Dungeons & Dragons: Storm King's Thunder Review

Review copy and images courtesy of Wizards of the Coast. 

Pros:

• Lots of full colour art (as we have come to expect of this edition)
• Variety in locations and types of encounters
• Chapter 1 is released for free on the Dungeon Masters Guild at http://www.dmsguild.com/product/189150/DDIA05-Storm-Kings-Thunder-A-Great-Upheaveal-5e
• Plenty of characters to role-play as a Dungeon Master
• Some very nice and interesting encounters
• Layout of adventure is extremely easy to follow thanks to an adventure outline and an alphabetically ordered list of characters
• 256 pages long
• Many of the characters in the adventure have ideals, flaws and bonds presented

Could Go Either Way:

• No new player options (since I run a lot of homebrew games, I prefer to make new player options myself)
• It's not as atmospheric as Rage of Demons or Curse of Strahd.
• Adventure is open-ended and requires serious Dungeon Master preparation (for those who like the control, it's a massive pro)
• By design it appears that roughly 1/5^th of the adventure by page count (50-60 pages) can be bypassed as a result of the branching structure of the adventure (this is offset by having no player options, meaning there is simply more adventure than Princes of the Apocalypse). The book, removing the introduction and appendices, is 212 pages long (removing the 50-60 pages leaves us with roughly 150 pages of adventure). 55 more pages are taken up by describing the setting location.
• Milestone leveling is heavily emphasized (I don't think the XP values will work well)
• Giants (if you think giants are meh enemies, you won't like it)

Cons:

• The story ending seems ... odd ... possibly (look in the adventure itself section for details)
• You'll need the Monster Manual and Dungeon Master's Guide to run the adventure (no more supplement PDFs)
• The bindings might be off (my copy is pretty good but it isn't as good as my copy of Curse of Strahd)
• No PDF version*
• No included grids*

* Denotes nitpicking. I say this every time.

The cover of Storm King's Thunder.

Introduction

On September 6^th, 2016, a brand new adventure called Storm King's Thunder was released by Wizards of the Coast. This time the focus is on giants, with a splash of dragons and politics. I'm a bit late with my review again, but hopefully someone finds it useful. As of writing this, I've read the book cover to cover, run the first chapter (available for free here) and started on chapter 2.

I think there is fun to be had in Storm King's Thunder and that there is some good art (as we've come to expect), though as always there is some I don't care for much. The adventure has some very interesting encounters in my opinion. However, the adventure doesn't have the same urgency as some of the others already released. It also isn't as atmospheric as the last couple of adventures that were released. The adventure also has a lot of material that may not be used at all due to the flow of the adventures and the choices presented. The overall flow, however, is very well presented. I'd like to see similar flow diagrams and alphabetically ordered lists of characters in adventures going forward (if you can't fit it into the book, shove it on the website).

The Adventure

New Player Options

There is not much here. There are some new magic items. That's it. There are no new backgrounds, no new spells, and there are no class options. It may be the smallest amount in an adventure to date. I prefer it this way so it didn't bother me. I prefer to make my own player options. That way, I vet it all and clearly approve of the options. It also lets me make sure it works well with what I'm trying to bring to life. If you want more options like some of the other adventures had, you'll be disappointed.

New Monsters

We Dungeon Masters get a few more monsters. We also get some new options for giants to make them a little more interesting to fight and a little more varied. In many places, existing stat blocks are modified instead of creating new creatures. I like this generally, but I think we'll need a collection for this kind of thing eventually (otherwise you'll need to consult a lot of adventure books for monsters or just remaking existing monsters which results in inconsistency).

What You Need to Play

The Monster Manual, Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide are referenced at the start of the adventure. If you wanted to use the basic rules and/or the SRD, you are out of luck. Tables from the Dungeon Master's Guide are often used in order to make magic items random in the adventure. These tables aren't present in the adventure or in the SRD, so you'd need to make things up yourself. Without having seen the tables and generally knowing what's on them, you run the risk of giving items too powerful or too weak. There are multiple monsters that are not in either source as well (the number is reduced if you use the Hoard of the Dragon Queen and Princes of the Apocalypse supplements). I counted as I went through. There are 16 creatures missing if you don't use the supplements and 8 if you do. You might be able to get away with house ruling if you are a D&D veteran (not knowing what the creature is suppose to be puts you at a disadvantage) but otherwise you'll run into a few problematic encounters.

Art example of a Northlander longship from Storm King's Thunder. It's one of my favourites.

The Adventure Itself

The first chapter of the adventure is available for free on the DMs Guild. However, it's the kind of chapter that was previously put into the appendix section (like Death House in Curse of Strahd) of the adventure and is meant to get players to the proper level for the real meat of the adventure. In this case, the level they are trying to get the players to is level 5 (so that they can stand a chance against the giants). The real cool parts of the adventure are how all the different groups in Nightsone (globins, orcs, Zhentarim and elves) interact with the players and the possibility of forming uneasy temporary alliances. The presence of the settlement walls also allow for gameplay reminiscent of a siege. The settlement map is also nice and very reusable. If you want to run your own campaign and don't have many maps, it makes for a very nice generic settlement. It really is heavily based around milestone leveling though. The jump to 4^th and 5^th level in particular don't work if XP is used because there just isn't enough there from combat alone. You can add story reward XP to make up the difference but in that case you are just doing milestone leveling in a more roundabout way.

The organization of the adventure is extremely clear thanks to the alphabetically ordered list of characters called the “Dramatis Personae” and the high level diagram that shows how the chapters fit together in the scope of the adventure. Details on when the characters should gain levels is also in one easy to reference place at the end of the adventure. It continues the use of bold to make creatures stand out on the page (to make stats easy to look up) and provides references to the appendix when it's a new creature. The wandering monster tables are also nicely done and often cover more than one area at once by using multiple columns. As a result, all of the wandering monsters are in one place. Locations also have a roster of all the monsters in an area as well as their actions if some conditions take place (usually it has to do with the creatures being put on alert). All of this together makes it easy to reference particular characters, know the general flow of the story, and know which monsters are needed for an encounter.

The adventure has many difficult encounters. In the introduction, the adventure goes out of its way to say that many of the encounters are designed to be deadly. One of them in chapter 2 could have the characters, with some backup from the locals of the town they are in, face off against 3 frost giants and 2 winter wolves at level 5. There is a gate that makes things more even, but considering that a frost giant is a challenge rating 8 creature, it's a tough fight. There are many similar encounters in other parts of the adventure (this is one of the more extreme examples) which help test the players but also give them a way to win. Running is a valid option and planning is important to make sure too many giants aren't encountered at the same time.

The encounters are usually described well and give multiple avenues for players. However, we continue the stealth confusion where in some cases a group stealth check is used and in others an individual stealth check is used. There are some encounters where I felt a few more details could have been helpful in order to have a better idea of what the authors had in mind (the frost giant encounter I mentioned above) but overall they are done well. There is enough to quite easily fill in the gaps of what's missing. However, gaps will need to be filled and preparation time will be important. Even excluding that, many of the dungeons and encounters have many moving parts that the Dungeon Master should be aware of. There will also be quite a lot of overland travel and possible random encounters. These need special planning and handling from the Dungeon Master to be compelling.

The adventure provides a great variety of locations (castles in the sky, underwater partially flooded castles, regular castles, dwarven cities, frozen terrain, open sea exploration, etc.), characters and opportunities to role-play. The different types of giants make it easy to have all kinds of different situations, environments and enemies. It's a small detail, but I liked that there were many cases where names for the creatures were provided when it would have been easy to just say “a goblin”. It doesn't happen every time but I did appreciate when it was done. The airship was also a nice addition that gives the situation a very different feel and allows for different situations.

There is a section in this adventure giving suggestions on how to combine it with other published adventures (except Curse of Strahd). Doing so replaces the free chapter 1 section. To me it seems that the Lost Mine of Phandelver would work best because it ends at the correct level. It doesn't really introduce the players to the conflict and symptoms of what's going on the same as chapter 1 does. Instead, it ends up acting more like a sequel to Lost Mine of Phandelver. The other adventures have very serious problems that won't go away (such as demon lords) that just seem like bigger problems in comparison. Still, having some suggestions for how tie the adventures together is appreciated.

Up until now, it was common to have the adventure also function as a mini-supplement. In Out of the Abyss we got the underdark. In Curse of Strahd we got Barovia. This time around, we get the Savage Frontier in the north. A good 55 pages are used to describe the different places and characters within them. Some of them could be used to run their own one-shot adventures with ease (the 4 wight brothers are a personal favourite). Since the Sword Coast Advenurer's Guide was released earlier, there are some mentions to that book. Some of the locations overlap so extra details are provided in that book. I don't think you need that book and that you can do without it, but it is referenced.

The Story and Issues (SPOILERS)

The big picture story is that the caste system of the giants, the ordening, has been broken for some reason. Now, giants are vying to have their type of giant elevated to the top. At the same time King Hekaton, arguably most powerful of storm giants (the most powerful giant type as confirmed by the SRD), has gone missing.

The story has some issues, though it can still be run as it is quite easily. Some of the characters, in particular the daughters of the Storm Giant King, would have benefited by being expanded upon (luckily we Dungeon Masters can do that ourselves pretty well).

When we get King Hekaton back and wrap things up, the ordening isn't necessarily restored (though the adventure does suggest that is a potential ending). If it's not, can Hekaton rein in the badly behaving giants? If he can, then we don't need to come back to finish off all of the misbehaving giant lords. All he needs to do is say “here I am” and it's done. It also would seem odd to go and finish off the giant lords before going on to the conclusion from a story perspective. From a level perspective, it makes sense (the players would gain levels and have a better chance of surviving the climax of the adventure). I'd imagine that Hekaton would love some revenge right about then and wouldn't love the idea of waiting. As a result, a good portion portion of the book will probably be bypassed. This is offset by having no player options contributing to the length of the adventure. Naturally, unused sequences can be recycled in future campaigns and sessions.

A piece of art of the Morkoth, a ship featured in Storm King's Thunder.

The Art and Book Build Quality

The art is what we are used to in this edition. There is still a variety in the art and art styles. As usual some are worse than others but in general it was well done and measures up to what we are used to. There are also 3 two page spreads in the book, one of which is a map. Most of the maps are drawn to look like a real aged and worn parchment map. They have a nice sketch style to them where they look accurate but not all of the details are presented. You also clearly get the impression that you are looking at a drawing, though a very good one. A few of them break this style, however, and I typically found these to be some of the weakest (about 3 of the maps I found to have far less of a wow factor because of this change in style). Unfortunately, this includes the final combat encounter. Within the real aged style there are 2 different aesthetics which tended to focus on two different locations in the adventure. Both worked for me but there is a clear aesthetic break on elements such as the text on the map. What they do have this time is a gallery of some of the art from the book on the website. You can find it here (http://dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop-games/rpg-products/storm-kings-thunder). I'd say it's a good representation of what you would see in the book itself.

On the first page of my book I can see that the binding isn't as good as my copy of Curse of Strahd (my copy had a perfect binding). It's still almost perfect and nothing like my copy of Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, but it's still worth keeping an eye on this when you are picking up your copy. It makes me think that there could be ones with much worse binding than my copy and some of the previous books did have problems. It's disappointing that this has happened in this edition and something to keep an eye out when buying D&D books going forward. The pages were very straight this time though. Again, I'd recommend looking for this when picking out your book.

Price

The suggested price on the book is $49.95 in the USA and $63.95 in Canada, as we have come to expect. Online prices tend to be lower but you won't be able to look for the possible issues mentioned in the quality section.

What I felt was Missing

Again there is no supplementary PDF. I miss having every monster and magic item needed for the adventure in a quickly searchable format. Some of the newly added elements, such as the alphabetically ordered list of characters, would have been very convenient in PDF format.

Again, there are also no grids provided like what we had during the 4^th edition time period. Some maps are sold by the artists who made them but it didn't look like there was an easy way to buy a single pack of all the maps featured in the adventure. For that reason, you are probably better off just using the maps in the book as reference and using tiles. It won't look nearly as good if you don't have enough environment pieces or miniatures, but it'll at least be consistent and cheaper.

Free Stuff

The first chapter (http://www.dmsguild.com/product/189150/DDIA05-Storm-Kings-Thunder-A-Great-Upheaveal-5e) is provided for free on the Dungeon Masters Guild. There isn't really anything else that I've seen so far.

Summary

I don't think I liked this adventure as much as Curse of Strahd or Out of the Abyss. This comes mainly from tonal, aesthetic and story choices in the adventure. I also greatly prefer horror themed enemies, undead and demons to giants. However, there are some really interesting encounters that I'd like to see in play. It's also not that Storm King's Thunder is a bad adventure (in fact, I think I'll have a fun time with it), but I can't say that it is my favourite. If I could buy just one of the published adventures, it wouldn't be this one. However, it isn't my least favourite either. The layout, however, is by far one of the clearest if not the clearest of the published adventures of this edition. I hope to see similar layouts going forward. There are also plenty of role-play opportunities. It will require some serious Dungeon Master preparation to flesh out characters (the three Storm Giant princesses in particular could be easily expanded on) and to tighten up the story, but there is a lot here that can be used for a fun campaign. It's definitely worth running. Take a look at the free chapter as well, which is similar to Death House from Curse of Strahd (it's meant to level characters up so they can face the main adventure), in the “Other Stuff” section below.

Other Stuff

• Reading over this book, I noticed 11 typos and minor mistakes. None of them influenced the meaning but they were a little jarring to notice (on pages 13, 13, 23, 65, 88, 95, 125, 138, 202, 208, 241).
• Creatures not included in the SRD are (PoA stands for Princes of the Apocalypse and HoDQ stands for Hoard of the Dragon Queen): yuan-ti (HoDQ), goblin boss, orc Eye of Gruumsh (PoA), orc war chief, orog (PoA), cambion, drow mage (PoA), drow elite warrior, shadow demon (PoA), young remorhaz, yeti, ankylosaurus, aarakocra (PoA), hobgoblin warlord, piercer (PoA), helmed horror (PoA).
• This adventure is deadly, especially if players don't employ stealth. The adventure even notes that early
• The adventure is open-ended and allows players to explore.
• Free stuff is at http://www.dmsguild.com/product/189150/DDIA05-Storm-Kings-Thunder-A-Great-Upheaveal-5e.

Rules Corner: Movement Outside Turn

The turn order can cause some weird peculiarities that do not relate very well to real life. In real life, you can choose to move back if you see someone moving towards you. In a turn order though, you can only do this by reading an action (and as a result using an action). For this purpose, I'll go over an alternate system that can be used. Fair warning: this changes combat encounters quite substantially and can make things more complicated depending on the version you use.

The Rule

If you have leftover movement after your turn ends, you can use it before the start of your turn (this does not cost a reaction). If you want to use this movement before someone else, the person who waited longest acts first. The person who is currently acting always can react before the movement completes.

This resolution for who acts first is important. Take the situation that a player just killed a goblin and wants to use their remaining 15 feet to get into the face of another goblin. Does the goblin move back after the player moved (potentially being hit by an opportunity attack) or can it move back first? If the player kills a goblin and a different one had 15 left, can it move up to the player or can the player move back?

Alt: Doing this costs a reaction.

Alt 2: Resolve who goes first by rolling a D20 (no modifiers). Highest roll goes first and reroll ties.

Alt 3: Only players have access to this kind of movement (makes it easier for DM to run combat but gives players an advantage).

Example

2 fighters are in a dungeon. The first fighter kills a goblin in front of him using his action. A goblin who acted earlier and had 10 feet remaining decides to fill the gap and move towards the fighter who just killed a goblin. It's the fighter's turn, so he moves back 5 feet when he sees the goblin move forward 5 feet. The goblin moves forward 5 more and the fighter stays where he was. Now they are 5 feet away.

The second fighter kills a goblin as well. The first fighter, seeing an opening, decides to move up using his leftover distance. The goblin, who acted earlier and has waited longer, moves back first.

Why Bother?

It makes fighting quite a bit more dynamic. It also lets you reasonably use movement as a reaction to an enemy without using a ready action. If you prefer the use of a ready action for this instead (making this kind of movement more expensive in terms of action economy), you don't need this rule. However, it does mean that combat becomes more complicated, particularly for the Dungeon Master. 

Dungeon Master: Ranger Weapons

Similarly to Eldritch Knights, rangers don't get much love in the magic item department. For this reason, I hope to provide similar advice for magic items specifically for rangers. I went over a lot of stuff that carries over and for that reason I would recommend reading that first.

How to Limit Items

You can easily make the item only attune to a ranger. If you do this, the attunement should add features that only makes sense to the ranger class (such as improved hunter's mark or other features). This is because, just like with the Eldritch Knight, I don't like cutting out other classes completely. If the bow acts as a +1 bow in the hands of normal people but provides double damage from hunter's mark when attuned, it remains useful for others but still remains a uniquely ranger weapon.

The ranger has a spell list that is different from other classes. As a result, having the magic item enhance a particular spell or allow extra casting of a spell will cut out the other classes by its nature. In these cases, I'd probably add these kinds of benefits into the attunement section and only allow it be attuned by a ranger to make it explicit. Since it enhances ranger spells, other classes wouldn't benefit anyway. It's just so I don't make a mistake when reading later and neither do the players. There are some cases, particularly with very powerful items, where you'll want to make sure a powerful effect is only able to be used if attuned. The effect may not be uniquely for rangers, and in this case I'd lift the attunement requirement. The spells, which are only available to a ranger, still makes it better in the hands of a ranger, but it still functions as a good item in the hands of others.

What to Target

Certain spells such as hunter's mark and swift quiver are the meat and potatoes of ranger builds for damage dealing. Enhancing these in some way greatly helps out the ranger and also helps target some of what makes the ranger unique. It also helps to make the item best employed by a ranger. Some examples are:

• Hunter's mark no longer requires the ranger to maintain concentration
• Swift quiver no longer requires the ranger to maintain concentration
• Certain amount of hunter's mark casts per a day
• Certain amount of swift quiver casts per a day
• When certain spells are cast while attuned to the item (possibly also within certain range of item), a spell slot is not expended (note that the ability to cast the spell is still needed)
• Damage or number of free attacks is doubled when using a certain ranger feature (hunter's mark, colossus slayer, giant killer)
• Choose an option from “superior hunter's defense”

Dungeon Master: Eldritch Knight Weapons

Introduction

Magic items are a lot of fun and allow for many new options for players. It can also be one of those things that make a game memorable. However, certain classes get more attention than others. In particular, rangers and non-magic classes with magic options are left out. For this reason, I'll be looking at the Eldritch Knight specifically to provide some magic items that benefit the class.

How to Limit it?

Many items in the new addition require attunement by a particular class. This helps limit who can use the magic item and ensures that the intended class gets the benefit. Since we are making this new item, we need to consider if we will do the same. A staff is not as useful to an Eldritch Knight as a pike or longsword is. It's not very common for the normal magic classes to have access to these weapons so we can tie it to the proficiency needed for the item. There is still a chance that someone will take a feat to gain proficiency with the class of weapons. If this bothers you, you can make being an Eldritch Knight a requirement. I'd be wary of this though because the rogue also has a magic option and I wouldn't want to cut them out. At the same time, even if a wizard has the required proficiency, the item is far more useful to an Eldritch Knight as a spear if their is a weapon bonus.

An option is to provide certain bonuses to an Eldritch Knight that are not provided to other classes using the item. Most typically, this is because it adds to a class feature that the other classes don't have (extra hitpoints when using second wind, for example).

What Kind of Items?

Typically, the most common items I've seen in this case is taking a normal staff that any spellcaster could attune to or only specific ones (such as the staff of the magi) and switching it over to Eldritch Knights for attunement with a different weapon. For example, take a staff of the magi, change the attunement to Eldritch Knight and swap staff to spear. You can also take the effects of a robe or similar magic items not availible to an Elritch Knight and either make an exception, create a new item that they can use (otherwise identical), or add the property to a different item (add the properties of the robe of the archmagi to a suit of +3 plate armour). The results are potentially extremely powerful, but the items we are taking the effects from are already powerful.

There is, however, more you can do. I would recommend giving another option for the charges that helps the martial side of the class. Similar to some other items that already exist, allowing the Eldritch Knight to spend some capped number of charges (max number of 3) to do extra damage (1D6 or 1D8 per spell slot from a staff of fire, for example). Such a feature would be far less useful to normal spellcasters but extremely beneficial to the multiattack features of the Eldritch Knight. You can also, or instead, allow the user to cast a fireball centred on themselves to which they are immune at the same time as they take the attack action. Items that boost the slot level used, grant resistance against some type of damage (including spell), or allow spells that they usually would not have access to (being stuck at 4^th level spells at the most) are all good contenders as well. You can also allow more uses of a particular unique class feature (extra use of action surge or second wind) but I'd be more careful about this kind of thing than the above. Applying a modifier to the second wind feature seems to be relatively safe from the games I've played while also being a significant benefit.  

Free Maps: 10 Dungeon Maps with Seed Ideas

Pros

• 10 Maps
• Story seed ideas

Could Go Either Way

• Overall features aren't very detailed (this gives the Dungeon Master an easier time to twist it into what they want but also means more work)
• Too small to print for battle map use (you'd need to use your own tiles)

Cons

• Maps are so small it's hard to add details to the rooms by hand
• No legend for scale (makes tiles harder)

Introduction

Maps are good. Maps are fun. You can also never have enough of them. Naturally, I couldn't resist looking at 10 free maps when I saw 10 Dungeon Maps with Seed Ideas on the Dungeon Master's Guild. If you need some maps, I'd say it's worth taking a quick look.

The Maps Themselves

The maps are quite simply drawn and aren't big enough to use as a battle map. You can scale them, but it's easier if you just use some tiles that you already have. This simplicity is a strength and a weakness. Don't except to be able to run people through the map after simply placing an item they need to retrieve. The rooms are generally barren and need to be filled. I really do mean barren because the map itself only includes staircases, doors and rooms.

There is no grid or scaling on the map. This makes replicating the rooms through dungeon tiles harder than it really should have been. The rooms themselves are quite small too, meaning adding the missing details is hard to do by hand. The easiest thing to me seemed to take the maps as given, make changes with a pen, and then number the rooms. Having the map set up this way, I could then on another piece of paper write quick descriptions of the rooms along with sketches of the layouts of the room. You only really need to do this for rooms that have features that influence tactical combat. Otherwise, a description is good enough. The good side to this is that it meant the drawing of the room is right beside its description when you are done. The downside is that it takes a significant amount of time. Remember, none of the features of the map (light, sounds, etc.) are filled out so you will need to do so. You are really creating the entire dungeon based on a vaguely drawn map. For a lot of people I know (especially those who like making maps), it just wouldn't be convenient enough because of the changes required and difficulty of adding features.

If you use grid maps usually (or print tiles and tape them together for one time use), converting the maps in this pdf pack is just as much work as creating your own map and then filling it. In these cases, these 10 maps are really just a source of inspiration. You might see a couple you really like and want to mostly keep intact, but it becomes far less valuable in this case and far less of a time saver.

Other Stuff

The story seeds are a couple of sentences that help inspire an adventure. They are not nearly enough for a story and often times don't even have a goal. Don't expect the adventure to write itself. You will need to populate the dungeon and come up with the adventure yourself.

Conclusion

The best way to describe the maps here is making your own dungeon with a bit of help and inspiration. If you aren't a good artist and see a map here that you generally like, it gets one of the more time consuming parts of creating dungeons out of the way. Even if small changes are needed, you can quite easily do so. However, if a lot of changes are needed it simply isn't worth it. Due to the small sizes of the rooms on the map, populating them with features and with tactical choices by drawing them on the map isn't very practical. If the room has features elements that contribute to combat, you will probably want to sketch it beside the description you write for it on another page. This is all well and good if you play using theatre of mind, but not if you draw out the entire map on sheets of grid paper. In that case, you could draw a map you liked on your grid paper (possibly inspired by one in this pack) just as easily as populating the dungeon and sketching out the rooms. The result is that it's less useful for grid paper maps. For people who prefer to lay down tiles as the group walks through the dungeon, you will probably want to do the same as for theatre of mind but lay down tiles as you go through the dungeon. Since it's free, it's at least worth a quick skim if you are in need of maps or are new to tabletop role-playing and the idea of coming up with your dungeon from scratch is daunting (in this case, don't be afraid to make changes or add rooms).  

Free Adventure Review: Madness of the Rat King

Pros

• Interesting take on rats
• Varied enemy design
• Maps, including grid maps that can be printed
• Quick combat encounters
• Puzzle situations with open ended solutions
• Almost everything to run the adventure is included except per-generated characters (including creature and magic item stats)
• Free! (Well, pay what you want)

Could Go Either Way

• Might not be “epic” enough for some people, especially for a first game, but could be a plus for those that prefer lower key games.
• It's really a single dungeon delve, but it has a lot of room to expand into much more
• Cthulhu similarities that not everyone may approve and makes customizing it into a introduction adventure for a campaign a bit trickier

Cons

• Cover and other battlemap elements are a bit lacking (though not completely absent)
• Some of the specific details will be lost to those new to D&D that don't know the lore

Introduction

Now that the Dungeon Master's Guild has been launched, there is a lot of content coming out for Dungeons & Dragons 5^th edition. As such, I'll be looking at content that I think is worth mentioning. I'll be starting with the free adventure Madness of the Rat King. The adventure features colour maps, new creatures, some new items, and a new dungeon delve.

Other Information

At the time of writing this, I've read through and run the adventure. Almost everything needed to run the adventure besides pre-generated characters is here. The exception is such things as weapon and armour tables. I like seeing the items and creatures included with the adventure like this and wish that every release did something like this (though doing it in a separate booklet, like previous D&D 5^th edition released, is also fine).

The Adventure

New Monsters

All kinds of new rat creatures are presented here for your use as a Dungeon Master. They are generally well balanced and amusing from what I saw. As the name of the adventure suggests, there are a lot of rats. However, the way they are done was appreciated by me and my veteran players. The creepiness and weirdness of some of them should also work quite well on new players as well.

New Items

The stand out new items here, in my opinion, are the ring of alertness and Storm's Herald. Both items have interesting features to them. In the case of Storm's Herald, it is one of those items that can act as an iconic campaign item. It also allows for a story to be formed around the item, though it is not told in the adventure. It scales with level so it isn't too good for a level one party but stays relevant as the party levels up. The other items aren't too powerful, so there isn't much of a concern of having the party steamroll the next published adventure (you could always adjust things if it made the party too powerful and if it was your own adventure).

The Adventure Itself

The adventure takes the form of a dungeon delve. Where it rises above that kind of standard adventure is in some of the details surrounding the delve. The different types of rats, for example, have a charm to them that was appreciated by my players. The items and back stories had their moment of charm as well. The few characters that get speaking roles are one of my favourite parts, and I had a lot of fun with them.

Information is displayed quite well. The presentation of combat groups, their intended difficulties and options for 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd level was appreciated and well done. The adventure was generally easy to read and had very few typos (the ones present didn't influence the meaning).

The map itself can also be re-appropriated for a different adventure if needed by the Dungeon Master. It's rather small but fit quite nicely into a single quick session, especially with role-play before and after arriving at the location. They are also provided on multiple sheets for printing purposes, but this also lets you, as the dungeon master, easily connect them however you like with tunnels if you wanted to reuse them.

I mentioned the item Storm's Herald earlier, and the encounter to get it is really quite nice and required some problem solving. This encounter and room, by itself, could be lifted into a custom game with little issue and work very well. There are also some other riddle situations present in the adventure and also opportunity to role-play with the 2 big characters of the adventure.

There are multiple Cthulhu like details in the adventure, and this can go both ways. If you like that, the details fit together very well. However, it makes it harder to convert the adventure to something else without making many more changes to the adventure. It can be done, but the Mark of the Deep in particular becomes a bit trickier to convert while keeping the same flavour. In the case you try to change it to a death cult, for example, coming up with a curse that has roughly the same effect is tricky. Otherwise, it's mostly a straight forward change and almost all of it still fits (demon, and devil would be a similar change).

The Art

There is no art here besides the maps. For a free adventure, I think this is perfectly acceptable. The maps are quite well done as well and are far more important to actual play. They feature the areas well and provide a grid layer if you want to print them and use them with miniatures. I've seen free map packs with worse maps than this. I've seen priced adventures with worse maps too. 

Summary

I'd say that if you are looking for a level 1 adventure, you could do worse than Madness of the Rat King. It features a well drawn map that could be reused, if nothing else. I feel it also has some charm and generally, my players enjoyed it. There are also some puzzle situations that allow for creative solutions (the adventure provides some suggestions, a few of which are intended, but leaves room for the players to come up with their own). Players that are expecting a more “serious” threat than rats and are less knowledgeable about the lore may be disappointed though. By lore, I mean the at times hilarious reliance on rats in low level adventures. Many of the rooms seem to also be lacking elements that would allow for creative use of terrain, though this can be fixed by the Dungeon Master. However, my overall verdict is that it's worth a look, even if only to reuse certain elements in your own home games. If you like it and can afford it, throw some money the author's way too. 

Dungeon Master: Discovering Magic Item Properties

Finding magic items and discovering what they do is part of their fun. However, finding the use of an item is easy with the use of the identify spell in D&D (in 5^th edition, it's a ritual too). My players in particular like playing around with an item to find what it can do. For this reason, I'll go over some of the things I've done and seen Dungeon Masters do in order to keep that part of the game.

Complex Items

If you skim through the SRD for Dungeons & Dragons 5^th edition (if you want to play for free, that's the PDF to see) some items provide a single bonus or ability. Other more complex items, however, allow multiple different effects to be used from the same item as well as possible providing a bonus. In these cases, the identify spell can be used to tell that the item is magical in nature, not cursed, its bonus as well as possible one effect (if it has both a bonus and effect, you could decide to only reveal the bonus). The rest needs to be found through experimentation.

The down side is that some items allow multiple spells to be cast. Finding a reasonable way for a player to realize that a different effect is possible is a bit tricky unless it's a sentient item and offers a suggestion. If a different effect is possible, you as the Dungeon Master can also have a more beneficial effect than is currently unknown be used to help the party (since the description in the SRD and Dungeon Master's Guide always had those effects, it's not the same as doing something just to save the party). For example, if a staff can cast both burning hands and fireball, but the wizard only knows of the burning hands property, the staff will cast a fireball (this can be at a time that's needed or randomly determined by a dice roll). I tend to be wary of this approach, but it is an option.

Some items may have a secret property that is only known when used together with another item as well. This makes for a perfect candidate for a property that is not instantly known by an identify spell (though you could decide to make it known if the wizard is wearing, carrying, or is attuned to the other item(s) needed).

Adding Bonus Effects

The other thing that can be done is to keep all of the items in the Dungeon Master's Guide as they are but in some cases add your own properties. These properties won't be found out with an identify spell and instead need experimentation to discover. I tend to prefer properties that can reasonably discovered through experimentation to avoid the difficulty I briefly touched on in the “Complex Items” section.

You can also add properties that are story related. A sword that is good against undead is pretty standard. However, the sword that is given to the party may have been created to destroy a particular named undead. The bonus is only present when fighting that particular enemy. It doesn't have to be combat related either. The item could help guide the party around a particular location, teleport the party at a particular time, or something completely different. The property should be specific. I'd also be a bit wary of making it necessary to complete the campaign though I do have good memories of campaigns that used this approach (any Hobbit fans would also recognize this type of item).