times to be considered a “modern classic”. If something that’s 17-years-old can even be called “modern”.

I haven’t *really* played this adventure. I started it in a one-on-one game while (drunkenly) testing out the 3e rules with a friend. It didn’t go well and my adventurer was ripped to shreds by dire rats in the very first encounter. Reading the original and the reprint for this review was my first experience with much of this story. (I also hadn’t realized this was the source of twig blights: I’ve often wondered how these little guys had become so iconic.)

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Clik here to view.This adventure is a site-based adventure. It was designed to be classical and “old school”, being slightly OSR before that term even existed. There’s no real story per se, just an adventure locale that the players are expected to want to explore or that the Dungeon Master can insert into their world as needed. That said, there is an implied plotline, a literal seed of an adventure hook with the magical tree at the base of the citadel, but it and the villain don’t drive the story and don’t have firm plans. Regardless, the tree and the fruit make a lovely hook that makes it a very useful adventure. You can imagine a king or noble hiring a party to find the tree and the fruit to cure a loved one (like the magic flower at the start of Tangled). It’s small and simple yet can drive the action forward far more easily than “fortune and glory” or even vague apocalyptic threats which feel needlessly grandiose at first level.

The adventure site itself is interesting, being a fortress that has collapsed underground, but retained its integrity. It’s a lovely justification for a large improbably large subterranean dungeon beyond the usual “a wizard did it”. Sadly, the overland maps were omitted by the reprint, making this layout of the keep less apparent.  

I quite liked this dungeon. Its biggest weakness is that it’s likely far too lengthy for levels 1 to 3 using the current experience rules. There’s a lot of encounters. But it would be easy to beef up the end and make it higher level, or customize the adventure as the basis of a story in a home game.

Forge of Fury

Originally 28-pages for level 3 to 5, but now 27-pages.

Like it’s predecessor, Sunless Citadel, this is an oft-played modern classic. Another site-based adventure that can be used if the party decides to explore a nearby mountain.

There’s no driving force to fully explore the areas provided by the adventure, and the supplied adventure hooks are completed halfway through the dungeon. This is a pure murder-hobo module where the PCs go forward for the sole reason of killing things and taking their shiny objects. Which could be “classical” but the dungeon lacks the interesting rooms and traps of truly classical dungeons. There’s no puzzles or riddles, no unique traps or evocative chambers. Instead, there are just tactical encounters. This is a dungeon where the interesting bits are defeating the orcs on the other side of a gorge crossed by a fragile rope bridge.

As an example of this adventure’s design, this is one of three adventures in the book that includes yellow mold as an adventuring hazard. In the adventures from earlier editions, one uses an illusion of yellow mold to hide treasure, while another does the reverse and covers yellow mold with an illusion of treasure. In this it’s just yellow mold. Nothing clever, no tricks or surprises. You open the door and… yellow mold. That’s Forge of Fury in a nutshell. It’s the anti-Tomb of Horrors.

The dungeon doesn’t even really feel very organic or realistic. There’s four main areas to the dungeon, each the size of a city block, and most are inhabited with a different group of humanoids that largely don’t interact with the others but somehow have access to food despite a lack of exits elsewhere. While not the only dungeon that suffers from this lack of verisimilitude, it doesn’t have the excuse of the hobby being new to fall back on.

In case my opinions aren’t apparent, Ifound this adventure boring and uninspired. The dungeon isn’t remarkable, being your bog standard dwarven fortress mixed with natural caverns. Arguably it’s “iconic” being a dwarven city occupied by a dragon and you can easily drop it into a campaign when a dwarven citadel or mine is needed. And it’s good for that, being generic as eff. But there’s little else going on that makes you want to find a reason to use this adventure or an excuse to justify making your party venture into the dwarven fortress.

Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan

Originally 22-pages for levels 5 to 7. Now 35-pages for level 5.

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Clik here to view.I played in this adventure for a time, but never made it out of the lower levels. The inability to sit and rest makes this adventure tricky, but does add some pressure. I think we tried it simply at too low a level.

The different tone of the dungeon and inhabitants makes this a fun addition. Hidden Shrine is famous for its mesoamerican feel, as well as giving us the nereid and gibbering mouther. There is a sense of being immersed in a foreign and unfamiliar culture that is ancient. This and the time pressure to escape before being poisoned are fun.

Well… the time pressure *should* be fun. Would be fun for a smaller dungeon. But this dungeon is just big. It’s very large. A dozen chambers where you’re slowly losing health, and another dozen before you can safely emerge from the dungeon. If you’re not careful, the novelty of this dungeon crawl might run out. Given the players are trapped below and can’t just turn around and give up on the treasure if they’re stuck or frustrated is a problem.

Like the Tomb of Horrors, this adventure suffers from being an adversarial dungeon crawl where the DM is expected to be trying to kill the players. It also has a “big red button” problem in that you walk through the dungeon encountering interesting things and features: you really *want* to see what happens when you interact with the big red buttons – and often the most fun things in the dungeon happen when you push the button – but doing so is a lose condition. Personally, half the fun is seeing what happens when you pull the forbidden lever, opening the obviously trapped chest, or touching the glowing magical item. Adding insult to the button situation, “winning” the dungeon requires you to interact with some items, so you you can’t get out by not touching anything, and instead have to be exceedingly lucky-clever with what items you do poke.

White Plume Mountain

Originally 9-pages for levels 5 to 10. Now 13-pages for level 8.

This adventure was famously created a writing sample written to get the author hired by TSR: he took all his best ideas for dungeons and slapped them together. And it shows. The dungeon is a giant mass of curious rooms just forced together: it’s a vibrant clashing collage of ideas without any consistent theme or internal logic. Like a dungeon quilt. Or a dungeon created by mad libs.

(This adventure is also likely the source of the term “funhouse dungeon“, likely for its inclusion of a literal turnstile and rotating room.)

Thankfully, there’s some justification for the insanity, as the creator of the dungeon created this complex not as a place to live, hide their treasure, or serve as a tomb, but explicitly to challenge adventurers trying to explore each wing. It’s almost more of an XCrawl dungeon than a traditional treasure hunt. The dungeon’s creator doesn’t even make an appearance. He’s just things instigating force who sets things into motion and isn’t seen, like the victim of a murder mystery.

And yet… for all its crazy flaws, White Plume works as it’s just less mean than the Tomb of Horrors: the problems are more obvious and it rewards experimentation and creative solutions. It’s less about getting out of a corridor without an obvious exit (or with the obvious exit also being an obvious deathtrap) and more getting passed a frictionless hallway or giant chamber filled with boiling mud. It’s the dungeon equivalent of the Flash Gordon movie from 1980.  It’s crazy and colourful and cheesy as eff, but it’s fun to run and play in a winky retro way – the perfect beer & pretzels module – but it’s hard to take seriously. However, even if you never, ever  plan on running it, it’s an excellent source of inspiration for making your own dungeons.

Dead in Thay

Originally 66-pages for levels 6 to 8. Now 55-pages for level 9.

This reprinting of the dungeon omits the initial encounter covering the assault on the Bloodgate and the Elemental Nexuses. Originally this was published as a PDF for the Encounters program of Organized Play. It was part of the “Dreams of the Red Wizards” series and sequel to Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle and Scourge of the Sword Coast. I was initially critical of this adventure and series. Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle skips a number of levels and doesn’t have an ending, with the plot of the Red Wizards collecting key left dangling. Scourge of the Sword Coast is its sequel, but since it starts at level 2, the same characters can’t continue the story, and it also doesn’t resolve the plotline. Dead in Thay ostensibly serves as the end of the trilogy, but it uses 6th level characters so the 4th level heroes from Scourge of the Sword Coast can’t continue, and it hastily wraps up lingering plotline in the aforementioned first encounter. It’s a disappointing end.

Freed of the above baggage, the remaining Doomvault section of the adventure comes off much better. It’s a sizable mega-dungeon featuring nine different sub-regions. There are a lot of imaginative rooms and chambers, with some great traps that feel like they could have come right out of a module from the ’70s or ’80s. And the final encounter area of the Phylactery Vault is really cool. There’s a lot of filler encounters between the most interesting rooms (likely because this dungeon is so very, very large) but there’s so much going on that few rooms seem to fall flat. So if one chamber is bland, you know there’ll be a good one coming right up.

To move between rooms in zones you need glyph keys, and other intangible barriers separate the various zones. While necessary for organized play this would get super tiring playing at home. It eats up a lot of space in the book and I wonder if this aspect would have been better off removed, and players permitted to freely wander the entire complex.

This adventure is republished almost verbatim to its original. It uses the original maps and art, which are typically NPC portraits. It even includes a reference to the language “Primordial”, which didn’t make it into 5e proper.

While the text is almost entirely unaltered, the encounters are tweaked in places, but otherwise it’s the same as the PDF. Ironically, one of the encounters that isn’t rebalanced is the final one, which brings in a freakin’ Challenge 18 demilich against <12th level PCs.

Against the Giants

Originally 29-pages for levels 8 to 12. Now 46-pages for level 11.

This is an odd choice for inclusion, given the preceding adventure was Storm King’s Thunder, which reimagined and updated these very adventures, albeit with non-drow pulling the strings.

One of the earliest published D&D adventures was G1: Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, which was later compiled into the larger adventure, Against the Giants. While there are older adventures out there published by other companies, there aren’t many. This adventure was written back when Gary Gygax had been Dungeon Mastering and writing dungeons for probably only half a decade. They were reportedly written to allow Mr. Gygax to take a break between writing the Monster Manual and the Player’s Handbook.

It’s hard to quantify these adventures. I’ve been DMing and designing adventures for my home games for almost twenty-five years, likely five times as long as Gygax when he penned these adventures. And I have the benefit of years of development and refinement in adventure design (*ahem* standing on the shoulders of giants). There’s certainly some funkiness in these adventures, such as the lower levels of each dungeon, which are filled with random monsters (and decidedly few giants). Sometimes there’s a loose thematic tie – such as flame creatures in the fire giant dungeons and ice creatures in the frost giant lair – but others are just filler. Dungeon rooms that exist just because there was space left on the piece of grid paper. And there’s lots of weirdness, like the adult red dragon whose lair is in the fire giant’s subasement with no easy way in or out, which is made extra weird in the reprint as the lair is now an extradimensional space for no good reason other than explaining how the massive dragon can fit in the small chamber.

But it’s hard to be too critical, as these adventures are so very formative.

Tomb of the Horrors

Originally 9-pages for levels 10 to 14. Now 17-pages for a vague “high level”.

The advantage of this adventure being reprinted here is that WotC is now unlikely to try and expand it into a level 1-10+ campaign. Like several of the above, it is a classic, but there’s just not enough to really expand into a full storyline adventure.

I’m not a fan of this adventure. It’s adversarial and punishes the players for not thinking like the author. While ostensibly written to be a “thinking man’s module” it was really written to humble Mr. Gygax’s experienced players. It requires a type of play style that is just less common at the present, where players aren’t acting as their character, but being themselves and trying to metagame their way through the dungeon. There are some clues to the “solutions” to the “puzzles” presented in the Tomb, but it’s pretty murky and there’s not a lot of assistance for the DM. It can be an awkward and slow read with some unfortunate Gygaxian turns of phrase. Getting through the dungeon is less “how do we get past X” and more “where do we go now?”, which is inherent slower. You’re given one path forward, and it’s usually a trap. It’s a dungeon that doesn’t just expect you to push on the walls, but wants you to be explicit *where* you push on the walls.

And, as mentioned in Lost Shrine, there is the issue of big red buttons: if done “correctly” few of the traps are triggered and the most interesting parts of the dungeon remain unseen (my “solution” to this was posted earlier ).

This adventure has some moments that are as deadly as always. And a few traps that just don’t seem as scary (like the falling rocks). Characters in 5th Edition have more hit points and are able to fairly easily heal via short rests, so attrition is less dramatic. Traps might need a little more *oomf* to have that same sting.

The Good

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Clik here to view.The adventures seem well updated. Fans of the originals should be happy that classical elements – and even text – are retained. Most encounters have been rebalanced to provide an appropriate challenge. But care was really made to keep monster substitutions appropriate, such as replacing a thoqqua with a flame snake in Sunless Citadel. This is a little fuzzier for the higher level adventures, as there’s such a wide range of power levels for groups when you get above 10th level. But the rebalanced encounters seem reasonable for a baseline group.

The updated formatting is handy, especially for the older adventures. Having subheaders for rooms and details clearly delineated rather than just all jumbled together makes running the adventures much easier. Even the 3e adventures are a little cleaner in this respect. If you were planning on running one of these adventures, the formatting alone might almost be worth the price of admission.

Treasure in the higher level adventures is also reduced to be closer to the 5e guidelines. So you can play these adventures without overloading players with gold. And there doesn’t seem to be an overabundance of magical items. Mostly…

Because these adventures are well known, the most iconic scenes and locations were familiar to the designers. As such, there’s now art for may of the more iconic moments, such as the entrance tunnel to the Tomb of Horrors, the roper fight in Forge of Fury, the brainwashed adventurers in Sunless Citadel, the three artifacts beneath White Plume Mountain, and, of course, Meepo the kobold. I quite like the shot of the adventurers with their barkskin effect, their skin slightly more arboreal in appearance but without looking like entlings.

There are a lot of monsters new to 5th Edition in this product, including the sea lion, siren, nereid, kelpie, and the freakin’ choker. How has the choker not been updated before now?! There’s also a “malformed kraken” for a weaker version of that foe, along with an NPC that serves as a lower-challenge lich.

In addition, Dead in Thay makes use of a “reduced threat” template for many monsters, which is often used for young creatures. This is super handy. I know the Pathfinder RPG has simple templates like this (advanced and young) and this is something which should see a lot more use. It’s a paragraph to photocopy and stick inside your Monster Manual.

The Bad

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Clik here to view.While I praise the art for picking some excellent location shots and scenes, not everything could be illustrated. Both the Tomb of the Horrors and Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan originally featured art booklets, so a LOT of art was not updated. There are a few iconic scenes, like the Great Hall of Spheres, which just didn’t make the cut. I’m stunned there’s no shot of the iconic Face of the Great Green Devil.

Because of the lower challenge of many monsters, a few interesting encounters that are now lackluster. The most noteworthy is the roper encounter from Forge of Fury which used to be a deadly fight that required diplomacy and negotiation or exceptional tactics. But, in 5e, ropers are less intelligent, can’t talk, and are an appropriately levelled challenge. It’s unfortunate. But probably more fair…

Another complaint related to the Forge of Fury is that this adventure features little to no reduction of treasure. There’s a fair number of magical weapons, armour, and gold at the end, including a +2 axe. It’s just a little *too* much treasure and magic.

The Yawning Portal of the title refers to a tavern in Waterdeep associated with the vast dungeon complex known as Undermountain. But Undermountain is just name dropped and doesn’t factor into the adventures. Literally any tavern could have been used, including ones from Greyhawk or Dragonlance. This could have been Tales from the Green Dragon Inn or Tales from the Inn of the Last Home. The Yawning Portal is somewhat well known, but in doing so included this dramatic and evocative story element (the well to Undermountain) that doesn’t have any payoff. Undermountain and the Yawning Portal is a Chekov’s Gun that remains unfired. It might have been better to save the Yawning Portal for an Undermountain product.

The Ugly

I’m not a fan of the updated versions of Against the Giants’ maps. The negative space is too busy, they’re too distractingly colourful and cartoonish. Also, the text labels are dark, making rooms hard to identify in a few places. (If I were going to try and make use of these adventures, I’d likely invest in Mike Schley’s updates from a Dungeon magazine.)

While I’m kvetching about maps, putting the Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan in a the two-page spread means a chunk of the dungeon is lost in the books gutter. While flipping it 90 degrees would have shrunken the map, it would have been more legible. Which isn’t a huge hurdle, as you can buy that map as well. 

(As a side whine, I’m saddened I can’t find the map of the Tomb of Horror for sale, as a player-friendly version of that dungeon would be keen.)

Also, the maps could really use some labelling for stairs. Large dungeons live and die by the DM’s ability to navigate them mentally, finding which stairways lead where. Arrows and map keys directing the paths up and down would have been lovely, especially colour coded ones. There was a stairway in Against the Giants which lead *somewhere*, but the room text was no help and I couldn’t find the source. Similarly, the infamous plastered over door in Tomb of Horrors is never described from the other side. But almost every group who finds that door is going to discover it from the far side and try and attempt to open it, but there’s never any description of the door in that chamber or DC for the Strength check needed to force it open from the far side. (Reading through the dungeon from start to finish, I’d forgotten about the plastered door when I hit the other room, and spent several minutes trying to track down where that stupid door led. And I have vague memories of doing something similar when reading the dungeon in the Dungeons of Dread reprint.)

Which leads me to a major issue with this product: it doesn’t tweak or “fix” old school modules. The weak points (like random monsters, unclear descriptions, nonsensical dungeon layouts) remain. How dungeons are designed and presented has evolved greatly over the years. If you’re not a fan of the originals, there’s nothing here that will change your mind or make you reconsider giving these adventures a second look; the originals have been around for years: if you and your group haven’t played them by now, it wasn’t likely because of a lack of availability.

And now the elephant in the review. A diplomatic description of this product would be “low effort”. (A less generous descriptor I’ve used elsewhere is “lazy”.) It’s not designing new dungeons, creating new stories, or generating new encounters but simply editing existing text. Nothing new is being added. It’s exceedingly easy to update 1st Edition (and low level 3rd Edition) adventures into 5th Edition: I’ve done it on the fly. This product doesn’t offer much that couldn’t be replicated by a used copy (or cheap PDF) of the original and a simple conversion document. It’s literally the type of product Mike Mearls tried to discourage people from doing on the Dungeon Master’s Guild, instead telling writers to add their own spin to classic adventures (not that updates didn’t immediately spring up).  Or, as was recently announced, done under licence by a 3rd Party. This isn’t the sort of product that WotC needed to do at this time. It feels like a late edition softball product, or schedule filler…

The Awesome

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Clik here to view.I like that each section includes a small sidebar on the original dungeon, with an image of the cover. It emphasises that these aren’t just any old dungeons.

A few monsters used in this book come from Volo’s Guide to Monsters. While WotC could have required that book for use (or included them in the Basic Rules and directed people there) they instead just reprinted those monsters in this book. It’s small, but it’s a nice addition.

Dead in Thay retains its ties to the Sundering event, which is odd in an otherwise story-neutral product. One such reference to the divine Chose is the Chosen of Bhaal, who was determined by the results of D&D Encounter play. In the original PDF the identity was left vague, but this book uses the publically determined Chosen as canon. Nice to see organized play’s impact be recognized. I approve of any ways of having the players influence events in the setting and larger canon.

I imagine this product exists so new players can have a chance to play these classic adventures. It’s for the new generation of gamers who might be turned off by black-and-white modules with limited formatting, amateurish production values, and walls of uneven text. So they can join their gaming peers with conversations on King Snurre, Acererak, or Meepo. I can’t fault that. The more gamers who end up having stories about stepping into a Green Devil Face or falling into a crypt of poison gas the better. It gives us a shared narrative. A common ground to initiate conversation.

Final Thoughts

I’m starting this conclusion with a small personal anecdote.

When this product was announced, I had the day off and was killing the morning online. I saw the forum post discussing the product on ENWorld and skipped it, thinking it was a fan’s new product on the Dungeon Master’s Guild. Then I saw a tweet on the book from WotC (complete with the cover) and realized it was official product. And, again, I assumed it was a digital product for the Guild. Because updating adventures is so very, very easy. Regardless, I was excited by it, because there was a demand for smaller adventures, by fans not served by the large storyline adventures.

Then I saw the price and realized it was a hardcover book. And immediately went into denial. “This can’t be the storyline book for the spring. They must be doing another book in addition to this.” When I realized that, no, this was indeed the sole product for the first half for 2017 I was rather pissed. Yeah, I wanted people to have small adventures, but not at the expense larger storylines. And not updated versions of content I already owned!. Then I began to hope the product wasn’t just a reprint. Maybe they were updating the classics. Reimagining them. Fixing all those cheap gotcha! traps and reducing the adversarial DM vs player tone to some of the modules. Tying them together. If they did that it’d be cool! After reading the previews II just became sad. I wondered if this was the first 5e book I was going to skip. I owned half of these adventures already, especialy having just purchased the Dungeons of Dread hardcover not that long ago. Could I justify the purchase? Finally, I admitted to myself that my obsessive collector’s impulse wouldn’t let me skip the book, that I wanted to see what they’d do with the product and write a review.

This product literally put me through the five stages of grief!

The above is somewhat exaggerated, and my personal reactions only. I’m mentioning it for a couple reasons. Firstly, because I think it’s slightly amusing, if only from a psychological perspective. But, also to clearly lay out my personal bias against the product, which existed fairly early. Tales from the Yawning Portal was always going to have had a hard time winning over my affections. It’s not a product I wanted nor found particularly necessary. However, not everyone feels as comfortable spontaneously updating modules, and would prefer a more professionally updated product. That and the revised formatting often makes just finding important details in the rooms easier.

I’m not sure there’s a large number of brand new players clamouring to play unfamiliar dungeons from thirty years ago. But this might get them interested in a few of the classics, and curious about the history of the game.

To me, this is a one-shot book. Something for those times when one player can’t make it to the game or you need a break from the regular campaign. Pull out some pregenerated characters or the heroes from a previous campaign and run through a classic module. Fun and low prep. I’ve never run the Tomb of Horrors and this products might have pushed me to give it a try…

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