Fantastic Locations: Fane of the Drow
Fantastic Locations: Fane of the Drow is a 16-page adventure booklet with four poster-sized miniature-scale maps. As far as I can tell, primarily it is an aid to those who play with miniatures, either in providing a ready battlemap, or an official surface for D&D Miniatures tournaments and skirmish play.
This is probably the product I've most been looking forward to over the past six months, because it represents a new direction for Wizards. D&D has often been played with miniatures over its 30 year history, but the integration of the two has never been more explicit than in the past few months.
As many of you would know, I've run one of the main fan news sites for the D&D Miniatures game, and I also moderate the primary trading boards (maxminis.com). I'm also an active D&D DM, so I am interested in both uses of this product: the RPG and the DDM Skirmish.
The adventure, such as it is, within Fane of the Drow is split into four sections, each corresponding with one of the maps. I'll cover each in the order that it is suggested that they be approached, although there is nothing stopping you using them "out of order" in the RPG.
For the most part, each map represents one big "set piece" battle. There isn't that much of exploring the maps and finding lots of smaller battles, although that isn't entirely absent. I have run two parts of the adventure so far, the Mithral Mines and the Tomb of Queen Peregrine, and I'll describe my experiences below.
Physical Appearance
The cover has small keyed colour reproductions of all four maps on the inside surface. Markings indicate special features and monster starting locations.
The booklet is black & white, stapled together. There's a very nice watermark based on a compass rose on each page. I think it's worth emphasizing how attractive I find the booklet.
The cover art is by Marc Sasso, the interior art is by Chad Sergesketter. I find the artwork competent and quite attractive.
The actual full maps are very well done; the cartographer, Jason Engle, has done a wonderful job of creating them.
The booklet, unlike that of Sons of Gruumsh is not stapled to the cover.
Credits
Design: Gwendolyn F.M. Kestrel
Additional Design: Rob Heinsoo - no doubt for the DDM elements.
Development Team: Jesse Decker, Mike Donais, Stephen Schubert
Cartographer: Jason Engle
Cover Art: Marc Sasso
Interior Art: Chad Sergesketter
As with Sons of Gruumsh, there is no actual editor listed, although Kim Mohan is listed as the Editing Manager. The credits take up the first page of the 16-page booklet.
Introduction
The first page and a bit describes the product and suggests ways of using it in your campaign. A sidebar, "Reusing the Maps", suggests that the PCs could revisit the Fane at a later time against higher-level foes, and that the Mithral Mines map could be used to represent other underground complexes.
This may seem obvious to you and me, but it's well worth remembering that many people who play D&D are just starting out. So, I'm glad to see it here. There's also a note that we should check the Wizards website, RPGA adventures and the pages of Dungeon Magazine for variant encounters using the maps. That's interesting.
The DDM skirmish game uses special markings on the maps, and some of them have relevance in the RPG. This is covered in this section. The terrain types are Difficult, Risky (25% chance of 2d6 damage when entering) and Sacred Circles (+2 attack and magic damage).
The Adventure Background is simple: a dwarven fortress has suffered raids from drow. The dwarves enlist the aid of adventures to rid themselves of the drow, and to regain access to the mithral mines.
Three adventure hooks are listed. The first is the one I just listed. The second involves the PCs stumbling upon the drow enclave when travelling through the underdark (shades of Descent into the Depths of the Earth, here), and the third involves rescuing a friend of the PCs that has been captured by the drow. There are also brief notes on how using each hook will change the adventure.
1. Mithral Mines
The Mithral Mines battlemap a selection of intersecting tunnels, mostly between 10' and 20' wide. Interesting features on the map include a sacred circle, much rubble and discarded mining equipment, and a small office. This section of the adventure runs for 2.5 pages.
When the PCs enter the map (from a tunnel at one corner), they will quickly become aware of a group of twelve goblins inhabiting the mines. The goblins are part of the "Bloodweb" tribe and are servants of the drow. There's no doubt what the adventure expects (and what happened with my players!), there's a fight.
Ten of the goblins are out of the Monster Manual. One is a 3rd level cleric, and the leader is a 3rd level fighter. A long paragraph gives the suggested tactics of the group, and it's interesting to note that there are also suggested names for the goblins - just in case a combat doesn't happen, or to allow the DM to personify the goblins as they chatter to each other in combat. As one might expect, the main tactics of the goblins is to spread out, throw javelins, and keep away from the PCs.
It's worth noting the CR of the leaders have been modified downwards for "low gear and poor physical statistics. This represents an important development on Wizards' part of no longer going by the strict formulas for CRs. I'm glad to see this. The stat blocks are in the new format, and extremely clear.
Once half the goblins are dead, the fight gets more interesting with the arrival of six duergar - they hate the goblins, and they hate the PCs. Yes, they end up fighting both.
When I ran this battle, the PCs spent quite a bit of time moving around the tunnels, chasing goblins and manuevering to best effect. The arrival of the duergar was a big surprise and caught the wizard and psion in the party out of position - and thus vulnerable. The net result was a combat that was a lot more fluid than many I run, where the PCs tend to bunch together and just engage the foes in melee.
Four more areas of interest are marked on the map, and can be explored by the PCs once the battle is dealt with. Two of these areas are of special interest: a broken teleportation circle, and the overseer's office, which has some hidden notes from the drow who built the circle, explaining its purpose. This is a hook for the DM if he or she wants to create further adventures, and welcome it is as well!
So, those are the Mithral Mines. There's a note that if you want to expand the adventure, you can have another encounter in the Underdark, perhaps with kobold miners, dire bats, a dark creeper, or a burrowing ankheg. (And, yes, all those figures are in the upcoming DDM expansion, Underdark).
It took about 90 minutes for my players to finish the combats and fully explore the mines. The overseer's notes and the teleportation circle definitely intrigued them. This section is marked as "EL 6", and that seems pretty accurate.
2. Drow Enclave
The Drow Enclave and the Fane of Lolth (the next part) are part of the same complex; they are the two main encounter areas for the enclave of Til'Asperna. The adventure suggests that you can expand the enclave around the locations given here, and I think that may be a wise decision - these sections of adventure are mainly large set-piece combats, and as DM I want some sort of breather between them.
An additional purpose is related for the enclave in the text: "In addition to the imediate benefit of providing a short adventure centered around a series of interesting combat encounters, the drow enclave of Til'Asperna provides an intriguing link to the mystories and machinations of the Underdark."
In a very nice touch, the text mentions Erelhei-Cinlu, a name with deep resonances in D&D lore.
The details of getting into the enclave are explained in a sidebar: Guile, Stealth and a Frontal Attack being the mentioned methods. The drow guards are described as being complacent - I guess the Underdark isn't that tough!
Obviously, once the door is breached (by whatever manner), the 6 drow guards must be dealt with. Tactical notes in the text explain what course the drow follow - alerting the leader of the enclave (the wizard Amandrucul), engaging in a fighting withdrawal, and so forth.
Two errors in the text bear mentioning: there's a page xx reference, and it states that a guard heads to area 13 to alert the wizard - who is actually in area 12.
There are full stat blocks for Amandrucul (drow Wizard 4), the four Spiders of Lolth, and the Draegloth that also lives in this area. The drow guards and the 2 giant spiders have a Monster Manual reference. As with all the opponents in this adventure, a DDM miniature is suggested to represent each one.
I'm not quite sure if the combat will become one extended melee, or if the Draegloth and the wizard will be encountered separately. To a large extent, this depends on the tactics of the party. The map is more traditional for rpgs, with more doors and enclosed areas than present on the other three maps.
The dominant feature of the map is the summoning circle that is placed in a large area in the centre of the map. It is to here that the drow guards will withdraw and face the intruders. In a lovely "trick", the summoning circle causes any summon monster spells to instead summon Spiders of Lolth that then aid the drow. It's little features like this that add interest to the game, and I like seeing this here.
After the opponents have been defeated - whether in one long melee or in several independent fights - the first part of the enclave can be explored further. The interesting areas include the wizard's laboratory, which has various notes that have value, a spider pen, an egg chamber for the giant spiders (icky!), and a torture chamber. The descriptions of these areas are fairly evocative, although only the wizard's laboratory provides for real interest: the notes do allow the opportunity for further expansion of the scenario.
I will note that although the entire "Mithral Mines" section is noted as EL 6, the individual rooms have EL descriptions here. (EL 6; EL 6; EL 4; EL 4; EL 5). The adventure is written for four 4th level PCs... this may be rather tricky, and they may need to withdraw when facing the challenges.
3. Fane of Lolth
Well, based on my descriptions of the previous two parts of this adventure, you should have a pretty good idea of what is in this part: namely, a big combat, a few areas with items of interest to explore, and a couple of hooks to expand. That's pretty much it.
What's really good about it include some of the tricks (blood rock and a spider trap), and some of the items of interest. The two drow clerics here don't like each other, and one will surrender to the PCs, thus giving a chance for her manipulations to continue. Well, assuming she wasn't obliterated on sight. The lead cleric has also stolen the seal of House Aleval (and that name also dates back to D3: Vault of the Drow), and so this provides more hooks.
Once again, the CR of one of the priestesses is reduced from its default value - this is due to her having devoted a couple of her highest level spells to non-combat uses, and the tactics of the drow include a lot of falling back and leading the PCs into an area where the drow can fight from a position of strength.
Areas of note are the sacrificial altar, the main temple, and the prison - where there are two NPCs the PCs can rescue.
This ends the main part of the adventure, such as it is. There are hints that there are powers in the fane that these relatively weak priestesses have not discovered, and so this begs for expansion in a later adventure when a really powerful drow priestess might reclaim the enclave. This is noted in a "Further Adventures" section.
4. Tomb of Queen Peregrine
This section (3.5 pages) is not part of the main adventure, although the notes of the drow wizard in the second part may lead the PCs here. As such, it can be used independently of the rest of the adventure, or integrated into the whole.
I ran it for my players as the continuation of the Mithral Mines, as the drow enclave wasn't in the proper tone for the session. It took about 90 minutes to go through the Tomb, so I expect the entire adventure to take 6 hours, if not slightly more.
The map for this area is actually marked as "Epic" for the DDM skirmish game, meaning that it's sized so that huge figures can move about it freely - no 10' gaps, they're all at least 15'. The map has a lot of tombs scattered around a great vault. The adventure notes that the vault has been robbed in the past, but the actual tomb of Queen Peregrine has been left untouched.
This part of the adventure mainly revolves about killing undead and looting tombs; wonderful occupations for adventurers! There's a couple of traps, and a really nasty surprise for the players when they open the tomb of the Queen - well, as their DM, I found it really fun. There's a lovely touch where there is also a memorial for all the familiars that served a particular house.
When I ran it, there were two big fights and one smaller fight. The PCs and their opponents didn't move that much around the map - the undead here aren't that smart, and rely mainly on melee in any case.
The Queen, apart from her treasure, also was buried with her journals. A section on "Further Adventures" provides ideas for using them to spark more adventures.
D&D Miniatures Notes
The final page of the booklet is devoted to explaining how to use the maps in DDM skirmishes. They also have three new skirmish scenarios based on the maps. All good here.
Merric's Conclusions
Although Fane of the Drow can be played as it is, I think that such may become tedious for the PCs and DM if that is done. Without a doubt, the big combats dominate the other elements of the adventure. From my experiences, the maps and suggested tactics really add to the game, but you need more variety.
This is not to say that the designers haven't included this variety in the encounters, for that's certainly there. However, the limitations of only 14 pages for the adventure, as well as the map space, means that they're not as prominent as I think is needed. There are certainly good suggestions for expanding the adventure; I strongly suggest that they are used.
Of course, if you have a group that delights in combat, few modifications are needed!
Fane uses enough references to the old D3 adventure to make placing it in the World of Greyhawk extremely easy. I doubt that there would be much problem with adapting it to the Forgotten Realms either. Eberron is another matter; the drow serve a different purpose there, and so you might need to do some modifications here of who the enemy actually is.
I would have liked it more if the adventure had spent some time detailing other areas not related to the battlemaps, and had a regular scale map as well; however, it works well enough as it is.
For role-players, I'm going to rate this a solid 3.5/5. The rating would significantly increase if you also play the DDM skirmish game, as the maps add greatly to that game.
This is probably the product I've most been looking forward to over the past six months, because it represents a new direction for Wizards. D&D has often been played with miniatures over its 30 year history, but the integration of the two has never been more explicit than in the past few months.
As many of you would know, I've run one of the main fan news sites for the D&D Miniatures game, and I also moderate the primary trading boards (maxminis.com). I'm also an active D&D DM, so I am interested in both uses of this product: the RPG and the DDM Skirmish.
The adventure, such as it is, within Fane of the Drow is split into four sections, each corresponding with one of the maps. I'll cover each in the order that it is suggested that they be approached, although there is nothing stopping you using them "out of order" in the RPG.
For the most part, each map represents one big "set piece" battle. There isn't that much of exploring the maps and finding lots of smaller battles, although that isn't entirely absent. I have run two parts of the adventure so far, the Mithral Mines and the Tomb of Queen Peregrine, and I'll describe my experiences below.
Physical Appearance
The cover has small keyed colour reproductions of all four maps on the inside surface. Markings indicate special features and monster starting locations.
The booklet is black & white, stapled together. There's a very nice watermark based on a compass rose on each page. I think it's worth emphasizing how attractive I find the booklet.
The cover art is by Marc Sasso, the interior art is by Chad Sergesketter. I find the artwork competent and quite attractive.
The actual full maps are very well done; the cartographer, Jason Engle, has done a wonderful job of creating them.
The booklet, unlike that of Sons of Gruumsh is not stapled to the cover.
Credits
Design: Gwendolyn F.M. Kestrel
Additional Design: Rob Heinsoo - no doubt for the DDM elements.
Development Team: Jesse Decker, Mike Donais, Stephen Schubert
Cartographer: Jason Engle
Cover Art: Marc Sasso
Interior Art: Chad Sergesketter
As with Sons of Gruumsh, there is no actual editor listed, although Kim Mohan is listed as the Editing Manager. The credits take up the first page of the 16-page booklet.
Introduction
The first page and a bit describes the product and suggests ways of using it in your campaign. A sidebar, "Reusing the Maps", suggests that the PCs could revisit the Fane at a later time against higher-level foes, and that the Mithral Mines map could be used to represent other underground complexes.
This may seem obvious to you and me, but it's well worth remembering that many people who play D&D are just starting out. So, I'm glad to see it here. There's also a note that we should check the Wizards website, RPGA adventures and the pages of Dungeon Magazine for variant encounters using the maps. That's interesting.
The DDM skirmish game uses special markings on the maps, and some of them have relevance in the RPG. This is covered in this section. The terrain types are Difficult, Risky (25% chance of 2d6 damage when entering) and Sacred Circles (+2 attack and magic damage).
The Adventure Background is simple: a dwarven fortress has suffered raids from drow. The dwarves enlist the aid of adventures to rid themselves of the drow, and to regain access to the mithral mines.
Three adventure hooks are listed. The first is the one I just listed. The second involves the PCs stumbling upon the drow enclave when travelling through the underdark (shades of Descent into the Depths of the Earth, here), and the third involves rescuing a friend of the PCs that has been captured by the drow. There are also brief notes on how using each hook will change the adventure.
1. Mithral Mines
The Mithral Mines battlemap a selection of intersecting tunnels, mostly between 10' and 20' wide. Interesting features on the map include a sacred circle, much rubble and discarded mining equipment, and a small office. This section of the adventure runs for 2.5 pages.
When the PCs enter the map (from a tunnel at one corner), they will quickly become aware of a group of twelve goblins inhabiting the mines. The goblins are part of the "Bloodweb" tribe and are servants of the drow. There's no doubt what the adventure expects (and what happened with my players!), there's a fight.
Ten of the goblins are out of the Monster Manual. One is a 3rd level cleric, and the leader is a 3rd level fighter. A long paragraph gives the suggested tactics of the group, and it's interesting to note that there are also suggested names for the goblins - just in case a combat doesn't happen, or to allow the DM to personify the goblins as they chatter to each other in combat. As one might expect, the main tactics of the goblins is to spread out, throw javelins, and keep away from the PCs.
It's worth noting the CR of the leaders have been modified downwards for "low gear and poor physical statistics. This represents an important development on Wizards' part of no longer going by the strict formulas for CRs. I'm glad to see this. The stat blocks are in the new format, and extremely clear.
Once half the goblins are dead, the fight gets more interesting with the arrival of six duergar - they hate the goblins, and they hate the PCs. Yes, they end up fighting both.
When I ran this battle, the PCs spent quite a bit of time moving around the tunnels, chasing goblins and manuevering to best effect. The arrival of the duergar was a big surprise and caught the wizard and psion in the party out of position - and thus vulnerable. The net result was a combat that was a lot more fluid than many I run, where the PCs tend to bunch together and just engage the foes in melee.
Four more areas of interest are marked on the map, and can be explored by the PCs once the battle is dealt with. Two of these areas are of special interest: a broken teleportation circle, and the overseer's office, which has some hidden notes from the drow who built the circle, explaining its purpose. This is a hook for the DM if he or she wants to create further adventures, and welcome it is as well!
So, those are the Mithral Mines. There's a note that if you want to expand the adventure, you can have another encounter in the Underdark, perhaps with kobold miners, dire bats, a dark creeper, or a burrowing ankheg. (And, yes, all those figures are in the upcoming DDM expansion, Underdark).
It took about 90 minutes for my players to finish the combats and fully explore the mines. The overseer's notes and the teleportation circle definitely intrigued them. This section is marked as "EL 6", and that seems pretty accurate.
2. Drow Enclave
The Drow Enclave and the Fane of Lolth (the next part) are part of the same complex; they are the two main encounter areas for the enclave of Til'Asperna. The adventure suggests that you can expand the enclave around the locations given here, and I think that may be a wise decision - these sections of adventure are mainly large set-piece combats, and as DM I want some sort of breather between them.
An additional purpose is related for the enclave in the text: "In addition to the imediate benefit of providing a short adventure centered around a series of interesting combat encounters, the drow enclave of Til'Asperna provides an intriguing link to the mystories and machinations of the Underdark."
In a very nice touch, the text mentions Erelhei-Cinlu, a name with deep resonances in D&D lore.
The details of getting into the enclave are explained in a sidebar: Guile, Stealth and a Frontal Attack being the mentioned methods. The drow guards are described as being complacent - I guess the Underdark isn't that tough!
Obviously, once the door is breached (by whatever manner), the 6 drow guards must be dealt with. Tactical notes in the text explain what course the drow follow - alerting the leader of the enclave (the wizard Amandrucul), engaging in a fighting withdrawal, and so forth.
Two errors in the text bear mentioning: there's a page xx reference, and it states that a guard heads to area 13 to alert the wizard - who is actually in area 12.
There are full stat blocks for Amandrucul (drow Wizard 4), the four Spiders of Lolth, and the Draegloth that also lives in this area. The drow guards and the 2 giant spiders have a Monster Manual reference. As with all the opponents in this adventure, a DDM miniature is suggested to represent each one.
I'm not quite sure if the combat will become one extended melee, or if the Draegloth and the wizard will be encountered separately. To a large extent, this depends on the tactics of the party. The map is more traditional for rpgs, with more doors and enclosed areas than present on the other three maps.
The dominant feature of the map is the summoning circle that is placed in a large area in the centre of the map. It is to here that the drow guards will withdraw and face the intruders. In a lovely "trick", the summoning circle causes any summon monster spells to instead summon Spiders of Lolth that then aid the drow. It's little features like this that add interest to the game, and I like seeing this here.
After the opponents have been defeated - whether in one long melee or in several independent fights - the first part of the enclave can be explored further. The interesting areas include the wizard's laboratory, which has various notes that have value, a spider pen, an egg chamber for the giant spiders (icky!), and a torture chamber. The descriptions of these areas are fairly evocative, although only the wizard's laboratory provides for real interest: the notes do allow the opportunity for further expansion of the scenario.
I will note that although the entire "Mithral Mines" section is noted as EL 6, the individual rooms have EL descriptions here. (EL 6; EL 6; EL 4; EL 4; EL 5). The adventure is written for four 4th level PCs... this may be rather tricky, and they may need to withdraw when facing the challenges.
3. Fane of Lolth
Well, based on my descriptions of the previous two parts of this adventure, you should have a pretty good idea of what is in this part: namely, a big combat, a few areas with items of interest to explore, and a couple of hooks to expand. That's pretty much it.
What's really good about it include some of the tricks (blood rock and a spider trap), and some of the items of interest. The two drow clerics here don't like each other, and one will surrender to the PCs, thus giving a chance for her manipulations to continue. Well, assuming she wasn't obliterated on sight. The lead cleric has also stolen the seal of House Aleval (and that name also dates back to D3: Vault of the Drow), and so this provides more hooks.
Once again, the CR of one of the priestesses is reduced from its default value - this is due to her having devoted a couple of her highest level spells to non-combat uses, and the tactics of the drow include a lot of falling back and leading the PCs into an area where the drow can fight from a position of strength.
Areas of note are the sacrificial altar, the main temple, and the prison - where there are two NPCs the PCs can rescue.
This ends the main part of the adventure, such as it is. There are hints that there are powers in the fane that these relatively weak priestesses have not discovered, and so this begs for expansion in a later adventure when a really powerful drow priestess might reclaim the enclave. This is noted in a "Further Adventures" section.
4. Tomb of Queen Peregrine
This section (3.5 pages) is not part of the main adventure, although the notes of the drow wizard in the second part may lead the PCs here. As such, it can be used independently of the rest of the adventure, or integrated into the whole.
I ran it for my players as the continuation of the Mithral Mines, as the drow enclave wasn't in the proper tone for the session. It took about 90 minutes to go through the Tomb, so I expect the entire adventure to take 6 hours, if not slightly more.
The map for this area is actually marked as "Epic" for the DDM skirmish game, meaning that it's sized so that huge figures can move about it freely - no 10' gaps, they're all at least 15'. The map has a lot of tombs scattered around a great vault. The adventure notes that the vault has been robbed in the past, but the actual tomb of Queen Peregrine has been left untouched.
This part of the adventure mainly revolves about killing undead and looting tombs; wonderful occupations for adventurers! There's a couple of traps, and a really nasty surprise for the players when they open the tomb of the Queen - well, as their DM, I found it really fun. There's a lovely touch where there is also a memorial for all the familiars that served a particular house.
When I ran it, there were two big fights and one smaller fight. The PCs and their opponents didn't move that much around the map - the undead here aren't that smart, and rely mainly on melee in any case.
The Queen, apart from her treasure, also was buried with her journals. A section on "Further Adventures" provides ideas for using them to spark more adventures.
D&D Miniatures Notes
The final page of the booklet is devoted to explaining how to use the maps in DDM skirmishes. They also have three new skirmish scenarios based on the maps. All good here.
Merric's Conclusions
Although Fane of the Drow can be played as it is, I think that such may become tedious for the PCs and DM if that is done. Without a doubt, the big combats dominate the other elements of the adventure. From my experiences, the maps and suggested tactics really add to the game, but you need more variety.
This is not to say that the designers haven't included this variety in the encounters, for that's certainly there. However, the limitations of only 14 pages for the adventure, as well as the map space, means that they're not as prominent as I think is needed. There are certainly good suggestions for expanding the adventure; I strongly suggest that they are used.
Of course, if you have a group that delights in combat, few modifications are needed!
Fane uses enough references to the old D3 adventure to make placing it in the World of Greyhawk extremely easy. I doubt that there would be much problem with adapting it to the Forgotten Realms either. Eberron is another matter; the drow serve a different purpose there, and so you might need to do some modifications here of who the enemy actually is.
I would have liked it more if the adventure had spent some time detailing other areas not related to the battlemaps, and had a regular scale map as well; however, it works well enough as it is.
For role-players, I'm going to rate this a solid 3.5/5. The rating would significantly increase if you also play the DDM skirmish game, as the maps add greatly to that game.
JoeGKushner
First Post
The first in a new series of adventurers
Fane Of the Drow
Written by Gwendolyn F.M. Kestrel
Battle Map Art by Jason Engle
Published by Wizards of the Coast
www.wizards.com/dnd
ISBN: 0-7869-3847-1
$14.95
Fane of the Drow is a new type of product, the first in the series “Fantastic Locations”. It has two double-sided battle maps scaled for standard D&D play that can also be used with the miniature game. It also comes with an encounter booklet that’s 16 pages in length.
I’ve run through two of the four maps thus far using my Shackled City group as playtesters. My play is not going to be the same as others because I don’t do everything by the RAW. For instance, I use action points, saving throw versus Fortitude to avoid dying, and allow a lot of third party material into my game like one of my player’s who is player a Ritual Warrior from Arcana Evolved.
Having said that, our journey through the two maps took about three hours so all together, it looks like this would be a six hour adventure pack.
Below are the spoilers so reader beware:
First, as a GM, I know I’m time pressed. Running the Shackled City makes things a lot easier and it has several places where I can add other touches. For example, in the Malachite Fortress, there is an area (M8) marked “To Underdark”. That makes a perfect setup for Fane right there and I had the party encounter some dwarves who were on guard duty that dealt indirectly with the former ruler of the Fortress. Easy enough set up right? It even kind of follows one of the adventure seeds that’s mentioned.
In terms of those adventure seeds, they’re weak. For example, the dwarves that can offer the party work, aren’t given any names. Now if they named the Fortress that the dwarves came from, Stonehelm, they could’ve provided a few names for the dwarves too. In addition, since the dwarves are offering the party help, there should be some notes on what type of payment the dwarves are offering and if the GM then needs to remove treasure from other parts of the adventure.
Not a deal breaker or anything as the party hadn’t completely finished cleaning out the Malachite Fortress and left some humans below who these Stonehelm dwarves saved and would exchange for return to the surface, the dwarfs didn’t want the now freed humans being killed in the Underdark. The other options are having the PC’s travel through the Underdark and come across the encounter, or have one of their friends kidnapped and they have to go find them.
The encounters are labeled to match the numbers on the map. These maps are reproduced on the inside of the cover with circular notes indicating what’s there in a sidebar. For example, looking at the Fane of Lolth, K is for Kaerllara while D is for drow warrior.
The maps are of a good size and can withstand some abuse. I’m not gentle on these things as I’m not playing at my house and have to fold them up and fold them back after the game. The details on the maps are great, but the miniature notes are a tad annoying. Nothing to impact game play but are noticeable.
The game stats need some work. For example, one of the goblins has a greataxe that does 1d8+1 damage. The greataxe as a small weapon does 1d10 points of damage. There are other bits that are wrong, like a few of the drows’ CR being adjusted upwards by two instead of one for his class level. If that’s changed in the errata, that’s my bad, but my Monster Manual has level + 1 for CR. Some of the decisions on adjusting CR down, I don’t agree with. For example, the goblin leader and his shaman, are noted to have poor equipment and statistics, but have masterwork weapons and armor, as well as potions and the shaman’s poor statistics don’t really effect his abilities. It’d be like a mage having a low strength and charisma.
If Shackled City is written by the RAW, and my party is the average, at 4th level before heading off into the second part, they have no magic weapons and most of them don’t even have masterwork armor or weapons, saving their money instead for magic items.
Not a big deal again, but it’s hard for me to fault other game companies not getting game mechanics right when the creator of them employees people who can’t do it right either.
The encounters tend to be a few skirmish style events with one big bad per map. Depending on the party’s tactics and abilities, they may either walk through some of the events or have a big fight on their hands. For example, in my game, the party came across Amandrucul, a 4th level drow wizard who already had mirror image prepared on himself. One party member got lucky in terms of striking the real foe, then the next party member used cleave, after cutting through an image, and finished the wizard off. So yeah, he lasted all of two hits. Then again, not every party will have characters using greatswords or bastard swords with the skirmish ability from being a scout so events may vary.
Another minor annoyance comes in the suggested miniatures. I think it would be fair to say that calling for a user to have figures from the Harbringer set or the other earlier sets that are not available isn’t too bad. It’s not exactly great etiquette or anything as those sets are no longer produced and even a good hobby store like Games Plus doesn’t have them anymore.
What’s more annoying are the numerous references for figures that are in the Underdark set. A set that’s not even out yet.
Hopefully some wise web vendor or retail shop will take this opportunity to collect the suggested figures and put them in a special package for a modest price and give us something like Piazo was trying to do with their d20 encounter line and lead figures but without the bother of painting them or without the madness of trying to “catch them all”.
One of my biggest annoyances, is the way the text is written. It’s written to describe the room as is and not mention the monsters at all. Now that’s the standard policy, but it seems odd. “Yes, it’s a beautiful room with a vast arching overhead ceiling and a troll that’s eating your face!” Not a big deal. What’s worse though, is putting creatures in the book that have no physical description at all. It’s one thing to go, “Refer to the Monster Manual” for standard stats on drow and goblins. No problem with that at all. When putting a creature like a draegloth in there, with no references and no physical description, what do you do? I winged it and the party didn’t mind because they didn’t know what it was in the first place.
Now I know these are a lot of annoyances. The important part though, is the visuals and the fun. Normally I use Tact-Tiles. They work great. These maps are a nice change of pace. The full colored illustrations, the mini-adventure, and the overall utility, some odd six hours of game play, are well worth the price. Another benefit is that the adventurers don’t have to be run together. The GM could run them in separate bits and if he’s willing to make changes, can change the encounters to suit different party members. The fact that it comes with some guidelines on using the D&D miniatures with it, taking a page to do so, is just icing on the cake for those who enjoy the D&D miniatures game.
I’m hoping that things like no-descriptions of monsters not covered in the core books, bad game stats, and references to miniatures not in product yet, will be a stumbling block in this, the first of a series.
As for me? My party will continue to adventure through the Fane of Lolth before heading back to the Shackled City.
Fane Of the Drow
Written by Gwendolyn F.M. Kestrel
Battle Map Art by Jason Engle
Published by Wizards of the Coast
www.wizards.com/dnd
ISBN: 0-7869-3847-1
$14.95
Fane of the Drow is a new type of product, the first in the series “Fantastic Locations”. It has two double-sided battle maps scaled for standard D&D play that can also be used with the miniature game. It also comes with an encounter booklet that’s 16 pages in length.
I’ve run through two of the four maps thus far using my Shackled City group as playtesters. My play is not going to be the same as others because I don’t do everything by the RAW. For instance, I use action points, saving throw versus Fortitude to avoid dying, and allow a lot of third party material into my game like one of my player’s who is player a Ritual Warrior from Arcana Evolved.
Having said that, our journey through the two maps took about three hours so all together, it looks like this would be a six hour adventure pack.
Below are the spoilers so reader beware:
First, as a GM, I know I’m time pressed. Running the Shackled City makes things a lot easier and it has several places where I can add other touches. For example, in the Malachite Fortress, there is an area (M8) marked “To Underdark”. That makes a perfect setup for Fane right there and I had the party encounter some dwarves who were on guard duty that dealt indirectly with the former ruler of the Fortress. Easy enough set up right? It even kind of follows one of the adventure seeds that’s mentioned.
In terms of those adventure seeds, they’re weak. For example, the dwarves that can offer the party work, aren’t given any names. Now if they named the Fortress that the dwarves came from, Stonehelm, they could’ve provided a few names for the dwarves too. In addition, since the dwarves are offering the party help, there should be some notes on what type of payment the dwarves are offering and if the GM then needs to remove treasure from other parts of the adventure.
Not a deal breaker or anything as the party hadn’t completely finished cleaning out the Malachite Fortress and left some humans below who these Stonehelm dwarves saved and would exchange for return to the surface, the dwarfs didn’t want the now freed humans being killed in the Underdark. The other options are having the PC’s travel through the Underdark and come across the encounter, or have one of their friends kidnapped and they have to go find them.
The encounters are labeled to match the numbers on the map. These maps are reproduced on the inside of the cover with circular notes indicating what’s there in a sidebar. For example, looking at the Fane of Lolth, K is for Kaerllara while D is for drow warrior.
The maps are of a good size and can withstand some abuse. I’m not gentle on these things as I’m not playing at my house and have to fold them up and fold them back after the game. The details on the maps are great, but the miniature notes are a tad annoying. Nothing to impact game play but are noticeable.
The game stats need some work. For example, one of the goblins has a greataxe that does 1d8+1 damage. The greataxe as a small weapon does 1d10 points of damage. There are other bits that are wrong, like a few of the drows’ CR being adjusted upwards by two instead of one for his class level. If that’s changed in the errata, that’s my bad, but my Monster Manual has level + 1 for CR. Some of the decisions on adjusting CR down, I don’t agree with. For example, the goblin leader and his shaman, are noted to have poor equipment and statistics, but have masterwork weapons and armor, as well as potions and the shaman’s poor statistics don’t really effect his abilities. It’d be like a mage having a low strength and charisma.
If Shackled City is written by the RAW, and my party is the average, at 4th level before heading off into the second part, they have no magic weapons and most of them don’t even have masterwork armor or weapons, saving their money instead for magic items.
Not a big deal again, but it’s hard for me to fault other game companies not getting game mechanics right when the creator of them employees people who can’t do it right either.
The encounters tend to be a few skirmish style events with one big bad per map. Depending on the party’s tactics and abilities, they may either walk through some of the events or have a big fight on their hands. For example, in my game, the party came across Amandrucul, a 4th level drow wizard who already had mirror image prepared on himself. One party member got lucky in terms of striking the real foe, then the next party member used cleave, after cutting through an image, and finished the wizard off. So yeah, he lasted all of two hits. Then again, not every party will have characters using greatswords or bastard swords with the skirmish ability from being a scout so events may vary.
Another minor annoyance comes in the suggested miniatures. I think it would be fair to say that calling for a user to have figures from the Harbringer set or the other earlier sets that are not available isn’t too bad. It’s not exactly great etiquette or anything as those sets are no longer produced and even a good hobby store like Games Plus doesn’t have them anymore.
What’s more annoying are the numerous references for figures that are in the Underdark set. A set that’s not even out yet.
Hopefully some wise web vendor or retail shop will take this opportunity to collect the suggested figures and put them in a special package for a modest price and give us something like Piazo was trying to do with their d20 encounter line and lead figures but without the bother of painting them or without the madness of trying to “catch them all”.
One of my biggest annoyances, is the way the text is written. It’s written to describe the room as is and not mention the monsters at all. Now that’s the standard policy, but it seems odd. “Yes, it’s a beautiful room with a vast arching overhead ceiling and a troll that’s eating your face!” Not a big deal. What’s worse though, is putting creatures in the book that have no physical description at all. It’s one thing to go, “Refer to the Monster Manual” for standard stats on drow and goblins. No problem with that at all. When putting a creature like a draegloth in there, with no references and no physical description, what do you do? I winged it and the party didn’t mind because they didn’t know what it was in the first place.
Now I know these are a lot of annoyances. The important part though, is the visuals and the fun. Normally I use Tact-Tiles. They work great. These maps are a nice change of pace. The full colored illustrations, the mini-adventure, and the overall utility, some odd six hours of game play, are well worth the price. Another benefit is that the adventurers don’t have to be run together. The GM could run them in separate bits and if he’s willing to make changes, can change the encounters to suit different party members. The fact that it comes with some guidelines on using the D&D miniatures with it, taking a page to do so, is just icing on the cake for those who enjoy the D&D miniatures game.
I’m hoping that things like no-descriptions of monsters not covered in the core books, bad game stats, and references to miniatures not in product yet, will be a stumbling block in this, the first of a series.
As for me? My party will continue to adventure through the Fane of Lolth before heading back to the Shackled City.
StormCrow42
Explorer
I'm not sure if your treasure distribution has been too sparse or your characters have strange purchasing habits, but you're way off what 4th level characters should have. Table 5-1 in the DMG (page 135) lists the wealth level of a 4th level character at 5400 gp. That's practically enough money for both a +1 weapon (~2300+) and +1 armor (~1150+), although some characters might bypass those for other magic items. In any event, even the 4th level NPCs (at least the combat oriented ones) have masterwork weapons by the tables in the DMG and they have over 2000 gp less to spend. I hardly think that expecting the PCs to have some magic (or properly equiping leveled NPCs, if that's your gripe) is getting the mechanics wrong.
JoeGKushner
First Post
Just telling ya how it played out. Either the Shackled City is way too low on items/gold, or the fact that I have five players, instead of four, is really playing havoc with their funds.
The mage on the other hand though, has been spending his loot left and right.
On another note, I did finish the adventure with my group this week (Tuesday, November 1st 2005) and it went pretty well. the ritual warrior has a special combat rite he can use to make his weapon have the magic property and he whipped the ghost in the adventure pretty well making almost every % chance to effect her. Still, she did do some nice strength damage to him in the meantime!
The mage on the other hand though, has been spending his loot left and right.
On another note, I did finish the adventure with my group this week (Tuesday, November 1st 2005) and it went pretty well. the ritual warrior has a special combat rite he can use to make his weapon have the magic property and he whipped the ghost in the adventure pretty well making almost every % chance to effect her. Still, she did do some nice strength damage to him in the meantime!
