JoeGKushner
Adventurer
Fields OF Ruin
Written by Richard Pett
Published by Wizards of the Coast
www.wizards.com/dnd
ISBN-10: 0-7869-3908-7
16 b & w pages full color battlematts
$14.95
Fields of Ruin continues the Fantastic Locations series. Each adventure contains two double-sided battle maps for four locations. Each battle map is scaled for use with miniature play and includes gridlines. The back of each adventure cover includes miniature versions of the maps with symbols representing monsters and other bits of minutia. Like the other books in the series thus far, this one also doesn’t have a recommended level on the cover.
Why this is I don’t know as this is the third product in the line. There’s really no excuse at this point for it. For those who want to know if Fields of Ruin is for you, it’s designed for four eighth level characters.
The maps are illustrated by Jason Engle. His style relies is impressive and while not in the same category as his character and monster illustrations that were published by Bastion Press, they are nonetheless impressive and I wouldn’t be surprised if he were to do battle maps of his own one day and go head to head with Goodman Games and Skeleton Key Games. Interior art is handled by Andrew Trabbold.
The maps here are the King’s Road, the Keep of Fallen Kings I, the Keep of Fallen Kings II, and the Dungeon of Blood.
The adventure is a fairly generic one that can be inserted into any campaign. A few adventure hooks are included to get the players involved. These included hunting down a rogue with a reward for bringing him back alive to rid the ruined keep of monsters to hunting down the magic item known as the Earthcrown for gold. Simple methods of starting a fairly straightforward adventure.
The first encounter on the King’s Road pits the characters on a semi-ruined road surrounded by green fields and forests. These fields and forests have an effect on game play such as providing concealment to those in the forest or being more difficult to walk through. Notes on skill penalties or bonuses to things like Move Silently and Tumble are included.
Upon the King’s Road the party encounters humanoids with levels. The stats here use the new format that I have a love hate relationship with. For example, because they don’t include some notes on things like hit die type, is the 60 hit points that Drax, a Skullcrsher ogre has correct? Does it account for his 17 Con? In looking at the stats, some of them seem odd. Why would an ogre have the feat Mounted Combat for example? In addition, because it’s listed as a Skullcrusher ogre, I don’t know off the top of my head if that’s a new type of ogre, since no reference is given, or an ogre with class levels. How do you check it’s BAB or other abilities without that information? Still, I’m not the statistics expert so I’ll let someone else pick apart that.
One of the nice things is that it has a separate section for monsters when modifiers like rage come into effect. This shows the modified AC, hit points, saving throws, attack and damage, grapple, ability adjustments and skill adjustments. Not quite perfect as it doesn’t have room for notes when the enemy uses temporary adjustments like oil of magic weapon.
The nice thing about the first encounter is that it’s not static. There are things that develop as the battle continues and other monsters are introduced. This punishes those players who insist on using their best shots first.
The Keep of the Fallen Kings, maps two and three, consist of several ‘standard’ areas and involves the players pitting their strength against half-fiend ogres that have a level of barbarian and if the players aren’t careful, a chimera as well.
Another nice aspect of this adventure is that one of the NPCs, Kazmir (“The Magpie Man” can fill several roles. For example, he can help the party, turn on the party, fight the party right out, become involved with the group after stealing the Earthcrown, etc… This makes it a nice touch and allows the GM to do more with the character that follow a single line in the adventure.
The Dungeon of Blood is where the characters can find the Earthcrown, assuming they live past the guardians, some Fiendish Girallons and Ettin Skirmisher among other foes.
In terms of miniature use, I didn’t find this set quite as bad in terms of miniature types. The exception to that though is WoTC is now going by name of the miniature without an actual recommendation. For example, howling orc is a type of miniature in the game but I don’t know from which set, it’s faction, it’s number or any of that information. The large earth elements illustrated here look to be loyal earth elements. I recall this not from a recommendation, but because of the illustration and the fact that I have one of these loyal earth elementals. A strange twist to be sure and perhaps an oversight.
Another thing that I found odd was the number of unique creatures here. Some may enjoy that but I find that due to the amount of space each game block takes up, I’d rather have references to the Monster Manual, which the book tells us the GM must own anyway. If the book didn’t have any references to the Monster Manual, I could see it as keeping the book self sufficient, but since it has several, it’s using up lots of space for stat blocks and referring the read to another book for game play.
In many ways, Ruins is a classic ‘old school’ dungeon romp of brief exploration, combat and trap dodging with the added bonus of a prefabricated battle map. It’s not going to win any points on originality or best bang for the buck with it’s short page count and it’s nodd to the D&D miniatures game, but it’s easy to set up, easy to run, and can be quickly placed into any campaign that has monstrous humanoids in it without too much trouble.
Written by Richard Pett
Published by Wizards of the Coast
www.wizards.com/dnd
ISBN-10: 0-7869-3908-7
16 b & w pages full color battlematts
$14.95
Fields of Ruin continues the Fantastic Locations series. Each adventure contains two double-sided battle maps for four locations. Each battle map is scaled for use with miniature play and includes gridlines. The back of each adventure cover includes miniature versions of the maps with symbols representing monsters and other bits of minutia. Like the other books in the series thus far, this one also doesn’t have a recommended level on the cover.
Why this is I don’t know as this is the third product in the line. There’s really no excuse at this point for it. For those who want to know if Fields of Ruin is for you, it’s designed for four eighth level characters.
The maps are illustrated by Jason Engle. His style relies is impressive and while not in the same category as his character and monster illustrations that were published by Bastion Press, they are nonetheless impressive and I wouldn’t be surprised if he were to do battle maps of his own one day and go head to head with Goodman Games and Skeleton Key Games. Interior art is handled by Andrew Trabbold.
The maps here are the King’s Road, the Keep of Fallen Kings I, the Keep of Fallen Kings II, and the Dungeon of Blood.
The adventure is a fairly generic one that can be inserted into any campaign. A few adventure hooks are included to get the players involved. These included hunting down a rogue with a reward for bringing him back alive to rid the ruined keep of monsters to hunting down the magic item known as the Earthcrown for gold. Simple methods of starting a fairly straightforward adventure.
The first encounter on the King’s Road pits the characters on a semi-ruined road surrounded by green fields and forests. These fields and forests have an effect on game play such as providing concealment to those in the forest or being more difficult to walk through. Notes on skill penalties or bonuses to things like Move Silently and Tumble are included.
Upon the King’s Road the party encounters humanoids with levels. The stats here use the new format that I have a love hate relationship with. For example, because they don’t include some notes on things like hit die type, is the 60 hit points that Drax, a Skullcrsher ogre has correct? Does it account for his 17 Con? In looking at the stats, some of them seem odd. Why would an ogre have the feat Mounted Combat for example? In addition, because it’s listed as a Skullcrusher ogre, I don’t know off the top of my head if that’s a new type of ogre, since no reference is given, or an ogre with class levels. How do you check it’s BAB or other abilities without that information? Still, I’m not the statistics expert so I’ll let someone else pick apart that.
One of the nice things is that it has a separate section for monsters when modifiers like rage come into effect. This shows the modified AC, hit points, saving throws, attack and damage, grapple, ability adjustments and skill adjustments. Not quite perfect as it doesn’t have room for notes when the enemy uses temporary adjustments like oil of magic weapon.
The nice thing about the first encounter is that it’s not static. There are things that develop as the battle continues and other monsters are introduced. This punishes those players who insist on using their best shots first.
The Keep of the Fallen Kings, maps two and three, consist of several ‘standard’ areas and involves the players pitting their strength against half-fiend ogres that have a level of barbarian and if the players aren’t careful, a chimera as well.
Another nice aspect of this adventure is that one of the NPCs, Kazmir (“The Magpie Man” can fill several roles. For example, he can help the party, turn on the party, fight the party right out, become involved with the group after stealing the Earthcrown, etc… This makes it a nice touch and allows the GM to do more with the character that follow a single line in the adventure.
The Dungeon of Blood is where the characters can find the Earthcrown, assuming they live past the guardians, some Fiendish Girallons and Ettin Skirmisher among other foes.
In terms of miniature use, I didn’t find this set quite as bad in terms of miniature types. The exception to that though is WoTC is now going by name of the miniature without an actual recommendation. For example, howling orc is a type of miniature in the game but I don’t know from which set, it’s faction, it’s number or any of that information. The large earth elements illustrated here look to be loyal earth elements. I recall this not from a recommendation, but because of the illustration and the fact that I have one of these loyal earth elementals. A strange twist to be sure and perhaps an oversight.
Another thing that I found odd was the number of unique creatures here. Some may enjoy that but I find that due to the amount of space each game block takes up, I’d rather have references to the Monster Manual, which the book tells us the GM must own anyway. If the book didn’t have any references to the Monster Manual, I could see it as keeping the book self sufficient, but since it has several, it’s using up lots of space for stat blocks and referring the read to another book for game play.
In many ways, Ruins is a classic ‘old school’ dungeon romp of brief exploration, combat and trap dodging with the added bonus of a prefabricated battle map. It’s not going to win any points on originality or best bang for the buck with it’s short page count and it’s nodd to the D&D miniatures game, but it’s easy to set up, easy to run, and can be quickly placed into any campaign that has monstrous humanoids in it without too much trouble.
