Festivus
First Post
(I'll keep this fairly spoiler free)
I didn't find much information about what this adventure included, so I thought I would post here (since I picked it up last night at the game store).
The adventure is shorter than the last round of adventures, 32 pages long. The cover is heavy cardstock, and the pages are heavier paper than I am used to. If you have picked up the recent book Hammerfast or the Dragonborn book, this is the same quality. The cover is stapled to the adventure pages (so basically you can't use it as your DM screen). I was disappointed that there was no maps printed inside the cover, but since you can't detach it, it probably doesn't matter. It would have been cool to have a hex map of the area, much liek they did in the Hammerfast product.
There is a double sided poster map, of the typical quality these maps are. There are 3 encounter areas, and the side with two areas it nicely folds along that divide so you aren't folding your map in some new location.
I haven't finished reading the entire adventure, but I do like the layout. Right on the title page is the introduction, background, and a plot synopsis. There is a pre-planned opening scene that introduces the group to the current situation, although given the plot it wouldn't be hard to come up with my own hook.
Next is an overview of the story, and a rough timeline of what order things could progress, pointing out "iconic encounters" and suggestions for when those might run, but noting that you can sprinkle the others in pretty much any order. This is a pretty free form adventure.
One of my favorites is the next section, "Factions and NPCs", which gives suggestions for motivations for the various factions and people the players will encounter, and how these factions interact with one another. Good stuff there, great suggestions for a new DM.
There is information about the general plot theme, things found, and what various impacts each might have, as well as suggestions for minor plot hooks and future stories you could spin from here.
There is a description of the town, as once might expect when there is a town. The writups for each location is very general, allowing for the DM to paint the picture using their own words rather than boxed text. I rather liked this too, just give me enough to make a mental picture and then describe it.
There are two new magic items, but I can't describe them without spoilers.
There are a couple skill challenges, including some pretty good advice for running extended skill challenges and what happens when the group has any number of failures. I would have preferred the new skill challenge format I had seen bandied about (can't recall where), for example pointing out that when the group is trying to hide during a skill challenge, the entire party ought to make that stealth check as a group, not the one person with the best skill.
Next is the encounter areas. There about a dozen encounters, and they should take players to level 2 at their conclusion. The encounter areas, the monster stat blocks use the new Monster Manual 3 format, so there are segments for traits, standard actions, triggered actions, minor actions, etc. I never had trouble before but this does streamline it a bit more. Also improved are that there is more information related to the encounter and a smaller map with where starting locations could be. I found useful sidebars within the encounter area relating to things going on in that area, in case the group decided perhaps to suddenly negotiate with one of the bad guys.
The last pages have suggested additional encounters if you need to bump xp a bit, next steps for the party, including a plot hook for HS2, and an area to track treasure parcels and quests. There is also a page with backgrounds, each of which introduces a minor quest along with it. This was kind of a neat idea to have the players more interested in the story and a sense of purpose for why they are in the area to begin with.
Finally, I usually buy these adventures only for scraping encounters out of them and mainly the poster maps. This one however, I might actually run and see how it goes. It's aimed at the newer DMs it seems but the story looks fun and I like the interactions of all the factions involved.
I didn't find much information about what this adventure included, so I thought I would post here (since I picked it up last night at the game store).
The adventure is shorter than the last round of adventures, 32 pages long. The cover is heavy cardstock, and the pages are heavier paper than I am used to. If you have picked up the recent book Hammerfast or the Dragonborn book, this is the same quality. The cover is stapled to the adventure pages (so basically you can't use it as your DM screen). I was disappointed that there was no maps printed inside the cover, but since you can't detach it, it probably doesn't matter. It would have been cool to have a hex map of the area, much liek they did in the Hammerfast product.
There is a double sided poster map, of the typical quality these maps are. There are 3 encounter areas, and the side with two areas it nicely folds along that divide so you aren't folding your map in some new location.
I haven't finished reading the entire adventure, but I do like the layout. Right on the title page is the introduction, background, and a plot synopsis. There is a pre-planned opening scene that introduces the group to the current situation, although given the plot it wouldn't be hard to come up with my own hook.
Next is an overview of the story, and a rough timeline of what order things could progress, pointing out "iconic encounters" and suggestions for when those might run, but noting that you can sprinkle the others in pretty much any order. This is a pretty free form adventure.
One of my favorites is the next section, "Factions and NPCs", which gives suggestions for motivations for the various factions and people the players will encounter, and how these factions interact with one another. Good stuff there, great suggestions for a new DM.
There is information about the general plot theme, things found, and what various impacts each might have, as well as suggestions for minor plot hooks and future stories you could spin from here.
There is a description of the town, as once might expect when there is a town. The writups for each location is very general, allowing for the DM to paint the picture using their own words rather than boxed text. I rather liked this too, just give me enough to make a mental picture and then describe it.
There are two new magic items, but I can't describe them without spoilers.
There are a couple skill challenges, including some pretty good advice for running extended skill challenges and what happens when the group has any number of failures. I would have preferred the new skill challenge format I had seen bandied about (can't recall where), for example pointing out that when the group is trying to hide during a skill challenge, the entire party ought to make that stealth check as a group, not the one person with the best skill.
Next is the encounter areas. There about a dozen encounters, and they should take players to level 2 at their conclusion. The encounter areas, the monster stat blocks use the new Monster Manual 3 format, so there are segments for traits, standard actions, triggered actions, minor actions, etc. I never had trouble before but this does streamline it a bit more. Also improved are that there is more information related to the encounter and a smaller map with where starting locations could be. I found useful sidebars within the encounter area relating to things going on in that area, in case the group decided perhaps to suddenly negotiate with one of the bad guys.
The last pages have suggested additional encounters if you need to bump xp a bit, next steps for the party, including a plot hook for HS2, and an area to track treasure parcels and quests. There is also a page with backgrounds, each of which introduces a minor quest along with it. This was kind of a neat idea to have the players more interested in the story and a sense of purpose for why they are in the area to begin with.
Finally, I usually buy these adventures only for scraping encounters out of them and mainly the poster maps. This one however, I might actually run and see how it goes. It's aimed at the newer DMs it seems but the story looks fun and I like the interactions of all the factions involved.
