Do the skill challenges sync up to whatever the current rules for skill challenges are?
Review of Beacon in the Dark by Sneak Attack Press
- Thread starter WarlockLord
- Start date
Do the skill challenges sync up to whatever the current rules for skill challenges are?
Neuroglyph
First Post
One of the complaints you sometimes hear about D&D 4E is the lack of material for high level tiers. While there are mounds of official Wizards of the Coast adventures for the Heroic Tier, there isn’t a lot of full scale modules written for the Paragon and Epic Tiers, unless they are part of the massive campaign arcs WotC toyed with early in 4E’s history.
Even the D&D Encounters series have been mostly geared toward the lower levels of play, although the new D&D Lair Assault might one day pop out a higher level content with the Rise of the Underdark coming along. Even most 4E GSL indie publishers have mostly churned out Heroic Tier content – some of it has been great stuff too - but not a lot of offerings for Paragon and Epic Tiers.
But last month, Sneak Attack Press, piloted by author Matthew J. Hanson who has credits from Dragon Magazine, Kobold Quarterly, and E.N. World Gamer, has recently come out with an adventure which breaks the Heroic Tier “glass ceiling”. Offering a new adventure entitled Beacon in the Dark, Sneak Attack Press presents a quest for the Paragon Tier adventurers, looking for a way to try out their newly found Paragon Path powers.
Beacon in the Dark
Beacon in the Dark is a D&D 4E adventure designed for early Paragon Tier characters. The adventure is designed for a typical party of characters ranging in Levels from 11-13, and features nine new monsters, two skill encounters (challenges), and two combat encounters – although the final encounter is actually several encounters in one! The author also provides a “DM Cheat Sheet” for easy organization during the adventure.
Production Quality
The production quality of Beacon in the Dark is good to very good, with nice presentation of the material, and sharp writing of the adventure plot and background. The monster stat blocks are presented in typical MM3 format, and the entire product is printer-friendly, with gray-scale presentation of maps, blocks, and content. The product contains a table of contents, but the lack of bookmarks in the PDF made navigation a bit troublesome, even though was only 12 pages long.
The artwork in Beacon in the Dark is quite excellent, and I particularly liked the drawings of the three NPCs which accompany the adventurers on their quest. The maps are a bit simple in design, but can be easily drawn on a battle mat as the adventure progresses. It is also likely that official dungeon tile packages might be able to approximate the maps for players that prefer using them.
The Adventure
*** SPOILER ALERT ***
[Author’s Note: It’s nearly impossible not to give a spoiler here or there in reviewing the contents of this adventure. If you feel it is likely your DM might use this adventure, please feel free to skip to the end notes and conclusions to avoid reading a spoiler.]
Beacon in the Dark is a an adventure which offers characters the opportunity to take a quest through the upper reaches of the Underdark. A group of dwarves are seeing to reclaim a stronghold in a territory claimed by drow, and the heroes are asked to escort three of the clan’s elders to activate the wards there, and defeat the evil elves. The three NPCs are ostensibly a wizard, a druid, and a cleric, however they are designed as non-elite monsters with limited combat abilities, which makes it the heroes responsibility to get them safely to the old stronghold so they can use a ritual to reactivate the ancient defense system.
The adventure appears to be designed with 5 heroes in mind, although the author does not specify how many characters the encounters are balanced for. The NPCs offer help mostly in the form of advice, although they are equipped with a decent at-will buff or debuff, as well as an encounter power that offers positional advantage, healing, and strategic blocking terrain once each combat.
The adventure is designed as a series of linear encounters - a combat encounter, followed by a skill challenge, followed by the finale encounter. The author does allow a choice of two paths to follow for the skill challenge, with a differently designed skill challenge for each path, however, both end up at the same ending locale.
The first encounter is a bit of a slugfest, an EL 14 battle against eight monsters, with no minions involved whatsoever. Although six of the combatants are under the average PC level, it is likely that this combat will take some time to play out.
At this point, the PCs will be offered advice by the dwarven elders on two paths they can take to reach the ancient outpost, and each path leads into a separate skill challenge. Regretfully, the skill challenge is a bit oddly designed, as it presents the characters with a series of obstacles which must be overcome, with consequences for the final encounter if they fail three times. What makes these encounters odd is the level of difficulty, as most require a Hard DC to overcome, although there are a few Moderate DCs scattered in depending on what skill is used. This sort of breaks the expected pattern for a skill challenge, and makes failure quite likely unless the characters have good training and bonuses in the requisite skills. Further, many of these challenges appear to call for everyone in the group to chance it or fail, which again increases the likelihood of a failed encounter, and negative consequences. Thankfully, some of the obstacles allow for circumventing via other means, including just running through them and accepting damage – which does not cause a failure – or by using combat powers to avoid some of the problems – also not a failure.
Finally, the adventure concludes with a massive combat at the site of the old dwarven outpost, with the heroes trying to protect the elders from a drow onslaught. The finale takes the form of a wave event, with drow and other monsters rushing in to stop the elders from enacting the ritual, which the heroes, literally, “hold the fort” against them. The number of creatures coming into the combat is massive, nearly 50 monsters in all, although thankfully there are a decent amount of minions in the mix. The tactics for each wave are different, and the wide range of drow types and spiders make for a lively and unique combat. There are a few plot twists here that I won’t reveal, but overall, it is a real challenge for the heroes to take on this many monsters. However, the author does allow the characters a couple of partial short rests, which while not as powerful as a full rest, nonetheless will be necessary to complete the fight.
Overall Score: 3.75 out of 5.0
Conclusions
In the final analysis, Beacon in the Dark is a pretty nifty little adventure, although best played with a group that likes 4E combat… a lot! There aren’t a lot of opportunities for roleplaying in this adventure, although the author does flesh out the NPCs enough that heavy role-play group could spend some time puzzling out the elders and balance the adventures combat-heavy style. Each of the combat encounters are likely to take a couple hours or more, so although the adventure is deceptively short, its actually probably good for a two to three sessions at least. While I was a bit taken aback by the skill challenge design, it does offer a very “delve” feel to the adventure, even if the DCs are a bit high. And the final encounter is pretty spectacular, and will likely be a point of memory for this particular module for a long time to come, given the sheer complexity of the battle that ensues. Overall, the adventure offers quite a bit of play for a modest few bucks, and offers Paragon Tier heroes a chance to flex their new-found Paragon Path might.
So until next review… I wish you Happy Gaming!
Author’s Note: This author received a complimentary advanced copy of this product for use in writing the review above.
Grade Card (Ratings 1 to 5)
Even the D&D Encounters series have been mostly geared toward the lower levels of play, although the new D&D Lair Assault might one day pop out a higher level content with the Rise of the Underdark coming along. Even most 4E GSL indie publishers have mostly churned out Heroic Tier content – some of it has been great stuff too - but not a lot of offerings for Paragon and Epic Tiers.
But last month, Sneak Attack Press, piloted by author Matthew J. Hanson who has credits from Dragon Magazine, Kobold Quarterly, and E.N. World Gamer, has recently come out with an adventure which breaks the Heroic Tier “glass ceiling”. Offering a new adventure entitled Beacon in the Dark, Sneak Attack Press presents a quest for the Paragon Tier adventurers, looking for a way to try out their newly found Paragon Path powers.
Beacon in the Dark
- Author: Matthew J. Hanson
- Illustrations: Samuel Heironymous Grimm, Toby Gregory, Kimuga, Sade, Robert Zander
- Publisher: Sneak Attack Press
- Year: 2011
- Media: PDF (21 pages)
- Retail Cost: $3.45 (available at RPGNow)
Beacon in the Dark is a D&D 4E adventure designed for early Paragon Tier characters. The adventure is designed for a typical party of characters ranging in Levels from 11-13, and features nine new monsters, two skill encounters (challenges), and two combat encounters – although the final encounter is actually several encounters in one! The author also provides a “DM Cheat Sheet” for easy organization during the adventure.Production Quality
The production quality of Beacon in the Dark is good to very good, with nice presentation of the material, and sharp writing of the adventure plot and background. The monster stat blocks are presented in typical MM3 format, and the entire product is printer-friendly, with gray-scale presentation of maps, blocks, and content. The product contains a table of contents, but the lack of bookmarks in the PDF made navigation a bit troublesome, even though was only 12 pages long.
The artwork in Beacon in the Dark is quite excellent, and I particularly liked the drawings of the three NPCs which accompany the adventurers on their quest. The maps are a bit simple in design, but can be easily drawn on a battle mat as the adventure progresses. It is also likely that official dungeon tile packages might be able to approximate the maps for players that prefer using them.
The Adventure
*** SPOILER ALERT ***
[Author’s Note: It’s nearly impossible not to give a spoiler here or there in reviewing the contents of this adventure. If you feel it is likely your DM might use this adventure, please feel free to skip to the end notes and conclusions to avoid reading a spoiler.]
Beacon in the Dark is a an adventure which offers characters the opportunity to take a quest through the upper reaches of the Underdark. A group of dwarves are seeing to reclaim a stronghold in a territory claimed by drow, and the heroes are asked to escort three of the clan’s elders to activate the wards there, and defeat the evil elves. The three NPCs are ostensibly a wizard, a druid, and a cleric, however they are designed as non-elite monsters with limited combat abilities, which makes it the heroes responsibility to get them safely to the old stronghold so they can use a ritual to reactivate the ancient defense system.
The adventure appears to be designed with 5 heroes in mind, although the author does not specify how many characters the encounters are balanced for. The NPCs offer help mostly in the form of advice, although they are equipped with a decent at-will buff or debuff, as well as an encounter power that offers positional advantage, healing, and strategic blocking terrain once each combat.
The adventure is designed as a series of linear encounters - a combat encounter, followed by a skill challenge, followed by the finale encounter. The author does allow a choice of two paths to follow for the skill challenge, with a differently designed skill challenge for each path, however, both end up at the same ending locale.
The first encounter is a bit of a slugfest, an EL 14 battle against eight monsters, with no minions involved whatsoever. Although six of the combatants are under the average PC level, it is likely that this combat will take some time to play out.
At this point, the PCs will be offered advice by the dwarven elders on two paths they can take to reach the ancient outpost, and each path leads into a separate skill challenge. Regretfully, the skill challenge is a bit oddly designed, as it presents the characters with a series of obstacles which must be overcome, with consequences for the final encounter if they fail three times. What makes these encounters odd is the level of difficulty, as most require a Hard DC to overcome, although there are a few Moderate DCs scattered in depending on what skill is used. This sort of breaks the expected pattern for a skill challenge, and makes failure quite likely unless the characters have good training and bonuses in the requisite skills. Further, many of these challenges appear to call for everyone in the group to chance it or fail, which again increases the likelihood of a failed encounter, and negative consequences. Thankfully, some of the obstacles allow for circumventing via other means, including just running through them and accepting damage – which does not cause a failure – or by using combat powers to avoid some of the problems – also not a failure.
Finally, the adventure concludes with a massive combat at the site of the old dwarven outpost, with the heroes trying to protect the elders from a drow onslaught. The finale takes the form of a wave event, with drow and other monsters rushing in to stop the elders from enacting the ritual, which the heroes, literally, “hold the fort” against them. The number of creatures coming into the combat is massive, nearly 50 monsters in all, although thankfully there are a decent amount of minions in the mix. The tactics for each wave are different, and the wide range of drow types and spiders make for a lively and unique combat. There are a few plot twists here that I won’t reveal, but overall, it is a real challenge for the heroes to take on this many monsters. However, the author does allow the characters a couple of partial short rests, which while not as powerful as a full rest, nonetheless will be necessary to complete the fight.
Overall Score: 3.75 out of 5.0
Conclusions
In the final analysis, Beacon in the Dark is a pretty nifty little adventure, although best played with a group that likes 4E combat… a lot! There aren’t a lot of opportunities for roleplaying in this adventure, although the author does flesh out the NPCs enough that heavy role-play group could spend some time puzzling out the elders and balance the adventures combat-heavy style. Each of the combat encounters are likely to take a couple hours or more, so although the adventure is deceptively short, its actually probably good for a two to three sessions at least. While I was a bit taken aback by the skill challenge design, it does offer a very “delve” feel to the adventure, even if the DCs are a bit high. And the final encounter is pretty spectacular, and will likely be a point of memory for this particular module for a long time to come, given the sheer complexity of the battle that ensues. Overall, the adventure offers quite a bit of play for a modest few bucks, and offers Paragon Tier heroes a chance to flex their new-found Paragon Path might.
So until next review… I wish you Happy Gaming!
Author’s Note: This author received a complimentary advanced copy of this product for use in writing the review above.
Grade Card (Ratings 1 to 5)
- Presentation: 3.75
- - Design: 3.5 (Nice but simple layout; printer friendly; no frills design)
- - Illustrations: 4.0 (Cool illustrations; nifty NPC drawings; adequate maps)
- Content: 3.5
- - Crunch: 3.0 (Unorthodox skill challenge troubling; encounters are slugfesty; cool wave event finale)
- - Fluff: 4.0 (Good storyline and quest; interesting ending plot twist; nifty powers for monsters)
- Value: 4.0
Last edited by a moderator:
Neuroglyph
First Post
No, and I based my appraisal of the skill challenges upon the Rules Compendium, which I believe holds the most recent rules for skill challenge construction and for the skill DCs. Per RAW, Hard DCs are not supposed to be used as often as the ones constructed for the module. And "group" checks, ones requiring everyone to roll, are supposed to be against Easy DCs, which were not found anywhere in the challenges. Given the unorthodox construction, it was an area which I felt I needed to raise a "red flag" about.
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