Adversaries & Allies Review

A look and review of the Adversaries & Allies package of NPCs for Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition. 

 

Pros

• Nice assortment of pre-created stats for Dungeon Masters to use for characters
• Consistent since it sticks quite close player creation rules
• 38 pages long
• Free (well, pay what you want)!

Cons

• Challenge ratings are often a bit off in my opinion
• Nothing exotic is included since it only contains player like characters

Introduction

I'm always on the lookout for things that make my job as the Dungeon master easier. As such, if I'm quickly drawn to new monsters I can unleash on my players as well as new characters. Adversaries & Allies caught my eye for that reason. It was also free (well, pay what you want), which meant I couldn't resist grabbing it.

What's Inside

It's a really nice collection in general. It's 38 pages of stat block after stat block. It's free (well, pay what you want) so I wasn't expecting any art, and that's just what I got. Although a Dungeon Master could make many of these stat blocks themselves by consulting the rules and making appropriately leveled characters (same rules players use to make theirs), having them already done is a nice time save. I find that many of the characters in a campaign tend to be more normal anyway and more like the players than an ancient evil lich. This makes the adversaries and allies provided quite useful. The author of this collection doesn't always adhere strictly to the player rules, adding further variety than if you just strictly used them. You still can do so but mixing the two together could make things more interesting as well as giving the Dungeon Master options. For me, it's also nice since some of the ones I created are a couple of levels off in either direction. Already made stat blocks like this also serve as an easy way to create more variations by trimming back levels (apply creation rules in reverse) and spell lists (spell list construction often takes me longer than any other part). The stat blocks also cover a nice variety of roles.

There are also some stat blocks, like the expert, that are made without using the player creation rules. Though these are probably the minority, they are extremely useful and far less likely to be come up independently. I personally like seeing these kinds of creatures and characters that Dungeon Masters come up with. They are also a great to use as is, as inspiration, or just to see how another Dungeon Master's mind ticks.

Issues

The main issue I have with this collection is the challenge ratings. As an example, let's look at the cleric. It's a challenge rating 2 while being a level 8 spellcaster, while the priest in the basic rules (also all other rules) is a level 5 spellcaster while also being a challenge rating 2. This also means that the experience for the combat encounter is not what it should be. Some of them I think are perfectly reasonable. Others, I think are might be slightly off but not by much (or might be made more powerful with a slight tweak to their spell list). In general I think they are solid. I also don't think challenge rating is a great representation of challenge, but it represents a starting point and translates to the amount of experience given. Experience is often also used to construct encounter according to the tables in the rules. If you are a new Dungeon Master, be aware that some of the stat blocks may not have the right amount of experience. Be ready to change the challenge rating and award experience accordingly. It's these kinds of things that tables like in Unearthed Arcana could help prevent. Since they are based around normal characters, some people may also find them a bit boring (in this case you can add a twist) and lacking in the exotic.

Note to New Dungeon Masters: Remember that like any other stat block, you are free to modify and not use them however you see fit. If you want to use the noble stats instead of ruler (provided in these rules) for a king, go ahead and do so. Not every ruler needs to be as tough as the stats provided here. Not all rulers need to be as weak as the noble. Some might be better with some form of mage stats.

Conclusion

I'd say grab the free PDF and use it as a resource (if you like it, throw some money at the author). It's really a nice collection that can easily be consulted along with the current Monster Manual. Just be aware that some of the challenge ratings are a bit off so be careful and adjust as you see fit. It's not consistent throughout so it needs to be looked at on a case by case basis (we might disagree on what a good challenge rating is anyway and challenge ratings are often not useful anyway).

Map Set Review: The Keeper of Realms

A review of the Black Scroll Games map The Keeper of Realms.

Pros

• Well draw and coloured maps
• Isometric visual aid images included
• Often used location (wizard's library is a popular location)
• Example story with visual aids and riddle included
• A PDF document broken up for printing as well as .jpg files are provided
• 1 inch grid size
• Free after signing up for the newsletter (for at least a year)

Could Go Either Way

• The adventure idea included is system neutral (more accessible but more work)

Cons

• The 3D style makes it difficult to combine with non-3D style sets unless they are used in their own separate sections (you need to commit to the 3D art style for at least some sections of your dungeon). You can still do so, but there will be an aesthetic break. 

Introduction

In keeping in the tradition of me looking for free maps wherever I can find them, I've recently stumbled upon Black Scroll Games and their maps. In particular, The Keeper of Realms set is currently provided for free when you sign up for their newsletter (when I asked, I was told it would be this way for at least a year).

The Map

There are two main maps included, though that isn't really telling the whole story. The PDF files make use of layers so that there are options included for things such as background colour and grid style (classic square grids or rounded grids, since the library itself is circular). The main map is the large, 9 page library. Within the centre of the library, after solving the included puzzle, there is a secret chamber that is also provided. This secret chamber is made further more useful by providing an alternate empty version. It's missing the details such as tables, but it means it is much easier to customize for your own personal games. The ability to remove the details easily in the lower chamber section allows the placement of 3D props without conflicting with already present details. The story included with the map has a part where a spiral staircase to the lower chamber is revealed. In the set a tile with this opening is provided allowing you to visually show the event to players by placing this tile over the previous one. I really liked this added detail. Sound like too much work for too little gain? It's in its own .pdf file. Just don't print it.

An optional adventure is presented along with a riddle and adventure aids. These aids are handouts that are meant to be given to the players (a riddle in a code/dead language, the code/dead language itself and a drawing) and isometric depictions of the areas. The riddle isn't too difficult but it's fine for its purpose (you typically don't want riddles your party can't ever figure out). 

Libraries are a common feature in tabletop role-playing games and when they are featured, they usually belong to wizards. As a result, this map is quite reusable. It is easy to rework into a homebrew though it is probably not enough for a complete adventure on its own. With a little bit of work to flesh out the process of finding the library, it can make for a decent one-shot. It is very easy to convert it to something else entirely as well. If your players need to find some kind of scroll, chances are you can recycle at least part of what is found here.

Art

It looks really nice. The map presented is detailed and has a perspective that shows off the details and height of the library in a way that isn't otherwise possible in a flat map. In many other maps you only see the top edge of the wall. In these maps, you get to see the angled face of the wall as well. As a map on its own, it looks really nice. However, this perspective choice makes it naturally harder to combine with other sets that don't go for this 3D approach because of the presence of the two different styles. In such cases, you can still use what is found here to create a room. When the 3D tiles are placed together with 3D tiles the issue is avoided. I also find it far less jarring to have flat style tiles lead to a 3D style room than a mixture of both styles in the same section. I've run adventures like that and my players didn't mind but some people might prefer to stick to either all 3D style art of to all flat style art. All of this isn't a problem if mixing art styles together doesn't bother you. In some similar maps I've been concerned that 3D props don't work well. This is because they don't completely cover up the art (for example, in the case of the book shelf). In this case, part of the library is raised. This means that if you have 3D prop miniature bookshelves and place them on the map, they will now be higher than the raised part of the library. For this reason, I'd suggest running the library itself without props. Without them, thanks to the 3D art style, it looks almost as if you had recreated the entire thing using 3D terrain and props. However, it's easier to set up than tiles and 3D props. If you really like going for full 3D, you'd need to build the raised section (this would require you to carefully cut out the raised section).

The isometric aids are very nice looking and the lighting in particular is very nice. They aren't an essentially but they are a really nice addition to the package. It also means that even if prefer theatre of mind play, you can still find something of use from this package.

Conclusion

It's a very nice map. The location itself, a wizard's library, is very easily reusable and comes up often in play. The library map in particular has a good sense of height. The visual aids give a nice alternate view of the area and allow for use even in theatre of mind play. A possible adventure idea and puzzle are provided with the adventure. For the puzzle and adventure idea, visual aids are also presented in order to enhance the experience. These take the form of a dead language/code, a riddle written in the dead language/code, and a drawing. As a map it is very nice and all of the extras, from visual aids to adventure elements, are just icing on the cake. The lower chamber part also allows you to remove details, further enhancing its reuse. It has just about everything you could want from a map. I hope I see more packages in the future that have so many elements for Dungeon Masters. The adventure isn't the most developed but it is system neutral. The 3D art style works best with maps and tiles that also have a 3D art style. It can still, however, be used to make art style consistent rooms even if you use mostly 2D style tiles. Doing so is less jarring but some might prefer a consistent 2D or 3D art style. For now it's also free. If you think you'd like it based on what I've said, go ahead and check it out. I've always liked the no risk and informative approach of samples and demos.  

Unearthed Arcana: Encounter Building Response

Introduction

Unearthed Arcana has a new article that covers guidelines for creating combat encounters. I've tried to create a table that maps level to challenge rating one to one (essentially translating level to challenge rating and vice versa) based on this article. Up until now we've mainly had experience and challenge rating to go on. Seeing this, I wanted to see what I could pull out and possibly organize into a new form as well as note anything else of interest I noticed.

Resulting Chart

The below chart uses the information in the multiple monster table provided in the Unearthed Arcana article. When two challenge ratings were given for a level, I took the highest. The result is a relative translation between level and challenge rating. If you like to use the player creation rules as a starting point for baddies, you might find this helpful.

Level	Challenge Rating
1	1/4
2	1/2
3	1/2
4	1
5	2
6	2
7	3
8	3
9	4
10	4
11	4
12	5
13	6
14	6
15	7
16	7
17	8
18	8
19	9
20	10

What We Get

It doesn't look like my resulting chart follows a pattern. It's probably best that if you just consult the charts and not memorize them. I'm happy to finally see the math behind challenge ratings and hopefully once it gets finalized it'll help a better level of consistency on Dungeon Masters Guild. The challenge rating for different group sizes was also a nice touch. I wish the table went to at least 3 players groups for solo monsters. You would think that you could use the tables to figure it out yourself, but it doesn't line up. The math for the multiple monsters table is different than the solo monsters table. Given the modifiers used in the Dungeon Master's Guide for larger groups of enemies (the difficulty of an encounter was the total experience points multiplied by a constant determined by the number of enemies), it's not too much of a surprise. Trying to work backwards by guessing would be a pain though and not guaranteed to yield a result. It makes me wonder if the table was made mostly through eyeballing things or whether there is some kind of hidden math. If it's hidden math, I'd like to see it.

The solo monster table is quite interesting to see. You would think that challenge rating should translate to something meaningful, like being a nice challenge for a party of 4 for that level. At fifth level, that pattern is quickly abandoned in the table. It reinforces that challenge ratings are odd. To make things worse, it specifically states that the table is for challenge a party by using a single legendary creature.

The table for dealing with multiple monsters in an encounter may be more useful. I'm hoping to see if I can successfully trim back an encounter to fewer characters by using it. Based on the text so far, it should use the same math as the other guidelines. However, the difference in the way it is presented means it will be easier to use for certain things.

I like the sections about monster personality and monster relationships. Too often I've seen the encounters where creatures are just buckets of hit points that need to be reduced to zero before advancing. It honestly seems to be stuff that should have been included in the Dungeon Master's Guide.

Is It Alternate?

Reading over these guidelines, it makes me wonder if it is indeed an alternate system or instead another system of checks we can use. If you know what creature you want to throw at your party or need a single legendary creature, it should make it easier to design the encounter. Using the second table, you can also choose monsters to challenge a single character and then multiply it by the number of characters, if you have a party of equal level. I think I might give that approach a try and see how it works. In the previous guidelines, however, the number of creatures used against the party influence the modifier. In the new method, the total number of creatures doesn't seem to be used. My concern at the moment is that these new guidelines will diverge from the old ones at times.  

Dungeon Master: Known Spells

The number of known spells affects the strength of a spellcaster. However, outside the wizard, most classes can't learn more spells outside of their leveling. The wizard, however, can learn many new spells (through finding spell books and spell scrolls) and become a utility powerhouse due to their wide range of options. I'll try to talk about ways to bridge the gap for other classes as well as some problem that may result.

Possible Problems

Wizards are limited in the number of spells they can prepare. This means that even though they have many options, they have to make a choice. Other classes, however, always bring everything they know to the table. This means that if you decide to give every arcane spell possible to a sorcerer, they will not be limited by the preparation rules of a wizard and become even more well-rounded. If all you have in your campaign is a sorcerer, it may not be too much of a problem since the party wizard won't feel overshadowed. Otherwise, if done, it needs to be limited and done carefully to prevent the situation I mentioned.

Learn by Watching

You can decide that you want your sorcerers to learn new spells from watching others cast the spells. Clearly this is harder and more time consuming than passing around and mass producing books. It also, from a gameplay perspective, adds another reason for your sorcerer to pay attention. It also feels awesome to learn a new spell and pull it out to save everyone in the middle of combat (person experience talking). You need to trust your player, however, since keeping track of this in combat is very difficult. Whenever I've seen Dungeon Masters use a system like this, they would trust the player and not keep track themselves.

More Spells Are Needed

Just giving spells to the players that are important for riddles or other reasons is another solution to the problem. There are also some spells that are mathematically awesome that people always gravitate towards. If you give these for free and let them take other ones, the result is a character that can do cool things outside of combat as well as within it. However, again, some spells can make it easy for magic characters to completely overshadow the rest of the party. As a result, serious care should to be taken or other benefits should to be given to the non-magic characters in order to offset the result.

Spell scrolls can also be made available to these characters. It's an easy way to give access to tons of spells that the players may not otherwise have access to. Copying the spells from the spell scrolls is also not a problem for the non-wizard magic classes I was talking about so they are far less dangerous for a campaign in their hands.

Just Don't Give Many Spells to the Wizard

There is also a very easy solution to the problem from the start. If you don't give your wizard every spell under the sun, the entire problem goes away. A few spells here and there won't unbalance things too badly though.

Taking Away Spells

Spells like wish, which can be taken away from the player, can be a big problem for classes that cannot learn more spells as written. In these cases, you might choose to be merciful and let the player take a different high level spell to take its place. However, if your campaign features situations where spells or knowledge about spells is taken from players more often, beware that it will affect those other classes far more widely than the wizard (assuming the wizard has access to spell books and spell scrolls).  

Rules Corner: Alternate Reaction

The rules, as written right now, only allow a single attack to be made as a readied action. At first, this really isn't much of a problem. However, as players become more powerful and get more and more abilities (including extra attacks), the “ready an action” option gets less and less useful. For that reason, I hope to provide an alternate system I've seen and personally used.

The New System

Using the “ready an action” action allows the player or creature to take their turn later in the round (for purposes of effects, only the initiative order turn is used). As a result, the option remains useful for the entire length of a campaign.

Problems and Solutions: Keep the Trigger?

The above, as written, doesn't keep the trigger. It allows the player to use their turn as normal. This can cause a wide range of problems, include from stealth attacks. For these cases, I have a few solutions that could work.

First, players attacked successfully from stealth cannot react. This goes for spellcasters too. This is to prevent using the reactions to always attack right before a stealthed creature attacks.

Secondly, the trigger can be kept as normal. The only different is that more conditions and actions can be added (“I pull the lever when someone steps on the trapdoor” can change into “I pull the lever when someone steps on the trapdoor and move back to the rest of the party after doing so”). This is my preferred solution since it keeps it simpler and also makes extra-attack oriented classes keep up with wizards. It does, however, force wizards to keep concentrations to attack and extra-attack oriented characters not too (I deem this to be not too much of a big deal given the often area attack nature of spells allows them to do more damage overall).

Problems and Solutions: Concentration

There are a couple of problems that may be quickly apparent. The first comes for spellcasters. Previously, they had to ready a spell and maintain concentration. The above may let them to do the same thing without concentration. This makes the rule useless except for effects that require concentration to maintain.

If this is fine, you can ignore this section and go as is. However, you can also decide that spellcasters still need to maintain concentration to cast their spells but attacks do not. One will give a distinct disadvantage to spellcasters, but spells are quite powerful already so it might be seen as fine.

Problems and Solutions: Multiple People Delaying Actions

If two people are delaying their actions and then they both want to react, there is a problem with who goes first. In these cases, I say that the person who waited the longest acts first. This is quite straight forward I think, though feel free to point out any issues if you see them.

Storm King's Thunder Top 3 Reuse

With the release of Storm King's Thunder, we got a new adventure but also a new resource to shamelessly steal from for our homebrew. I did it before with Curse of Strahd but I think that going forward I'll continue to do this with every new adventure. With that in mind, here are 3 things that can be easily and effectively repurposed.

Chapter 1

The free first chapter of the adventure, found here, provides an introduction to the storyline. It also gives a series of encounters inside a city. As it is, it can be run as a goblin attack on a city followed by an orc attack (completely removing giants from the equation). The one part that's left hard to explain in this case is the rocks (you can change the description of character deaths from being crushed by rocks to being shot with arrows). You can also easily change the goblins to guards of an opposing army.

The Morkoth

The encounter in general is quite nice in my opinion. Part of the reason is that it occurs on a ship. As it is you can very easily replace King Hekaton with another similar creature (dragon comes to mind) and still keep the encounter largely intact. The betrayal of the crew is a nice touch and easily kept when reusing. You can also choose to replace King Hekaton with a special chest containing a magic item needed for your quest. This chest should have magic properties similar to the chains that bind King Hekaton.

The Savage Frontier

The adventure contains a nice long description of the area, what creatures and characters live within it, as well as some interesting plot hooks. The Wight Brothers are a personal favourite. It's a short little description and location but there is enough there to give me inspiration for a nice wight themed adventure. The area itself, up in the cold north, can be easily used as the backdrop for your own themed adventure. Want to do an evil undead army attacking? It still works. Want to do a Tyranny of Dragons style storyline based in the north? Between the location and the dragons, you got it. It's a bit harder to point to one thing that can be reused in this case since we are talking about a large area and quite a few different characters. However, that vastness and potential is what makes it valuable when plotting a campaign. The adventure also adds some details to the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, adding to the Forgotten Realms and can be used to add to previously published adventures.

Considerations

Storm King's Thunder is heavily based around giants. Removing giants from encounters and sections of the adventure becomes quite difficult as a result. However, it will be much easier to adapt and require far less work if giants feature prominently in your campaign.

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.