Rate the Neverwinter Campaign Guide

Rate the Neverwinter Campaign Guide


Kzach

Banned
Banned
I like a lot of what I've seen in Dragon and the Character Builder so I'm considering buying the hardcopy. It's been quite a while since I've been interested in actually buying a setting book because my past experiences have always been let-downs. Since I'm not rolling in cash and the $40 expense would be significant to me, I was hoping that those eager beaver early adopters could give me some feedback on how good or bad they feel this book is and whether or not it's worth the asking price.
 

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It would be grossly inappropriate for me to vote, so I shall refrain. ;)

What I will say is that we wrote the book to have a lot of story flavor and plot hooks. In fact, it may well be the most flavor-intensive book I've personally worked on for 4E. The new mechanics represent a pretty small portion of the book.

Whether that's to your taste or not--either in general, or with this book in particular--I wouldn't dare speculate. Just putting it out there for you to make an informed decision, whichever way you decide.
 

Would have liked a Poll Choice for "Not bought it yet but want to"

I like Campaigns but dont like to use them exclusivly, I like to take information from them and use them in a Custom Campaign.

When you say "The adventurers walk into the City of Minkorlat" and then the Rules Lawyer in the party says... "Actually... in the Ukita Realms Campaign Setting its pronounced Mink-e-our-lat not Mink-or-lat"

However in your own campaign, its whatever you make it!
 

Our 4e DM seems to have been inspired by it - he was considering no fewer than four options for his next campaign, and then dropped all four in favour of Neverwinter. But at times he does seem easily pleased...

The other comments I've seen are that it's dripping with flavour but that people have had some problems building a campaign around it. Their reaction has been, "Well, that's great... but what do I do with it?" That might well not be a problem for you, of course - if you're the kind of person who can tease out adventures given lots of hooks, it sounds like exactly the product for you. But if you're the guy who can come up with the hooks easily but finds it hard to spin those into adventures...

All that said, I'm going to refrain from voting. It looks quite good, and the trailer was very nice, but I haven't read it, so don't have direct experience.
 

I flicked through it in a new Game Store I found yesterday in town. I was on lunch and didn't have any time to read it, but I can say it smelt very nice - mmm new book smell.

The cover was good too.
 

I have read it and it is really excellent. There are multiple factions and the factions intersect in a variety of different places and in different ways. There are a lot of NPCs that can potentially be turned from enemies to friends and vice versa. That part is great.

I also love how there are great little blurbs and lots of threads left hanging everywhere, and I do mean everywhere. What will this NPC do, up tothe DM. What is exactly in this ruin, up to the DM. It is very refreshing.

On the downside, the books reads like it was designed as a paragon book and then retrofitted for heroic. Some of the factions are really strong even for a tenth level party. (Wizards of Thay, and other strong monsters!!!)

That said, I would probably play it from 6th to 16th or so.

Overall, excellent book.
 

Would have liked a Poll Choice for "Not bought it yet but want to"

Which would be the same boat I'm in making the poll entirely pointless. The idea here is to find out from people who actually own the product.

I have read it and it is really excellent. There are multiple factions and the factions intersect in a variety of different places and in different ways. There are a lot of NPCs that can potentially be turned from enemies to friends and vice versa. That part is great.

I also love how there are great little blurbs and lots of threads left hanging everywhere, and I do mean everywhere. What will this NPC do, up tothe DM. What is exactly in this ruin, up to the DM. It is very refreshing.
Ooh, see now that's the kind of book I really love. My favourite D&D book of all time was one that was never published despite it being utterly awesome and full of flavour exactly like what you just mentioned. That was Ivid the Undying.

Hmm... so far it looks like I'll probably be $40 poorer soon :)
 
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I have only read the flavor of the themes, but I do want to comment on them. (my game isn't FR and it would be a while before I could use the non-DDI elements; it is on my to buy list just based on the theme flavor though)

The themes, and the way they plug in to the setting, are great. I think that it sets a new standards for the flavor for themes, and the tools. Each one I read has a built in conflict for a DM to play with an explore, and provides a neat layer of customization. It makes the characters matter more in the world.

The way it hooks in, I think, is the way WotC needs to do all themes for all sandbox or long duration adventures. I even want to go back and make themes for RHoD now.
 

NW has quite a few good plot hooks and does a nice job identifying some interesting areas of Neverwinter.

The race expansions are mostly fluff, IMO.

Included the Bladesinger class, no opinion yet, but it has its own thread.

Themes are interesting and represent power creep in the game, so everyone will want a theme eventually, if their GM allows. Themes offer an excellent opportunity for WoTC to sell books. That being said not all themes are created equally. This was discussed on other threads. Also the themes presented, may not support all non-essential races well, though GM could open these up. In some cases themes seem to duplicate racial powers, eg. when your shifter is shifting, he can also form into a hybrid form and be doubly shifting. I have to look more closely to see if the bonuses for my shifter shiftily shifting stack or not.

The Dead Rats and supporting wererat fluff and crunch are excellent and IMO very useable (possibly more so as a GM).

Some themes are much more potent in combat with eg attacks or poison resistance. OTOH, the Oghma theme may be helpful for role-playing but does not deliver at all for combat purposes, nor does it improve much at higher levels. Hopefully your GM will give you some additional rituals or no component costs if you take this one.

I do look forward to more themes, but hope that they will be more balanced in the future.

I like the creatures, they are somewhat spread out, IIRC, amongst organizations and plots. The personalities and creatures are all in the heroic tier which is great in providing weaker varieties of some interesting critters, yet at the same time it would have been nice for some paragon statted creatures. Again, it does a good job identifying hooks for potentially conflicting groups.

Still reviewing it, but that's my first impressions. Hope they were useful.
 
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Damn good book.

My only beef with the book is that I find some of the possible antagonists a tad weak. I do prefer my main villains to be able to stand up a bit more than regular monsters of the same level. In short, I think more of them should have been elite. But its a very easy fix.
 

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