The Blackguard's Revenge is an adventure by Goodman Games in their Dungeon Crawl Classics line of adventures. The basic premise of the adventure features the party getting involved in a siege as a horde of undead creatures wage war against a cloister of defending paladins. I reviewed the pdf version of this product, which has a page count of 44 pages - 34 devoted to the adventure, 4 pages of maps, 2 pages of player handouts, 2 pages for cover art and 2 pages for an appendix detailing the main town in this adventure. The Blackguard's Revenge normally retails for $7.49 on both RPGNow and Drivethrurpg.
Warning: This review may contain spoilers.
Initial Impressions:
The Blackguard's revenge comes as a fully bookmarked pdf, and is handsomely stocked with all manner of art. The cover art is particularly good, and the maps are clear and well-done. Some of the interior art is cartoony, not always befitting the nature of the reading material, but I still liked those as well. This adventure is a dungeon crawl, although a somewhat more dynamic one, fit for characters of levels 9-11. The adventure recommends 45-50 total character levels in the party, with at least one cleric and some strong warriors.
The background details a well-constructed and exciting backstory, and by the end of reading this adventure I found the adventure solid and well-presented. It's a flexible and dynamic adventure set in the frozen lands, offering a battle of souls for the player characters to get involved in. Plot hooks are presented, as well as scaling information, and a detailed summary of all the encounters in this adventure is provided. The latter immediately struck me as somewhat monotonous, with most of the creatures faced in this adventure coming in less than a handful of different varieties. I would've preferred to see some different types of undead in this adventure than the two main ones - heretics and wight - presented, although given that it is an undead army, one could realistically expect that.
The Details:
Throughout the adventure I was pleased to find that there was sufficient attention to detail to let the adventure run smoothly. Descriptions are well-written and concise, presenting a flavourful account of the environment and the events as they unfold around the PCs. The dynamic nature of the adventure makes it more than just a room-to-room brawl, although with the amount of possible random encounters available, combat can be quite intensive. I'd recommend toning down the number of random encounters, which may prevent the game from progressing smoothly from one area to the next, particularly given that there is no catering for characters which want to rest and recover. It's a one-shot, one-day adventure that can deplete party resource quickly.
In addition to the somewhat monotonous nature of the encounters presented, the stat blocks almost all contain errors. Thankfully, given the lack of variety in the creatures encountered, this is not painful to correct. Note also that some of the stat blocks are not considered 'standard', e.g. giving wights class levels, although these were appropriately handled in such instances. One thing that also struck me as strange were the artificially high DCs of some of the trap DCs and search checks involved in the adventure. Search checks are required to find even some obvious things, such as locating a dead creature's bracers or holy symbol around a creature's neck.
On to the adventure itself! The adventure potentially starts in a town called Ambroshea Trades, fully detailed in the adventure appendix. The DM is provided with alternative plot hooks to use if required. From there the adventure moves through the frozen lands around the Saint's Blood Mountains towards the cloister itself where the main adventure takes places. I'd hoped that the frozen, icy landscape would provide some interesting encounters based around that terrain, although I guess undead is as frozen as it gets. Whatever the reason, the PCs get involved in a siege, where an army of wights led by a Blackguard and a sinister ally, are attempting to destroy a cloister of paladins. There is however, an alternative agenda, and the revealing of the background information of the plot and story is well-handled, revealing enough bites to satisfy the characters as the adventure progresses.
Nearly three dozen encounter areas are presented as the PCs explore the grounds and interior of the cloister, offering interesting non-combat encounters, puzzles and traps for the characters to get through. The ambience of death and destruction in the wake of the wights' attack is well maintained through the adventure descriptions, and the player characters should get a feel for the devastation they are witnessing, and the death and destruction unleashed by the undead army.
The final encounters with the Blackguard and its ally are challenging, although access to these encounters is somewhat contrived as a vital 'clue' is conveniently discarded by what should be considered an intelligent opponent. Nevertheless, this adventure in its detail is solid, well-written with good non-combat variety and ambience. Not only does it provide solid combat and good dungeon crawling, but there is opportunity for roleplaying related to the surviving paladins in the cloister. The only area where it lacks in the somewhat monotonous nature of the encounters, ranging from heretic to wight to heretic throughout most of the adventure. The adventure could've used a few more 'icy' touches, perhaps, or more variety in the classed wights presented.
Conclusions:
The Blackguard's Revenge is a solid dungeon crawl in a more dynamic setting with some opportunity for roleplaying. It's well-presented, pays attention to details, creates ambience and offers interesting and exciting challenges. It fails to provide enough variety, though, in the combat arena, and I would've liked to see more creativity going into those areas to prevent the adventure turning into a monotonous slog through more of the same. While the encounter areas themselves provide verisimilitude, the nature of the combat encounters detract from a otherwise good product. Overall, if you like a solid dungeon crawl, this adventure is a notch above average, and with a little spicing up of the combat encounters can be considered good. Hence a rating of four stars.
Warning: This review may contain spoilers.
Initial Impressions:
The Blackguard's revenge comes as a fully bookmarked pdf, and is handsomely stocked with all manner of art. The cover art is particularly good, and the maps are clear and well-done. Some of the interior art is cartoony, not always befitting the nature of the reading material, but I still liked those as well. This adventure is a dungeon crawl, although a somewhat more dynamic one, fit for characters of levels 9-11. The adventure recommends 45-50 total character levels in the party, with at least one cleric and some strong warriors.
The background details a well-constructed and exciting backstory, and by the end of reading this adventure I found the adventure solid and well-presented. It's a flexible and dynamic adventure set in the frozen lands, offering a battle of souls for the player characters to get involved in. Plot hooks are presented, as well as scaling information, and a detailed summary of all the encounters in this adventure is provided. The latter immediately struck me as somewhat monotonous, with most of the creatures faced in this adventure coming in less than a handful of different varieties. I would've preferred to see some different types of undead in this adventure than the two main ones - heretics and wight - presented, although given that it is an undead army, one could realistically expect that.
The Details:
Throughout the adventure I was pleased to find that there was sufficient attention to detail to let the adventure run smoothly. Descriptions are well-written and concise, presenting a flavourful account of the environment and the events as they unfold around the PCs. The dynamic nature of the adventure makes it more than just a room-to-room brawl, although with the amount of possible random encounters available, combat can be quite intensive. I'd recommend toning down the number of random encounters, which may prevent the game from progressing smoothly from one area to the next, particularly given that there is no catering for characters which want to rest and recover. It's a one-shot, one-day adventure that can deplete party resource quickly.
In addition to the somewhat monotonous nature of the encounters presented, the stat blocks almost all contain errors. Thankfully, given the lack of variety in the creatures encountered, this is not painful to correct. Note also that some of the stat blocks are not considered 'standard', e.g. giving wights class levels, although these were appropriately handled in such instances. One thing that also struck me as strange were the artificially high DCs of some of the trap DCs and search checks involved in the adventure. Search checks are required to find even some obvious things, such as locating a dead creature's bracers or holy symbol around a creature's neck.
On to the adventure itself! The adventure potentially starts in a town called Ambroshea Trades, fully detailed in the adventure appendix. The DM is provided with alternative plot hooks to use if required. From there the adventure moves through the frozen lands around the Saint's Blood Mountains towards the cloister itself where the main adventure takes places. I'd hoped that the frozen, icy landscape would provide some interesting encounters based around that terrain, although I guess undead is as frozen as it gets. Whatever the reason, the PCs get involved in a siege, where an army of wights led by a Blackguard and a sinister ally, are attempting to destroy a cloister of paladins. There is however, an alternative agenda, and the revealing of the background information of the plot and story is well-handled, revealing enough bites to satisfy the characters as the adventure progresses.
Nearly three dozen encounter areas are presented as the PCs explore the grounds and interior of the cloister, offering interesting non-combat encounters, puzzles and traps for the characters to get through. The ambience of death and destruction in the wake of the wights' attack is well maintained through the adventure descriptions, and the player characters should get a feel for the devastation they are witnessing, and the death and destruction unleashed by the undead army.
The final encounters with the Blackguard and its ally are challenging, although access to these encounters is somewhat contrived as a vital 'clue' is conveniently discarded by what should be considered an intelligent opponent. Nevertheless, this adventure in its detail is solid, well-written with good non-combat variety and ambience. Not only does it provide solid combat and good dungeon crawling, but there is opportunity for roleplaying related to the surviving paladins in the cloister. The only area where it lacks in the somewhat monotonous nature of the encounters, ranging from heretic to wight to heretic throughout most of the adventure. The adventure could've used a few more 'icy' touches, perhaps, or more variety in the classed wights presented.
Conclusions:
The Blackguard's Revenge is a solid dungeon crawl in a more dynamic setting with some opportunity for roleplaying. It's well-presented, pays attention to details, creates ambience and offers interesting and exciting challenges. It fails to provide enough variety, though, in the combat arena, and I would've liked to see more creativity going into those areas to prevent the adventure turning into a monotonous slog through more of the same. While the encounter areas themselves provide verisimilitude, the nature of the combat encounters detract from a otherwise good product. Overall, if you like a solid dungeon crawl, this adventure is a notch above average, and with a little spicing up of the combat encounters can be considered good. Hence a rating of four stars.
