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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sparky McDibben" data-source="post: 9162371" data-attributes="member: 7041430">That sounds awesome! Not sure if Saltmarsh is a great fit, but the others are pretty good. Radiant Citadel is probably my favorite adventure anthology this edition.I don't know that you'd want to, either, since that basically removes the opportunity for PCs to "discover" them in play, either through research, or by being marked by a spellbook that thinks they have great potential.OK, Titanhall sounds dope and that just went into my cart. I've picked up several of the others already, and "Classroom Events" really went into my idea of how to run a Strixhaven campaign.Like, I'm happy to use assumptions that fit the text, but when the text doesn't fit the tropes or the text, it makes worldbuilding quite difficult.I'm not sure what you're asking for here. Are you saying that you want an age range for the fantasy races that reside in Strixhaven?Mr. Farquhar, I'm sorry - you posted that comment while I was writing this, and I wasn't able to quote it into the piece. My only comment here is that if you needed personal experience to play or comment on a D&D campaign, no one would ever be able to play a wizard, sir.Alright, folks, let's finish this bad boy off (mostly). Chapter 6: A Reckoning In Ruins covers the PCs final confrontation with Murgaxor! So everyone comes back to campus, and the atmosphere's pretty not-great. Everybody's scared of Murgaxor, since he checks notes hasn't actually killed anyone yet. Yes, he charmed a dean, and that's impressive, but that's about it.But first, there's a Fun Strixhaven Game, using animated teacups! Huzzah. No monster attack, at least.After that, there's an exam, with one DC being 20 and the other being 13. Took 'em long enough to hit the high numbers. From there, the PCs (who are the only people to have actually stopped Murgaxor) are sent to be detention monitors, but secretly to look for signs of Murgaxor. Because the detention this week is being held in a hydra-infested swamp!Someone really needs to tell Wizard OSHA that this place is hazardous to these kids' health. JFC. Unfortunately, it's another fetch quest. I could see an escort mission or "defend the younger kids" kind of mission being really cool here, but no, it's just another pointcrawl with functionally zero stakes. Deep breaths, Sparky. Deep breaths.After this, the PCs level up to 9th level.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/IoKHEAq.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /> The actual honest-to-God villain. May he strike fear into the hearts of flies everywhere! At this point, one of the professors pulls the PCs in and lets them know that<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Murgaxor is bad news, having killed several kids when he was a student 200 years ago </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Murgaxor has shielded himself completely from the faculty's magic, but not from the PCs </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Murgaxor is working on a ritual to drain the life from everyone on campus to achieve immortality </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">The faculty will excuse the PCs from any more exams this year if they go kill Murgaxor, and they graduate with honors </li> </ol>There's a lot to unpack with this premise. First, aren't there dozens of students who aren't immune to Murgaxor's magic? Why are we only sending the PCs? (If your answer is "because plot," smack yourself) Is the endowment running out? Second, what about the founder dragons, all of whom are active in Strixhaven's campus? Did Murgaxor make himself immune to breath weapons? Third, "with honors" is crap - summa cum laude or nothing, y'all. What about the archaics and the oracle that were mentioned in Chapter 1 and whom we still haven't seen?Like this whole setup is a non-starter. Utter garbage. Here's how I would do it: Right after the PCs get started on campus, Murgaxor's curse hits the entire faculty, rendering them all comatose. Murgaxor's magic starts to cause chaos on campus, including besieging it with tons of summoned creatures and minions. The dragons and the rest of the students are busy engaging a literal army of chaos and can't get everyone to safety- the oracle can find where to pursue Murgaxor, and tell the PCs his ultimate plan, but that's it. Now we have a reason for the PCs to go after him, and a reason that no one else can interfere. Took me five minutes.The next step is investigating Murgaxor's last known whereabouts in the Badlands. This is a dungeoncrawl with two levels. The upper level 7 rooms, some interesting loops and investigation of secret doors, and the bottom level has four rooms in one big loop. That's 11 rooms. That's barely a lair, you guys. There are no interesting navigational choices to make in the bottom level; it's just fighting Murgaxor's lieutenant.The PCs learn that Murgaxor is found in another castle. Unfortunately, there are only two clues pointing to the next castle, and both require skill checks to find. In fact, one requires that the PCs take a prisoner and successfully Intimidate her. So they could very easily miss these. DEEP BREATHS, SPARKY. DEEP BREATHS.After this, the PCs head back to Strixhaven and have a Mass Effect-style send off. I actually like the PCs being feted by their peers as they ride out; this adds a nice bow to the big confrontation. The final fight is another two-level dungeoncrawl, with each level having six rooms. There's a necrotic shield they have to get through, but they can easily fail the check to figure it out, making the PCs very hesitant indeed to engage with it. There's a fight with a fiend and some ghouls (separately), and then the PCs need to blow up a security measure. This last one is bonkers to me - it has a damage threshold of 15, but that's within the upper bounds of some cantrips by this point, so the PCs can just blast it with cantrips and eventually blow it up. It would be boring, but safe. "Boring but safe" is generally bad adventure design.After they clear the top level, they level up to level 10. The adventure recommends the PCs take a short rest, but recognizes the players might not feel it's dramatically appropriate, so they suggest the DM can handwave some stuff to have that happen. Just key stuff like this into the world, guys. It feels less "pulled out of my ass" that way.Murgaxor can't take any actions but lair actions, and has a 200 hp barrier surrounding him. Once the barrier comes down, the PCs can blow up five key ritual stones, stopping the ritual. So you never actually fight Murgaxor. You fight his lair actions.This was the absolute last straw for me. You build this guy up for four freaking adventures and then don't even let me take him on properly? What the actual hell, WotC?At this point, the PCs are either the heroes of Strixhaven, and graduate with honors, or, if they failed, everyone on campus takes 20d6 necrotic damage, Murgaxor is immortal, and the PCs are probably dead. Well, I'll be damned. It took four adventures and over a hundred pages, but they finally recognized that consequences matter, you guys! We did it! Hurray!!!Or, y'know, with all the handwaving the adventure has done, the writers figure if the PCs can't close the deal that's on the PCs.And now we come to why Strixhaven falls into the Products that Actively Piss Me Off category: There's a lot here, and it could have been amazing. This genuinely could have been the social pillar book we were wanting! It could have been utterly awesome! And what I get is a near-stakeless railroad. No DM support. Nothing to let you run your own adventures in your own magical school. Nada. Bupkis. Zip.Why even write this? God, look, this review is exhausting. I hate writing negative reviews. The ones I have fun on are interesting one like Planegea or Drakkenheim. But this? It's a mess. Next time we'll come back and go over the monsters and how I would run a Strixhaven campaign. Until then, friendos!</blockquote>

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