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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JoeGKushner" data-source="post: 2010627" data-attributes="member: 1129">In many ways, The Hamlet of Thumble reminds me a lot of the first part of the Temple of Elemental Evil, The Village of Hommlet. We have a quest to help those of a small town, given by the king's advisor himself, to overcome evil. Pretty simple in its concept and in its execution.The strength of the book is in the details of the Hamlet itself. Here, we get halflings who are more traditional in their role, more like those of 1st and 2nd edition as opposed to the race of explorers they've been portrayed as in 3rd edition. Each part of the village is detailed, allowing the GM to reuse this Hamlet over and over again. The inhabitants all have little quirks and activities that they can engage the players in.The bad news though, is that it's a very short module. There is pressure on the players to go seek out the trouble in the hamlet, the yappies as they're called because of their loud barking, because a halfling child has been kidnapped. This puts a time clock on the player's activities so a group of good aligned character's isn't going to be spending a lot of time getting to know the ins and outs of the locals.Instead, they'll sneak across the river and hunt down the yappies. In the course of their hunt, they may encounter the guards of the foreign country they've just entered. A nice switch in terms of pacing as these individuals may not be particularly hostile to the party and just wants them to stay on their side of the bridge. More interesting however, are the fixed encounters that can plague the party, not because they're 'kewl' but because they're encounters with creatures of a high power level than a base party and force the party to think beyond the world of hack and slash.After the party overcomes the single level of yappies, or kodolds, they get to return home where they may discover that things aren't what they originally seemed to be. A good way to end the module and allow the GM to add on some hooks of his own.That's it.An equal portion of the book is taken up with new rules and goodies to add to any campiagn. Three new core classes, the cavalier, shaman and witch, are introduced. They follow standard progression and look like they'd fill some important roles in a base d20 fantasy campaign but I question their inclusion in this particular book. Sure, the witch the party encounters is an example of using the class right off the bat, but Necromancer Games and others have been using druids, clerics and sorcerers for a while now so a new class isn't essential, but is useful outside the adventure.Some of the new feats tie into the classes like Craft Tetish and Charm, where you can create magic items to store Enchantment Spells in Charms or fetishes for other spells. Others like Spell of Opportunity may be overpowered but have strict requirements, once again making me wonder why something with a prerequisite of 15 ranks in spellcraft is in an adventure for 1st-2nd level characters.New spells allow the 'blessing' of barbarian rage onto a single target or multiple targets with the higher level version, as well as the ability to destroy crops via Blight spells. Unlike some products, the spells aren't broken down by class, level and alphabetized, but start off in alphabetical order with very short, but effective descriptions of the spell's effects.The new monsters introduced in the book, the Dolloby, a small construct that eats a lot and the Wicked Treant, are fully statted out for use in your own campaigns, in addition to what I'd call improvised weapons like fryaing pans, rakes, hoes, and miner's picks.More useful to those starting a campaign are the different optional rules, like those covering the use of dreams or reputation points. I've always wondered why 3.5 didn't crib the reputation points from Star Wars and other games and now I've got a method simple enough to add to my own game without a lot of fuss or muss.Something I'm not too fond of on the other hand, are special abilities for Pcs which range in power level from the binding and immediate healing of damage through the Bind Wounds ability to the Deadly Aim ability that doubles your damage with a ranged weapon once per day. I can understand where the author is coming from in his desire to see the heroes do well and survive, and some board members have mentioned the 'Let me be Cool' attribute before so they'll enjoy such abilities. Fortunately, the author balances these somewhat with Special Weaknesses like Fear of Magic, giving penalties to Will Saves or Xenophobia which makes the character afraid of a specific race, making them save or flee when confronted with such an individual.Also of use to new GMs are the GM Tips including how to start a new game by controlling point levels for character attributes, a different method than that of the DMG, or providing bonus hit points for first level characters. One of the better reads in this section is 12 Signs of a Good Gm which I recommend even experienced GMs read just so they can see where they fall in the rankings.The book closes off with pregenerated characters, good and evil Pcs that have special abilities, per the discussion earlier in the rules section.My problem is the excess, non-adventuring material. While the book includes evil Pcs in the form of kobolds with class levels, it doesn't go into any detail about how they'd overcome the halflings. This is a very important note since one of the hamlet residents is a mid level retired adventurer capable of wiping out the whole party in a single encounter. In addition, why not another level for the kobold lair? Why not a more powerful guiding force behind the kobolds? Why not more fixed encounters?Interior covers aren't used. The interior art doesn't match the cover in quality. It's not bad and certainly better than I could do, but Storn set a fine standard with that cover, hailing back to 1st edition days. The editing and game mechanics look fairly sound as do the balances on the new core classes but more playtesting at various levels would be needed before I'd blindly let anyone choose those classes. The layout is very tight and dense, fitting a great amount of words per page, but making me realize that I'm getting older as I often had to put the book down to rest my eyes.To get the five star rating, there would need to be more adventurer, better art, better dungeon maps, interior cover use, and a master of layout who could fix the one problem that seems to creep along every now and again in the MEG products, where something that has a level, like 4th, kicks an extra line into the flow of the text.The price on this puppy is right though. At $14.99, it's one of the most inexpensive 72 page modules out there. The wide amount of source material allows a GM to get more 'bang' for the buck if they want to continue adventuring in Thumble. If you're looking for a short adventure with a lot of supplemental material that's perfect for GMs just getting their feet wet with 3.5, then the Hamlet of Thumble is for you.</blockquote>

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