Monsters Lairs vol. 1 - Goblins' Caves

[Crothian]

"Goblins' Caves" is a flourishing, green, supplement about an overexploited subject. A 23 page long description of caves inhabited by a goblin tribe, with over 11 maps, plans and illustrations. The authors have laid stress on the tactics and ecology of the monsters . The goblins use combos - traps and new mundane items for example arrows with giant fire beetles. Their hamlet is vivid: the temple pulses with cannibal ceremonies, the caves belch the stench of the plantations of live mushrooms and breeding beetles . The lairs of goblins are full of traitors, degenerates, possessed by evil sprits, madmen and slaves, waiting for the characters to come .

The Forge Studios presents and represents a new quality in game's accessories combining 'art' packs and ordinary gaming material.
Every PDF from The Forge Studios consists of two parts. The first one is designed exclusively for the DM. In it you can find exact plans, visualizations, ideas, and adventure hooks.

The second part is a set of visual aids which can be easily printed or presented to other players during a session, in order to enrich the description and create a more precise presentation.

The "Goblins' Caves" consists of:
- 23 page long description
- 1 map of the caves complex
- 5 floor plans of important locations
- 9 view drawings

 

[Crothian]

Monsters Lairs Vol 1 Goblin Caves

[imager]http://www.rpgnow.com/products/product_5124.jpg[/imager]

Adventures and adventure ideas come in many forms. It might be a picture or a TV show, a movie or a book that can spawn the next great adventure run at your table. Other times people go and look into the published ideas of the role playing games. It can be a fully fleshed out adventure or a lesser detailed adventure hook that sparks the DM’s imagination. There are many sources for inspiration and Goblin Caves is one of the latest offerings.

Goblins Caves is the first volume in a Monsters Lair line by a relatively new company called the Forge Studios. The PDF is forty seven pages long. It has no book marks which it could use but does have a nice and sharp layout. Reading in on a computer screen is easy it is not going to be as easy to find things in the book on the computer without the book marks. The PDF does have a color border and a lot of really nice black and white art. Printing it all out can be a bit of an ink eater, but there are some really nice full page illustrations that do not have the color border on their pages that make great hand outs for the game.

The book’s strongest point is the art. There are eighteen pages of full page black and white art in this book. Some of them are maps, mountain passes, inside the lair, and other very nice drawings. It is really well done and the art in the rest of the book is also of high quality. I am really impressed with the art here and the great presentation of it. Few books that have great art include it in such a way like this to be printed out and used as handouts. For this book a picture really will be worth a thousand words.

The rest of the book is pretty good just not as good as the art. There is no adventure here just some ideas of how this place can be used. I think they would have been better served to have a specific adventure and line up specific encounters with the art. The book starts with an okay background of the area. There are many areas of the book that really could have been fleshed out a lot more. The background is a good start but does not present enough detail for me. There is also a side bar of eleven adventure seeds here. And again it is a good start but the hooks could use a little more detail. Most of them are pretty common hooks that most DM’s already have in their arsenal.

The writers do have a nice bit of what will a knowledge check or a locate object get the party information wise. But they only have a single DC of information listed. A check of a twenty should reveal more information then a check of a fifteen and a twenty five should yield even more still. It is good to include the information but it would have been better to include it for a variety of DCs instead of just the one.

This is a nice PDF just a little lacking in some areas. The place does require a bit more DM work to make it work for the DM. But the art is just really good. These guys have some great talent and in the future hopefully they can match all aspects of the book to the high standard of art they use.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

You never actually say what the book is, just describe it as though we had a basic idea!

 

[Crothian]

Its a lair of goblin caves. Seriously, I figure the title really give it away here.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

So is it statted out or not? If it's not statted out, what makes it particularly goblin? If it is statted out, what levels is it for?

 

[Crothian]

some is statted but most not. What makes it goblin caves is the book tells me its goblins caves. There is no reason you can't make the cave orc caves or something else. Just like there is no reason you can't take the Giant modules from long ago and populate them with kobolds or titans or whatever you want. THe book does not list specific levels for it.