Dragon Delves - Part 4
While I Read
A tradition from RPG.net where a person reads through a book and gives first impressions as they go through the book. This is Part 4. Part 1 has my thoughts on the Cover, Introduction and first two adventures, Part 2 reviews the next 3 adventures and Part 3 reviews 2 more adventures. Beware that this While I Read contains spoilers.
Shivering Death
This is a 12 page adventure with maps by Mike Schley and art by Ed Kwong. The map is a one page keyed dungeon and there are 4 half page art pieces. I really like this art. It has a smaller palette of black through white and blues. There are a couple of pieces with highlights in orange and purple. It's very striking and has some geometric shapes and sharpness to the design. Love it.
This adventure summary has me intrigued. We have a dragon because that is our theme, but also two factions of Frost Giants at odds with each other. The Frost Giants are seeking one of the white dragon's trophies; a Frost Giant corpse bearing a ritual. That sounds like a situation that is ripe for some awesome roleplaying. The Preparation section is still pretty anemic though it speaks of the Wand of Wonder and extreme cold.
After seeing how the Frost Giant factions are setup, they're a bit less appealing. One is already trying to create a pact with the white dragon while the second is there to retrieve the remains. This might be fine, but I feel it takes away some opportunities for playing the different sides against each other.
It would be interesting to see how these factions play out in play. There might be enough here to feel weighty in play. A lot of these NPCs default toward hostility and that's likely how my players would approach it.
I do enjoy the fact that this dragon has a backup plan. If damaged, she'll retreat to a hidden healing item and then continue the fight from elsewhere in her lair. That feels like a properly smart and dangerous foes response.
Overall, I think this adventure would be pretty fun to run. I think it has good flavor and it takes a solid stab at providing some factions to play with.
A Copper for a Song
This is a 13 page adventure with art by Jabari Weathers, maps by Jared Blando and a handout by Paolo Vacala. There are 4 half page art pieces, a half page region map, and a full page map that is split between the exterior and a keyed dungeon map. Finally there is a full page handout. I'm getting a little disillusioned with the one pagers. The best part is the 3-4 paragraph run down of the adventure and the list of NPCs. I might prioritize more actionable information here, but it's not bad. The preparation section is again lackluster. The only useful tidbit is a reminder to print out the handout.
Two interesting things off the bat. Copper for a Song is tied into the Radiant Citadel. I wonder if WotC is planning to expand that setting? Copper is also built with the option of running it duet style. I'm not sure what differentiates the duet or party style adventures from the party. The only difference is making sure the single player has the Blessing the book provides.
This adventure sends the party to search after a lost song that can restore the land to its previous fecundity. The boxed text is a description of the town and a small exposition dump. These explanations feel a little off to me. Then there's a second boxed text and then the DM is to ask a player to read the handout (which contains a 4 verse song). Holy cow, a third box text! These are all separated by 2 short lines of text, for example this is the split between two boxed texts in total "When the characters head to the temple, proceed to 'Listening Post.'"
Oddly, this third boxed text implies that the PCs are not solving the riddles in the song handout, but instead are just here to fetch the verses when someone else figures it out? Hopefully that's not the case because this opening is already very passive.
Oh no. The PCs are not solving these riddles. Instead they are getting the clues from a series of NPCs hanging out in the temple. Each NPC starts off Indifferent and needs to be made Friendly through an Influence action or impressing them. Examples are given of doing a coin trick with Sleight of Hand or using herbalism knowledge with a Nature check. After making these 5 checks with these 5 NPCs they will be given 5 clues to find the dragon's lair. I don't much like this. What if they can't make the check? Are they stuck? Do you just go around the party until the checks are made? Most DMs are just going to end up giving the information after making a good impression would be my guess. These little clue sessions make the map of the region feel unnecessary. What are the stakes?
With the clues in hand the heroes can find the dragon's lair which has a half dozen hill giants camping near the entrances. This entry provides a variety of ways to non-violently approach them and I really appreciate this. Mechanizing this social encounter works better to me as failure could mean falling back onto a secondary non-violent path or to combat. It gives a good road map to a 5e DM to how to approach this without a fight. This encounter is designed for stealth, combat and social skills. Fantastic.
The keyed dungeon is an odd duck. It has a variety of interesting encounters throughout: some hostile, some strange and some pure roleplay. Very cool! Unfortunately, the only way to progress toward the goal is to bypass very difficult to find secret doors (DC 20) that must be broken. I'm shocked that no DC is given for breaking these doors considering everything else does have a DC and skill check called out. I think this is neat but depends entirely on DM fiat to have the dragon engage with the party but is also written so that the dragon doesn't engage with the heroes but instead stays in their den. A rather odd duck. A good idea but the DM is going to need to adapt on the fly and the dragon just opening a door for the heroes when she is ready feels a bit anticlimactic.
Dragons of the Sandstone City
This 11 page adventure has art by Leroy Steinmann and cartography by Coupleofkooks. There are 4 half page art pieces and one small piece along with a full page map. This art is closest to what I would call the D&D house style: realistic, detailed and vibrant.
This time we're seeking to foil the plans of a blue dragon that wants to resurrect their ancestors and do evil things. Oddly, this detail isn't in the 1 page summary, it's only related that the blue dragon wants to complete a ritual. I guess the details don't really matter, but it rings strange. The Preparation section of the 1 pager is also extremely brief: read the summary, the NPCs and here's the monsters. Yeah, after seeing 10 of these I'm not sure how effective they are. I'd like to see more focus on the key plot points and the NPCs. The NPC section especially could be buffed to be a better table reference.
The adventure starts with some action: the heroes are followed and then that person is robbed. The heroes stop the robbery and get a quest item: a dragon's egg, called the Brazen Egg, along with a wrapping of exposition. It's a solid plot thread but I'm less enthused by step 2 which is to seek a Sphinx for the passphrase to enter our Egypt-esque dungeon. The whole encounter with the Sphinx is going to really, really depend on the DM because it's nearly all vibes. If you fail you pay a very small gold tax (you could pay it with only the copper from the second to last adventure 6 times). A little juicer conflict could make this sing. Right now, there's no tension or interest. I think about Vox Machina's (the animated show) and that sphinx's portrayal as a more interesting encounter.
The dungeon key itself does something I find very annoying and has shown up in both of the D&D5e things I've read: putting the locked door in the key for that room. So you read H7 and it doesn't mention anything about a locked door adjoining any other room, you jump to H8 and it begins (before the boxed text, thankfully) by identifying this door as being locked. I don't think this works well. Give me Dragonbane's room descriptions which describe each exit from the room, which helps give the heroes meaningful choices to make!
The dungeon itself seems fine overall. I would have liked to see the Brazen Egg MacGuffin have more impact. No one in the dungeon wants it. There's no complications from having it with you. It just sits in your inventory until the plot tells it to wake up. The heroes can then use the egg to make the final fight possible. It de-powers the Ancient Blue Dragon into an Adult Blue Dragon and gives the heroes one of three spell-like effects. The worst case scenario is the party ignores the egg (in which case they likely die) or the DM plays out a "mother may I" scenario requiring the exact right phrase from the players to the same effect.
That's it! Ten adventures with dragons. I don't think I would run most of these. Most of them are not my style and many of them would require some extra oomph to really sing at the table (from my view). The one page summaries seem like a good idea, but are a little anemic in practice. I want to see more details on these NPCs and a better summary of the adventure. The preparation section can be removed entirely for a quick list of monsters and a foot note about handouts.
On to stuff that isn't 5e which I'm really not interested in running anymore.