Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="JoeGKushner" data-source="post: 2011448" data-attributes="member: 1129">For me, it takes more than a dungeon in and of itself to be considered a classic adventure. After all, old 1st edition classics like White Plume Mountain, have grown to be more than their adventure. Why’s that? Well, in my opinion, it’s the material that surrounds the adventure. It gave us a skeletal dragon. It made a legend of the wizard. Now these things weren’t detailed in and of the adventure itself, just hinted at. It introduced new and unique magic items even as it used traps and monsters in new and interesting ways.Aerie of the Crow God gives me some of those same vibes. Unlike some Goodman Dungeon Crawl Classics, this one clocks in at 48 black and white pages and runs for $12.99. A better per page value than the 32 page books. It still uses the interior covers for the blue inked maps. Internal art moves a little beyond 1st edition feel. Although there isn’t much, it’s fairly better than some other pieces that look like they belong in the 80’s instead of the year 2004. The adventure starts simply enough. We get some background information on a tower built upon a landmark and how its history brings us to the present day. We get a NPC hook to throw the players in as noble heroes. Then, we get to the dungeon crawling.It starts off by messing with the character’s heads. One monster, featured prominently on the cover, looks like a traditional monster, but it’s not. To make matters worse, the characters have limited mobility. Add into this an enemy that can fly and knock you off your narrow stairs, and you have some dangerous encounters. While the italic text is easy enough to spot once you’ve read the whole thing, it would’ve been nice to see it either boxed or put in gray background to make it easier to identify for tournament play.The first part of the adventure past the stairs is a fairly simple cleaning of the tower. Now it’s a five level tower with a lookout tower and signal tower above it providing for numerous encounters. The trick though is that its not the tower where the entirety of the adventure takes place. Seems that at the very lowest level of the tower, there is a connection to a three level temple.Now for some of the things I like about the adventure. One, there are new monsters. Anytime the adventure gives you something to take out of it and move it into your own campaign, I’m convinced that’s a good thing. Next, it provides new items. Now the mundane items like the Duergar Axe-Hammer and the dark valerian herb are good for background ideas, but it’s the unique, non-magical items known as the Star Arms that take the cake.These items are intelligent members of a group of items but the group is individualistic. So not only do they prevent one player from hoarding them through their individual wills, but through their alignments and their ego scores. Each one has unique and distinct names and while I don’t see any becoming the next Whelm, Wave or Black Razor, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear about how Azurak, a great mace, was vital in smashing through a heavy door or how Cruel Justice fit one player’s drow ranger with two scimitars perfectly.Another huge point for me is player’s handouts. These are rare these days. It’s nice when you get not only a page or two, but several pages to copy and hand out to your players. Truly a first edition feeling. Heck, even the character sheet they’ve included is a near match for an old 1st edition character sheet.So to me, the following things help make this one of the better Dungeon Crawl Classics: Price per page value, Unique Monsters, Unique Magic Items and Handouts. If you’re looking for a 7th-8th level adventure for your group, you could do much worse than Aerie of the Crow God.</blockquote>

Verification