Light of Xaryxis - Spelljammer: Adventures in Space Review

Review copy courtesy of Wizards of the Coast.

Pros

• Lots of full colour art. The scenes are space + sailing vessels. There are some more sci-fi looking ship designs too, though more fantasy in layout. Resembling insects or creatures. It gives the book it’s own subject matter, and it looks great.

• The setting work is particularly good. The ships, the layouts, the locations. I just wish there was more.

• Spelljammer is back! Whoo!

• The abandoned spelljammer encounter in particular is good.

• Tear away map, and hard cover map.

Could Go Either Way

• It’s shorter than previous adventures. Though page length doesn’t always translate to being useful, or quality.

Cons

• The MSRP is higher then previous sets. Probably because of all of the hard cover elements in the set.
  

• No PDF*

* Denotes nitpicking.

Introduction

I’ve been crying for a new setting for a while. Planescape. Spelljammer. Well, here we have Spelljammer. For those who aren’t aware, it’s a science fantasy style setting. While there are some more advanced looking ships that evoke feelings of Star Wars, there are also literally ships sailing through space. As in they actually have sails. After seeing how the set looks, I was excited to get into it. Did it meet my expectations? Well, let’s find out!

The Adventure

New Player Options

Not really anything in the way of new weapons. That said, some firearms that were in the Dungeon Master’s Guide and seldom used are here in full force. It helps give the adventure its own feel. There’s not new classes here, which is to be expected. Generally speaking, I prefer if such big changes aren’t bolted on to an adventure. What it does have is some new playable races which tie into the settings. What’s also nice to see is that they are featured multiple times in the adventure. So a player who reads these while thinking of their character gets to see them in game, and they double as world building. Another example here are ships. It isn’t directly related to a class or character, but a ship in such adventures becomes their home base, and their literal home. So having so many options to choose from, with interior floor plans is very nice, and appreciated by players. I know mine did.

New Monsters

An entire book is dedicated to new monsters.

What You Need to Play

It’s business as usual here. The Monster Manual, Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide are referenced at the start of the adventure. These have become necesary, compared to earlier in the edition when the basic rules and/or SRD were enough. You could probably mostly get by with this one actually. But they no longer put in the effort to check. And naturally, as a new Dungeon Master any missing creatures would need to be created by you. Such a thing wouldn’t be too difficult, though possible still annoying, for an experienced Dungeon Master. But I wouldn’t recommend it for a new recruit.

The Adventure Itself

I have to come out and say this. In terms of page count, this is one of the thinner products that have been released in a while. This is despite the increase in price. This results in a more expensive but small page count product. I would prefer that adventures aim for 250-300 pages. Rime of the Frostmaiden hit this area of 300 pages. What’s the reason? Well, I think that some choices in terms of the quality and design did this. By having 3 hard cover books, a hard cover map, and a box, I think the cost of production was increased. This further bit into the adventure because of the emphasis on things like ships, locations, and worlds. I love those parts of the adventure. World building and setting is important for a D&D game, and campaign. However, 160 pages isn’t much for an adventure. And that includes all 3 of the books in this box. Just the adventure is about 60 pages. Low levels were sacrificed, with not even a short adventure to help players level. I wish there was more.

The adventure itself feels very Star Wars, or earlier science fantasy. Saving the world, space princesses, space elves, spaceships as in ships in space, cities in space, and more. It also has a big of Cthulu and that special D&D feel too. Mind flayers in space. Magic and spell casting. Fireballs being shot in space. It really does give it a unique feel. A fantasy planet feels like a space port. And space has its own special feeling. I think a setting should feel that way.

The characters we travel with have something to them. A vampirate captain. A wizard cartographer. A talking hippopotamus with a drinking problem, and a difficult past. And luckily, they come along for the ride and join the party for a significant amount of time. The ships have a character to them too. They look different, have full features maps, and even crews. To any good pirate story, a good crew is important. And as the adventure continues, the crew expands here. The villains...well, something more could have been done but I feel there is a fairly decent twist lined up. Though arguable predictable, I think the added complexity is a benefit and a good twist shouldn’t be able to be predicted by someone.

How are the encounters? Honestly, pretty good. That’s not to say every encounter is incredible. I’d ideally like even a small tactical map with something interesting to add to the encounter. I also like encounters that evolved over time. Reinforcements, crumbling terrain, an additional goal being present, etc. However, while there are some simple encounters here, there are also some standouts. One involving a mindflayer ship. Plot turn after turn occurs, leading to a pretty fun feeling encounter. And yes, I ran it. The other part of encounters, is that you’re on a ship. So there’s ship combat too. The ship combat has different parts of the ship we can target. Ships typically have some number of catapults or ballistae. You fire these at long range to do things like disable sails. And of course, boarding is an option too. It’s not too complex, but enough to give options while also keeping combat fast. Like many other aspects of combat, good location design makes the encounters better. Also, there’s some nuance about air envelopes and what happens when we fall overboard. We’re in space after all.

The ending...had me confused a bit. It said a creature must wear the ring, but one of the characters has a crawling claw. Doesn’t it count as a creature? That loophole doesn’t seem to be considered or explicitly rejected, so it kind of diminishes it a bit. That said, it’s an easy thing to fix I think. Just something to consider. For the ending to have appropriate weight, I think it should be clear why the item can’t be just thrown in, or why a crawling claw can’t be used. Or just tying it to a chicken, a rat, or a horse or something. It’s a small thing and rarely happens in this adventure. I just wish it was even better and avoided such issues.

The plot is decent, and even offers some interesting situations and twists. The majority of it though sends the party on their space ship from location to location. As they do so, they meet new characters, and often bring them along for their ride until the end. So it’s important to know that even though characters may stay in one place for some time, they’ll eventually leave and continue on their journey. A big part of the adventure is visiting and seeing new locations, so their home is their ship. Despite my confusion above, it really does offer a good ending for the campaign. A big ship battle, on foot stuff, the plot being resolved for the adventure. And even a big choice is offered. Though for many parties, I think it’s an obvious choice. I just wish it was longer, started earlier in terms of levels, had more ideas for random encounters or things found while drifting through space, and provided more ideas for what happens after the end of the adventure. In its current state, there’s not much to choose from either. If players had to visit to areas and could choose the order, that’d already be an improvement. A slight branching in other words. Further options would be if they wanted to stop and investigate things randomly found during their travels. Randomizing them would help with replay value. And lastly, even half a page of sample ideas of what the empire would try after the ending would be very helpful to new Dungeon Masters. Also, as it is, if the Dungeon Master wants to start at level 1, they’ll need a little mini-campaign to bring them up to level before they’d leave their world behind.

The Art and Book Build Quality

This is where the adventure really knocks it out of the part. The card cover map really looks and feels impressive. The hard cover box it comes in also helps to make the whole adventure feel expensive. From the art, to the multiple hard cover books. Normally, the set would come as one book with sections. Here, we have 3 different hard cover books dealing with each part of the adventure. There’s also a hard cover map. And, one of the books has a tear away map too. From a quality standpoint, it feels good. I think this affected the price, and the page count though. For more detail, see the adventure itself above.

The art itself is that style of science fantasy that makes me happy. Sailing ships in space. Vampirates. Yes, vampire space pirates. This means that even if the style isn’t my favourites, backgrounds are often interesting and even breathtaking. The maps are good. And there’s a good amount of art. I wish there was more photo real style art in it. A classic drawn ship with a beautiful background. But what we have here is good.

The quality here is mostly good too, in terms of condition and finish. The binding was good. The covers were good. There were a few seeming minor colour mistakes, but they were very minor. All in all, one of the better quality sets in that regard for me. The art was untouched, and the books were all as I expected them to be. Keep up the good work.

Price

The MSRP for this one is more than normal. I suspect it’s because of the multiple hard cover books, the hard cover map, and the hard cover box. In this way, it’s more like one of the gift sets. Well, that’s how it is I guess. And as always, there are sales if you can wait.

What I felt was Missing

It just needs more given the price tag I think. We don’t get an introductory adventure going from level 1 anymore here. The ending, while addressing the main conflict, sets up further conflict with the empire that are the antagonists of this adventure. I’d have liked to see a page or so of ideas to happen in the future. It’s amazing what kind of seemingly obvious ideas can be missed. I know I’m guilty of it as a Dungeon Master. Some settings books did this fairly well, such as Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft.

I’d also love to see some more option sights, and encounters. We’re in a ship sailing through the stars. It should be a very free experience, with the ability to visit many places at the players’s will. Some way to allow players to maybe visit locations in the order they wish, with complications and optional ship disembarking would have been welcome. 

 

Ultimately I think it's mainly an adventure book. It's partially also sold as a Spelljammer book, but doesn't really do a lot there. We need a big full book just going over the setting itself to make people happy. Though I guess this could work as an introduction, as people dig up the older edition books that already exist.

Free Stuff

Nothing here really. Move along.

Summary

All in all, the material provided here is solid. The adventure is fun with nice encounters. A highlight is one occurring on a damaged mindflayer ship. Complication after complication occurs, which is advice I generally give for fun encounters. And the setting of spelljammer, a world ships flying through space in a science fantasy manner, is unique. It gives a specific science fantasy sailing through the stars feeling that nothing can really capture the same way in D&D. The production value of this set is also greatly improved. So what’s the catch? The price is higher, the page count is lower, and the adventure covers a smaller level range than normal. No introduction adventure either. Page count isn’t necessarily a show of quality, but more pages make it much easier to give more. So ideally I’d like to have both. Page count, and quality.

Other Stuff

• There’s a pretty serious typo on the ships. It references the wrong ship, which is actually the previous ship. Copy paste issue? They meant to replace it for the new ship, but left the section including referencing the wrong ship type.

• The ending needing a creature, but missing some obvious examples that would negate the sacrifice. Also, explaining why a certain vampirite captain wants to volunteer would help. Even if by subtext earlier in the adventure. Well, probably preferably through subtext.

Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft Review

Review copy courtesy of Wizards of the Coast.

Pros

• More full colour art. Including maps of regions (but not battlemaps)

• Many different setting types covered for players as different domains of dread.

• A new adventure included with the world building book. Really, more Dungeon Master centred books should have such things. It’s a good way of showing examples, gives more material to adapt from, and provides more maps that can be used for battles.

• The survivors section for rules is particularly nice. Easy to use for one-shots, session 0 adventures, and quick aside scenes. And the content fits well in a short page count making it easy to understand.

• The section on curses is also a standout.

• Also the section on paranormal traps.

Could Go Either Way

• This isn’t really a guide to Ravenloft, but more a primer on running horror games with some briefly described settings to pull inspiration from. If you want a guide to Ravenloft, Curse of Strahd is more what you want. The name is misleading.

• There are some new monster here, but not much.

• The darklord of a domain is usually just an existing creature. Even modifications to them are rare.

• I’d have liked to see some new variants of existing monsters, including lower Challenge Ratings. A bunch of new lower level zombies maybe. We got some of this with new zombie types, but typically higher level. And also as stat blocks, but not rules.

• I’d have liked to see a collection of horror items and cursed magic items that adventures could be made around.

Cons

• No new battlemaps outside the 1 new adventure.

• There’s not much crunch here. Not many mechanics, monsters, or traps compared to the page length. It’s mostly high level help for horror, and descriptions of domains without battlemaps or other things to fill it out.

• Some Domains of Dread described are missing a map.

• No PDF*

* Denotes nitpicking.

The standard cover for Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft. Also my preferred cover.

Introduction

It should come as no surprise that my favourite book until now has been Curse of Strahd, given how often I compare other books to it. The settings is fun with many good side quests, the maps are good, and of course it has the villain who lent his name to the cover. Horror in general is a rich genre to draw on. From holding off seemingly endless undead in order to survive on more night, to trying to find the werewolf among the villagers, or breaking a family curse caused by a contract with a devil, the possibilities are endless. It is from this place that this new book comes.

Despite the name, Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft is really advice for running horror themed games, and sample settings that can be found within the mists. That’s the large strokes. Though there’s many small additions as well. So what do I think? It’s light on new mechanical things and battlemaps, but I can see it being useful for the Dungeon Master new to running horror. Some of the new additions such as weaker survivor characters, and curses are interesting and involve mechanics. Most of it is however about rule building and running such games.

This Will Not Help You With Curse of Strahd

If you wanted a book to help you run the adventure Curse of Strahd, this is not it. That adventure describes the location in far more detail. Really, it’s a setting book combined with an adventure. At most this one may help a little bit if you want to continue the adventure after the end of Curse of Strahd by having the players enter the mist and enter other horror themed domains. That said, if you do this, be prepared to spend a lot of time developing the settings. Interior maps basically don’t exist here, and descriptions are fairly short. At least short compared to what is needed to easily ran an adventure in. Really, this book is to inspire and help someone flesh out these ideas (with a little bit of mechanical flourish for horror specifically), but isn’t enough to run them on their own. Hopefully one day we’ll get an anthology, with one adventure per domain Candlekeep Mysteries style.

It’s A Horror Help Book

The majority of the book describes Domains of Dread, how to create dark lords, and general horror game advice. This is the vast majority, and I don’t think one should approach this book expecting anything else. There just isn’t enough of the rest of it. While it’s a nice touch and adds value to the book, I particularly like the low level adventure and advice on describing creatures, the real meat is the advice. It is good advice in many cases with good examples. The advice also covers a fairly wide assortment of topics. If you’re not confident with running horror, this book is good advice. It’s a book for thinking, with not many things that can be dropped into a campaign. Though some such things are included too for added value, if you go into it with that hope you’ll be disappointed.

The Domains of Dread

Before I go on, I’ll explain the concept of the Domains of Dread before we go on. Basically they are realms with their own unique dark lord, each one focusing on a type of horror setting. Travel between them is possible, and they are less than a whole world. Instead they exist outside of it, separated by magical mists. If you’re an older player and have experience with it...you will probably be disappointed here. That description alone is probably different than you remember. It does provide the ability to experience many different kinds of horror as players jump from one domain to another, and allows each Dungeon Master to easily add their own domains not detailed in the book.

Each domain is described in 6-8 pages. So really, they’re the seeds to campaigns and settings. But to do any actual playing, there needs to be a lot of Dungeon Master work. We usually have a map unless it’s Bluetspur. I wish we got a map here too, could really show off the mountain, and would make for a great piece of art. Anyway, the map is a good starting point, and most settlements at least get a paragraph. The rest needs to be expanded by the Dungone Master. Adventure ideas are provided. I’m glad to see these starting points. But these are again just a sentence each in a table. Helpful, but a lot of work is needed to run anything. It’s really the start to a campaign that a Dungeon Master will need to fill in.

One thing I hated was that they stated which domain was first. It would’ve been trivial to leave it as a mystery and say “some people think that this domain was the first”. It was unnecessary and didn’t add anything.

There are 17 major domains, and some very short ones included at the end for extra. The Barovia stuff is very simplistic, so if you have Curse of Strahd it’s really 16. I’ll choose 3 to quickly highlight here.

Falkovia is a favourite, as it allows the classic never ending fight with undead. As could be expected from a horror game, as opposed to heroic fantasy, the undead aren’t the only horror to be found. The evil possible due to the desperation of humans is a thread.

Har’Akir is an Egyptian themed setting. It has a great idea for minibosses built into the setting through the servants of the Pharaoh. The location itself is different with unique obstacles that can be used due to the dessert. And the dark lord has a clear goal, with consequences for the success and failure of the goal that can lead to further adventures.

Richemulot’s central idea is about the coming of a plague. Being trapped in a city as things get worse, with a plague causing death and horror is an interesting situation that is fairly rare in campaigns. Well, if it doesn’t involve zombies.

New Player Options

There is a bit here. Mostly this is in the form of backgrounds for player characters, which help to tie them to various domains. However, if you’re looking for subclasses and the like, you won’t find it here. I wish there was a bit more here. One that comes to mind is horror themes equipment. Even if not magical, some new descriptions could go a long way.

New Monsters

There is a limited number of new monsters. In total, we’re looking at 32. This is a bit disappointing, as it also extends to darklords of domains. Also, the creatures tend to be low to mid CR. I wouldn’t mind more lower CR creatures, that can also cause some damage to high level characters. Whether that’s by slowing them down, or other factors. I also want more of an even spread. It jumps from CR 13, to 19. Especially very high level CRs remain largely unfilled in this edition. Almost all have some kind of quirk or gimmick to prevent them from being about hitting for hit points. I like this part.

The big standouts creature wise for me are the Necrichor, Swarm of Zombie Limbs, Boneless and Loup Garou. They have those quirks/gimmicks that make low level and mid level fights interesting, and can play up the horror. They can also make very decent oneshots. Shout out to the Bagman that while not having a stat block, the steps included can be followed to create a creature. I put it here for concept alone.

New Magic Items

This is where we’re really sparse. I’d have loved to see a section on some new cursed magic items. The kind of items that can have entire adventures built around them. Of course, these items don’t need to be built to only be given to players. A cursed item given as part of contract only meant to be given to an NPC is also a great element for an adventure. Or even some food stuffs and the like described in certain settings. Games, trinkets, clothing items.

New Rules

Most of the book is fluff, focusing on helping describe different worlds. There are some new mechanics. And by some, I mean they fit in about 10 pages of the book. The nice thing about it is they are simple and easy to use. The bad thing is if you wanted many options and mechanics to drop into your games, you won’t find it here.

We have rules for haunted traps. These are like traps, but skinned to look like horror things. Did an experienced Dungeon Master need it? No...but it’s nice to have some references and ideas. Otherwise, I’m pretty sure we’ve been doing similar things for years by now. I imagine it’ll help some newcomers. Really that’s what they are. Specially skinned traps for horror D&D games. So if you have the Dungeon Master’s Guide and liked the traps, you’d probably like this part.

There are some rules for curses. These are pretty brutal, and don’t map to something existing in previous books. They almost read like special magic effects, but make sense for a horror centred book. I imagine they can inspire some new adventures, and well as work as examples to make your own curses. They aren’t strictly necessary, and pretty simple. They involve a procurement or trigger, a burden (what happens), and a way to break the curse. They take up about 1/4th of a page. Again, pretty simple. But nice to have it all written out to make it easy. I quite like this idea myself, as well as the formatting.

And survivors. These are like super low level and weak player characters. If you wanted more player options...this is not it. However, if you wanted to provide players with a challenge, this is one way. I can see many people not using this rule due to it giving players fewer options than a normal character. I usually lean more into the atmosphere, and can work within the rules to make do what I want. And level 1 characters are already quite easy to bring down. However, it could be a good way to introduce the game, or a simpler way for groups that care much more about the roleplay aspect, as the weaker characters can play into horror nicely.

Lastly, there are fear and stress rules. Along with suggestions for players to act scared within the game. I quite like these elements, since playing into the atmosphere is fun as a player too. It also helps with that important skill of separating the player from the character. The advice on role-playing may be the best part here. The rules themselves are simple and make sense. Fear involves making roles when something scary happens, and if failing receiving a temporary penalty. Stress involves tracking how stressed a character is, and applying a more permanent penalty until the character gets rid of its stress levels somehow. This is also simple, and remains viable even for high level characters. What I don’t like is that by the nature of which rolls it applies to, it once again disproportionately targets non-spellcasters.

The House of Lament (Adventure)

This is an adventure included in the book. I quite like this one, though it is on the shorter side and fast tracks the characters from level 1 to level 3. It also takes place in a domain of dread, making it easy to toss players into it. It’s also not very long, taking up 20 pages total including art. I’m quite fond of the art at the start of this adventure too. It’s a fun haunted house that is less combat heavy than Death House, but possibly harder to run if we exclude combat balance. The combat balance is easier though, which I think is a welcome change to many. The final encounter can still be a bit tricky, also depending on the players and their characters.

The basic concept is that of a haunted house. At the start players make their way to the house, run into a friendly NPC (or two) who is an investigator at the house. The identify of the investigator is left to the Dungeon Master with options included. They make their way through the house, and as they do so things get worse. There’s multiple villains to choose from, which is a nice touch. So it works for multiple playthroughs. It also makes use of the spirit board prop to hold a seance, which having used it helps add to the adventure. I think it’s also easy to reuse the map, to make your own villain, and to make your own investigator.

There are a few issues. However, they’re not too bad. The adventure is not ready to run out of the box, and you’ll be forced to select your villain, investigator, and think through the rooms. The interactions with the investigator in particular are not very well detailed. Though depending on your players and choice, there can be quite a few interactions and when I ran the adventure, it turned into a mini side quest. Will the investigator accompany the party? Also not very well detailed, and affects the difficulty. The haunts in each room also can require some planning. Since we can add more haunts, or replace some of the suggested ones. In fact, the adventure calls them “suggested” at the start, which is a nice touch. The suggested ones, as well as the tables are both solid. The house also awakens at some point, where the haunting activity becomes more intense. And since it’s written for multiple playthroughs in mind, figuring out when the house should awaken, and which haunts should occur when can be confusing. Make sure to read through it multiple times, and make notes of your plan.

The seance using the spirit board can heavily influence the adventure. However, your players can ignore them as written. This may have been intended, as the players can push further into the house. That makes sense. That intent isn’t communicated in the adventure very well. And some events depend on the seance, or at least which one is chosen. Even the ending. Two easy ways around this are to have certain doors closed to prevent passage until after the seance. Though this feels railroady, and I’d highly recommend not doing this. I did use those points as a good chance to add a paranormal event. Like them opening the door, and seeing their own backs opening a door in the hallway beyond. Then when they sometimes still proceeded a bit before going to the seance, it helped with the creepy factor. And made them more likely to go to the seance. If things really go south, a haunt can give some clues that would be given during the seance.

Finally, there’s the difficulty. As usual, the number of players is listed as 4-6, but encounters aren’t adjusted for number of players. Two of the final encounters listed can be particularly challenging, so be aware while preparing to run this adventure. And be prepared to adjust things for the final encounter.

What’s Required

You will need the Monster Manual. Basically all of the big bads details in this book outright reference the Monster Manual. The residents and creatures that haunt some of these domains are also contained in that book. Some, however, specially reference new creatures only found in this book.

Alt cover for Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft. Still looks pretty good, but not as abstract or design centric as previous ones.

The Art and Book Build Quality

The art is what we’ve come to expect from this edition. I do prefer the standard cover this time. I say this basically every time, but the art has been consistent, and often even using the same artists. I would’ve preferred some more dark and brooding art made in a realistic style. Also a 2 page foldout or two would’ve been nice, like we saw in some of the core books. There are also maps for almost all of the domains of dread. Almost. I wish all of the mentioned ones did have a map of some sort. There’s already very little per domain, so the lack of a map really hits hard.

As always, I recommend checking the books if you can. The binding, struck pages, and misprints should be of particular focus. A quick flip through of the book is what I usually do, along with a close look at the binding. Unfortunately, the current times mean you may not have the luxury of picking it off the shelf and will get whatever copy you are sent.

Price

The standard price continues to apply. Due to recent situations, you’ll probably buy it online though. Wish there were a few more pages for the price as I always have. 100 pages could really help. Still, as a horror help book I’m sure many new Dungeon Masters would find it useful.

What I felt was Missing

This book really needs more crunch I think. More monsters. More maps. More adventures. I would love to see a Candlekeep Mysteries style anthology. One short adventure per domain of dread, and that each one is self contained means it can easily be strung together as the attempt of the players to escape the domains after being sucked it. It’s basically begging for it, and each adventure could also work as a mini-guide to each settings. Sort of how Curse of Strahd also doubles as a setting book very effectively.

If we didn’t want to go down this route, even some encounters would be nice to see. Battle maps, creatures, some kind of horror twist in the encounter. And each one specially made for each domain.

Free Stuff

Nothing to see here.

Summary

The title is very misleading. This is not required for Curse of Strahd, and I’d say you won’t find a better introduction to Barovia than that adventure. It is instead a bunch of advise for running sessions where horror is an emphasis, with some high level example settings. Each setting is a domain with a darklord and runs 6-8 pages. There is a bit of content such as fear and stress rules, curses, haunted traps, rules for weaker characters called “survivors”, and new monsters. There is also a short adventure included, which is pretty solid. However, this mechanical and usable content are a minority and not enough on their own. The advise itself is good, and I see it being very helpful for new Dungeon Masters who hope to run horror. The new mechanics are short and simple, so easy to add. The examples, and high level horror advise are also solid.

All in all, this is a decent book if you expect the above. It’s hard to recommend this book before many previous books, especially the adventure books. This is largely due to the lack of mechanics and crunch, and if you’re an experienced Dungeon Master you probably already know how to run horror. If you want that advice, it’ll provide. I wish it was longer though, with more crunch. And as a result generally I’d recommend many other books in this edition before this one.

Eberron: Rising from the Last War Review

Review copy courtesy of Wizards of the Coast.

Pros

• Lots of full cover art.
• On the longer side for these books at 320 pages long. These setting books should be 300-400 pages at least in my opinion, not the 200 or so of your typical adventures.
• The descriptions of the houses, backgrounds, and the world is very nicely done. The Group Patrons are a particularly nice section, which I hope to see a return in the future for different settings.
• This was probably in my top 3 of next settings to do for this edition (other two being Planescape and Dark Sun). Now let’s get some adventures for it.
• Some new NPCs/monsters for us Dungeon Masters (37 pages). Honestly, I’d have liked to see more.
• The alternate cover looks amazing in my opinion. Much better than the normal one.

Could Go Either Way

• I’m not a fan of the new races. Where before human was uninspired but workable, here we have outright extra damage for some of these. These shouldn’t be why you buy the book. I think I’m feeling some power creep.
• I’m not a fan of the new classes either. There are elements, such as magic item creation, that sort of step on the toes of the magic item creation rules that exist. It also takes away some power from the Dungeon Master which I think is usually best to let the group figure out. And I’ve never been a fan of a class that has a companion as part of the way it operates. That said they don’t seem overpowered to me. I haven’t had a chance to run a player as one though.
• Besides the map, there wasn’t as much art that wowed me compared to previous books. Except the alternate cover. That one looks absolutely outstanding.

Cons

• No PDF*

* Denotes nitpicking.

Both versions of the cover. I personally love the one on the right.

Introduction

D&D has a long tradition of many interesting settings. From the Forgotten Realms, to Greyhawk, to Planescape and Eberron. Oh yeah there’s also Dragon Lance, and Ravenloft. And Dark Sun. I’ll stop there. And now we have Eberron making its return. I’ve never run Eberron before, but have played in some mini-campaigns and one shots, and liked what I see. I hope that we’ll eventually get all of the classic settings brought back. However, how’s this one? Well, let’s jump right into it.

New Player Options

There’s a fair amount of player options here. There are 4 new classes (artificer, alchemist, artillerist, and battle smith), 13 dragon marks, and 8 races for a total of 11 sub races (I think, globinoids get 3 different, non-overlapping stats). There’s also about 6 pages worth of magic items that the Dungeon Master gives out, but they decide how to use. So all in all, not a bad amount for a player.

However, I’m not a big fan of these new options. Artificer takes control from the Dungeon Master regarding magic items, and now we have magic item creation rules along with this. The battle smith has an iron pet as part of their class. I’ve never been a fan of including creatures as part of a class because let’s say I give the fighter a couple of soldiers they order around. Well, aren’t I sort of stepping on the toes of a class that has a creature companion baked into its class? It becomes even more of a problem if a party member get a wolf companion or something.

The kind of art that you throughout the book. Pictured here are elves.

New Monsters

Oh yeah, here we go. There’s 37 pages of these guys for a total of 38 different creature stat blocks. Some of these share a main type, but still, not bad at all. If anything, I wish there’d be more. Standouts include the Overlords (ancient extremely powerful beings trapped for now), and the Quori (creatures from the dreaming dark, possessing hosts to act upon the world).

What You Need to Play

Well, you’ll need the basic rules and the Monster Manual to fill out more of the creatures not given here, as well as rules. What else? Oh yeah, you’ll need to come up with your own adventure as this is just a settings guide.

The Contents Itself

The rest of the book is dealing with the tone of the settings, locations, characters, and events that occurred and shaped the current state of the setting. I’ve already gone over the monsters and classes so I won’t repeat what I said. That said, there's quite a few interesting monsters here that could be used for mini or complete campaigns.

When it comes to Eberron, my experience before this was planning in a mini-campaign. That makes me not as well versed as some others, but that playing experience has stayed with me. And the reason behind that is the setting itself is fascinating, and warforged were so well tied into the setting.

What this book does very well is set up opportunities for players and parties. Factions are well outlined, as well as occupations and patrons for player parties. This hasn’t featured in other published material before, but the basic idea is someone is working, financing, or somehow otherwise involved with what the players are doing. They could be running a news paper, running a security agency, working for a government, and much more. It’s expanded on very well, and having players invested in the world is often good for player engagement.

Locations are described as well as we can expect, and in line with previously published books. The nations, factions, rulers, and important cultural aspects are explained first. After this, the nations, kingdoms, and other areas are detailed. The differences and details of each area are covered in broad strokes. Sharn gets its own little section as well. Just under 50 pages are devoted to all of the areas of Eberron except Sharn, though part of this count is devoted to the faiths of the areas. This translates to a couple of pages per area, with many different areas detailed. The 5 nations that resulted from the fall of the Kingdom of Galifar are detailed, but there are many other areas and parties at play as well. An additional 30 are devoted to Sharn alone. The aftermath sections are particularly interesting, and help set the world as having scars that have yet to heal from the recent conflict, as well as the current state being fragile. Combine that with the maps, and it becomes a very interesting package. I’d have liked to see more art of the ruins though, given the emphasis on the scars left after the last war.

The section on villains is also interesting, and combined with some of the new creatures included are begging to be used. There’s even tables to roll story development and ideas. Now, I wouldn’t recommend doing your gaming session purely by dice rolls ... though that does sound like an interesting challenge. Instead it gives you ideas inline with what intended in the settings. The themes, the tone, those important elements that help provide a starting off point. Combine that with the examples of possible antagonists and villains in the setting, as well as things to keep in mind while making an Eberron adventure, and you get something that makes me want to run a session in that world. I want to see more for future settings, and actually more in this one too. Examples go a long way and while I feel adventures are the best examples you can make, what we have here is pretty good.

One of my favourite pieces of art from this book.

The Art and Book Build Quality

What you’re used to is what you get. The build quality is the same hard bound book. The binding is done in the same manner. Both of mine were perfect, but I’d suggest opening to the middle of the book and checking the binding there. However, I’ve seen previous books with issues, and if you’ve already got the book in your hands, I’d suggest checking it.

The large scale maps in particular are beautiful, as is the alternate cover. Large regions, such as Islands, continents and cities, are beautifully detailed with full colour art. Unfortunately, I wasn’t wowed by the art as much as usual. There were fewer pieces done in that pseudo realistic style I so love seeing in these books. That style makes for particularly stunning art for locations, and I feel it was a wasted opportunity not to include it in this book. The exception here are the maps I mentioned. They are stunning like usual. Interior locations are unfortunately mostly done in black and white. I would have loved to see them with more detail and colour, but at the least they get the impression across. Don’t get me wrong, the art is good, as are those interior maps. They get what they need across and it’s better than no art at all. There are also some really impressive pieces. The picture of the Cathedral of the Silver Flame is a standout, as are the illustrations of all of the dragon marks. But it isn’t as awe inspiring as some other books in this edition.

Price

The price is the standard MSRP of $49.99 USD. Nothing new here.

What I felt was Missing

Up until now books functioned as settings and also as adventures. Curse of Strahd is one such example. This one is basically begging for a published adventure, but it’s not here. Even a short one on the website or in a magazine would do wonders. When we got the Forgotten Realms book, we had already had quite a few adventures set there already. This does wonders for expanding characters and giving the setting its character.

Please Do Planescape Already

I’m happy to see another setting in this edition. In fact, I want to see more. In particular Planescape would be a great next choice. I wouldn’t mind Dark Sun either.

Free Stuff

Nothing to see here.

Summary

And here we are: another campaign setting. Eberron has stuck with me ever since I my first campaign. It was one of the settings I really hoped to see covered sooner or later. The war forged, constructs made for the last war that are playable, elves dabbling in necromancy, and sleeping beings of great power all combine together to make a setting you’d never want to leave in the right Dungeon Master’s hands. Overall, it’s a solid campaign setting book. The art is what we’ve come to expect, though I didn’t find as many standout pieces as some other books in this edition. The maps are gorgeous, I just wish the interior maps of building had more colour. The ones detailing kingdoms and continents are what you’d expect to see in an in world atlas. The emphasis on in world business and occupation is very nice to see, as is the section detailing villains and conflicts you can cook up for your players. All of this begs for an adventure. One thing books like Curse of Strahd had going for them is their dual nature as a setting and adventure in one. However, here you have just the setting. I hope we get it soon, and I guess that’s a good sign.

Guildmasters' Guide to Ravnica Review

Review copy courtesy of Wizards of the Coast.

Pros:

• This one has more art than the last adventure.
• New class options.
• New monsters.
• Art is back in this one. Colours, and tons of it. The maps that are here, such as the Tenth District maps in particular look great. I’m happy to see the edition continuing like this especially since I found Dungeon of the Mad Mage lacking in this regard.

Could Go Either Way:

• New races.
• If you are a stickler for balance, you may not like some of the races here. They generally follow the pattern of a +1 bonus, a +2 bonus, and a race specific ability or two that act like a feat. The Vedalken in particular gets advantage on saving throws for 3 different ability scores, which seems exceptionally powerful.
• This is a Magic the Gathering setting book for D&D. When I discussing this with my group, the first question out of their mouths was: “What? Where’s Planescape, Eberron or Darksun?” Okay, technically there was a digital book released on DMs Guild for Eberron, but they were not officially done yet. However, as a D&D player it might be hard for you to get excited about this particular setting when you have so many other more storied settings (at least in D&D) competing for your time.
• This is one of those ~250 page books. I think in general they could push the page count closer to 300, more like the core books. Settings in particular should be easy to expand so far, especially if more adventure ideas are provided.

Cons:

• Doesn’t cover every district of Ravnica and instead just the Tenth District.
• No PDF*

* Denotes nitpicking.

Cover of Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica.

Introduction

It should come as no surprise that I like setting books. I don’t run many, and the ones I do tend to be my own creation, but they are an interesting source of ideas, and are weirdly fulfilling in a way. Interesting concepts are given, and even if you do the opposite of the settings you just read, such an exercise still comes as inspiration from the original source. When I heard about Guildmasters Guide to Ravnica, I had mixed feelings. Part of me was excited to see a new setting for D&D 5^th edition. The other part of me went: “Huh? A Magic the Gathering Setting before Planescape?” Perhaps I’m the wrong target audience, but though I think the book is interesting as settings ought to be, it was a constant throughout my read.

New Races

Well, they have 6 new stated out races. Humans and elves return with some new setting specific fluff, but there’s nothing mechanical here for them. Your opinion will come down to if you think the classes are stronger than what we’ve seen before. The number of elements is in line with what we’ve seen before. The Vedalken in particular seem to be very powerful with their advantage to saving throws for 3 different stats. And since it’s advantage, it’ll interact with class specific saving throws or feats which add the expertise modifier.

New Monsters and NPCs

I’m always happy to see some setting specific monsters and NPCs. Of course they are always a few changes away from being used in other settings, but hey, that’s why I like them. You get some more melee hitting guys, as you’d expect, however there are some standouts. I really like how the horrors have customization options built right into their section. In fact, I’d love to see more of those in future books. It’s a page efficient way to give many more options and ideas to Dungeon Masters straight out of the box. Of course we can, and will, make our changes but seeing changes other Dungeon Masters have tried and enjoyed is extremely valuable. The flavour in creatures such as a lich made from fungus really help make me want to use some of them, even if I won’t use the setting.

The monsters and NPCs are also easy to transfer to different settings. New angels, undead, demons, and cultists are a few examples. It isn’t as incredibly long as the Monster Manual, but at ~70 pages long (including fluff and lore), it’s a nice addition.

This sort of art is what I most enjoy in all these books. My picture doesn't do it justice.

The Setting

Imagine a city with newspapers and plumbing, but in a state of conflict between a bunch of different faction. However, thanks to an ancient contract, they can’t completely wipe out another. Instead small events spiral due to feedback and manoeuvring from all of the factions. That’s the main sales pitch for the setting. And it’s a solid idea, full of opportunity for interesting campaigns. It’s also the main idea, so if you wanted something else (plane hopping, massive undead blight, going into the dangerous lands to recover forgotten artifacts, travelling through space on a spelljammer), you’re largely out of luck.

The factions get a lot of the page count as you’d expect. And as you’d expect, the differences also extend into the realm of philosophy. Their goals and their ideals differ, but still it’s very possible to have a ragtag mix of different factions. It’s a great source of ideas for factions in your games, and the section on building villains for each faction are particularly interesting and transferable. There’s also some setting specific currencies. My players love that sort of thing.

The maps and description of each of the precincts in the Tenth District are really well done. Especially the maps. I really like the maps. The influence of the guilds, and the feeling of each area gets a heavy emphasis. They also go over crime, guard response, goods, and other aspects of the area that together help flesh out the city. There are even some tables for random people and rumours. You may want to adjust the probabilities so some are more common than others, but I think it’s a really good idea. I hope to see Sigil get this treatment in a new book one day.

The descriptions also don’t overstay their welcome, but I think more explanation and exploration would of been helpful. The book makes it seems like we only got a small part of Ravnica. With a book so named I’d expect all of Ravnica. The other districts didn’t need as much depth, but I think covering them would’ve been beneficial.

A more typical example of the art found in the book. It tends to be stylized like this, but it looks good.

Mini Adventurer

Oh yeah, there’s one in here. Well, if you call 12 pages long an adventure. It’s rather light and involves tracking down an escaped goblin gang mastermind. Investigations, and conflict await you in your search. I’m glad to see an adventure here, even a small one like this. However, I would’ve liked a bigger emphasis on the guilds and guild interactions, since the rest of the book spends so much time building them up. It can grow into that, and as a new Dungeon Master you’ll appreciate it, but I would’ve liked more. Bumping the page content to ~300 pages would’ve really added value.

Art and Maps

Generally, the artwork is back to what we'd expect. There's lot's of it, it's colourful, and it's purposely done to look like a painting. You can see the water colours run at the edges. Just look at any of the images I have included here. For this sort of thing seeing it is a lot better than having it described. They have a fair amount of environment and cityscape images, which tend to be my favourites. I'd also like more, but this book is more generous with artwork than Dungeons of the Mad Mage.

The maps in particular I need to call out. They look really good and I'd love to see more of this style in future books. Keep it coming. It's great. See below to see what I mean. 

See what I mean? Absolutely love it.

But What About the Other D&D Settings?

I briefly mentioned it in my introduction, but we haven’t seen too much straying from the forgotten realms in this edition. We got a little bit with Curse of Strahd, since Barovia is in a pocket plane and corresponds to the old Ravenloft setting, but not much outside of that.

Talking with some of the other Dungeon Masters and players I know, the response was generally similar. They were surprised that there would be such a setting book come out before the other classic D&D settings. And it is those other D&D settings that they were interested in. If you like Magic the Gathering and wanted to play in that setting your opinion might vary. However, I think that there are plenty of other settings that people were wanting before this one.

I had the foresight to record the setting mentioned during our conversations. They include Planescape, Greyhawk, Darksun, and Sprelljammer.

Price

It’s a typical core rulebook. MSRP is 49.94, and for more information see their page here. As always I’d also suggest looking around, since you can often find books for less online or on sale.

What I felt was Missing

A setting should have unique elements that give it a special feel. And there’s usually no better way than presenting an adventure that highlights the special elements that make the setting shine. We have an adventure here, and I’m happy to see it. If anything I want a couple others. I also think that giving some short adventure outlines for inspiration would go a long way. I’d like to see the books edge closer to 300 pages on average, which is more inline with the core books.

They sort of do that with the section giving some ideas and suggestions for villains in the setting, but I’d like a little bit more. Don’t just say “a Dimir wants to erase the memories of a humiliating event”, give a few beats that could happen for inspiration. I guess the best way I can say it succinctly is that I’d like some adventure ideas and outlines, not just plot hooks.

Free Stuff

Nothing to see here. Move along.

Summary

In general I think it’s a solid enough book, but it very much will go over best with people who enjoy both D&D, Magic the Gathering, and wanted to play in the setting. If you aren’t it’s unlikely you’ll be interested outside of stealing ideas and monsters from the book. My players and acquaintances all expressed confusion, since they would have expected and preferred some classic D&D settings. The concept of a massive conflict between multiple factions, all with their own specific methods, and goals is an interesting one. It can easily be run with in your own home brew settings. However, unless you are in that very specific overlap of D&D and Magic the Gathering fan, I can’t see you getting excited about the book. In that case you’ll be better serviced by an adventure that also functions as a setting companion like Out of the Abyss or Curse of Strahd.

Other

• There is also a dice set, which I reviewed here.