JoeGKushner
Adventurer
Stand and Deliver is a module for 1st level characters that takes place in the Kingdom of Eldor in the village of Hemden and uses the 3.5 rules and some of the monsters from Kenzer's recently released Denizens of Darkness.
The party is assumed to be on the road and moving through the town. The book has two hooks to get the characters into the adventure proper, either being approached by the Fish Monger guild to enter the upcoming tournament of skill or to champion a young lady's cause as her love is not strong enough to champion her cause in the upcoming competition. The town itself is mapped on the end interior cover and there are encounters that can happen at the GM's choosing, as well as encounters that occur at specific locations.
The rules for the tournament vary depending on the contest. For example, there is an archery contest where each ring has a higher armor class as opposed to the horse race where a number of horse riding checks must be made and a round by round tally of movement made must be kept. One of the best things about the horse race is that the author threw in a little something for that heroic character who champions the lady, a spirit horse that belonged to a paladin and seeks to serve a noble master one last time, allowing an easy win in this case.
Another useful trick that the author does is allows for multiple endings to the tournament. For example, there are some elements in the book that hint that the champion the PC's must overcome, has done some unscrupulous things himself and wise players can attempt to blackmail him and hence win the contest that way. Another factor is that the champion, despite being a higher level, is still a low level character and the roll of the dice can overcome him.
The default assumption though, is that the PC's will lose. The lady and her lover however, don't stick around and now the players have to go find and rescue them. The good news is that versitility I mentioned earlier continues with with two different options for the GM to pursue. He can either have the players look for the lovers at a ruined fort or hunt down the vile ratmen who've been pillaging the hamlet.
Conflict is at the heart of every good story and the book doesn't let up on the roleplaying elements of that aspect here either. For instance, in the world of Tellene, not everyone gets along with everyone else, which is easy to mimic using higher prices for foreigners or actual threats of violence, such as when a group of elves comes through the town looking for lost items. Or even when the players attempt to do go and stop a lone thief, only to be thought of as his partners and attacked by the thieves guild.
Those looking to expand the adventure get some tips from the author and some potential tie ins to other Kalamar products.
The layout is standard two-column text. The 3.5 implementation seems pretty good with use of grapple bonus and attack bonus separate. Editing is good with nothing jumping out to interfere with the flow of the text.
At $11.99, the book is well priced at 48 pages, not counting the interior cover use, with the front covering an overland map of the road to the village and the horse race and the rear the village. It makes good use of the Imagequest tool, full sized or half-sized pages that are expertly illustrated to hand out to players. The bad news is that they seemed to have fumbled the ball as the pages aren't precut so you'll have to bust out the knife or scissors and there is a few pages with one full sized illustration while on the back is a split illustration, which could've been grouped with another split illustration, allowing the user to cut those pages in half.
One 'bad' thing is how tied into the setting this book is. Sure, it can be used in any setting with some work, but you've got to replace political bits, gods, adjust or eliminate the custom classes from the Kalamar Player's Guide and other little bits that sneak in.
Another 'bad' thing is what to do with the troublemakers in the town. There are several instances where the party may wind up killing citizens while protecting themselves but only when it comes to people of power does the text mention how best to handle this. I'd probably role play the party hiding the bodies or something but some in text help would be appropriate.
If you've just gotten started in Kalamar and are looking for an adventure that uses the new rules and is perfect for 1st level characters, than Stand and Deliver will fill that need.
The party is assumed to be on the road and moving through the town. The book has two hooks to get the characters into the adventure proper, either being approached by the Fish Monger guild to enter the upcoming tournament of skill or to champion a young lady's cause as her love is not strong enough to champion her cause in the upcoming competition. The town itself is mapped on the end interior cover and there are encounters that can happen at the GM's choosing, as well as encounters that occur at specific locations.
The rules for the tournament vary depending on the contest. For example, there is an archery contest where each ring has a higher armor class as opposed to the horse race where a number of horse riding checks must be made and a round by round tally of movement made must be kept. One of the best things about the horse race is that the author threw in a little something for that heroic character who champions the lady, a spirit horse that belonged to a paladin and seeks to serve a noble master one last time, allowing an easy win in this case.
Another useful trick that the author does is allows for multiple endings to the tournament. For example, there are some elements in the book that hint that the champion the PC's must overcome, has done some unscrupulous things himself and wise players can attempt to blackmail him and hence win the contest that way. Another factor is that the champion, despite being a higher level, is still a low level character and the roll of the dice can overcome him.
The default assumption though, is that the PC's will lose. The lady and her lover however, don't stick around and now the players have to go find and rescue them. The good news is that versitility I mentioned earlier continues with with two different options for the GM to pursue. He can either have the players look for the lovers at a ruined fort or hunt down the vile ratmen who've been pillaging the hamlet.
Conflict is at the heart of every good story and the book doesn't let up on the roleplaying elements of that aspect here either. For instance, in the world of Tellene, not everyone gets along with everyone else, which is easy to mimic using higher prices for foreigners or actual threats of violence, such as when a group of elves comes through the town looking for lost items. Or even when the players attempt to do go and stop a lone thief, only to be thought of as his partners and attacked by the thieves guild.
Those looking to expand the adventure get some tips from the author and some potential tie ins to other Kalamar products.
The layout is standard two-column text. The 3.5 implementation seems pretty good with use of grapple bonus and attack bonus separate. Editing is good with nothing jumping out to interfere with the flow of the text.
At $11.99, the book is well priced at 48 pages, not counting the interior cover use, with the front covering an overland map of the road to the village and the horse race and the rear the village. It makes good use of the Imagequest tool, full sized or half-sized pages that are expertly illustrated to hand out to players. The bad news is that they seemed to have fumbled the ball as the pages aren't precut so you'll have to bust out the knife or scissors and there is a few pages with one full sized illustration while on the back is a split illustration, which could've been grouped with another split illustration, allowing the user to cut those pages in half.
One 'bad' thing is how tied into the setting this book is. Sure, it can be used in any setting with some work, but you've got to replace political bits, gods, adjust or eliminate the custom classes from the Kalamar Player's Guide and other little bits that sneak in.
Another 'bad' thing is what to do with the troublemakers in the town. There are several instances where the party may wind up killing citizens while protecting themselves but only when it comes to people of power does the text mention how best to handle this. I'd probably role play the party hiding the bodies or something but some in text help would be appropriate.
If you've just gotten started in Kalamar and are looking for an adventure that uses the new rules and is perfect for 1st level characters, than Stand and Deliver will fill that need.
