Complete Encounter: Dark Elf Sanctum
Paizo Publishing
By: Mike Mearls, Wayne Reynolds, Christopher West, Neil McKenzie and Stephen Radney-McFarland
$15.95
Compleat Encounter: Dark Elf Sanctum is the first product of Paizo's new GameMastery line, intended to facilitate play for harried GM's. Dark Elf Sanctum provides three lead-free pewter miniatures (unpainted), four double-sided map cards, and a short adventure that is presented on cards of the same size as the map cards.
I will start by saying that I love the idea behind the GameMastery line. As life has gotten busier and busier for my group and I, short, complete adventures that provide fun little attractive components to speed play are not only desireable, but almost a necessity.
The first part of the package that stands out is the miniatures (in fact, the packaging has them literally standing-out from the backing). These minis are beautiful. The concept art by Wayne Reynolds translated perfectly into Neil McKenzies sculpts. In addition to being attractive, these may be the best castings of any miniatures I have yet seen. On the minis in the set I purchased I have found no flash, rough patches, or even evidence of seams. These figures could be primed with no prior cleanup work whatever. Also, the mins are cast onto pewter bases the size of the bases for the collectible D&D minis. This makes for more sturdy minis on the table than pewter minis having a more common, slotted, plastic base.
The minis may also be a drawback for this product. For an item designed with utility in mind, many gamers that are not painters (and possibly some that are) may be put off by the prospect of having to paint the minis. I myself happen to enjoy painting miniatures, but I also appreciate how immediately useful prepainted minis like the D&D collectible minis are. From what I understand, the set-up costs for manufacturing the plastic, painted minis are prohibitive. The pewter minis are simply the best option for fulfilling the need for character representations without a huge financial risk for Paizo.
The map cards, illustrated by Christopher West, are awfully pretty. The sanctum itself has an interesting design, and most of the important features of the structure are clearly delineated, especially where game-effects come into play. The maps are of a good size for transportation, and can be rearranged and used with the tiles from the D&D minis game (being of the same dimension and scale) for variety.
I do have a few minor nits to pick with the tiles, however. First: There are several furnishings mentioned in the adventure text that are not represented on the maps. These include weapon racks, the drow cleric's armoire, and an idol of the Spider Goddess that according to its description "dominates" one end of the sanctum. All of these items could conceivably be used or affected by the PCs. In fact, information on how the idol can be destroyed and what effect that would have is given in the text. There is a sort of podium-like structure where the idol should be, and I assume was used to show the location of the idol without cluttering up the grid. I still would have liked to see what the statue was meant to look like, and it seems a product like this is the ideal place add those little artistic touches.
Second: The tiles are two-sided, with the image on the reverse showing the sanctum in a ruined state. I would have rather seen other uses for that space. Perhaps a tunnel network, or another adventure location (such as the cave in which there is a monstrous spider ambush listed in the adventure). I'm not really sure how useful the ruined version really is. Had the reverse been used for ways to expand on the encounter would have been welcome (the PCs have to get to the encounter anyway, why not give the GM some easy to use maps for wilderness encounters?).
As for the adventure itself (by Mike Mearls), it is very short, but nicely done. Three of the cards in the set have one side showing concept art with the other side providing the stats for the creature or item depicted. The adventure itself only takes up four pages (not four full cards, but four card sides). The encounter is a typical "Megalomaniac Drow Intent on Unleashing Evil on the Surface World" set-up, but still manages to have interesting new elements.
The fully statted and fleshed out dark elf cleric is a very nice utility. She can easily be lifted and used in other adventures or settings. The new demon is a great addition to the abyssal ranks. The "Horned Demon" is both very cool looking and has unique powers. The best thing about this demon is that its special abilities aren't difficult to make use of as a GM, and they are unique, interesting story elements (the Belt of the Coven specifically - has three sorcerous entities bound to it that augment the demon's mental attirbutes and cast spells on their own). The demon could make a good unique demon to recur in the PCs' careers, or as a complement to the hordes of demons in the MM.
There is also a card describing two new minor artifacts useful for your average drow-intent-on-wreaking-havoc. One is the "Dagger of Veils" that can use charges to summon evil outsiders. The more charges the wielder chooses to expend, the more powerful fiend can be summoned. The fun part is that the dagger gains charges from successfully striking living opponents. The other artifact is the "Dread Portal of the Maw". This portal is represented by the third miniature in the set. The portal is used by sacrificing innocents to summon an extremely large force of demons (500 individuals!) to the material plane. Clearly, this is a good reason to put a stop to the cleric's schemes.
The encounter is intended for 9th level parties, but looks like a very difficult one to me (granted, I have not yet had the opportunity to playtest this). My reasoning for this impression is based on the layout of the sanctum. There is, in the first room, one CR 8 creature, four CR 2 creatures, and one CR 11 creature. In the only other room in the sanctum (the cleric's bedchambers) is the CR 11 cleric, who is immediately alerted if the sanctum is invaded. That seems like a lot of creatures in a relatively small area fighting against the standard four-PC group. I could be wrong about this, but the text of the encounter makes a simultaneous confrontation with all of the occupants seem likely.
The encounter concludes with information on scaling the sanctum for all levels, but curiously gives no options for adjusting the cleric. It also gives some direction for continuing adventures once this encounter has been played out.
Overall, this is a great product, doubly so if you are a fan of metal miniatures. Despite some minor issues this is a promising start to the GameMastery series. It looks likely to fill a good solid night of gaming and to make the GM's job a bit easier in the process.
