Grim Hollow Campaign Guide - 3rd Party Review

[LuisCarlos17f]

I am Spanish and I don't reject a fantasy version of Spain in fantasy worlds, even with the most typical stereotypes, but any trope is not only offensive, but potentially dangerous. Let's imagine a tabletop where the players know if a nPC is a member of a craftmason lodge, then this a member of a Lovecraftian cult what perfoms human sacrifices because in the real life the DM is a conspiranoic who hates craftmasonery. Or the players know the characters wearing a turbant may be working for the bad guys, because the DM hates the turbant-wearers.

Melisandre of Asshai, prietess of R'hllor, the red god, the lord of the light - The Spanish inquisition burnt a lot of witches.

Ghost of Shiren Barantheon (censured and softed version) - (* Rude and blasphemous languange here !!) SHUT UP WITCH! YOU WILL BURN IN THE SEVEN HELLS! YOU AREN'T THE RIGHT PERSON TO REPORT ABOUT PEOPLE BURNT AT THE STAKE! (* More insults and blasphemies *!!).

In your game you are totally free to use any trope, but you should avoid the abuse of certain ones. For example you can use a femme fatale as a bait for the PCs toward a trap, but when the players every hot female nPCs are potential femme fatale as source of troubles, then any thing is not right. You can use in your game some villain style cardinal Richelieu, archdeacon Claude Frollo, fray Emilio Bocanegra ("the adventures of captain Alatriste"), Mr Brocklehurst(Jane Eyre) or the preacher ("the night of hunter", played by Robert Mitchum) but you should try to avoid the dangerous tropes "faith as archenemy of the reason" and "faith without mercy".

 

[Libertad]

An excellent callout! The book certainly feels like the world is magical, which helps it fit the 5E milieu.

This also ties in to why I feel that low/no-magic campaigns which attempt to put the PCs "in the muck"* work less well for 5e than 3e. At least with 3rd Edition you had a lot of caster classes, but plenty of alternate classes and archetypes from all manner of sources that you can still have some choice if you got rid of full or even partial casters. And that's just in the "core." In 5e you don't really have that unless you end up heavily relying on homebrew and third party systems; having everyone restricted to Barbarian/Fighter/Rogue can get old real fast.

*Dragonlance is still a low magic setting in 5th Edition, but it has the expectation that the PCs will have relatively unrestricted access to the full suite of PCs classes because they're the heroes of the story.

And this really is the crux of my problems with Grim Hollow. They make big, bold, awesome choices (Kill the gods! Make the world dark!) and then fail to deliver on them as a meaningful part of play. If you're going to kill the gods, then follow through. No clerics. Or maybe clerics can't get spells above spell level 3. "Priests" don't have magic, and all their power comes from their community (not in a metaphysical way, but rather as a "pillar of the community" way). The closest you can get is a celestial-patron warlock or a divine soul sorcerer. If you're going to have a dark world, come up with a way to handle darkvision. The frustration I'm feeling is entirely a product of looking at this setup and going, "Heck yeah! That looks so awesome!" and then seeing the payoff and going, "Wait, that's it?"

We also get some elemental gods and some cosmic horror entities. These are not very detailed and feel like kind of an afterthought.

For comparison, I've been reading some Dungeon Crawl Classics licensed settings: Empire of the East, Lankhmar, and Dying Earth. Such worlds have enough differences than the standard implied setting of the base RPG that they end up changing and removing quite a bit, usually the Cleric class and nonhuman races given those aren't common in sword and sorcery as they are in high fantasy. But the more highly-rated books such as Lankhmar give enough replacements that it doesn't feel like you're having neat toys taken from you. Lankhmar doesn't have new classes or classes, but it does have rules for Benisons and Dooms where your PC can gain unique traits congruent with their background, and Fleeting Luck gives enhanced uses of the Luck ability score (including better healing to make up for the lack of clerics). And Dying Earth does have new classes and a reworking of the magic system. Empire of the East, on the other hand, doesn't have any real replacements so it ends up feeling like "base DCC" but less.

The Koryo Hall of Adventures was a similar setting where the gods died, but did things better where instead of Clerics you had a new class that's basically a "spirit negotiator" where you get spells from spirits of the land instead. Of course, that setting had its own problems, like being unable to explain how the other casting classes fit into its cosmology and magical framework, but it did feel different enough to not be an afterthought of "just use clerics who pray to angels/devils."

I am Spanish and I don't reject a fantasy version of Spain in fantasy worlds, even with the most typical stereotypes, but any trope is not only offensive, but potentially dangerous. Let's imagine a tabletop where the players know if a nPC is a member of a craftmason lodge, then this a member of a Lovecraftian cult what perfoms human sacrifices because in the real life the DM is a conspiranoic who hates craftmasonery. Or the players know the characters wearing a turbant may be working for the bad guys, because the DM hates the turbant-wearers.

Melisandre of Asshai, prietess of R'hllor, the red god, the lord of the light - The Spanish inquisition burnt a lot of witches.

Ghost of Shiren Barantheon (censured and softed version) - (* Rude and blasphemous languange here !!) SHUT UP WITCH! YOU WILL BURN IN THE SEVEN HELLS! YOU AREN'T THE RIGHT PERSON TO REPORT ABOUT PEOPLE BURNT AT THE STAKE! (* More insults and blasphemies *!!).

In your game you are totally free to use any trope, but you should avoid the abuse of certain ones. For example you can use a femme fatale as a bait for the PCs toward a trap, but when the players every hot female nPCs are potential femme fatale as source of troubles, then any thing is not right. You can use in your game some villain style cardinal Richelieu, archdeacon Claude Frollo, fray Emilio Bocanegra ("the adventures of captain Alatriste"), Mr Brocklehurst(Jane Eyre) or the preacher ("the night of hunter", played by Robert Mitchum) but you should try to avoid the dangerous tropes "faith as archenemy of the reason" and "faith without mercy".

The pitfalls in your hypothetical scenario sound less about the tropes themselves and more the prejudices of the DM. And I can speak only for myself and not Sparky, my post was more about how many settings just borrow one or a few well-known trope from a certain civilization and end up not using the rest.

 

[Sparky McDibben]

I am Spanish and I don't reject a fantasy version of Spain in fantasy worlds, even with the most typical stereotypes, but any trope is not only offensive, but potentially dangerous. Let's imagine a tabletop where the players know if a nPC is a member of a craftmason lodge, then this a member of a Lovecraftian cult what perfoms human sacrifices because in the real life the DM is a conspiranoic who hates craftmasonery. Or the players know the characters wearing a turbant may be working for the bad guys, because the DM hates the turbant-wearers.

I would certainly agree that we need to be careful with our coding, but my point was not "tropes bad." My point was that by taking real-life inspiration for something, you also need to be cognizant of how that source material interacted with and rose out of its environment. Otherwise, the result will feel flat, one-dimensional, and uninteresting.

This also ties in to why I feel that low/no-magic campaigns which attempt to put the PCs "in the muck"* work less well for 5e than 3e. At least with 3rd Edition you had a lot of caster classes, but plenty of alternate classes and archetypes from all manner of sources that you can still have some choice if you got rid of full or even partial casters. And that's just in the "core." In 5e you don't really have that unless you end up heavily relying on homebrew and third party systems; having everyone restricted to Barbarian/Fighter/Rogue can get old real fast.

*Dragonlance is still a low magic setting in 5th Edition, but it has the expectation that the PCs will have relatively unrestricted access to the full suite of PCs classes because they're the heroes of the story.

I agree. While you can still have no/low magic in 5E (see Adventures in Middle Earth or Nations and Cannons), it tends to leave a big friggin' hole in D&D when you do so. So you want to use a light touch when you're "pruning" player options. But for me, if you're going to take out gods, you have to impact clerics in some way. Full stop. Otherwise, you're just reskinning the gods as angels.

Alright, friends, we're on to Chapter 11: A GM's Guide to Dark Fantasy. YEAAAAAAAH buddy!!! I've been really excited to hit this part, because I love me some DM tools! So let's crack this bad boy and see what we're working with!!!

First up, we're talking about the themes of dark fantasy: grimdark, horror, dark fairy tales, and sword and sorcery. I already don't like grimdark, and horror is difficult to land in 5E. Dark fairy tales and sword and sorcery, though, I am huge fans of, so rock on! These sections have some good outlines of tropes, narrative structure, etc. for these themes. My only request here would have been to give examples of the kinds of media the writers think are grade-A examples of each theme.

Next up we have three methods of conflict introduction: character, party, and regional conflicts. These are fine, if a bit basic. There's also a section on leveling up, which mostly focuses on either milestone or goal-oriented level ups. Again, fine, but basic. After that, there's a section on scaling up encounter difficulty (use higher CR monsters, use waves of monsters, use terrain, etc.). Fine, but basic. Finally, we get to a section where it breaks down resting, recommending a 1 hour "quick rest" that lets PCs expend HD but not regain any short-rest related abilities, and 8 hour short rest, and a 3 day long rest. Personally, I think that's too punishing and you're going to get risk-averse players who just "nope" out of the adventure. But it clearly has worked with these folks, so give it a shot!

We also get legendary actions by rough enemy type. So the book lists three legendary actions you can throw on a bruiser, then three legendary actions you can throw on a skirmisher, etc. These are also good, and just having them bundled like this can help out new DMs quite a bit. Personally, I would have preferred a table of interesting effects and possible justifications. So having an effect where anyone casting a spell takes 2d6 necrotic damage could be "spell rot," or "the Dark Mother's Gaze," or "the ghostly assaults of undead angels," and so on.

After that, we get Grievous Wounds (which last until a long rest), and Permanent Wounds (which last until you get hit with regenerate). Grievous wounds happen when someone is dropped to 0 hit points - the rest is a 2d6 table, modified down by the number of Grievous Wounds the character is currently suffering from. If you get a 2 or lower, you gain a Permanent Wound. There are some interesting Grievous Wounds, although mostly they just give you a condition (dazed, bleeding, -1 death save, etc).

Permanent Wounds have a 1-in-6 chance of just killing you outright. That kind of sucks - I'm already rolling for a Permanent Wound, so I'm at zero hit points already. It's just kind of a poop cherry on top of a crap sundae. Other options include losing an eye or a limb, or being hideously scarred. All of these have mechanical impacts, which are great, but leave me wanting more.

After that, we get magic items, which are a little underwhelming (most of them are potions) - these would have been a fantastic place to show off cursed or "devil's bargain" items that can change your character.

Finally, we get four diseases, including magical clap and magical smallpox. Yes, magical gonorrhea is on here. Icky and weird, but you do you, dev team!

Now that we've gone through this, let's take a step back. What I'm not seeing are any game aids for me to help create fun adventures. Seriously, go compare this section to something like Stars Without Number, and it's day and night. I want random name generators by region, tables that help me create cults, thieves bands, hag sisterhoods, vampiric cabals, and more! I want adventure seeds that feel like they belong only in Etharis. I want advice on converting or running official D&D campaigns into Etharis: What adventures do you recommend? Where should I put them in this world? Any advice on making official D&D content feel like dark fantasy?

As for what's here, the next-level stuff is skipped. The best advice you've got for scaling up monster difficulty has been repeated ad nauseam on YouTube. Give me some real folkloric weaknesses ("vulnerable to arrows made of mistletoe," "flees the cry of a rooster," "can be tricked by challenging it to a riddle game"). These give my players ways to interact with a monster outside of its hit points and Armor Class.

All of this, by the by, would have been a great opportunity to advertise their other products, too. And....nada. Zip. Bupkis. Oy veh.

Ultimately I rate these a high 6, low 7 out of 10. Call it 6.75. It's more helpful than not, but it doesn't do much to help me.

Alright, onto Chapter 12: Fables of Etharis!

This section is comprised of three short adventures:

1) Tavern of the Lost (6th level characters) - a delightful adventure that puts the PCs in an extradimensional trap as they flee werewolves. Solid exploration and roleplay elements, with combat only coming in toward the end. A little heavy-handed on the linearity, but justified in the narrative, so it doesn't feel railroad-y.
2) Facets of Darkness (no level listed) - an investigation with a weak hook, cargo cult NPCs that say, "Go here, do this," and when the party does, they are rewarded with another NPC that says "Go here, do this." No thanks.
3) The Blood Knight and the Five Relics (no level listed) - an investigation clearly inspired by Legend of Sleepy Hollow, but has interesting non-linear investigation elements, fun puzzle-solving, and some light combat. Well done.

And that's it for those chapters! The last little bit is a chapter on Curse Monsters (the last stage of those curses I mentioned way back at the beginning is to turn people into these Curse Monsters). These guys are mid-to-high CR monsters, and each one has some real fun and interesting quirks. Solidly done work, no notes.

So, like I said at the beginning, it's complicated. There's more good than bad in the book in toto, but the dross means it's a bit of a slog. Personally, I'd rate the entire book at a 6.5 / 10 for me. It's a useful buy for folks who want a foundation to build on, but there's a lot of lifting left to do.

Should you buy it?

I would recommend you buy this product if you are:

• A major fan of dark fantasy themes and want to bring them to your tabletop game
• Interested in mining folkloric elements to introduce to your tabletop game
• Interested in seeing how transitions into monstrous creatures might be effected at the table

I would hold (wait for the price to come down) if you are:

• Interested in the lore of Etharis

I would not buy this product if you aren't already interested in dark fantasy or its media touchstones.

 

[Libertad]

Another great review, Sparky! I already own and read the book, but still had fun reading your take on it.

Of the sample adventures, I like Tavern of the Lost the most. I realize it's more linear and "walled in" than the others, but it has great atmosphere and can be easily put in other settings, dark fantasy or otherwise.

I do agree that the DM's section could've benefitted from more, even though it's already a good-sized book. I admit that one of the big things which attracted me to the setting in the first place was the "become a monster" Transformations in Chapter 5, which I'm happy to report aren't just in the big Campaign Guide but also new options in the Player's Guide. A lot of the new options in that book can just as easily be transferred to Ravenloft or another dark fantasy setting, which makes it kind of a shame that the default setting book has such shortcomings.

 

[Sparky McDibben]

I do agree that the DM's section could've benefitted from more, even though it's already a good-sized book. I admit that one of the big things which attracted me to the setting in the first place was the "become a monster" Transformations in Chapter 5, which I'm happy to report aren't just in the big Campaign Guide but also new options in the Player's Guide. A lot of the new options in that book can just as easily be transferred to Ravenloft or another dark fantasy setting, which makes it kind of a shame that the default setting book has such shortcomings.

Thanks! Was the Player's Guide a worthwhile purchase for you? (Actually, did you do a review of that? I would love to read it if so, but I know you've got a lot on your plate). I didn't find the issues in the book to be complete dealbreakers, but they do make me think I would probably find a homebrew timeline to drop that content in. One of my players recently mentioned that Gothic horror was kind of her jam, so that might be an interesting idea for another time.

 

[NRSASD]

Thank you for the lovely review! Maybe it's my venerable age speaking, but I'm finding it harder and harder to get excited for "yet another" fantasy European nation. Don't get me wrong, I love me some good fantasy Europe, but I am far more interested in a fantasy Europe that engages with and reacts to the world around it. Just plopping the Spanish Inquisition in Ravenloft and breaking for lunch isn't interesting enough. Besides that, sounds like the book tried some intriguing things! Thanks once again for the review!

 

[Libertad]

Thanks! Was the Player's Guide a worthwhile purchase for you? (Actually, did you do a review of that? I would love to read it if so, but I know you've got a lot on your plate). I didn't find the issues in the book to be complete dealbreakers, but they do make me think I would probably find a homebrew timeline to drop that content in. One of my players recently mentioned that Gothic horror was kind of her jam, so that might be an interesting idea for another time.

I haven't reviewed any of the Grim Hollow books. As for being a worthwhile purchase, I'd recommend it only if you're a huge fan of new subclasses. The new races are neat, but they're a tiny amount of page content. And the survey of the lands of Etharis are a fraction of what is covered in the Campaign Guide. There are two new subclasses for each class save Artificer. I cannot find it offhand, but one of my friends who also owns the books and is a bigger fan of the setting said that there are some really OP choices.

For instance, the School of Sangromancy is a wizard subclass that specializes in the use of sangromancy (blood magic) spells. Said spells require you to expend hit die to cast them. The subclass grants increased uses of this hit die mechanic, such as granting you a separate pool of d12s to use when casting, the ability to add said dice to the damage of harmful spells, and regaining hit points whenever you cast a sangromancy spell.

Some of the sangromancy spells include things like Blood Bond (grants the bonus die as temporary hit points to another creature and can know their distance and direction), Blood Rush (heal yourself as a bonus action with said die), and Circle of Scarlet (create a crimson pillar dealing AoE damage and you get 5 temporary hit points for every creature damaged).

Circle of Scarlet is basically the Bag of Rats trick writ large. But wait, there's more! Crimson Lash basically creates a whiplike weapon of blood in your hand for 1 minute. It uses your casting modifier for attack and damage if you desire, has light, finesse, and reach properties, and its weapon damage die is equivalent to the number of hit die expended in casting the spell. AND it reduces a creature's hit point maximum by the amount of damage it took. AND when you cast it at certain higher level slots you can make additional attacks with it.

I don't think I need to go into detail on how abusable this is.

That being said, Sangromancy is perhaps the most OP result she and I could find, and I don't think that it's the norm.

On the more positive note, the Fighter has the Bulwark Warrior, which is a pretty good tank type: for instance, you can taunt a creature you hit in melee that grants you a reaction where you can force them to attack you instead of another target at 3rd level; perform an AoE where all creatures who fail the save within 30 feet have disadvantage on attack rolls other than you for 1 turn and you gain temporary hit points at 7th level; and so on.

While not what I'd call OP, the cleric gets a very strong subclass that is a general anti-mage: the Cleric Inquisition domain has features such as dealing bonus force damage, can grant resistance to damage from spells and temporary hit points with channel divinity, spend a reaction to deal force damage on a target that you can see casting a spell, etc. So many types of enemies use spells that you're not just a witch-hunter, you're a supernatural hunter in general.

Some other subclasses that looked good and not too OP upon my initial skim include College of Requiems (learn animate dead, undead created by you gain bardic inspiration whenever you'd give a target bardic inspiration, bardic inspiration can be used to deal bonus necrotic damage or be reduced to 1 hit point instead of 0 if a living creature), the Monk Way of the Leaden Crown (turn your unarmed strikes into force damage telekinesis strikes with enhanced reach, spend ki points to do telekinetic-style spells, impose force movement on struck targets who fail a Strength save, etc), and the Green Reaper Ranger (specialize in the use of poisons, can deal bonus poison damage with weapon strikes, spend spell slots to apply unique poisons based on spell level, change poison damage to acid or necrotic). And yes, the ranger in the last example has means of circumventing resistance and immunity to poison damage and condition via the pseudo-spells, but those kick in at higher levels.

Moving on, there are new transformations as well as new material for existing ones in the setting book. We have entirely new rules, such as Advanced Backgrounds, Archetypes, and Party Inspiration and Corruption. Advanced backgrounds are like normal backgrounds, but grant you additional features based on general-purpose story-based quests in line with said background. Archetypes are...well, they're just rules-free role-play advice on how to role-play various common fantasy archetypes and personality traits.

For Party Inspiration and Corruption, this introduces d6 dice pools on both sides of the GM screen as metagame currency. The Players have a Resolve Pool which they can use to help push on, like removing levels of exhaustion, succeeding on a death save, or spend it instead of a hit die for abilities that require its expenditure. The DM has the Beast Pool, which can be spent to make the PCs' lives more difficult like lowering the attitudes of NPCs and adding additional weak monsters to an encounter. Resolve Dice are added for acting like Big Damn Heroes and good role-play, Beast Die are added whenever the PCs encounter or experience acts of horror or evil. While a clever concept, it's more bean-counting and still weighted in favor of the DM's whims.

In terms of raw page content, my favorite part of the book (subclasses) are only a quarter. The other stuff I feel you can take or leave and can be rather a mixed bag. But taken all together, there should be something for everyone here. I would not recommend it as a "player-friendly" version of Grim Hollow, as it makes reference to things in the main setting guide to fully use, such as the Transformations.

 

[Sparky McDibben]

That's great! Thanks so much for the overview, too! I may drop that on the end of my to-read list. Thanks again!

 

[Weiley31]

There are two new subclasses for each class save Artificer.

Here are the two Artificer subclasses for Grim Hallow. They had to do a kind of "work around" due to the nature of the whole Artificer class and the SRD issue. Hence why it's on the DM Guild with this title. But the back of the PDF has an ad/page for Ghostfire Gaming (the makers of Grim Hallow).

Dark Fantasy Artificer Subclasses - Dungeon Masters Guild | Dungeon Masters Guild

Dark Fantasy Artificer Subclasses - Ghostfire Gaming presents Dark Fantasy Artificer Subclasses. Featuring the Machine Cultist and the Artificer Reanimator,

www.dmsguild.com

 

[Weiley31]

Honestly, of the two books, I say the Player's Guide is the better of the two. The campaign guide feels more like a "prototype" at times with a number of stuff. At least in the Player's Guide you get like the full weapons table, the unique races to the setting, and stuff. Although, the Campaign Guide DOES win out in regard to the fact that the full Transformation rules/tiers are in it as well along with the section for the various Curses that can be used.