Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="IronWolf" data-source="post: 2008059" data-attributes="member: 21076">The Forge of Fury is an adventure for four 3rd level characters which takes them to 5th level. From personal experience, it also runs well with three characters of that power level - as long as one is of a fighter class. The Forge is self-admittedly, and unabashedly, a dungeoncrawl. It will be reviewed as such. The rating above, and the review to follow, makes the assumption that the group in question is looking for an adventure in this genre. In other words, if you're looking for grand story or political intrigue, stop reading now. Now, as dungeoncrawls go, the Forge of Fury is an outstanding example of how a well-executed one might look. The dungeon in question is, in fact, Khundrukar, a ruined dwarven stronghold - located beneath a mountain known as the Stone Tooth . In what is quite a novel approach, the Tooth features several entrances into the mountain, the less obvious of which reward thinking groups who bother to survey the area before charging inside.The inside of the stronghold is divided into five areas, each of which is significantly different from the others and presents its own, unique challenges. The first is the Mountain Door is a highly defendable deathtrap of an entrance, inhabited by a tribe of orcs with no love for intruders. The Mountain Door will highlight the fact that this is very much a thinking man's dungeoncrawl. Unlike the examples of this genre which make it infamous, rushing in with longswords set to kill will get the party nowhere (except perhaps into a shallow grave). Careful planning and a tactical mind frame are plentifully rewarded. A sidebar is helpfully provided for groups who take a less refined approach.The other thing that jumps out at you as you read this section, and those that follow, is the sheer adaptability of this adventure to any given party. The author wisely accents the strengths of pen n' paper dungeoncrawls in comparison to their computerised alternatives, providing plenty of problems but leaving the solutions up to the players and their characters. An illustration: The entrance to the Mountain Door is a ledge guarded by two orcs, with an archer gallery inside the entrance providing backup. A party with a thief, ranger or monk with move silently (or even a magician with a sleep spell) can take these two down without alerting the gallery, or simply sneak past them. On the other hand, the party with a charismatic leader with bluff and a magician with an alter self can talk their way in. Or the clever fighter with bull rush can charge them of the ledge on which they stand, allowing the rest of the party to make a dash for the entrance. And, given the D20 experience system, all these are equally rewarded. The possibilities are, in a word, endless.This trend of allowing for a number of different party compositions, and resulting solutions, continues throughout the adventure which take the players through the huge, natural caverns of the Glitterhame, the deadly waters of the flooded storage area that is the Sinkhole, the dwarven halls themselves, known as The Foundry, and the Black Lake, which is home to the main adversary of the dungeon - a young black dragon. Even the oft-neglected nature skills and knowledge of the ranger and druid could save the lives of the party, as some of the deadliest traps of Khundrukar are features of its natural environment. Which is not to say the mechanical and magical traps left by the dwarves won't keep the party thief or mage busy. As far as difficulty levels are concerned, the dungeon presents a variety of dangers and should be ample challenge, but by no means impossible, for any party. It is, however, particularly nasty in spots (a roper, a wight and a young black dragon with *nasty* tactics being the main offenders). To be fair, most of these are discussed in various sidebars and the Gm is alerted to their danger to the party but their presence nonetheless makes this a very harsh adventure in places. The party is well-rewarded for their efforts, however, with the standard assortment of coinage and valuable nick-nacks which have inexplicably inhabited D&D dungeons since the dawn of time. The dungeon is not, however, a Monty-haul by any stretch of imagination. The party should come out of the dwarven complex with one +1 (or, for one lucky individual, +2) weapon or the mage-equivalent, which isn't too bad for 5th levellers. None of the treasure is particularly unique, however, which is the one weakness of the adventure. It would have been nice to see some unusual magic items rather than the usual +1 haul.A bonus for newer Gms: The adventure was obviously written with someone who didn't know every nuance of the rules (and, with a system this new, who does?) And at several points sidebars give advice as to how to handle certain situations and reminders regarding certain situations and rules which a Gm may forget to apply in the ‘heat of the moment'. The writing, in general, is easy to read and the descriptive components are adequate in conveying the tone of the dungeon. Also, the statistics for monsters are provided in the appendix, meaning the main body of the text is easy to navigate and not cluttered by statistics boxes. However, there are a few problems. the hooks into the adventure are all pretty poor. This wasn't a big issue for me as I adapted the thing into a campaign and I haven't reduced the overall score because of this (as I usually would) as dungeoncrawls aren't really story-oriented. Also, for whatever reason, the writer was obviously referring to slightly different maps to those provided with the module so sometimes the text refers to ‘danger zones' which aren't on the maps. This is a slight, but occasionally annoying, discrepancy. Speaking of the maps, they're provided inside the covers and are drop dead gorgeous, not to mention very surveyable, practical and (most importantly) photocopiable. Copying them to hand them to your party (in case you're foregoing the map-as-you-go option) isn't really practical as ‘danger areas' for traps and secret doors are indicated. If you're blessed with a scanner through (as I happen to be) scanning them in and just removing or hiding these is a pretty simple matter. The cover is a well-painted action scene and a great prelude to the climatic encounter with the black. The interior art is sparse but does depict a few scenes where flashing the image to the players could be useful to convey the feel of these areas. In conclusion, Forge of Fury is a superbly designed, well written and adequately illustrated adventure which will adapt well to almost any party. However, be sure to realise this glowing review is only a result of the fact that I'm reviewing the book in the context of a dungeoncrawl. If your group breaks out in hives when you mention dungeons, this is probably one to stay away from.</blockquote>

Verification