Messageboard Golem
First Post
En Route, a d20 Encounter Sourcebook, is part of the Penumbra d20 line from Atlas Games. Damien has given an excellent and comprehensive review (above), and now that I've had a chance to use this in my own campaign, I'm going to concentrate on ease of use, entertainment, and playability.
My score is less than Damien's because I reserve 5's for products that amaze me, and are beyond merely great. Think of this as a 4.4999.
I've played some, but not all of the encounters. I placed them in my homegrown world, and integrated them in the published materials I do use.
The integration has been easy. The index and tables of encounter by location and Encounter Levels is very useful.
One caution on the Encounter Levels, don't let a low encounter level stop you from running one of these if you like it. For example, a ninth level party will have as much fun with the Hellcow as a low level party, even if it is only EL 2. Many of the adventures are scaleable, and many have scaling instructions built in.
<spoilers below>
When I read the sourcebook the first time, I thought of these as nice "between adventure" little vignettes, but the first one I used, was at the spur of the moment, real time, in the middle of another adventure. I was running Green Ronin's Terror in Freeport, when the good aligned Half Orc decided to abandon the party's investigation and give away gold to the poor children of the city.
I paused to "get a drink" and quickly whipped out En Route, and turned to the Burlap Children. This little side plot found the rest of the party having to ransom the Half Orc from the underworld figures the Burlap Children had turned him over to, and some of the children became regular NPCs for the rest of the Freeport Trilogy. Fantastic!
For DMs with Freeport based campaign, another encounter that can fit well is Toll Bridge. Substitute Serpent People for Lizard People and add a dose of Yig (or the Unspeakable One) and you are ready to go. All of the encounters can be tweaked similarly to fit in your world.
One encounter I did use as an "in-betweener" was The Idol, a seagoing encounter. I had a large crowd show up that gaming night, and the players were all over the map, er, boat. The Druid was working with the animals, the Paladin against, and the chaos was very entertaining. The elephant on the boat was very good, and the poor crewmen who died ended up reincarnated into the strangest things by the Druid.
The instructions on how to deal with the chaos the idol would bring do not cover parties that split on pro-crew vs. pro-animal, but I don't fault the author. My players keep things interesting for me.
Even with the player chaos, this took no more than 90 minutes. These encounters will not fill a gaming session unless added to by the DM. They best fill in for a "random encounter" when the party is En Route from one location to the next.
Upside
Lots of great encounters, many are scaleable, and the ease of use and fun factors are high. There are a lot of role-playing opportunities, and it would not be hard to adapt this for other role-playing systems.
Downside
Not enough sea going encounters for my campaign, really only one, "The Idol," although "The Draftman's Pen" can occur anywhere. The originality and coolness factor is uneven. Parties with only Hack & Slashers will only like the brevity of these encounters.
Overall
All in all, a great purchase for my RPG shelf.
My score is less than Damien's because I reserve 5's for products that amaze me, and are beyond merely great. Think of this as a 4.4999.
I've played some, but not all of the encounters. I placed them in my homegrown world, and integrated them in the published materials I do use.
The integration has been easy. The index and tables of encounter by location and Encounter Levels is very useful.
One caution on the Encounter Levels, don't let a low encounter level stop you from running one of these if you like it. For example, a ninth level party will have as much fun with the Hellcow as a low level party, even if it is only EL 2. Many of the adventures are scaleable, and many have scaling instructions built in.
<spoilers below>
When I read the sourcebook the first time, I thought of these as nice "between adventure" little vignettes, but the first one I used, was at the spur of the moment, real time, in the middle of another adventure. I was running Green Ronin's Terror in Freeport, when the good aligned Half Orc decided to abandon the party's investigation and give away gold to the poor children of the city.
I paused to "get a drink" and quickly whipped out En Route, and turned to the Burlap Children. This little side plot found the rest of the party having to ransom the Half Orc from the underworld figures the Burlap Children had turned him over to, and some of the children became regular NPCs for the rest of the Freeport Trilogy. Fantastic!
For DMs with Freeport based campaign, another encounter that can fit well is Toll Bridge. Substitute Serpent People for Lizard People and add a dose of Yig (or the Unspeakable One) and you are ready to go. All of the encounters can be tweaked similarly to fit in your world.
One encounter I did use as an "in-betweener" was The Idol, a seagoing encounter. I had a large crowd show up that gaming night, and the players were all over the map, er, boat. The Druid was working with the animals, the Paladin against, and the chaos was very entertaining. The elephant on the boat was very good, and the poor crewmen who died ended up reincarnated into the strangest things by the Druid.
The instructions on how to deal with the chaos the idol would bring do not cover parties that split on pro-crew vs. pro-animal, but I don't fault the author. My players keep things interesting for me.
Even with the player chaos, this took no more than 90 minutes. These encounters will not fill a gaming session unless added to by the DM. They best fill in for a "random encounter" when the party is En Route from one location to the next.
Upside
Lots of great encounters, many are scaleable, and the ease of use and fun factors are high. There are a lot of role-playing opportunities, and it would not be hard to adapt this for other role-playing systems.
Downside
Not enough sea going encounters for my campaign, really only one, "The Idol," although "The Draftman's Pen" can occur anywhere. The originality and coolness factor is uneven. Parties with only Hack & Slashers will only like the brevity of these encounters.
Overall
All in all, a great purchase for my RPG shelf.
