Whilst my group enjoyed Keep on the Shadowfell, there was something about it that didn't quite work for us. I'm not sure I can put my finger on it - the adventure just wasn't all that exciting, and it seemed a bit rushed. The production values were great - the folder, the colour booklets, the poster maps, and the adventure certainly did its job competently.
Thunderspire, however, seems like a step up. I waited to write this review until we had played it, rather than merely read it, so as to be as fair as possible.
It's just as pretty as its predecessor. The same format, with the same folder and booklets. There's only the one poster map, though (unlike the three in KotS) which was something of a disappointment, especially given that some of the set-piece encounters involve fairly intricate locations. One of the familiar cries from my players was "No, there's no such thing as a 13 x 7 dungeon tile!" or "Lake of blood? No we don't have that one". We forgave the lack of tiles (yes, we own them all) in the case of bizarre, exotic dungeon features such as the aforementioned lake of blood, but some of the odd room sizes seemed to be put there just to annoy us. Would it have done any harm to try to match them to the tiles that WotC itself actually sells? Is a 5x7 room intrinsically better than a 4x8 room? Does it make a difference, other than the fact that we wouldn't have to fiddle around building rooms and corridors out of seven million teeny tiny tiles instead of a couple of big ones?
That's a minor complaint, though. The poster map does contain one large battlemap for the most complex encounter location (thank goodness - if I were faced with building that out of tiles I'd just go home again!), and the reverse has several smaller maps for some of the more intricate locations. I'm really grousing for the sake of grousing, here.
The central location of this adventure - the Seven Pillared Hall - is a wonderfully flavourful underground marketplace/settlement. It is teeming with interesting NPCs, locations and plot hooks. If Winterhaven was a slightly-stale cheese sandwich, The Hall is a gourmet lobster banquet; you can have hours of fun without even leaving it. For those DMs running the adventure, I encourage you to make full use of this area: it really is worth it.
Around this Hall are four dungeons. The PCs are largely led by the nose into the dungeons one at a time (and my players frequently called out "Choo Choo!" as they moved from one section of the railroad to the next - but I understand these adventures are designed to cater for inexperienced D&D players), and the DM needs to do a little work motivating them. Each dungeon has its own occupant-type and theme (a slaver lair, a duergar fortress, a gnoll temple and a wizard's tower). As you'd expect, each successive dungeon contains more and more magical and thematic locations; the first dungeon is a fairly simple slugfest, while later dungeons include the aforementioned lake of blood, magical teleporting pillars, a doomsphere, and so on.
The locations really are fun. Set-piece battles in strange environments are always memorable, and your group will remember many of these battles. It's always something I've tried to do in my own games, and I was happy to see it done for me here. Although I'll never beat my rotating clockwork gears and swinging pendulum encounter area; I really should write that up sometime!
My players did have two complaints about the adventure:
1) Not enough treasure! Now, I'm not entirely sure whether that's true, or whether the treasure just isn't on-display enough for them, but they do seem to be suffering a massive deficit of cash and magic items, and I've certainly not withheld anything from them. Dying and creating a new character with default treasure for the level seems a sure way to profit, as it's bound to be more than the surviving characters have. Sure, I can fix it myself and add more treasure in, but I'd rather it was done for me: that's why I paid for a pre-written adventure, after all. Perhaps other groups didn't experience this issue, or perhaps my group was particularly inept at finding and recovering the treasure, but they're certainly light.
2) It seemed a bit tough. We were experiencing the 5-minute adventuring day, since an extended rest was needed after most encounters. Again, maybe I have a sub-optimal group, so I can't positively say this was the adventure's fault. It just kinda feels like it is, and I'm not quite proficient enough at running 4E yet to be able to eyeball encounter strengths easily other than by looking at the levels and XP awards for them.
So those are the main complaints; neither is crippling and both are fixable if you feel like putting in the effort. That assumes you agree that the problems exist; if your group doesn't seem to be experiencing them then don't worry about it. And neither of them cause me to reduce the product's score significantly.
Thunderspire is a fun adventure. Lots of different stuff going on, lots of interesting set-pieces. Admittedly, it's just four consecutive dungeon-crawls, but they're above-average dungeon-crawls.
Oh. Wait. Did Richard Baker and Mike Mearls forget they wrote Minion rules into the 4E system? Don't expect to be fighting many minions in this adventure - there aren't any! That's not a complaint; just a curious note.
If you liked Shadowfell, you'll like this more. It's more of the same, but better - with fewer poster maps and more tile-stumping encounter locations! Your players will learn to hate duergar theurges, if they're anything like my group; and the big green dragon encounter will be surprisingly easy and quickly over.
Next is Pyramid of Shadows, which looks like another dungeon crawl, but appears to amp up the interesting set-piece encounter location concept into overdrive. Looks like fun!
Thunderspire, however, seems like a step up. I waited to write this review until we had played it, rather than merely read it, so as to be as fair as possible.
It's just as pretty as its predecessor. The same format, with the same folder and booklets. There's only the one poster map, though (unlike the three in KotS) which was something of a disappointment, especially given that some of the set-piece encounters involve fairly intricate locations. One of the familiar cries from my players was "No, there's no such thing as a 13 x 7 dungeon tile!" or "Lake of blood? No we don't have that one". We forgave the lack of tiles (yes, we own them all) in the case of bizarre, exotic dungeon features such as the aforementioned lake of blood, but some of the odd room sizes seemed to be put there just to annoy us. Would it have done any harm to try to match them to the tiles that WotC itself actually sells? Is a 5x7 room intrinsically better than a 4x8 room? Does it make a difference, other than the fact that we wouldn't have to fiddle around building rooms and corridors out of seven million teeny tiny tiles instead of a couple of big ones?
That's a minor complaint, though. The poster map does contain one large battlemap for the most complex encounter location (thank goodness - if I were faced with building that out of tiles I'd just go home again!), and the reverse has several smaller maps for some of the more intricate locations. I'm really grousing for the sake of grousing, here.
The central location of this adventure - the Seven Pillared Hall - is a wonderfully flavourful underground marketplace/settlement. It is teeming with interesting NPCs, locations and plot hooks. If Winterhaven was a slightly-stale cheese sandwich, The Hall is a gourmet lobster banquet; you can have hours of fun without even leaving it. For those DMs running the adventure, I encourage you to make full use of this area: it really is worth it.
Around this Hall are four dungeons. The PCs are largely led by the nose into the dungeons one at a time (and my players frequently called out "Choo Choo!" as they moved from one section of the railroad to the next - but I understand these adventures are designed to cater for inexperienced D&D players), and the DM needs to do a little work motivating them. Each dungeon has its own occupant-type and theme (a slaver lair, a duergar fortress, a gnoll temple and a wizard's tower). As you'd expect, each successive dungeon contains more and more magical and thematic locations; the first dungeon is a fairly simple slugfest, while later dungeons include the aforementioned lake of blood, magical teleporting pillars, a doomsphere, and so on.
The locations really are fun. Set-piece battles in strange environments are always memorable, and your group will remember many of these battles. It's always something I've tried to do in my own games, and I was happy to see it done for me here. Although I'll never beat my rotating clockwork gears and swinging pendulum encounter area; I really should write that up sometime!
My players did have two complaints about the adventure:
1) Not enough treasure! Now, I'm not entirely sure whether that's true, or whether the treasure just isn't on-display enough for them, but they do seem to be suffering a massive deficit of cash and magic items, and I've certainly not withheld anything from them. Dying and creating a new character with default treasure for the level seems a sure way to profit, as it's bound to be more than the surviving characters have. Sure, I can fix it myself and add more treasure in, but I'd rather it was done for me: that's why I paid for a pre-written adventure, after all. Perhaps other groups didn't experience this issue, or perhaps my group was particularly inept at finding and recovering the treasure, but they're certainly light.
2) It seemed a bit tough. We were experiencing the 5-minute adventuring day, since an extended rest was needed after most encounters. Again, maybe I have a sub-optimal group, so I can't positively say this was the adventure's fault. It just kinda feels like it is, and I'm not quite proficient enough at running 4E yet to be able to eyeball encounter strengths easily other than by looking at the levels and XP awards for them.
So those are the main complaints; neither is crippling and both are fixable if you feel like putting in the effort. That assumes you agree that the problems exist; if your group doesn't seem to be experiencing them then don't worry about it. And neither of them cause me to reduce the product's score significantly.
Thunderspire is a fun adventure. Lots of different stuff going on, lots of interesting set-pieces. Admittedly, it's just four consecutive dungeon-crawls, but they're above-average dungeon-crawls.
Oh. Wait. Did Richard Baker and Mike Mearls forget they wrote Minion rules into the 4E system? Don't expect to be fighting many minions in this adventure - there aren't any! That's not a complaint; just a curious note.
If you liked Shadowfell, you'll like this more. It's more of the same, but better - with fewer poster maps and more tile-stumping encounter locations! Your players will learn to hate duergar theurges, if they're anything like my group; and the big green dragon encounter will be surprisingly easy and quickly over.
Next is Pyramid of Shadows, which looks like another dungeon crawl, but appears to amp up the interesting set-piece encounter location concept into overdrive. Looks like fun!
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