NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pukunui" data-source="post: 8010074" data-attributes="member: 54629">Yes, it's got lots of great parts. They just don't add up very well. I did make good use of the Xanathar's Lair in my SKT game, and I do appreciate having official stats for important NPCs like Laeral Silverhand. Volo's Waterdeep Enchiridion is fantastic. However, it also contains some of the most egregious railroading I've seen in a long time, as well as a climax that is anything but.Most of the hardcovers double as a sourcebook, so I'm not sure why that counts against SKT. I know some people claim the plot is thin, but that could be said about pretty much every other hardcover as well. As for Mad Mage, it certainly isn't the first, nor will it be the last, rehash. I'm not sure why that counts against it either. My main issue with it is that it is just plain boring. I intended to use some of the higher-level dungeon areas as standalone adventures but none of them caught my interest enough to make me want to put the work into adapting them.That said, I've been disappointed with most of the 5e books in various ways since about Volo's. As an alpha playtester, I was super bummed when I saw that they hadn't bothered to revise the playable monster stats at all, despite plenty of feedback that they needed a bit more work. Instead, they chose to leave them as-is and just slapped a "use at your own risk" disclaimer on them. That was the point at which I began to be disillusioned with WotC's support of 5e. Xanathar's and Mordenkainen's were further blows, as were releases like Dragon Heist.I'm trying to be cautiously optimistic about this new Icewind Dale one, but I'm not holding my breath.I love 5e as a game system. I'm just not loving how WotC is choosing to support it. I wish that the slower release schedule meant better quality. And I wish 5e wasn't so much of a DIY edition. There's just not enough time in the day anymore to do all the D&D things I'd like to do myself (and still have time to take in other forms of entertainment). I'd much rather know that what I'm buying is something I can use with minimal effort. Alas, the only 5e product I can really say that about is Lost Mines of Phandelver. I was able to run that with almost no prep / variation at all!OK, that turned out to be more of a downer of a post than I thought it would be. I'd better send myself off to bed.</blockquote>

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