The Magician’s House is an adventure for level 4 characters in which those characters explore – well, I guess you know what they explore.
It’s also a 161-page pdf.
Those 161 pages cover approximately 19 locations in around 110 pages (some have more than one encounter in them), and then there are a further 50 pages of appendices. It’s not that the areas are insanely complicated, although they’re often richly detailed, but that each encounter includes all the stat blocks you need to run it and is formatted in a four-page layout, with the last page often only containing art. When printed, that means that each encounter takes up two sets of facing pages.
I can’t imagine ever wanting to print this out. Reading it on a tablet is not ideal, but at least you don’t have to go far to find the stat-blocks, and there are hyperlinks in the document to take you to linked areas quickly. Each encounter provides a map, an overview of the action, a first impressions section, details of the area’s features, monster stats and treasure. The author offers a lot of useful information for the DM. The formatting is relatively basic, and some ugliness intrudes. On occasion, I find the writing too verbose, and with so many details, it can be challenging to find the key points.
However, what The Magician’s House does right is to provide an imaginative setting for the players to investigate. As noted, it is richly detailed, with many tricks, traps and engaging inhabitants. It is an old-school funhouse dungeon, which was originally designed for Dungeon Crawl Classics, but is available for several other systems. The designer notes that the players can complete the adventure without combat, but it’s most likely that there’ll be combat at some point.
The “rooms” of the house each exist in different planes. The doors are portals that magically connect them. With such a set-up, you can have anything you like in the rooms, and that’s what you get here. Goblin tunnels, domes on the moon, trapped creatures of faerie, a planet-sized library – there are many things here to engage the players.
This adventure rewards intelligent play. Some of the creatures are very dangerous, and the players may better overcome them through negotiation or trickery. There are a lot of opportunities for each of the three pillars of play, but exploration is the main one featured: there’s always something new to find!
Some features display a charming sense of whimsy that I enjoy, but I can imagine some groups not enjoying this content. This adventure draws upon a similar well of inspiration as seen in Needle or The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror, rather than the more grounded world of The Lord of the Rings.
Overall, I very much appreciate the imagination displayed in this product. Not everything works for me, and I have a few quibbles over some of the formatting, but if you want to explore a fantastical magician’s house where the characters are never sure what might be behind the next door, The Magician’s House is the adventure for you. Recommended!