En Route II: By Land Or By Sea

[Simon Collins]

This is not a playtest review.
Beware! This review contains spoilers.

En Route II is the second in a collection of short adventures from Atlas Games, to be used whilst travelling from one location to another. This volume concentrates on sea journeys for the most part.

En Route II is a 112-page mono softcover product costing $19.95. The layout is spacious and airy, with a single line between paragraphs, a largish font, and chunks of white space at the end of each chapter, as well as a couple of pages of ads. The artwork is generally appropriate to the textual context and is of good quality, though the best of the artwork can be found on the front with Scott Reeves' seductive mermaid. The quality of the writing is good - which it should be, considering some of the authors (e.g. Chris Aylott and Keith Baker, who together write half of the 14 mini-adventures). Editing is also well done.

As mentioned previously, there are 14 mini-adventures, 9 of which can be used during a sea journey. The ELs range from 1 to 20, though 9 of the adventures are EL 5 or less. A useful appendix at the back of the book lists the adventures by environment and EL, as well as containing an index of all d20 rules-related material broken down into magic items, NPCs, and new creatures.

Blood Vessel - EL 2 - the characters come across a mysterious ship that duplicates the PCs ship, its crew, and even the PCs themselves. The adventure provides some interesting roleplaying opportunities and a couple of new creatures.

The Bubblesphere - EL 5 - a gnomish wizard attempts to convince the PCs to test out his new submersible machine. Skill checks are the main focus of the adventure.

Death From Above And Below - EL 14 (scalable to 5 or 20) - an imaginative mix of flying fish and sahuagin, along with some clever tactics, will prove a challenging combat encounter to the PCs, and the number of attackers can be scaled to reduce or increase the challenge.

Devil's Breath - EL 10 - a ghost ship haunts the PCs sea journey and ends with a climactic battle against its diabolic crew.

Ditty Bag - EL 9 - that old cherry, the mix-up with an identical bag, leads the PCs to discover the contents of a sailor's bag are troll bones, and havoc is caused when trolls come looking for them.

The Door - EL 2 - a clever little diversion has the PCs investigating a deadly trapped vault. Or is it?

Figurehead - EL 7 or 12 - the PCs sail aboard a strangely flawless ship and must discover the secret behind its state, and the links with the unusual mermaid figurehead at its prow. This leads to a confrontation with a new type of merfolk - the higher EL is used if the PCs decide to fight the merfolk.

Hare Today, Gone Tomorrow - EL 2 - a comic aside involving a halfling and some 'blink bunnies' that have escaped from a magic cage.

Hellcows - EL 5 - another comic tale involving a herd of cows that have been possessed by demons.

Lure of the Serpent - EL 10 - when the PCs investigate the carcass of a sea serpent, they find more than they bargained for when a kraken comes to feed on the carrion.

Message In A Bottle - EL 1 - an unusual bottle of wine provides a visionary clue to a murder, which the PCs are thus armed to solve.

Purple Storm - EL 5 - a purple storm rampages across the land, bringing chaotic magical effects with it. The adventure includes a vast array of possible effects, as well as some ideas of what might have caused the storm in the first place, for groups that want to investigate this aspect.

Sea Of Stones - EL 4 - the PCs ship discover a swarm of drowning baby earth elementals, who threaten to take the ship down with them.

Water Stop - EL 4 - the issue of slavery rears its ugly head, when the PCs are forced to take sides between run-away slaves and the local Royal Navy on a desert island.

High Points:
There are a wide variety of types of encounter presented in En Route II, from combat to roleplaying, from mystery to skill use. The theme of the ocean that ties most of the adventures together makes it easy to throw two or more of the adventures at a party as they travel from one place to another. NPCs mostly have good character background and personality, magic items are generally interesting, and the new creatures have a purpose in the adventure, they're not just thrown in for good measure.

Low Points:
A brief check of the NPC and creature stats revealed them to be 3.0, not 3.5. There were also errors in the stat blocks, such as a 7th-level Gnome Wizard, with a Dex of 12 and Int of 18, having a Knowledge skill at +19 (no skill focus) and the Dodge feat. There is also a lot of wasted space in the book.

Conclusion:
Some good encounter ideas with a mixture of adventure types tied together with an ocean-going theme that loses some of its efficacy with a few stat block mistakes. I also found it a little surprising to have 3.0 stat blocks in a product released so recently, and I felt that this should have been advertised as so more clearly for the consumer.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

The road to adventure is never an easy one. Whether travelling on horseback through lonely forest wildernesses, with a caravan across rolling planes, or by stalwart ship, danger awaits in the shape of escaped slaves, imprisoned mermaids, swarming elementals, blink bunnies, insane inventors, peeved trolls, possessed livestock, and a bevy of other hazards to block your way.

By Land or by Sea, like the original En Route, is a collection of short encounters that GMs can easily insert into longer adventures of their own design, or use as transitions between published modules. En Route II features scenarios suitable to sea voyages as well as to land-bound travel, which can be played in about one hour's time. It promises to be just as useful and popular as the original!

This sourcebook includes:
* A host of unique encounters designed to be played at a moment's notice
* New magic items, potions, weapons, spells, traps, monsters, and a cast of fully-statted NPCs ready to use out of the book
* Quick-reference appendices arranged by new D20 material, encounter location, and Encounter Level, to make finding encounters and crunchy bits fast and easy.

 

[Arnwyn]

What are the maps like (something I consider very important in adventures)?

 

[Simon Collins]

arnwyn

Hmm...good question. And the answer is...there are no maps!

I guess the reasoning is as follows:
1. These are encounters rather than locations.
2. Most of the encounters take place aboard a ship.

IMO, most of them would not have benefited greatly from a map, but if maps are important to you, this product will disppoint on that level, and I should have mentioned that aspect.

Thanks for bringing it up.

Simon Collins

 

[Crothian]

En Route II: by Land or by Sea

[imager]http://www.rpgnow.com/products/product_4907.jpg[/imager]

As a reviewer one of the things I like to do is every now and then review an older product I bought that I have gotten a lot of use out of over the years. When I first started doing this I was thinking that I would cover a wide variety of different publishers and just cover a wide spectrum of products. And then I started really noticing the books that I kept using and who published them. Atlas was the clear winner in most books that I use. That is really something to take notice of for me as I rarely look at publisher or writer when using a book. I know what I like and I find that by reading the book. So here we have another Atlas book that is really good and useful for review. I just do not understand why they are more popular among the d20 community.

En Route II: By Land or by Seas is a collection of mini adventures and encounters. It is a book of ideas and simple things to place into an on going campaign. Many of these can be used in between the important campaign encounters as little side things that happen on the way to another place. The book is one hundred and ten pages long and soft bound. It has a familiar lay out like most of the books Atlas has done in Penumbra d20 line. There are a lot of really nice illustrations all done black and white that really help bring the writing to life. As an older product it is always nice to look at the authors to see some names that have risen in the industry. This book was written by Chris Aylott, Justin Bacon, Keith Baker, Michael Burns, Chris Doyle, Brannon Hollingworth, Jesse Mohn, Lee Moyer, F Wesley Schneider, and Matt Sprenger.

The idea of this book is simply encounters that can have while the players are traveling. There are fourteen encounters in this book all of them clever and quite different. Many of them can really be the start of some very interesting plot ideas or lead the party to other adventures if the DM wants to go forward in that direction. That is one of the things I really like about the book. The encounters are complete but at the same time can be the first glimpse into something more complicated.

From here I shall go into the realm of spoilers. I am nbot going into all the encounters just a few of the ones that I believe serve as good examples of the work as a whole.

Blood Vessel: This is the first encounter in the book and it grabbed me right from the beginning. The party is out on the high seas when they see another ship coming their direction. The ship and crew are actually identical to the ship and crew the party are one including copies of the party. The other ship is actually a collection of young doppelgangers out learning their trade. The ship is a large version of the doppelganger. I really like the idea of expanding the doppelganger race and showing them training the kids in this way. The adventure ends with a nice loose ends section. The adventure does not assume a fight happens or any one outcome happens. The adventure does have some suggestions as to ways to build off this adventure into the campaign. These type of sections in a book are priceless for the creative DM.

The Door: The party is going down a road or trail and come across a sign. It warns of danger and a bit later there is a door in the bed rock. The door is locked and trapped and it is up to a skilled rogue to be able to get in the door and see what treasures or secrets lie behind this very secure door. Inside is a simple note that says congratulations urges the person to go to a locksmith in the next town with the note. There are suggestions for what else note wise can be in the small vault the door protects. It is just something different that most people would not expect.

Hare Today, Gone Tomorrow: This is a nice simple idea of a poor halfling that had his wagon break and his cargo escape. His cargo is a bunch of rabbits and he wants the party to help him recapture them. However, these are no ordinary rabbits. Unlike the Python Rabbit they are not that deadly, but they do have the ability to blink. This will of course make them difficult to capture. One of the nice ideas is if the rabbits are not all captured they can wreck the local eco system. It is always nice to allow the players to see long term effects from what they do or fail to do.

That is a quick write up of there of the fourteen encounters in there. The encounters can handle characters of first to twentieth level with a few of them being variable in the levels they can handle. The book is a great collection of ideas and fun encounters. It is by no means a perfect book but it is creative. And that is really why I keep coming back to it.