Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 2010220" data-attributes="member: 172">Enchanted Locations: Crypts & TombsEnchanted Locations: Crypts & Tombs is a collection of maps, encounters, and artifacts to be used as the basis for adventures in the d20 System game. Enchanted Locations: Crypts & Tombs is written by James M. Ward and published by Fast Forward Entertainment.A First LookEnchanted Locations: Crypts & Tombs is a 128-page hardbound book priced at $24.99. This is slender for a hardbound of this price.The cover of the book has the grainy red background common to all FFE books. The cover art is an attractive piece by Larry Elmore depicting a man kneeling next to corpse on a slab.The interior art is black-and-white. No interior artist is named, and many of the interior illustrations appear to be woodcuts. The maps are similar to that of other FFE products, with textured beveled shapes representing various sites and terrain features.The interior body text font varies in size. Location keys use a large stylized font. Body text varies from moderate to dense depending on how much text is on the page; pages with more or more extensive stat blocks use smaller text.A Deeper LookThe basic concept behind Enchanted Locations: Crypts & Tombs is somewhat similar to the original Enchanted Locations book: a variety of maps with keyed locations and a few statistics blocks of some residents of the locations that the players might run into.However, this book varies in a few significant ways. First off, while the first book was a collection of unassociated maps of different scales and types, Enchanted Locations: Crypts & Tombs actually is has full page region maps with four smaller scale half-page maps depicting specific locales in the region.There are some tombs & crypts in the maps, but it certainly isn't the theme of the book. The theme of the book seems to be associated artifacts. Each region is associated with a set of four artifacts; the smaller maps are all locations that contain one of the associated artifacts. In that, the book bears some resemblance to the earlier Items of Power series of book as well as the previous Enchanted Locations book.Each set of artifacts is associated with a specific class or race, and are only usable to full effect by a character of that class or race. The artifact sets are the wizard, clerical, rogue, fighter, elf, orc, and dwarf artifacts. Each set of artifacts consists of four items. Each item has its own powers, and each can gain additional powers if the user possesses more than one item. The items also have goals and many are intelligent; pursuing the goals of the item can unleash more powers.As is the case with many FFE items, the artifacts are somewhat vaguely defined. In some cases there are missing details that the GM will have to make up like caster levels and DCs. In other cases, fine mechanical details would have been overkill, such as with the rogue items that describe effects on society that happen when a someone begins to collects items.The fact that the basic concept is applied formulaically is a bit of a drawback. Just how many times can you run the "collect four artifiacts" plot or a variant of it? That said, there are some interesting plot elements weaved into the background of the items. For example, any rogue who ever touched one of the rogue artifacts never ages again. That little tidbit set my mind in motion, imagining a campaign where the PCs are seeking an artifact, and find that to uncover the path to the artifacts, they have to seek out one of the former owners who is still alive.Each of the specific locations listed in the book have a number of pre-statted creatures or characters defined for them, providing further ideas to wrap an adventure around. However, one oddity struck me immediately: there are several creatures in this book that are not open content from the Monster Manual II, such as the nimblewright, jovoc, teratomorph, hellfire wyrm, emerald dragon, dragonflesh golem, and so forth, and I see no statement that they received special permission from WotC to use these creatures. I imagine that FFE will be getting a letter from WotC and that you won't see a reprint of this book as-is.That said, their loss is your gain, as some of the creatures are developed in interesting ways. For example, one of the locations is the nimblewright shrine, a strange monastery populated by constructs, which would be an interesting locale in the game.FFE products are historically plagued by inconsistencies with d20 System rules. Though their later books are better, this book does not escape unscathed. For example, there is a lich sorcerer that has an hp bonus (but no con from which to derive it) and has a high intelligence and low charisma, but whose casting DC seems to be derived from intelligence.  ConclusionI liked this book a better than the previous Enchanted Locations book. There were a lot more usable campaign ideas embedded in the locations and artifacts, and the balance of material seemed a little more useful. Further, the interior text is less bloated and the use of space is much better. Moreso than even the prior book, the ideas in here would make great adventure-starters for GMs who don't want full-blown adventures, but could use a few ideas.However, FFE continues to have problems with consistency with the d20 System rules and the terms of the OGL and d20 System and trademark licenses. Further, the fact that the central idea of the artifacts is rather forumulaic will limit the reusability of the book.Overall grade: C+-Alan D. Kohler</blockquote>

Verification