The Lost Mine Falls!

The party finally defeated the Black Spider this afternoon, and in doing so they completed their explorations of "The Lost Mine of Phandelver". They thus returned to Phandelver to a heroes' welcome, before heading off on future adventures.

We also took the big vote on what to do next. I was somewhat surprised to find that the decision fell in favour of sticking with the current characters, which means that the choice of what to do next is surprisingly easy - "Storm King's Thunder" beckons! (I'll probably want to run something short in the interim, in order to advance the characters to fifth level, but that shouldn't be too big an ask.)

Wayfinders Guide to Eberron

Oh, was I glad to see this!

While I'm a fan of Spelljammer, Dark Sun, and Ravenloft (in that order), my favourite published setting is Eberron. And while I'm a fan of 3e, the truth is that it has now been eclipsed by 5e, both in terms of my desire to run it, and also in the likelihood of finding players. Thus far, though, my efforts at running Eberron in 5e have fallen flat - I felt that the previous Unearthed Arcana materials just didn't quite hit the spot, which meant that the whole thing felt like a game being run through a glitchy emulator. It was close, but just not quite right.

So when WotC announced that Eberron was being opened to the DM's Guild, I was delighted. And when they further announced a guide to the setting in the new edition, written by the progenitor of the setting no less, I was even more pleased. You may wish to temper my comments below based on that enthusiasm!

The "Wayfinders Guide to Eberron" is (currently) a 176-page PDF, priced at $15 from DM's Guild. For the moment, print-on-demand is not available. The reason I say 'currently' is that the plan is to use this document as a playtest of some of the material, with updates being made as they go. Once the material is finalised, PoD will be enabled. (It's worth noting that there have been at least some minor updates to the document already - I happened to download it twice and found the bookmarks were better placed in the second iteration.) It's fair to say that some people may balk at paying for playtest material. Which is reasonable, except that the free updates mean that you're also getting the real material once it is released, so you lose very little by jumping in now.

It's also worth noting that all of the artwork in this PDF is recycled from previous Eberron books. I found that somewhat disappointing, if understandable.

The file has six chapters and three appendices. Three of the chapters are mostly overviews of the setting - chapter one recaps the concepts behind Eberron, chapter two details Khorvaire (the main continent), and chapter six likewise covers Sharn (the biggest city in the world). There is very little rules material here, and not a great deal that is new (though there are some nice tables that serve as ideas-generators).

I had distinctly mixed feelings about those three chapters. On the one hand, they were probably necessary, as this document necessarily has to cater to people new to the setting. On the other hand, I felt they tried to cover too much ground in too little space - for a better one-book summary of the setting I would recommend the 4e setting guide, while for the full-fat version I would point to the 3e sourcebooks. That said, it didn't hurt to be reminded of key elements of the setting...

The other three chapters had rather more rules material. Chapter three details the races of Eberron (including Kalashtar, who were omitted from that UA article I mentioned previously). Chapter four does the same with Dragonmarks, and Chapter five details some of the magic items of the setting.

These three chapters are largely excellent, and provided almost everything I felt I needed by way of "Eberron support". The major thing that is still missing is the Artificer (which I understand will be added to this document later) and the monsters of the setting.

For the most part, the mechanics here are pretty sound. Of particular note is the redesign of Dragonmarks, which are now presented as variant subraces for the relevant races, which is a very neat mechanic, and a definite improvement over the previous iteration. My only slight issue here is this means a character has to have a Dragonmark at first level or not at all - there's no scope for a 'found' Dragonmark in this model. Greater Dragonmarks remain defined using Feats, which is fine.

The other mechanic of note is the Warforged's Integrated Protection. This is mostly fine, but as written is a bit too powerful, and also makes the mistake of adding the Proficiency Bonus to the character's AC. This reflects the fact that most comparable characters may well find and use magic armour (which Warforged can't use). However, I would be inclined to treat any AC improvement as a Warforged Component, and thus make it exactly as common as magic armour for other PCs. It will be interesting to see how that is modified over time.

(Incidentally, I also really like the mechanic whereby Aberrant Dragonmarks power their abilities using Hit Dice. I wonder if we'll start seeing more use of mechanics of this sort elsewhere?)

The Appendices are purely functional: a list of the various Eberron sourcebooks and novels, a glossary of terms, and a set of Dragonmarked House crests. These are fine.

So, a recommendation...

For an existing fan of Eberron looking for more 5e support, I would recommend this product whole-heartedly - it provides most of what you need. For someone new to Eberron, I wouldn't recommend this as a starting point. Instead, I'd recommend combining this with the 4e Campaign Setting Guide (also available from DM's Guild) - I thought that was the better one-book guide to the setting, while this fills the gaps in terms of mechanics.

All that said, much depends on how this product evolves. The biggest gap in Eberron support now is the lack of an Artificer. That's coming, but it's not yet clear what form that will take - the previous Artificer was a Wizard subclass, which I felt was a very poor approach (it really should be a class, and in particular needs its own spell list). So, we'll need to see how they implement their new version. Assuming that that is indeed done well, and assuming the issue with the Warforged is fixed, this will become a real winner.

The Force is Strong With This One

Last year marked the 30th anniversary of the publication of the very first Star Wars RPG. To mark that occasion, FFG (the current holders of the license) decided to republish two of the key books from that game: the core rulebook and the "Star Wars Sourcebook". Due to a bit of a cock up on their part, those books barely made it out before the 31st anniversary. Still, I got them, and they're pretty glorious!

Thus far, I've only read through the rulebook, and so this review will be limited to that book. As will become apparent, the decision to reprint both was very wise...

Reading this book, it's quite shocking to what extent the state of the art in RPG design has changed. (I would say "moved on", but not everything that has changed is for the better.) This is a 148-page hardcover that is mostly in black and white, with only a few colour inserts throughout. The book is mostly a wall of text, with relatively few pictures and illustrations. Even the rules tables are not found in the main text, but instead grouped together at the end! (This makes for a somewhat frustrating read-through, but would show its value during play, with all the tables gathered in one place.)

The rules text is bright and breezy, with an emphasis on getting down to actually playing. It is presented with a minimum of fuss, but with plenty of examples to explain what is intended in most cases.

To my mind, this first edition is actually the very best set of RPG rules for Star Wars published - and there have been a lot. The second and third (ahem, "revised and expanded") rules added a bunch of complexity that was mostly counter-productive, while the first two d20 versions were pretty bad, and the FFG versions are saddled with custom dice. The only one that competes with this version of the game is Saga edition - IMO, that one does a better job of handling the prequel trilogy (and the Clone Wars series), while this one is better for everything else... and since "everything else" is better than "the prequel trilogy", this one wins.

(This game also benefits from a strong focus - it is very definitely set between "Star Wars" and "The Empire Strikes Back". From 2nd Edition onwards, they start looking towards the post-RotJ era, and with the advent of the d20 version they start supporting several eras of play, with the consequent mess of stuff to support. That's fine, insofar as there's a lot of good adventure to be had in other time periods, but it means having much more ground to cover, leading to breadth of coverage at the expense of depth.)

That said, this game has a couple of really big flaws. Firstly, the rules for dodging (and also melee parry) make it absurdly easy to dodge blaster bolts - because the dodge roll adds to the base difficulty, and because the defender's dodge skill is likely to be about as good as the attacker's blaster skill (which may have a hard time reaching even the base difficulty anyway!), there's a problem.

The other really big flaw is largely fixed by the the Sourcebook, and it is that this book is very good on the rules but fairly lacking in the stat-blocks to make it work - there are stats for about four ships, four key NPC types, and not a lot else. The Sourcebook vastly expands the set, with further books in the line adding a great deal more, but without that this book is quite lacking.

A lesser flaw concerns dice-pool systems in general - a single combat attack likely requires four rolls (one to hit, a potential dodge, a damage roll, and a soak roll). That's at least two too many. It would probably be better to pre-calculate two of these to base numbers, and thus eliminate the dodge and soak rolls (in most cases). It's also worth noting that SW uses a roll-and-add dice pool system, rather than a success-based pool mechanism (as in Vampire or Shadowrun). The latter tends to be quicker - all that time doing addition quickly adds up.

So...

I can't recommend this book in isolation. However, packaged with the Sourcebook, as it is, I can indeed recommend it - the weakness surrounding dodge isn't exactly insurmoutable, and once fixed that leaves a very elegant, quick-flowing system. As I said, it's probably the best iteration of Star Wars roleplaying that has been published (which is both a glowing endorsement and a pretty damning indictment of the rest - in 30 years, nobody has managed to do better?)

And if you can get your hands on some of the other first edition supplements (all now long out of print, of course, and so increasingly difficult to find), then even better - look for the books on the Rebel Alliance and the Empire in particular.

Upgrades

As I've mentioned once or twice before, one of the things that really bugs me about 5e is the armour list. Basically, it has a very clear 'best' choice for almost all characters, and everyone starts one step below that 'best' armour (with one exception - heavy armour users start two steps below).

I'm also somewhat bugged, although less so, by the weapons list - this time there is no one 'best' option (there are at least several choices), but here everyone starts with top equipment based on their proficiencies.

The upshot of this, coupled with the inability to purchase magic items (by default) is that there isn't really anything much to spend gold on. Sure, it's easy enough to find plenty of ways to creatively squander it, but there's not much worthwhile to buy. Which is a real shame.

What I'd ideally like to see is more of an upgrade path built into the rules here. For armours, there should be two upgrades for each armour type (one available roughly at 3rd level, the other at 5th). In particular, the light and medium armours actually have two upgrade paths available to them, so it's rather ironic that these lack options. For weapons, I'm inclined not to bother with upgrades for Simple weapons, but for Martial ones I'm inclined to again suggest that there should be two steps of upgrade available (again, at roughly 3rd and 5th level).

(I should probably note: the two sets of upgrades should probably be priced such that most PCs can pick up one at 3rd level, but must wait for 4th to get both; and likewise at 5th and 6th level. So each PC has to choose which is more important - improved offense or improved defense?)

Beyond 5th level, there would of course still be upgrades available, but by this stage we're looking at moving beyond the mundane versions - items crafted by legendary smiths, items made of special materials (mithril, adamantine, meteorite iron, jade, obsidian, or crystal), and of course magic items. In all cases, these wouldn't be items that can be bought by default - they must either be found in the course of an adventure or the materials must be acquired and then the item commissioned.

Fortunately, much of what I need was put together way back when I was working on Nutshell, so I should be able to get it together fairly quickly...

Dealing With Shopping

The work game is run on a tight timescale - we play almost once a week, but for only 90 minutes at a time. Allowing 5 minutes for set-up and 5 for tidy-up, that's not a lot of time!

As a consequence of this, it is of course beneficial to do anything that can be done outside of the session off-line. Levelling up is an obvious choice - if the players can make the choices, the rest can be done easily enough.

Slightly more complex is the issue of upgrading equipment, selling loot, and so on; in essence: shopping. At the same time, I don't really want to reduce all treasures down to a pure numeric value. So...

1. Items will still be issued by description. In addition, gold-piece values will be supplied.
   
2. When the PCs end any session in a settlement, the accumulated loot will be converted into gold and divided equally amongst the PCs.
   
3. Each player will also be issued with the shopping list of items (ideally, I'd like to supply a better list than that in the PHB - I find the listings of armour and weapons in particular to be quite weak. However, that may not be practical...). At any time, they can select items they want to buy for their PCs. And, the next time they end a session in a settlement, the deal will be done.
   
4. There won't be any special restrictions on which items can be bought where. Basically, there will indeed be a big warehouse of gear in every settlement. That's all a bit silly, of course, but it's a necessary evil - I want to spend the time playing, not shopping!
   
5. As discussed previously, each PC will be able to carry ten named items, plus their "trinket". That's not all the character will be carrying, but those are the items they consider important enough to declare. Ammo will be handled by writing "a quiver of arrows", or similar, and multiple identical items will count as one (within reason).

And that's basically that. Truth be told, that's probably pretty much the conventions I'll adopt in all campaigns going forward, even without the extremely tight session timings.

Four Tasks

In the current work game, I asked each player to provide a picture of their character. Once said picture was provided, the PC gained 100 XP, which went a long way towards advancing the character from 1st to 2nd level. Of course, this being the first game for most of the players, that was about as far as I wanted to push things - the characters are very much playing pieces at this point.

For the next work game, I'm hoping to delve a little bit more into role-playing aspects of the game, and especially group dynamics. As such, I have four tasks for the players. Each is worth 75 XP, but only when completed in order - if a player completes task #4 first they don't get the XP until they're all done!

1. Provide a picture for your PC.
   
2. Provide a little information about your PC. Specifically, one fact about his past, present, and future. (For instance, "I fell out with my brother ten years ago and we haven't spoken since. I always wear at least one blue item of clothing. I hope one day to return home with pockets full of gold.")
   
3. Your character is not a native to Icewind Dale, and the Dale is a fairly harsh and unforgiving realm. While it's obvious why your character has come to Icewind Dale, what is it that makes him stay?
   
4. Why do you adventure with this group of adventurers? What is it about them that you would trust them with your life?

As the last question notes, the party will be adventuring together, hopefully for the fairly long-term. However, as we've seen from the Avengers films, from Firefly, and from various other examples, it's generally most fun if the party are only mostly united - although they have common goals they also have competing agendas, different methods, and so forth. As such, I'll be encouraging the PCs not to be too harmonious. Which makes that last question crucial - without that answer, there's the risk of Civil War... which is fine as the climax of a campaign, but probably not right at the outset!

(Of course, the other thing that the group should work on, although not necessarily right away, is the origin story - how did this group get together. As seen in "Firefly", though, that doesn't necessarily need answered right away. Indeed, as seen in the original "Star Trek" series, it's even something that doesn't ever need to be fully answered.)

Campaign Theme: Strangers in a Strange Land

My thinking on the next campaign for the work game has evolved somewhat - while I am indeed going to go for Icewind Dale as the setting, my intended theme is instead "Strangers in a Strange Land".

Tying the PCs in to this theme is relatively easy - none of the PCs will be native to the Dale, and each player will therefore be asked to answer one key question: given that Icewind Dale is a fairly inhospitable place, why do they stay there? (The reason for them being there in the first place is rather easier, since that's the hook for the first adventure...)

The rest of the theme for the adventure will play out in two ways: through the locations and the key NPCs, where each will be marked by being in some way 'strange' - whether it's the frozen wastes of the Dale (where I will make heavy use of "Frostburn"), or the invading forces from elsewhere, or the villains whose motivations and psychology are not necessarily entirely comprehensible.

Basically, I think there's a lot to work with there, and potentially a bit more than my previous idea for a theme (loss). Still, we'll see how it goes.

Now to actually put it together!

A Rule to DM By...

The best gaming stories don't come from the times when everything goes well. The best gaming stories invariably come from those times when everything goes horribly, but amusingly wrong - be that comically bad strategy from the PCs, a woefully terrible call by the GM, or both.

Though that only really applies if the PCs somehow manage to walk away to tell the tale, of course...

Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes

D&D's fetish for elf-love continues...

This book is more or less what it says on the cover - it's a big thick book covering some of the great conflicts of the multiverse, between demons & devils; between elves & drow; between dwarves & duergar; between githyanki & githzerai; between Englishmen & Scots; and between... um... gnomes & halflings.

The book is split, roughly, into two halves - the first 'half' consists of five chapters of lore, each covering one of the conflicts above; the second and larger 'half' gives many more monsters for the game.

Each of the chapters of lore follows the same format - an overview of the conflict; then a reasonably detailed look at one of the two factions, including details of culture, character, history, and religion; then a detailed look at the other side; and then a collection of game options and mostly-useful tables.

I found the lore in four of these five chapters to be functional but fairly dull - in most cases there was very little here that hadn't been covered before, often in much greater detail and often better. (And I find it rather telling that of all the lore presented here, only a tiny sidebar concerning the Blessing of Corellon has excited much discussion. While I understand why that has been discussed at length, it doesn't say too much for the rest that it's pretty much the only thing.) However, it served as a good summary of the subject, and would be ideal for DM's who hadn't seen it before.

The only thing I found really poor was the handling of the deities - too often we were presented with a big table of between a dozen and a score of names (too many to remember), followed by slightly more detailed summaries of some of the deities. Additionally, those deities tended to be narrow variations on the underlying theme of the race, without a great deal of variety, followed by exactly one 'outcast' member of the pantheon - presumably to give an option for Evil PCs to follow.

Of the five lore chapters, the one that was best, and simultaneously worst, was the one dealing with the Elves and Drow. D&D has always had a bit of a fetish for elf-love, right back to OD&D days when they were unique in acting both as Fighting-Men and Magic-Users, able to switch between them between adventures, and it's something that seems to have touched every edition and almost every setting in some way. It seems that whenever the designers have some cool idea or bit of lore that they've thought of, and need somewhere to connect it to the game, their default option is to give it to the elves.

And so it is here. In addition to the much-discussed (but ultimately fairly innocuous) Blessing of Corellon, they've also taken the decision in this book to turn Shadar-Kai into an elven subrace, and recast the Raven Queen as their deity. Presumably, that is the reward for new bits of lore that gain the elusive 'traction' - if you're successful you get promoted to Elvendom. Yay!

On the other hand, this book does a good job of addressing the apparent disconnect between 4e's elf-like Eladrin and the more freeform examples we've seen in previous editions. Basically, there's a continuum from those who remain closest to Corellon versus those who became more elf-like. Good stuff.

Of course, that means that this chapter really does have something for everyone: there are the innocent but, crucially, nubile good-girl Elf maids; the bondage-themed bad-girl Drow; the moody goth-girl Shadar-Kai; and the nature-loving hippie-girl Eladrin. And, for those who would prefer their Elf maids to be Elf males, the Blessing of Corellon has you covered there, too.

One last thing on the lore-chapters of the book: one thing I really don't care for is this book's insistence that it represents The Truth of the multiverse - all elves everywhere are descended from Corellon, even on those worlds where he's unknown, and even where the lore of those worlds directly contradicts the origin here. I'm well aware that I can simply ignore it, and indeed will be doing just that, but "just ignore it" is frankly a rather poor solution for a problem they didn't need to create.

I don't have a great deal to say about the last chapter of this book. It's basically great - a big expansion of monsters, and in particular some higher-CR monsters. Good stuff.

The only criticism I might raise would be concerning the 16 pages given over to reprinting the two-page spreads of demon lords from "Out of the Abyss", and indeed the 12 pages given over to two-page spreads for archdevils. Not just these are extremely high-CR unique creatures and so of use in a very limited range of campaigns, and not just because of the extensive reprinting from OotA. But it also seemed rather excessive given that many of these individuals were also covered in chapter one, leading to repeating information within the same book!

I should note at this point that while I have spent most of this review highlighting my criticisms of the book, these are all niggles, rather than deal-breakers. I actually found this book to be better value than "Volo's Guide...", largely due to the longer selection of monsters (though the greater page-count helped also), and much better value than "Xanathar's Guide..."

As such, I would recommend this book, especially to a DM needing more monsters (especially high-CR monsters), and also especially to a newer DM for whom this lore would indeed be new. And, of course, if you can get it at a strong discount, all the better!

(Incidentally, in terms of my "three chances", I'm now at the point where I think I'm going to skip the printed D&D books unless and until something for Eberron, Spelljammer, or Dark Sun is published. It's not that I regret this book, but it didn't wow! me, and by this point I really have enough monsters for this edition. So time to step out. (And, yes, I'm aware that Eberron has now been published online. That may well be my next review...))