D&D 5E Justin Alexander's review of Shattered Obelisk is pretty scathing

[TheSword]

Hydras don't have regeneration, so there's no reason it wouldn't have wounds.

And it only loses a head (and grows two more) if it suffers 25+ damage in a single round. Even if the heads turned on one another in their hunger, it's not necessarily the case that those battles would turn fatal - it may self-harm without actually maiming itself.

You’ve answered your own point. Hydras take chunks out of themselves in extremis. A magical creature being hungry and needing food to survive are not the same thing.

This is a minor point, but it’s just an example of a reviewer of an adventure really getting hung up on their own personal mores rather than taking a less biased view. The combination of that and the contempt is my issue - even when I agree with some of his other points.

I’d sum the approach up as “It’s the ecology, stupid.” If it matters most of all to him then fine. I just don’t think it’s the top three issue of adventure design he thinks it is.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Talking of errors in adventures, I have just come across this: "roll a d12 three times per day of game time, checking for encounters each morning, afternoon, and evening or night. An encounter occurs on a roll of 16 or higher."

I'm not going to bother saying which adventure it is (other than it's not this one), this kind of thing is pretty common, and always as been. I suspect proof readers are too busy looking for spelling and grammatical errors to check for mathematical ones.

 

[mamba]

The glowing reviews truely are stupid, but if you’re gonna lambast it, first must accept books goal was just to toss out adventure ideas to play with.

I do not believe that this is WotC’s goal. If that is all their goal is, I’ll stop buying their adventures…

 

[mamba]

Now I can't comment on the adventure since I haven't read it, it may well be rubbish, but comments like this: "A hydra in a crypt that’s been sealed for centuries" - this has been a feature of D&D since year zero. Now, there are some people who like a higher level of realism in their adventures - and a lot more who don't care and don't worry about such things. If the adventure is not designed with realism as a goal, then "what does the hydra eat (when it can't get adventurers)" is not an issue.

but some do care, so bringing it up is a good thing (assuming they are correct). If you do not care, then you still won’t care just because someone points the issue out

Just because this has been in adventures for 50 years now does not mean it is the right thing to do, I did not like it then, I still do not like it now

 

[doctorhook]

I do not believe that this is WotC’s goal. If that is all their goal is, I’ll stop buying their adventures…

Well, if merely “putting adventure ideas out there” is their goal (and I agree with you that it isn’t), then WotC is choosing a very inefficient format to do so. They could put a lot more adventure ideas in a much smaller, less expensive product.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Given who wrote the review, that simply makes me want to actually check Shattered Obelisk out and see if it's any good. Mr. Alexander's takes have been so garbage on so many things, the more effective thing to do is to presume he's wrong until better evidence suggests otherwise.

 

[mamba]

It wouldn't have any wounds, just an infinite number of heads.

Expecting D&D to make sense is a bottomless rabbit-hole.

[NB, in the Theros book, it is mentioned that hydras can hibernate for hundreds of years at at time).

it doesn’t have an unusual number of heads and it is not hibernating….

 

[Paul Farquhar]

it doesn’t have an unusual number of heads and it is not hibernating….

Was it not hibernating yesterday?

If players ask about how it's managed to survive, the DM can make up any explanation in a matter of seconds. Chances are, the players won't ask. It's fantasy, the fantastic happens all the time.

 

[doctorhook]

I haven't read Shattered Obelisk so cannot comment on its quality, but I find it very disturbing just how many people are willing to let Justin Alexander do their thinking for them.

Who here is doing that?

Personally I don’t care about several of The Alexandrian’s points, including the hydra. However, I do care a lot about how well-integrated the new content is with the old content, so this review is extremely useful for telling me how badly the new enemies are integrated.

I certainly disagree with him on one point - the original Lost Mines was not good. Whilst it is reasonably well presented, it was dull, generic and uninspired.

I mean, it was an introductory product, which is precisely where one would expect to find a generic plot. There’s no point in subverting expectations upon an audience that hasn’t developed any expectations yet.

As for “dull” and “uninspired”, those sound awfully subjective.

 

[dave2008]

I generally treat dungeons like time travel movies: if you step back and think about them they just never make sense, better to just enjoy the ride!

Now, I am not suggesting this is a good adventure or that its mistakes are forgivable (I don't own and haven't read it); however, I often think we try to over think things at times and that can get in the way of the fun