Jester David
Hero
The stream & announcement thread quickly filled up with reports of the adventure's details as well as discussion of other products and speculation (plus comments on the Realms…).
It's a long thread now, and hard to jump into to actually discuss the product.
So, new thread time: Chult with, undead, dinosaurs, and undead dinosaurs; Acererak, a new tomb of "horror", and stealing resurrection magic.
Are you excited? Are you apathetic? Are you waiting to see?
My thoughts:
They teased Chult and Acererak a few times prior to the stream, so we had an idea it was coming.
I was initially trepidatious about the return of Acererak. Acey is pretty bland as far as villains go. His traditional evil scheme basically amounted to hiding in a cupboard and letting adventurers kills themselves. Ostensibly while he watches. At his very evillest, Acererak was basically Joel from MST3K: watching tragedy unfold in front of him and making sarcastic comments at the poor thinking and accidental comedy.
I was also hopefully with the release of Tales of the Yawning Portal they wouldn't feel the need to "update" Tomb of Horrors. At best it's an endcap to an adventure: since you don't really enter the Tomb until the characters are high level. So 90% of the adventure is only tangentially related.
So, his return *ahem* lived and died based on his new evil scheme.
The set-up and location for the adventure really works. Mashing up Isle of Dread with the Tomb of Horrors works, as the former really needs a purpose to be in the jungle. Having the bulk of the campaign being about exploring an island works, giving you something to do. Or you can just jump right to the tomb for a mini game. Or you can drop the metaplot and just have jungle exploration.
It's a good compromise.
Similarly, the evil scheme is really solid. Resurrection magic is something almost every campaign touches, and it's a huge trope of the game. D&D is a game where death means little at high levels. Especially in the Realms. There are big name characters who have been resurrected. Like most of Drizz't's friends. It indirectly threatens some of the most powerful figures in the Realms. Which is a lovely, dramatic event that's theoretically Realmshaking, but without impacting the geography of the world in the slightest.
Plus, it also threatens old PCs. Any campaign that had a resurrected character that retired now has thise character's lives jeopordized. The heroes of this campaign aren't just stopping evil, they're saving their past characters!
It also makes resurrection more dangerous in the adventure. Death is more final. Which makes the game that little more deadly, befitting the tomb and villain.
We'll see how the final execution works. They said a lot of stuff about Storm King's Thunder that turned out to be far less important than they implied. (Like the giantess sisters. Or the titular Storm King.) But it sounds awesome!
It's a long thread now, and hard to jump into to actually discuss the product.
So, new thread time: Chult with, undead, dinosaurs, and undead dinosaurs; Acererak, a new tomb of "horror", and stealing resurrection magic.
Are you excited? Are you apathetic? Are you waiting to see?
My thoughts:
They teased Chult and Acererak a few times prior to the stream, so we had an idea it was coming.
I was initially trepidatious about the return of Acererak. Acey is pretty bland as far as villains go. His traditional evil scheme basically amounted to hiding in a cupboard and letting adventurers kills themselves. Ostensibly while he watches. At his very evillest, Acererak was basically Joel from MST3K: watching tragedy unfold in front of him and making sarcastic comments at the poor thinking and accidental comedy.
I was also hopefully with the release of Tales of the Yawning Portal they wouldn't feel the need to "update" Tomb of Horrors. At best it's an endcap to an adventure: since you don't really enter the Tomb until the characters are high level. So 90% of the adventure is only tangentially related.
So, his return *ahem* lived and died based on his new evil scheme.
The set-up and location for the adventure really works. Mashing up Isle of Dread with the Tomb of Horrors works, as the former really needs a purpose to be in the jungle. Having the bulk of the campaign being about exploring an island works, giving you something to do. Or you can just jump right to the tomb for a mini game. Or you can drop the metaplot and just have jungle exploration.
It's a good compromise.
Similarly, the evil scheme is really solid. Resurrection magic is something almost every campaign touches, and it's a huge trope of the game. D&D is a game where death means little at high levels. Especially in the Realms. There are big name characters who have been resurrected. Like most of Drizz't's friends. It indirectly threatens some of the most powerful figures in the Realms. Which is a lovely, dramatic event that's theoretically Realmshaking, but without impacting the geography of the world in the slightest.
Plus, it also threatens old PCs. Any campaign that had a resurrected character that retired now has thise character's lives jeopordized. The heroes of this campaign aren't just stopping evil, they're saving their past characters!
It also makes resurrection more dangerous in the adventure. Death is more final. Which makes the game that little more deadly, befitting the tomb and villain.
We'll see how the final execution works. They said a lot of stuff about Storm King's Thunder that turned out to be far less important than they implied. (Like the giantess sisters. Or the titular Storm King.) But it sounds awesome!
