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Dungeons of Drakkenheim - 3rd Party Review
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<blockquote data-quote="Sparky McDibben" data-source="post: 9147125" data-attributes="member: 7041430"><p>Alright, friends, it never rains but pours. And since tomorrow looks like it's gonna suck, I wanted to make sure to do my second update now! </p><p></p><p>So let's dig into Chapter 5: Exploring Drakkenheim. </p><p></p><p>As an aside, I friggin' love RPG structures. I think they are some of the coolest things I never hear discussed, so seeing one get its own chapter in an RPG is <em>awesome</em> to me. </p><p></p><p>This chapter governs the basic block-and-tackle procedures for actually moving around Drakkenheim. It opens with some text covering the rough neighborhoods of Drakkenheim (Outer City, Inner City, and Castle Drakken, further divided into the North and South Wards by the river). The line separating the Outer City from the Inner are the city walls, pierced by five gates (all under the control of people who may not like the PCs very much). The Outer City is generally less dangerous than the Inner City, which contains the meteor's crater. </p><p></p><p>At this point we start talking about the Haze, the eldritch contamination that covers the city. This is the stuff that stops anyone inside from taking a long rest. Stay here longer than 24 hours, and you risk contamination yourself (covered in Chapter C). Contamination is a new mechanic that works similar to a parallel exhaustion track, accruing penalties until you mutate into a grotesque and hideous monster and roll up a new character. Certain spells and magic items can mitigate or remove contamination, but will either cost the PCs or drive them to go further in to Drakkenheim to find them. This effect, plus the impact on certain exploration spells like <em>rope trick </em>and <em>tiny hut</em>, handles the "you're on a timer" part of a delve. It's good worldbuilding that directly reinforces the themes and mechanics of the game. Well done.</p><p></p><p>When it comes to actually moving through the streets and travel times, the authors have you covered. You measure the straight-line distance between their origin on the city map and their goal. Don't worry about checking for each turn and twist in the road; Messrs Martin and McLaughlin already baked the "squiggly" nature of city travel into the travel times. Anyway, once you have the straightline distance, you just ask the PCs how fast they're going (fast, normal, or slow). There is some weirdness in the travel times, though. </p><p></p><p>Fast covers 1 mph, but they can't use Stealth, have disadvantage to Perception, and are more likely to have random encounters. A slow pace covers only 1/4 mph, but you can use Stealth and make Perception checks normally. And a moderate pace covers 1/2 mph, you can't use Stealth, but you get advantage on Perception and Investigation checks. I'm not sure why you get advantage on Perception at moderate speed but not at slow speed - that one's a curiousity. </p><p></p><p>When your PCs are actively searching for something (ie, not traveling), you basically run an extended skill challenge; on 3+ successes, they find the thing. On 2+ failures, they have a random encounter. Note that you can have both happen at the same time with a large enough party. Personally I'm not a fan of skill challenges, but my preferred way of handling this is a little bit harder to improvise. They needed something anyone could run, so I'm glad they didn't get fancy here. After this, we get modifications to this core structure for finding delerium, sanctuary, and provisions in the ruined city. </p><p></p><p>We also get this lovely tidbit:</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/nfKREaU.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p> <p style="text-align: center"><em>I have no notes</em></p> <p style="text-align: center"></p><p>Metal!</p><p></p><p>After this, we get their random encounter check, which is basically have each player roll a die each hour spent moving around (d6 if you're feeling froggy, up to a d20). A 1 is a random encounter, where the highest number is a good discovery. They have delightful tables (zoned by region) for all of these, including the good discoveries. Thank you for making my life easier, you beautiful schmucks. </p><p></p><p>After this, we get a short scenario about going into the city to find some delerium. This is brief (4 pages), and lets you try out the preceding structures with minimal risk to your PCs. I really like this, and I think having a whole session devoted to mastering the basics lets players plan better knowing when a random encounter is going to be rolled. </p><p></p><p>One thing I was surprised not to see was encumbrance. Generally encumbrance, light sources, and random encounters are considered the holy trinity for effective dungeons. Light sources act as a timer (replaced by the Haze in this setting), random encounters keep the party constantly moving, and encumbrance prevents them from stripping everything for parts and carting it back out. Odd that it wasn't included here. </p><p></p><p>After that, we get into Chapter 6: Outside the Walls!</p><p></p><p>This is one of the meatiest chapters in the book (about 38 pages, detailing 9 locations, most of which are dedicated to adventuring in), and it contains largely the value-prop of the book: adventure sites. </p><p></p><p>I'm not going to run down each site in detail, but here are some highlights:</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><p style="text-align: left">An inn caught in a time loop, destined to relive the last hours before meteor wiped out Drakkenheim (B+)</p> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><p style="text-align: left"><em>Fight Club</em> as run by the criminally insane (B)</p> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><p style="text-align: left">A fun puzzle-dungeon that has serious Zelda-cred (Chapel of St. Brenna) (A-)</p> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><p style="text-align: left">An old tavern overrun by <s>Skaven</s> ratlings (B+)</p> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><p style="text-align: left">A manor-house taken over by a creepy mage and his apprentices, studying the Haze (B)</p> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><p style="text-align: left">A bunch of dwarves who've set up a smithy to use delerium (C - not much interactivity)</p> </li> </ul><p>For each of these, you're getting a well-done map, key, hooks that you can use to point your players at the location, NPC writeups, and potential developments arising out of how your players interacted with the material. And as you can see by my handy-dandy grading system, we're looking at pretty solid B to B+ material here. Keep in mind that most stuff gets an F from me when you see that B. No grade inflation from ol' Sparky!!!</p><p></p><p>In all seriousness, these are solid dungeons. You can straight-up use the keys from some of these elsewhere, and I love something that can be stripped for parts. The material veers into wacky but without seeming stupid or arbitrary, and requires some genuine thought from PCs. </p><p></p><p>Overall, it's impressive. That Enny's looking pretty secure, y'all! </p><p></p><p>Next time, we'll delve into the Inner City in chapter 7: Inside the Walls of Drakkenheim!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Sparky McDibben, post: 9147125, member: 7041430"] Alright, friends, it never rains but pours. And since tomorrow looks like it's gonna suck, I wanted to make sure to do my second update now! So let's dig into Chapter 5: Exploring Drakkenheim. As an aside, I friggin' love RPG structures. I think they are some of the coolest things I never hear discussed, so seeing one get its own chapter in an RPG is [I]awesome[/I] to me. This chapter governs the basic block-and-tackle procedures for actually moving around Drakkenheim. It opens with some text covering the rough neighborhoods of Drakkenheim (Outer City, Inner City, and Castle Drakken, further divided into the North and South Wards by the river). The line separating the Outer City from the Inner are the city walls, pierced by five gates (all under the control of people who may not like the PCs very much). The Outer City is generally less dangerous than the Inner City, which contains the meteor's crater. At this point we start talking about the Haze, the eldritch contamination that covers the city. This is the stuff that stops anyone inside from taking a long rest. Stay here longer than 24 hours, and you risk contamination yourself (covered in Chapter C). Contamination is a new mechanic that works similar to a parallel exhaustion track, accruing penalties until you mutate into a grotesque and hideous monster and roll up a new character. Certain spells and magic items can mitigate or remove contamination, but will either cost the PCs or drive them to go further in to Drakkenheim to find them. This effect, plus the impact on certain exploration spells like [I]rope trick [/I]and [I]tiny hut[/I], handles the "you're on a timer" part of a delve. It's good worldbuilding that directly reinforces the themes and mechanics of the game. Well done. When it comes to actually moving through the streets and travel times, the authors have you covered. You measure the straight-line distance between their origin on the city map and their goal. Don't worry about checking for each turn and twist in the road; Messrs Martin and McLaughlin already baked the "squiggly" nature of city travel into the travel times. Anyway, once you have the straightline distance, you just ask the PCs how fast they're going (fast, normal, or slow). There is some weirdness in the travel times, though. Fast covers 1 mph, but they can't use Stealth, have disadvantage to Perception, and are more likely to have random encounters. A slow pace covers only 1/4 mph, but you can use Stealth and make Perception checks normally. And a moderate pace covers 1/2 mph, you can't use Stealth, but you get advantage on Perception and Investigation checks. I'm not sure why you get advantage on Perception at moderate speed but not at slow speed - that one's a curiousity. When your PCs are actively searching for something (ie, not traveling), you basically run an extended skill challenge; on 3+ successes, they find the thing. On 2+ failures, they have a random encounter. Note that you can have both happen at the same time with a large enough party. Personally I'm not a fan of skill challenges, but my preferred way of handling this is a little bit harder to improvise. They needed something anyone could run, so I'm glad they didn't get fancy here. After this, we get modifications to this core structure for finding delerium, sanctuary, and provisions in the ruined city. We also get this lovely tidbit: [CENTER][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/nfKREaU.png[/IMG] [I]I have no notes[/I] [/CENTER] Metal! After this, we get their random encounter check, which is basically have each player roll a die each hour spent moving around (d6 if you're feeling froggy, up to a d20). A 1 is a random encounter, where the highest number is a good discovery. They have delightful tables (zoned by region) for all of these, including the good discoveries. Thank you for making my life easier, you beautiful schmucks. After this, we get a short scenario about going into the city to find some delerium. This is brief (4 pages), and lets you try out the preceding structures with minimal risk to your PCs. I really like this, and I think having a whole session devoted to mastering the basics lets players plan better knowing when a random encounter is going to be rolled. One thing I was surprised not to see was encumbrance. Generally encumbrance, light sources, and random encounters are considered the holy trinity for effective dungeons. Light sources act as a timer (replaced by the Haze in this setting), random encounters keep the party constantly moving, and encumbrance prevents them from stripping everything for parts and carting it back out. Odd that it wasn't included here. After that, we get into Chapter 6: Outside the Walls! This is one of the meatiest chapters in the book (about 38 pages, detailing 9 locations, most of which are dedicated to adventuring in), and it contains largely the value-prop of the book: adventure sites. I'm not going to run down each site in detail, but here are some highlights: [LIST] [*][LEFT]An inn caught in a time loop, destined to relive the last hours before meteor wiped out Drakkenheim (B+)[/LEFT] [*][LEFT][I]Fight Club[/I] as run by the criminally insane (B)[/LEFT] [*][LEFT]A fun puzzle-dungeon that has serious Zelda-cred (Chapel of St. Brenna) (A-)[/LEFT] [*][LEFT]An old tavern overrun by [S]Skaven[/S] ratlings (B+)[/LEFT] [*][LEFT]A manor-house taken over by a creepy mage and his apprentices, studying the Haze (B)[/LEFT] [*][LEFT]A bunch of dwarves who've set up a smithy to use delerium (C - not much interactivity)[/LEFT] [/LIST] For each of these, you're getting a well-done map, key, hooks that you can use to point your players at the location, NPC writeups, and potential developments arising out of how your players interacted with the material. And as you can see by my handy-dandy grading system, we're looking at pretty solid B to B+ material here. Keep in mind that most stuff gets an F from me when you see that B. No grade inflation from ol' Sparky!!! In all seriousness, these are solid dungeons. You can straight-up use the keys from some of these elsewhere, and I love something that can be stripped for parts. The material veers into wacky but without seeming stupid or arbitrary, and requires some genuine thought from PCs. Overall, it's impressive. That Enny's looking pretty secure, y'all! Next time, we'll delve into the Inner City in chapter 7: Inside the Walls of Drakkenheim! [/QUOTE]
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