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D20 fantasy adventure (3.5 ruleset)
This is not a playtest review.
THE BASICS:
The adventure is 48 pages long and uses both inside covers for maps. Cover price of $12.99 American
2 pages of credits/legal/advertising
4.5 page of introduction
35.5 pages of dungeon adventure
4 pages of new monsters
1 page with 2 player handouts
1 additional map page (beyond the 2 inside covers)
The encounter breakdown follows:
41 combat encounters
3 puzzle encounters
6 trap encounters
I'd estimate that up to 10 of the combat encounters can also be dealt with as negotiation encounters.
SYNOPSIS: (Spoilers follow) A band of troglodytes raids a temple, stealing a few items and capturing several prisoners. The party goes on a rescue mission. The mission is complicated because the raiding party did not all make it back to their complex, some were captured by other factions. There are 3 factions at war in this large complex: Troglodytes, Grimlocks, and Duergar. The party has opportunities to ally themselves with one or more groups, perhaps even playing them against each other.
Its no secret that Goodman Games occasionally creates adventures that are homages to early D&D adventures. I purchased this adventure hoping for an update/homage to the old "N1 - Against the cult of the reptile god". This adventure by Goodman Games has some superficial similarities (troglodytes and a Naga), but the addition of the 2 other factions makes it far better than "N1"--not even in the same ballpark.
THE SPECIFICS:
1. Interesting and varied encounters: (5/5)There are several unique encounters, including a battle on a bridge made from the shell of a giant snail; grimlocks mounted on monstrous centipedes; a duergar fortress; a magical door that asks riddles (riddles all based on the immediate dungeon environs... no meta-gamey or obscure stuff); an imprisoned devil that may help the party if freed; reluctant prisoners to free; factions to negotiate with; a magical underground forest; and a few unique creatures. The quantity and variety of encounters is outstanding, with the highlights being the potential for negotiation and rivalry between factions. A number of monsters have class levels, templates, or different equipment to provide some variety in encounters even with creatures of the same species.
2. Motivations for monsters and NPCs: (5/5)The NPCs all have decent motivations, especially with the factions whose rivalry toward each other exceeds their rivalry toward the PCs. Each faction is led by a boss that has personal motivations different from the bulk of the faction, which makes for even more interested and layered role playing. The boss of the Grimlocks is a Drider that wants to experiment with animals and vermin; The boss of the Duergar is a reclusive devil-worshipper with devilish allies; the boss of the Troglodytes is a Naga that views the trogs as expendable pawns... the Naga is looking to "trade up" for more useful and powerful underlings.
3. Logical: (4/5) The adventure itself is divided into 3 "levels", each level is an underground complex separated from the others by vast stretches of relatively uninhabited passages. This makes for a logical reason that the 3 factions are able to hold their own. The inhabitants of the dungeon generally had plenty of space and access to food and water to make some sort of reasonable ecology. If the party decides to go to war with any of the factions, the encounters are usually designed to dribble out the opponents a few at a time. This makes for some appropriately challenging encounters, and is reasonable with the 3.5 D20 ruleset. The encounters are not written for an entire faction to mobilize at once and utterly destroy the PCs. I guess it is personal preference whether you'd rather see a strong group mobilize and act in concert to destroy a part of PCs, or whether you'd rather see a not-as-realistic but far more playable adventure in which the bad guys do not coordinate en masse.
4. Writing Quality: (4/5)In general the writing was fine and clear. Nothing jumped out at me as being brilliant or especially evocative, but there were also no clunkers or problems with the rules. Occasionally there are really brilliant bits of characterization in 3rd party publications... places where you can here a distinctive author's voice--this adventure didn't have any of those moments for me... it was solid writing without flaws, but not enough of that extra intangible artistry for me to rate this 5/5. Coming up with good names is always a problem, and some of the names were hard to pronounce, "Pserkipis" and "Felak-Ruhad" for example, and some other names were a bit silly: two brothers "Zundabar and Gundabar" for example.
5. Ease of DMing: (4/5)The encounters start out with a brief italicized text that can be read or paraphrased, followed by the encounter details and the stat block of any monsters or traps. There is no page-flipping to refer to monsters or NPCs. This adventure would be a breeze to run. Most Dungeon Crawl Classics have several player handouts or illustrations, but this adventure has only two. The final climactic encounter is perhaps beyond the ability of most parties at the expected level, although by this time they might know enough about their opposition to be fully prepared and buffed... in any case it will be a tough fight. The adventure has interesting suggestions for dealing with party defeat at this point. The background material looks easy to incorporate into any generic setting. I'd like to have seen the final encounter be a little easier and possible a few more player handouts or illustrations to make this a 5/5.
FINAL WORD: The idea of having competing factions and a party that can ally with on or more is an old one. Its been done as early as "B2, keep on the borderlands". So there is nothing particularly new or groundbreaking here. What this adventure has done is present outstanding motivations for the different factions and NPCs, and put the whole set together in an outstanding package. With the number of Dungeon Crawl Classics probably in the 50s or 60s by now, it would be easy to miss #37... but this one is a gem. I will certainly be running this with my group, even if I have to upgrade to the 4.0 ruleset. Based on some of the upcoming classifications of D&D 4.0 monsters as being minions or elites, I think this adventure will work very well with the new rules.
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