coyote6
Adventurer
I was lucky enough to get a copy of this adventure, and (slightly cold-delayed) here is the promised review:
SPOILERS! Don't read if you might play in it.
Deathright is an adventure for 8-9th level characters, produced by Kenzer & Co. and set in their Kalamar setting. The adventure & appendices (containing maps, crunchy rules bits, etc.) take up 64 pages, with an additional 16 pages devoted to illustrations of key scenes and characters for the GM to show players at the appropriate time (more on this later). It retails for $15.99 (US; $23.99 Canadian). Note that this review is based on a read-through and examination, and not on actual play. (If I waited 'til we played through it, I'd probably forget to post a review.
)
Let Me Sum Up:
Followers of an evil god are looking for the fabled Darklight Codex, your basic vile tome of dark magic. In their search, they've awakened the last owner - a powerful lich queen that once ruled the area. Now children are being kidnapped, a deadly plague is stalking the area, the dead are rising, and property values are plummeting. As they so often do, the PCs will wander into this mess, and - whether out of benevolence, greed, or pure survival instinct - have to deal with it and find answers to the mysteries. Along the way, they'll have plenty of opportunities for both roleplaying, hacking & slashing, or a combination of both, which makes the adventure useful for a wide array of play styles. The adventure includes two prestige classes, a new artifact-level magic item, two new monsters, and a new sorcerer/wizard spell.
The Good:
The authors (Robert J. King and Mark Plemmons) present a plethora of information - the backstory of lich queen, the Darklight Codex, the factions involved, NPC histories & motivations (both directly related to the adventure at hand, and tangential), the area, timeline of some key events, and more. All of this info should allow the GM to run the adventure in whatever manner best suits their PC group. The authors also give a plot, which should serve many groups admirably (it would work for mine).
King & Plemmons have also included plenty of well-organized flavor - useful excerpts from history books, local history & information, plenty of rumors (true, false, and some of both), random encounter tables (one using a d10,000!), a glossary of individuals & locations for reference, recommendations for astronomical events and weather during the adventure (of course, using the latter requires that the GM get the party to the area at the right time of year, which might take some finangling), even a card trick for the GM to learn & use with the players when a particular NPC does the same with the PCs.
Of particular note is the "Image Quest ™" section - sixteen pages of illustrations of locales & characters from the adventure, for the GM to show to the players, reminiscent of some classic TSR adventures (e.g., Barrier Peaks, Tomb of Horrors, if memory serves). The art, by Allen Ditzig, is all fine (IMO; note that I may not be terribly discriminating when it comes to art - I liked the 3e MM's art just fine, for example). I especially like #15, a sort of undead round table.
Even the minor NPCs are delightfully colorful, with quirks that are sure to send more than one party chasing after crimson fish.
The dungeon is logical, and seems well thought out. Many of the encounters seem a bit low, EL-wise (there are also a few where the listed ELs seem off, too high), but there are some tough ones. The final battle, especially, is likely to be quite tough; fortunately, though, it's quite possible for smart PCs to roleplay their way out of trouble.
The Not-So Good:
The adventure itself is solid, but some of the game mechanical stuff is a bit off.
In the adventure itself, there are few arbitrary percentages assigned to things (e.g., there's a 75% chance PCs can talk villagers out of forming an Angry Mob of Villagers, or monsters spotting PCs first), when regular d20 System checks could be used just as well (e.g., a DC given for Diplomacy, Intimidation, or the like, for attempts to defuse the angry villagers). It's especially puzzling, since other things are given DCs for skill or ability checks, rather than arbitrary percentages. Additionally, some DCs (Knowledge (religion) checks are what I noticed mostly) seem rather high - 30-50, to recognize symbols of deities (which are presumably not secret info that no low-level character could know. Finally, there are a couple of instances where the text calls for a Search check when a Spot check seems more appropriate (e.g., noticing lurking stirges).
Moving to the stat blocks, the lich queen is listed as "Wiz11/Nob6" - "Nob" is presumably an abbreviation for "Noble", and refers to the Aristocrat NPC class from the DMG (apparently, the Aristocrat class was originally called Noble; several early WotC products list Nob or "Noble" rather than Ari or Aristocrat). If it isn't supposed to be the Aristocrat class, I'm not sure what it is - no other info is given. That's a nitpick, though; somewhat more annoying is the fact that her HD are given as 11d12+11+6d8+6 - she's a lich, all her HD should be d12, and her Con is -- (this is correctly given, too), so she shouldn't be getting any extra hp. Her HD should simply be 11d12. Her given CR (16) isn't what you'd get from a strict application of the rules (a Wiz11/Ari6 lich should be 18, I think), but it's actually probably more accurate. Six levels of aristocrat don't make her that much more of a threat. (Strangely, the encounter with her is listed as EL11; perhaps the authors were taking into account her rather unstable mental state.) She also wears a ring of protection, the effects of which aren't reflected in her stats.
I'm also not fond of what happens should she happen to kill herself; the mass destruction is a bit over-the-top. It seems like it would be way too easy to kill off an entire party of PCs, without them having done much more than not fleeing at top speed from an event they have no advance warning of anyways. That's a matter of taste, though; I imagine plenty of people will like the expanding sphere of destruction.
I noticed a few other oddities & errors in stat blocks, mostly having to do with undead creatures with other than d12 HD and/or bonus hp from no discernible source (no Con score, no Toughness feats).
However, stat block problems aren't huge; annoying, but fairly easy to fix. The prestige classes, OTOH, are more problematic.
The first class, the darklight wizard, has a number of problems IMO: First, there's no HD listed for the class. Secondly, there is an absolutely bizarre effect upon entering the class: you lose all previous levels & can never multiclass, yet somehow keep skill ranks, feats, and attribute increases you previously had. There are implications of this that aren't addressed - for example, what are the maximum ranks of a former Wiz14 that becomes a Darklight Wizard 1? Are they 4, 17, 18, or what? Can the newly changed character raise a formerly maxed-out Spellcraft skill? How many XP does a new Darklight Wizard 1 need to get to get to next level? Further, the prestige class is only 10 levels long. With the no multiclassing restriction, a character could very easily get to 10th level - then what happens when they get earn 10,000 more XP? The class doesn't go to 11, and the character can't multiclass! Is he stuck at 10 forever?
The class itself is very powerful; over its ten levels, it gets a number of powerful abilities, some of which I have questions about (Dark Lightning: does it take a ranged touch attack to hit with the black bolt? Is black bolt a spell from somewhere? The italics seem to indicate it is). However, that's hardly a problem unique to this class (*koff*S&F*koff*). The class also gets their own spell list, and a unique spell progression (ranging from 1st to 8th level spells, though the list of spells at each level are rather short). It's not clear what ability darklight wizards' spellcasting is dependent upon; Int is my guess, but it's not stated. Nor is it stated whether darklight wizards require spellbooks, or whether they automatically know all the spells on their spell lists or not. It's not even stated that they cast arcane spells (and thus have to worry about spell failure for armor, etc.) rather than divine spells.
The flavor of the class - someone corrupted & transformed by reading the Darklight Codex - is great, especially for NPC villains. Given the NPC-centric nature of the class, I think the powerful abilities are okay. However, the implementation is not, IMHO, very good. The whole "lose all your abilities" thing doesn't work for me at all. I suspect that this might make a better template than prestige class, actually.
The second prestige class, the Order of the Kalenal Gali, is much better, mechanics-wise. It also possesses many powerful abilities, some of which concern me, both in terms of power and mechanics. For instance, Death's Embrace allows a member of the order to make a corpse impossible to animate or create as an undead creature. However, it also allows the character to make a touch attack against undead; said touch attack has a 25% chance of destroying the undead creature touched. No save, just a flat 25% chance of instant destruction. I don't like that mechanic; it ought not to have the "maybe it'll work, but probably not" feature, and instead should just require Will save or the like. There are other powers (invisibility to undead & light at will, remove disease, healing circle, & restoration 1 or more times per day) that, when added to their spells per day (note that the controlling ability for their spellcasting isn't specified; I'd surmise they're Wis-based divine casters, but that is really just a guess), make the class seem fairly powerful. I do note that the +8 BAB requirement means that the earliest anyone could take the class would be 9th level.
Members of the class also have to take a rather suicidal oath (for instance, members are required to attack undead instantly unless that would be disobeying a superior or putting an innocent in danger; they can't retreat unless they're outnumbered more than 3 to 1. Combined, this means a powerful undead creature can easily goad members into foolishly suicidal attacks). However, while breaking the rules might result in expulsion, it's not clear if violations would have any effect on the character's powers.
The class is much better implemented than the darklight wizard. I'd be a bit leery about the power level, if a PC were taking the class; but the restrictions seem to indicate that it's intended for those occasionally helpful fanatic NPCs that PCs meet from time to time. All-in-all, it's not bad, IMO.
The oddest thing, by far, about these prestige classes is this: they don't factor into the adventure at all! No living character has either; there are some ghosts that conceptually might be members of the Order, but their HD indicate that they weren't high enough level to meet the entrance requirements. The Darklight Codex is present, and entrance to the darklight wizard class requires reading it - but managing to read it is very difficult (an Int 20 character has only a 2.7% chance of succeeding, with each attempt taking 1-3 months of total effort). But for the adventure at hand, the classes are largely irrelevant.
However these are largely nitpicks, or (in the case of the prestige classes) don't affect the adventure at all. The meat of the adventure was interesting enough to me to overlook the problems (despite how many words it took for me to talk about 'em).
The Conclusion:
If I had a campaign in Kalamar, I'd definitely use this adventure. I may just adapt it to work in one of the settings I am currently using; if not, I'll save it for the day when I do use Kalamar. The "crunchy bits" are a tad disappointing, but the adventure is strong enough that they aren't even necessary. It is perhaps a bit expensive, at $16 - but given the solid 64 pages of adventure and the 16 pages of art, I think it's worth at least a good solid look, especially for Kalamar GMs.
PS: Noah, sorry it took so long - I caught a cold, and have been hacking my lungs up the past couple of days. :-/ If I have time, I'll see about figuring out how to post this in Morrus's review database, too.
SPOILERS! Don't read if you might play in it.
Deathright is an adventure for 8-9th level characters, produced by Kenzer & Co. and set in their Kalamar setting. The adventure & appendices (containing maps, crunchy rules bits, etc.) take up 64 pages, with an additional 16 pages devoted to illustrations of key scenes and characters for the GM to show players at the appropriate time (more on this later). It retails for $15.99 (US; $23.99 Canadian). Note that this review is based on a read-through and examination, and not on actual play. (If I waited 'til we played through it, I'd probably forget to post a review.
)Let Me Sum Up:
Followers of an evil god are looking for the fabled Darklight Codex, your basic vile tome of dark magic. In their search, they've awakened the last owner - a powerful lich queen that once ruled the area. Now children are being kidnapped, a deadly plague is stalking the area, the dead are rising, and property values are plummeting. As they so often do, the PCs will wander into this mess, and - whether out of benevolence, greed, or pure survival instinct - have to deal with it and find answers to the mysteries. Along the way, they'll have plenty of opportunities for both roleplaying, hacking & slashing, or a combination of both, which makes the adventure useful for a wide array of play styles. The adventure includes two prestige classes, a new artifact-level magic item, two new monsters, and a new sorcerer/wizard spell.
The Good:
The authors (Robert J. King and Mark Plemmons) present a plethora of information - the backstory of lich queen, the Darklight Codex, the factions involved, NPC histories & motivations (both directly related to the adventure at hand, and tangential), the area, timeline of some key events, and more. All of this info should allow the GM to run the adventure in whatever manner best suits their PC group. The authors also give a plot, which should serve many groups admirably (it would work for mine).
King & Plemmons have also included plenty of well-organized flavor - useful excerpts from history books, local history & information, plenty of rumors (true, false, and some of both), random encounter tables (one using a d10,000!), a glossary of individuals & locations for reference, recommendations for astronomical events and weather during the adventure (of course, using the latter requires that the GM get the party to the area at the right time of year, which might take some finangling), even a card trick for the GM to learn & use with the players when a particular NPC does the same with the PCs.
Of particular note is the "Image Quest ™" section - sixteen pages of illustrations of locales & characters from the adventure, for the GM to show to the players, reminiscent of some classic TSR adventures (e.g., Barrier Peaks, Tomb of Horrors, if memory serves). The art, by Allen Ditzig, is all fine (IMO; note that I may not be terribly discriminating when it comes to art - I liked the 3e MM's art just fine, for example). I especially like #15, a sort of undead round table.
Even the minor NPCs are delightfully colorful, with quirks that are sure to send more than one party chasing after crimson fish.
The dungeon is logical, and seems well thought out. Many of the encounters seem a bit low, EL-wise (there are also a few where the listed ELs seem off, too high), but there are some tough ones. The final battle, especially, is likely to be quite tough; fortunately, though, it's quite possible for smart PCs to roleplay their way out of trouble.
The Not-So Good:
The adventure itself is solid, but some of the game mechanical stuff is a bit off.
In the adventure itself, there are few arbitrary percentages assigned to things (e.g., there's a 75% chance PCs can talk villagers out of forming an Angry Mob of Villagers, or monsters spotting PCs first), when regular d20 System checks could be used just as well (e.g., a DC given for Diplomacy, Intimidation, or the like, for attempts to defuse the angry villagers). It's especially puzzling, since other things are given DCs for skill or ability checks, rather than arbitrary percentages. Additionally, some DCs (Knowledge (religion) checks are what I noticed mostly) seem rather high - 30-50, to recognize symbols of deities (which are presumably not secret info that no low-level character could know. Finally, there are a couple of instances where the text calls for a Search check when a Spot check seems more appropriate (e.g., noticing lurking stirges).
Moving to the stat blocks, the lich queen is listed as "Wiz11/Nob6" - "Nob" is presumably an abbreviation for "Noble", and refers to the Aristocrat NPC class from the DMG (apparently, the Aristocrat class was originally called Noble; several early WotC products list Nob or "Noble" rather than Ari or Aristocrat). If it isn't supposed to be the Aristocrat class, I'm not sure what it is - no other info is given. That's a nitpick, though; somewhat more annoying is the fact that her HD are given as 11d12+11+6d8+6 - she's a lich, all her HD should be d12, and her Con is -- (this is correctly given, too), so she shouldn't be getting any extra hp. Her HD should simply be 11d12. Her given CR (16) isn't what you'd get from a strict application of the rules (a Wiz11/Ari6 lich should be 18, I think), but it's actually probably more accurate. Six levels of aristocrat don't make her that much more of a threat. (Strangely, the encounter with her is listed as EL11; perhaps the authors were taking into account her rather unstable mental state.) She also wears a ring of protection, the effects of which aren't reflected in her stats.
I'm also not fond of what happens should she happen to kill herself; the mass destruction is a bit over-the-top. It seems like it would be way too easy to kill off an entire party of PCs, without them having done much more than not fleeing at top speed from an event they have no advance warning of anyways. That's a matter of taste, though; I imagine plenty of people will like the expanding sphere of destruction.
I noticed a few other oddities & errors in stat blocks, mostly having to do with undead creatures with other than d12 HD and/or bonus hp from no discernible source (no Con score, no Toughness feats).
However, stat block problems aren't huge; annoying, but fairly easy to fix. The prestige classes, OTOH, are more problematic.
The first class, the darklight wizard, has a number of problems IMO: First, there's no HD listed for the class. Secondly, there is an absolutely bizarre effect upon entering the class: you lose all previous levels & can never multiclass, yet somehow keep skill ranks, feats, and attribute increases you previously had. There are implications of this that aren't addressed - for example, what are the maximum ranks of a former Wiz14 that becomes a Darklight Wizard 1? Are they 4, 17, 18, or what? Can the newly changed character raise a formerly maxed-out Spellcraft skill? How many XP does a new Darklight Wizard 1 need to get to get to next level? Further, the prestige class is only 10 levels long. With the no multiclassing restriction, a character could very easily get to 10th level - then what happens when they get earn 10,000 more XP? The class doesn't go to 11, and the character can't multiclass! Is he stuck at 10 forever?
The class itself is very powerful; over its ten levels, it gets a number of powerful abilities, some of which I have questions about (Dark Lightning: does it take a ranged touch attack to hit with the black bolt? Is black bolt a spell from somewhere? The italics seem to indicate it is). However, that's hardly a problem unique to this class (*koff*S&F*koff*). The class also gets their own spell list, and a unique spell progression (ranging from 1st to 8th level spells, though the list of spells at each level are rather short). It's not clear what ability darklight wizards' spellcasting is dependent upon; Int is my guess, but it's not stated. Nor is it stated whether darklight wizards require spellbooks, or whether they automatically know all the spells on their spell lists or not. It's not even stated that they cast arcane spells (and thus have to worry about spell failure for armor, etc.) rather than divine spells.
The flavor of the class - someone corrupted & transformed by reading the Darklight Codex - is great, especially for NPC villains. Given the NPC-centric nature of the class, I think the powerful abilities are okay. However, the implementation is not, IMHO, very good. The whole "lose all your abilities" thing doesn't work for me at all. I suspect that this might make a better template than prestige class, actually.
The second prestige class, the Order of the Kalenal Gali, is much better, mechanics-wise. It also possesses many powerful abilities, some of which concern me, both in terms of power and mechanics. For instance, Death's Embrace allows a member of the order to make a corpse impossible to animate or create as an undead creature. However, it also allows the character to make a touch attack against undead; said touch attack has a 25% chance of destroying the undead creature touched. No save, just a flat 25% chance of instant destruction. I don't like that mechanic; it ought not to have the "maybe it'll work, but probably not" feature, and instead should just require Will save or the like. There are other powers (invisibility to undead & light at will, remove disease, healing circle, & restoration 1 or more times per day) that, when added to their spells per day (note that the controlling ability for their spellcasting isn't specified; I'd surmise they're Wis-based divine casters, but that is really just a guess), make the class seem fairly powerful. I do note that the +8 BAB requirement means that the earliest anyone could take the class would be 9th level.
Members of the class also have to take a rather suicidal oath (for instance, members are required to attack undead instantly unless that would be disobeying a superior or putting an innocent in danger; they can't retreat unless they're outnumbered more than 3 to 1. Combined, this means a powerful undead creature can easily goad members into foolishly suicidal attacks). However, while breaking the rules might result in expulsion, it's not clear if violations would have any effect on the character's powers.
The class is much better implemented than the darklight wizard. I'd be a bit leery about the power level, if a PC were taking the class; but the restrictions seem to indicate that it's intended for those occasionally helpful fanatic NPCs that PCs meet from time to time. All-in-all, it's not bad, IMO.
The oddest thing, by far, about these prestige classes is this: they don't factor into the adventure at all! No living character has either; there are some ghosts that conceptually might be members of the Order, but their HD indicate that they weren't high enough level to meet the entrance requirements. The Darklight Codex is present, and entrance to the darklight wizard class requires reading it - but managing to read it is very difficult (an Int 20 character has only a 2.7% chance of succeeding, with each attempt taking 1-3 months of total effort). But for the adventure at hand, the classes are largely irrelevant.
However these are largely nitpicks, or (in the case of the prestige classes) don't affect the adventure at all. The meat of the adventure was interesting enough to me to overlook the problems (despite how many words it took for me to talk about 'em
). The Conclusion:
If I had a campaign in Kalamar, I'd definitely use this adventure. I may just adapt it to work in one of the settings I am currently using; if not, I'll save it for the day when I do use Kalamar. The "crunchy bits" are a tad disappointing, but the adventure is strong enough that they aren't even necessary. It is perhaps a bit expensive, at $16 - but given the solid 64 pages of adventure and the 16 pages of art, I think it's worth at least a good solid look, especially for Kalamar GMs.
PS: Noah, sorry it took so long - I caught a cold, and have been hacking my lungs up the past couple of days. :-/ If I have time, I'll see about figuring out how to post this in Morrus's review database, too.
