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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AntiStateQuixote" data-source="post: 2278148" data-attributes="member: 30770">Drow War I: Looking GoodNote: this review refers to the PDF version of the product. It is my assumption that the PDF is exactly the same as the physical book less the the physical part. Also Note: this review is based on a reading of the material. While I have not actually played or DM'd this product yet, I feel that a thorough reading of the book was sufficient for this review's purposes. Spoiler Warning: this review contains significant spoiler information. If you think you might want to play in this excellent adventure/campaign stop reading now. Tell your DM to buy the book and run it for you. It's worth it. Author: Adrian BottPublisher: Mongoose PublishingPage Count: 256Price: $34.95/$24.49 PDF at DriveThruRPG.com First Glance:Wow! When I heard about this product my first thought was "I've got to have it!" So, it's a campaign in a box . . . well three books, but close enough. And it goes up to level 30?!?! My first thought was the right thought. I'm very glad I bought it.  Note this is book one of three and covers levels 1 to 10. The storyline is interesting and intriguing. The adventure(s) offer opportunities for combat, role-play and mystery/puzzle solving. While much of the "anticipated" storyline is somewhat forced upon the players, it does not come off as the PCs being rail-roaded into following the author's plot. The PCs have plenty of opportunities to make significant choices that affect the outcome of important events. Furthermore, the outcome of those events is not pre-ordained. The central elements of the story that affect the world at large are massive battles for control of some cities. The PCs actions will directly affect the outcome of those battles, and it's not necessary (or even preferable, in my opinion) for the good guys to win. The storyline continues past these campaign-shaping events regardless of whether the PCs succeed or fail in helping defend the cities from the Drow invasion. The conclusion of the overall story (in the first book) is by no means pre-determined and the PCs actions will have direct and significant impact on the campaign world at large. Organization:The book is organized into twelve chapters and three appendices. Chapter One is an introduction to the book and the proposed setting and provides a brief synopsis of the anticipated general storyline. Chapter Two is more specific setting information including geography, political relations between nations, gods and an explanation of the Starborn who are special heroes (the PCs) sent to "save the world." Chapters Three through Twelve are each separate "adventures" in the campaign. It is anticipated that the PCs will work through the events of each chapter in succession and will gain one level of experience per chapter/adventure. The appendices are Signature Items, Mass Battles and New Monsters. The New Monsters appendix is self-explanatory. The Signature Items appendix gives game rules for special magical items that the Starborn (our PC heroes) gain during the story. Each item is specific to a PC and has powers that vary with character level. It's an interesting concept that seems to work pretty well. Mass Battles is a short, rules-lite system for resolving the afore-mentioned huge battles. The system is EXTREMELY simplistic which is both good and bad. It makes it possible to resolve a massive fight involving thousands of critters in an evening, but it also simplifies the process to the point that potential realism is lost. Seeing as I would prefer to use the huge battles as cinematic pieces, this works good for me. Setting:While the author claims that this campaign could be used in any game setting, I would say this is not necessarily the case. The adventure(s) are tightly tied to the proposed campaign setting, and using it in Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk or a home-brew setting would require a great deal of work. I wouldn't want to do all of that work (else, why buy a campaign in a box?), so I think using the proposed setting is best. The proposed campaign setting is the world of Ashfar. The world assumes fairly standard D&D races, classes, etc. There are two continents with several nations each and a few island nations scattered around the map. Pretty much any standard Dungeons and Dragons character could find a home somewhere in Ashfar. The storyline works in such a way that it is not necessary for all of the PCs to be from the same area. In fact, it's probably best if they are not. Ashfar has two distinct pantheons of deities that cover most of the spheres of influence/control that one would expect. The setting chapter is fairly brief (about 20 pages), so it is somewhat lacking in detail, but there is enough background information and flavor there to make it workable for the adventure. The adventures of the first book take place in only a few places in the game world, and each adventure "area" provides significant detail to flesh out the background for those areas. Storyline:The basic storyline is that the PCs are iconic heroes called the Starborn who are reborn into a world threatened by a Drow invasion. The PCs, like the rest of the world, are unaware of the threat when the story begins. The opening scene includes a "railroading" disclaimer in which the author apologizes for the heavy-handed beginning. I forgive him. While I think that he could have put forth some additional effort to make the beginning less scripted, it does not detract significantly from the overall story. So, the Starborn, with no memory of their past, must discover who they are, why they are here and then do something about the badness that is coming down (er, up) on the world. Hmm. That doesn't sound nearly as fun as the adventure reads. Chalk that up to me not wanting to give too much away. It suffices to say that if you can get past the forced beginning of the story and accept that the PCs are not regular Joes but really special heroes then you will find an interesting and compelling story for them to deal with. Encounters:This book offers a wide range of encounters from combat to negotiation to problem solving to simple role-play with the commoners. The challenges are well-suited for the characters by level and offer a variety of situations/motivations for the PCs to deal with. My only complaints here are that there may be too many encounters and some of them are "set piece" encounters that occur "when the PCs arrive at point x." I know it's difficult to get around the problem of timing events in the world to coincide with the PCs presence, but there seemed to be a great many situations that were "waiting" for the PCs to arrive before they played out. On the matter of too many encounters, it is possible for four PCs to earn over 3000 XP each in the first adventure chapter which is supposed to take them from level 1 to level 2. While it is unlikely that the PCs will do everything that's offered in that chapter, it is very likely that the PCs will earn around 1800 XP. If this trend continues throughout the story then the PCs will be overpowered before too long, and the adventure will become too easy. I would strongly suggest that a DM keep careful track of the current XP and the potential XP available in a given chapter to carefully regulate the PCs advancement. NPCs:The NPCs in the book are many and varied. All of the important NPCs have full stat blocks and brief (sometimes not so brief) motivation, personality and descriptive text. There are plenty of good guys, bad guys and people in between for the PCs to interact with. There are a few NPCs that are listed as potential allies that could easily become NPC cohorts should the DM so choose, and there are significant potential "player character's patrons" available, although it is not necessary for the PCs to accept them as such. Maps:There are numerous maps interspersed throughout the book. They vary in quality and detail. There is a full-page world map in black and white that gives the general world political layout. This map has no scale, which is annoying, but not a show stopper. There is no world-wide terrain map. There are several maps of regions, more detailed area maps and gridded encounter/dungeon maps. These maps vary in quality from somewhat below-average to average. Some of the regional/area maps do not have scale lines, but most indicate the scale via markers of some sort. Most dungeon/encounter maps are gridded. The maps are not particularly important to me, so their quality (as compared to the rest of the book) does not really affect my overall view of the product. Artwork:I am not an artist or an art lover, so this is a hard one for me. All of the artwork (except the cover) is in black and white. The quality is what I would call "average fantasy drawing" quality artwork. It's not special, but not bad either. Some of the pictures are very interesting and, of course, all of them relate to the story at hand and could be used as player handouts and/or show-n-tell devices. The border artwork on every page is somewhat distracting and chaotic, but not detrimental to the book. Good:It's all there. Everything you need to run a long campaign. I would guestimate that this single book will be about 100-150 hours of gaming for my group. We're not a particularly role-play intensive group so your play time may be significantly higher if you spend a lot of time with PC/NPC conversations. There are instances where such conversation is required to progress the plot, but much of it could easily be glossed over and likely will be in my group. The author provides enough detail in the explanations of why things are happening to allow the DM to extrapolate as necessary when the PCs do something unanticipated by the book. It's a really good set up: here's the situation; here's some things that are going to happen; here's why those things are happening; so, what do the PCs do about it? Not so good:As mentioned, the sheer number of encounters make it possible for the PCs to exceed the expected level-by-chapter for the book. A well-organized DM should be able to handle this. Set piece encounters are plentiful, but unavoidable to ensure that the PCs have plenty of choices as to what they do and when they do it. Significant plot events must happen in order to progress the story, so they do happen when the PCs are there to deal with them. I would have liked to have maps separate from the rest of the book (they are interspersed throughout the book where they are needed). I'll survive this shortcoming. I'm going to print those out anyway, so it's not that big of a deal for the PDF version, but it would annoy me alot if I had the physical book. Finally, there are no "side adventures" that do not directly or indirectly affect the overall storyline. It would have been nice to see a couple of events that were totally unrelated to the overall storyline and just added flavor. Everything has some impact on the general story even if the impact is as little as "NPC x will react more or less favorably to the PCs if y happens this way." Some people may not consider this a short-coming, but I do. Conclusions:Do you want to run a long-running campaign in which the PCs are big-time heroes? Yes? Then buy this book. The organization is excellent, the story is interesting, the NPCs are compelling and the potential game-time is huge. There are lots of good game hours per dollar in this package.</blockquote>

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