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Grim Hollow Campaign Guide - 3rd Party Review
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<blockquote data-quote="Sparky McDibben" data-source="post: 9127866" data-attributes="member: 7041430"><p>Alright, folks! Time to dig into the history of Etharis and it's racial composition! Chapter 2: Races of Etharis is seven pages long, and introduces the main races of the world:</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Humans</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Elves</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Dwarves</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Half-Orcs</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Half-Elves</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Dragonborn</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Gnomes</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Halflings</li> </ul><p>Of those eight races, you'll note that five of them have darkvision. So when they say this world is a "dark" fantasy, clearly they are only referring to what happens after sixty feet. </p><p></p><p>The history is basically thus:</p><p></p><p>1) Everyone but humans are chilling out, just vibing.</p><p>2) Humans show up, and, like the monkeys we are, start hurling crap all over everything ("crap" here referring to a nigh-genocidal purge)</p><p>3) Elves fall back to their ancient forest kingdom, eventually making peace</p><p>4) Dwarves and gnomes fend off the human advance around the last remaining dwarven citadel, inventing adamantine and artillery in the processs</p><p>5) Dragonborn get their home wiped out, and have a somewhat nomadic existence</p><p>6) Halflings cut a deal with humans and collaborate with them to avoid extinction</p><p>7) Humans found the Burach Empire (It's got two dots over the u).</p><p></p><p>There's a lot more to this that gets covered in the geography chapter, but it's a fairly standard <em>Warhammer</em>-style setup. It's not (quite) a carbon-copy, and not much interesting is done with the various races. I can see why - elves in <em>Dragon Age</em> are a bit of a shock vs regular Tolkien-esque elves, for example. But the lack of an interesting fresh spin on these heritages feels like a missed opportunity to set this world apart from its peers. There's also no mechanical differentiation from standard 5E races, and I think that's a major missed opportunity, as well. Show me how elves are isolated and tragic - "I get a wizard cantrip!" from base 5E doesn't really do the trick. </p><p></p><p>At this point, though, we hit Chapter 3: Advanced Weapons. This is 16 pages long, and amounts to an additional set of weapon options for martials. Advanced weapons are so difficult to master that you don't get proficiency with them until level 3 (if you already have proficiency with all martial weapons). There are nine of them, each with a variety of properties (seriously, so many properties). There are eight new weapon properties included:</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Blackpowder: Audible out to 300 feet when discharged, and cannot be fired when the powder's wet (needs a short rest to dry out)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Brutal: Brutal critical as a weapon property</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Cumbersome: You have to use Strength for both attack and damage rolls (this only gets applied to ranged weapons)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Guard: It's the reaction attack from Sentinel, but it does no damage</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Momentum: If you move 20' in a straight line before making an attack, you can upgrade the damage die to the one specified by this property</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Repeater: If you take the attack action with this weapon, you can make another attack as a bonus action, but don't get your ability score modifier to the damage of that bonus action attack.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Swift: If you miss, your next attack against the same target with this weapon has advantage</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Scatter: Your weapon becomes an AoE</li> </ul><p>Look, if you're inventing a weapon property, my first question is, "Does this apply to several weapons? Or just one?" And indeed, when we check the weapons, we see that Brutal, Guard, Momentum, and Swift all apply to only one weapon each. Cumbersome and Scatter only apply to two. Cavalry Hammer actually gets a property (Armour Piercing) that isn't explained at all. I don't want to tell people that they can't make a shotgun in their games. But I don't think that creating a bunch of new properties is the way to go here. I'd prefer it if all the new rules for a shotgun appear in the shotgun entry and the shotgun itself gained the Special property. </p><p></p><p>There are also several kinds of special ammunition detailed here, all of which really feel like they should be magic or alchemical items and not in the weapons chapter. Incendiary adds +1d4 fire damage, and silvered ammunition bypasses resistance to non-magical weapon damage, for example. I'm not sure if you can grab these from anywhere, but the effects are a little underwhelming.</p><p></p><p>Past that, we get several new feats! Blackpowder Expert, for example, lets you ignore the loading property on blackpowder weapons, and also lets you make attacks of opportunity when someone moves within 10' of you (so it's like a mashup of Crossbow Expert and Sentinel!). Nocturnal gives you an extra 60' of darkvision (really undercutting the "dark" in "dark fantasy"), and then you have a couple of kind-of-interesting ones like Witch Hunter. </p><p></p><p>Past that, we get into the 10 new spells in this book. And....well, it's a mixed bag. There's a couple of cantrips that feel like remixed versions of PHB cantrips (<em>holy word</em>, for example, is an attack cantrip, deals 1d8 radiant damage, and reduces a target's speed by 10 feet - so it's like <em>sacred flame </em>crossed with <em>ray of frost</em>). There's spells that reference mechanics we haven't been introduced to (<em>dazing blast</em> causes the target to become dazed, but there's no language to reference the dazed condition introduced in the next chapter, which caused me some confusion). And then there's <em>greater animate dead</em>. This spell has had me full-on conspiracy boarding for like an hour, y'all. It says "Choose a</p><p>corpse, or a number of corpses, within range that are equivalent [sic] the size of the creatures you are animating (the GM will determine how many corpses are required). You can animate a number of large [sic] or smaller undead creatures equalling a total challenge rating 2 or lower."</p><p></p><p>So first off, I assume that they mean large as the size category (except that's usually written as Large to avoid that very question). Secondly, what the heck does "that are equivalent the size of the creatures you are animating" mean? Of course the corpses are equal in size to what you're animating - <em>they're what you're animating</em>. Does it mean that you can try to animate the <strong>minotaur skeleton</strong> from the <em>Monster Manual</em> using a bunch of ogre skeletons? I <em>think </em>that's the intent, but the wording here is so poor that it has me scratching my head on all of these interpretations. </p><p></p><p>Finally, we get to the curses. Curses are potent spells that require unique components and have dreadful multi-stage effects - a slow and insidious ticking clock. Honestly, these are some of the best mechanics in the book. I genuinely love them. The idea that anyone who's sufficiently motivated can hurl dire curses at the party that can't just be removed with a single 3rd-level spell is fantastic. Curing these curses can require a willing sacrifice of one's life, twice-murdered ravens, potions brewed by hags, a wish, etc., <em>or several of these things in conjunction</em>. Simply fabulous work. </p><p></p><p>These can be dropped into the world on NPCs, used as the background for monster explanations (all of these curses eventually turn the sufferer into a dreadful monster), and possibly be deployed by or against the PCs. </p><p></p><p>Well done.</p><p></p><p>Alright folks, next time we'll pick up with Chapter 4: Variant Mechanics! See y'all then!!!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Sparky McDibben, post: 9127866, member: 7041430"] Alright, folks! Time to dig into the history of Etharis and it's racial composition! Chapter 2: Races of Etharis is seven pages long, and introduces the main races of the world: [LIST] [*]Humans [*]Elves [*]Dwarves [*]Half-Orcs [*]Half-Elves [*]Dragonborn [*]Gnomes [*]Halflings [/LIST] Of those eight races, you'll note that five of them have darkvision. So when they say this world is a "dark" fantasy, clearly they are only referring to what happens after sixty feet. The history is basically thus: 1) Everyone but humans are chilling out, just vibing. 2) Humans show up, and, like the monkeys we are, start hurling crap all over everything ("crap" here referring to a nigh-genocidal purge) 3) Elves fall back to their ancient forest kingdom, eventually making peace 4) Dwarves and gnomes fend off the human advance around the last remaining dwarven citadel, inventing adamantine and artillery in the processs 5) Dragonborn get their home wiped out, and have a somewhat nomadic existence 6) Halflings cut a deal with humans and collaborate with them to avoid extinction 7) Humans found the Burach Empire (It's got two dots over the u). There's a lot more to this that gets covered in the geography chapter, but it's a fairly standard [I]Warhammer[/I]-style setup. It's not (quite) a carbon-copy, and not much interesting is done with the various races. I can see why - elves in [I]Dragon Age[/I] are a bit of a shock vs regular Tolkien-esque elves, for example. But the lack of an interesting fresh spin on these heritages feels like a missed opportunity to set this world apart from its peers. There's also no mechanical differentiation from standard 5E races, and I think that's a major missed opportunity, as well. Show me how elves are isolated and tragic - "I get a wizard cantrip!" from base 5E doesn't really do the trick. At this point, though, we hit Chapter 3: Advanced Weapons. This is 16 pages long, and amounts to an additional set of weapon options for martials. Advanced weapons are so difficult to master that you don't get proficiency with them until level 3 (if you already have proficiency with all martial weapons). There are nine of them, each with a variety of properties (seriously, so many properties). There are eight new weapon properties included: [LIST] [*]Blackpowder: Audible out to 300 feet when discharged, and cannot be fired when the powder's wet (needs a short rest to dry out) [*]Brutal: Brutal critical as a weapon property [*]Cumbersome: You have to use Strength for both attack and damage rolls (this only gets applied to ranged weapons) [*]Guard: It's the reaction attack from Sentinel, but it does no damage [*]Momentum: If you move 20' in a straight line before making an attack, you can upgrade the damage die to the one specified by this property [*]Repeater: If you take the attack action with this weapon, you can make another attack as a bonus action, but don't get your ability score modifier to the damage of that bonus action attack. [*]Swift: If you miss, your next attack against the same target with this weapon has advantage [*]Scatter: Your weapon becomes an AoE [/LIST] Look, if you're inventing a weapon property, my first question is, "Does this apply to several weapons? Or just one?" And indeed, when we check the weapons, we see that Brutal, Guard, Momentum, and Swift all apply to only one weapon each. Cumbersome and Scatter only apply to two. Cavalry Hammer actually gets a property (Armour Piercing) that isn't explained at all. I don't want to tell people that they can't make a shotgun in their games. But I don't think that creating a bunch of new properties is the way to go here. I'd prefer it if all the new rules for a shotgun appear in the shotgun entry and the shotgun itself gained the Special property. There are also several kinds of special ammunition detailed here, all of which really feel like they should be magic or alchemical items and not in the weapons chapter. Incendiary adds +1d4 fire damage, and silvered ammunition bypasses resistance to non-magical weapon damage, for example. I'm not sure if you can grab these from anywhere, but the effects are a little underwhelming. Past that, we get several new feats! Blackpowder Expert, for example, lets you ignore the loading property on blackpowder weapons, and also lets you make attacks of opportunity when someone moves within 10' of you (so it's like a mashup of Crossbow Expert and Sentinel!). Nocturnal gives you an extra 60' of darkvision (really undercutting the "dark" in "dark fantasy"), and then you have a couple of kind-of-interesting ones like Witch Hunter. Past that, we get into the 10 new spells in this book. And....well, it's a mixed bag. There's a couple of cantrips that feel like remixed versions of PHB cantrips ([I]holy word[/I], for example, is an attack cantrip, deals 1d8 radiant damage, and reduces a target's speed by 10 feet - so it's like [I]sacred flame [/I]crossed with [I]ray of frost[/I]). There's spells that reference mechanics we haven't been introduced to ([I]dazing blast[/I] causes the target to become dazed, but there's no language to reference the dazed condition introduced in the next chapter, which caused me some confusion). And then there's [I]greater animate dead[/I]. This spell has had me full-on conspiracy boarding for like an hour, y'all. It says "Choose a corpse, or a number of corpses, within range that are equivalent [sic] the size of the creatures you are animating (the GM will determine how many corpses are required). You can animate a number of large [sic] or smaller undead creatures equalling a total challenge rating 2 or lower." So first off, I assume that they mean large as the size category (except that's usually written as Large to avoid that very question). Secondly, what the heck does "that are equivalent the size of the creatures you are animating" mean? Of course the corpses are equal in size to what you're animating - [I]they're what you're animating[/I]. Does it mean that you can try to animate the [B]minotaur skeleton[/B] from the [I]Monster Manual[/I] using a bunch of ogre skeletons? I [I]think [/I]that's the intent, but the wording here is so poor that it has me scratching my head on all of these interpretations. Finally, we get to the curses. Curses are potent spells that require unique components and have dreadful multi-stage effects - a slow and insidious ticking clock. Honestly, these are some of the best mechanics in the book. I genuinely love them. The idea that anyone who's sufficiently motivated can hurl dire curses at the party that can't just be removed with a single 3rd-level spell is fantastic. Curing these curses can require a willing sacrifice of one's life, twice-murdered ravens, potions brewed by hags, a wish, etc., [I]or several of these things in conjunction[/I]. Simply fabulous work. These can be dropped into the world on NPCs, used as the background for monster explanations (all of these curses eventually turn the sufferer into a dreadful monster), and possibly be deployed by or against the PCs. Well done. Alright folks, next time we'll pick up with Chapter 4: Variant Mechanics! See y'all then!!! [/QUOTE]
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