Crothian
First Post
Keep on the Shadowfell
Fourth edition is finally here. Almost. The previews though are coming in fast and the first module is out and this is a good look at it. I have no run the module nor have I played any new 4e yet. I have barely been looking at the previews because I wanted to come into this preview module with not a lot of information to see if it does work for new people. A set of quick guide rules is a hard thing to judge if one is already familiar with the system. There will be spoilers to the module in this review.
Keep on the Shadowfell is a module and set of Quick Start Rules. It comes with a DMs book and a player’s book with 5 player characters in it. It comes in fancy folder with three double sided fold out maps. It is a pretty good package but it could have some improvements. The pregenerated characters should have been loose leaf so they can just be handed out to the players. I also think it would have been better if they could have trimmed the sheets down so they only cover the front of a paper instead of the front and back. The biggest concern is the price. I rarely mention prices in my reviews but I do feel thirty dollars for this is a bit high. Many hardbound books that are about three times this size are this price. The Players handbook is only slightly more expensive then this.
The book is written by two very well respected RPG designers Bruce Cordell and Mike Mearls. I would love to hear their design goals for the module. It is a module for beginners new to the game and possible new to 4e so that might be why the module is so simple. It is a basic railroad with certain kinds of behavior that are rewarded and certain kinds that is not. This is a module for people playing heroically and being able to tell when they should kill something and when they should not. Of course killing is the right answer like ninety five percent of the time. And people feared that 4e was not going to be D&D.
First I will start on the quick start rules. They are well laid out and easy to read and follow. It is very basic and I think a section on doing things not included in the book would have been nice. As it is is seems the characters are limited to what they can do in combat. It is all about combat but that is to be expected. There is nothing in here that seems complex or confusing so that is good. The pregenerated characters are pretty good but the art does not reflect the characters. The dwarf in the picture holds a sword but uses a maul. The halfling is holding a crossbow that is not on the character sheet. He uses daggers there. It might be the clerics crossbow because he doesn’t seem to have one. And the sword the dwarf is holding looks like it belongs to the dragon born. In his picture he’s holding what looks to be a glaive. Yes, these are minor mistakes that have no bearing on the game play. But this is the first 4e release and I think a higher level of attention should be given to these details.
There are three double sided color maps. These are done by Mike Schley and Jason Engle. As I expect from Wizards of the Coast the maps are very well done. The adventure could have found a way to use the maps more then they do. The paper quality on the maps and books seems rather thin. I would be careful when handling them as they just feel like they would be really easy to rip.
The DM book is the more complete quick start rules and the module. I am not seeing anything in these rules that players should not know. I think they could have saved space by just having all the rules in one space. Having a second copy of them is useful but if they really wanted it to be useful they would have the rules just by themselves instead of attached to the rest of this stuff. In the using monster statics part there seems to be an error. Under ability scores they have the wrong modifier next to each number. The stats the PCs have with the same numbers have different modifiers. It is not something that will affect game play but it can cause confusion for people that are new to the game. One thing they should have done is have all the rules in one place. In the encounters there are rules for the monsters that have certain tactics. It is nice to place them there but if I need to know how someone escapes being grabbed I as DM might not automatically remember where I read it. It would have been much easier to have all those specific rules also in the rules area and then refer the reader back to them when it comes up in an encounter. The module and quick start rules really should have been better organized.
The module is fairly basic. There are a few options to get the player characters involved and they are all simple and easy to use. The module is more of a string of encounters laid out a lot like the Expedition hard cover books that came out in the later days of third edition. It does make the game feel like it is more tactical. It does have maps and enemy placement for ease of use with miniatures. But so far there has really been nothing I have read that makes me think miniatures are going to be needed. I have found that tactical maps are useful even with out using miniatures so having all the encounters drawn up this way does not bother me.
It starts with a good roadside ambush. Combat is going to be the most difficult part of the game and starting with it is good for the players and DM. Once the battle is over they get to arrive in a town and rest so it will be best to encourage the players to use a wide variety of the character’s powers and see how they work. I would even be tempted to make the first encounter tougher with more foes to allow more chances for that to happen.
After the encounter the book gives some good and basic DM advice. It talks about how to move the game on and some key things to listen for from the PCs to know when the game needs a push from the DM. There is some good advice in asking leading questions of the PCs to help guide them and their characters. Winterhaven is the town the PCs will go to next. There are some buildings described and NPCs descriptions. There are no stat blocks though for the NPCs of the town. I understand that they might not want combat to happen in Winterhaven but some general commoner stats for a bar fight or something would have been very useful. I found the players can get into battles when they are not expected to by the module. Another and greater piece of missing information is the lack of equipment prices. The PCs are going to go from this town to the evil goblin lair and eventually into the ruins of the keep. I would hope the players will think of a few things they want for their characters that are not on the character sheets. It allows players to think of what they might encounter and plan for it.
From the village the PCs have a few options depending on their reason for being here. They all lead to the same place eventually, the ruined keep. I think it would be better to make sure they do not just go their first as it is the toughest area of the module. It is a bit of a railroad adventure though with it being for new players that is not completely a bad thing. There are nice little side bars through out the adventure giving good advice. It does not cover everything a DM might have questions on but it does a good general job.
The module is not the easiest. Some of the later encounters include creatures with over a hundred hit points. There is a riddle that can be solved for cool magical treasure and one area of instant death. But unlike instant death in past edition modules this one really makes a lot of sense of why the characters would die. It is a portal to the Shadowfell and if a player character goes through it they die with no save. A worried DM can easily foreshadow it being a bad place to get pushed or dragged into with a good description of it assuming the one in the book is not good enough. There are a few tough encounters that if the dice turn against the players or if they just happen to have some not so good tactic it could result in a total party kill. That is not great for people new to the game and a little easier entry module would have been a bit better. It is also written for five PCs and ideas for scaling it down for fewer PCs would really have been useful. Not everyone can get together six people to play role playing games.
Over all it does the job it was written to do. But there does seem to be a good amount of little errors that I have mentioned. None of them will make the module unplayable. As the first real look at the new game I was just hoping there would be less simple problems. It does not make a great first impression with me.
Fourth edition is finally here. Almost. The previews though are coming in fast and the first module is out and this is a good look at it. I have no run the module nor have I played any new 4e yet. I have barely been looking at the previews because I wanted to come into this preview module with not a lot of information to see if it does work for new people. A set of quick guide rules is a hard thing to judge if one is already familiar with the system. There will be spoilers to the module in this review.
Keep on the Shadowfell is a module and set of Quick Start Rules. It comes with a DMs book and a player’s book with 5 player characters in it. It comes in fancy folder with three double sided fold out maps. It is a pretty good package but it could have some improvements. The pregenerated characters should have been loose leaf so they can just be handed out to the players. I also think it would have been better if they could have trimmed the sheets down so they only cover the front of a paper instead of the front and back. The biggest concern is the price. I rarely mention prices in my reviews but I do feel thirty dollars for this is a bit high. Many hardbound books that are about three times this size are this price. The Players handbook is only slightly more expensive then this.
The book is written by two very well respected RPG designers Bruce Cordell and Mike Mearls. I would love to hear their design goals for the module. It is a module for beginners new to the game and possible new to 4e so that might be why the module is so simple. It is a basic railroad with certain kinds of behavior that are rewarded and certain kinds that is not. This is a module for people playing heroically and being able to tell when they should kill something and when they should not. Of course killing is the right answer like ninety five percent of the time. And people feared that 4e was not going to be D&D.
First I will start on the quick start rules. They are well laid out and easy to read and follow. It is very basic and I think a section on doing things not included in the book would have been nice. As it is is seems the characters are limited to what they can do in combat. It is all about combat but that is to be expected. There is nothing in here that seems complex or confusing so that is good. The pregenerated characters are pretty good but the art does not reflect the characters. The dwarf in the picture holds a sword but uses a maul. The halfling is holding a crossbow that is not on the character sheet. He uses daggers there. It might be the clerics crossbow because he doesn’t seem to have one. And the sword the dwarf is holding looks like it belongs to the dragon born. In his picture he’s holding what looks to be a glaive. Yes, these are minor mistakes that have no bearing on the game play. But this is the first 4e release and I think a higher level of attention should be given to these details.
There are three double sided color maps. These are done by Mike Schley and Jason Engle. As I expect from Wizards of the Coast the maps are very well done. The adventure could have found a way to use the maps more then they do. The paper quality on the maps and books seems rather thin. I would be careful when handling them as they just feel like they would be really easy to rip.
The DM book is the more complete quick start rules and the module. I am not seeing anything in these rules that players should not know. I think they could have saved space by just having all the rules in one space. Having a second copy of them is useful but if they really wanted it to be useful they would have the rules just by themselves instead of attached to the rest of this stuff. In the using monster statics part there seems to be an error. Under ability scores they have the wrong modifier next to each number. The stats the PCs have with the same numbers have different modifiers. It is not something that will affect game play but it can cause confusion for people that are new to the game. One thing they should have done is have all the rules in one place. In the encounters there are rules for the monsters that have certain tactics. It is nice to place them there but if I need to know how someone escapes being grabbed I as DM might not automatically remember where I read it. It would have been much easier to have all those specific rules also in the rules area and then refer the reader back to them when it comes up in an encounter. The module and quick start rules really should have been better organized.
The module is fairly basic. There are a few options to get the player characters involved and they are all simple and easy to use. The module is more of a string of encounters laid out a lot like the Expedition hard cover books that came out in the later days of third edition. It does make the game feel like it is more tactical. It does have maps and enemy placement for ease of use with miniatures. But so far there has really been nothing I have read that makes me think miniatures are going to be needed. I have found that tactical maps are useful even with out using miniatures so having all the encounters drawn up this way does not bother me.
It starts with a good roadside ambush. Combat is going to be the most difficult part of the game and starting with it is good for the players and DM. Once the battle is over they get to arrive in a town and rest so it will be best to encourage the players to use a wide variety of the character’s powers and see how they work. I would even be tempted to make the first encounter tougher with more foes to allow more chances for that to happen.
After the encounter the book gives some good and basic DM advice. It talks about how to move the game on and some key things to listen for from the PCs to know when the game needs a push from the DM. There is some good advice in asking leading questions of the PCs to help guide them and their characters. Winterhaven is the town the PCs will go to next. There are some buildings described and NPCs descriptions. There are no stat blocks though for the NPCs of the town. I understand that they might not want combat to happen in Winterhaven but some general commoner stats for a bar fight or something would have been very useful. I found the players can get into battles when they are not expected to by the module. Another and greater piece of missing information is the lack of equipment prices. The PCs are going to go from this town to the evil goblin lair and eventually into the ruins of the keep. I would hope the players will think of a few things they want for their characters that are not on the character sheets. It allows players to think of what they might encounter and plan for it.
From the village the PCs have a few options depending on their reason for being here. They all lead to the same place eventually, the ruined keep. I think it would be better to make sure they do not just go their first as it is the toughest area of the module. It is a bit of a railroad adventure though with it being for new players that is not completely a bad thing. There are nice little side bars through out the adventure giving good advice. It does not cover everything a DM might have questions on but it does a good general job.
The module is not the easiest. Some of the later encounters include creatures with over a hundred hit points. There is a riddle that can be solved for cool magical treasure and one area of instant death. But unlike instant death in past edition modules this one really makes a lot of sense of why the characters would die. It is a portal to the Shadowfell and if a player character goes through it they die with no save. A worried DM can easily foreshadow it being a bad place to get pushed or dragged into with a good description of it assuming the one in the book is not good enough. There are a few tough encounters that if the dice turn against the players or if they just happen to have some not so good tactic it could result in a total party kill. That is not great for people new to the game and a little easier entry module would have been a bit better. It is also written for five PCs and ideas for scaling it down for fewer PCs would really have been useful. Not everyone can get together six people to play role playing games.
Over all it does the job it was written to do. But there does seem to be a good amount of little errors that I have mentioned. None of them will make the module unplayable. As the first real look at the new game I was just hoping there would be less simple problems. It does not make a great first impression with me.
