As part of my investigation of Pathfinder 2nd edition, I ran The Absalom Initiation, an introductory Pathfinder Society adventure, on the weekend. I had a group of five players, with varying levels of familiarity with the PF2 rules, and we played three of the four missions in the adventure. Like the introductory D&D Adventurers League adventures that I’m more familiar with, this adventure has the … Continue reading Pathfinder 2: The Absalom Initiation
It’s out! Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus has been released! I’ve bought it three times already. Once with the normal cover, once with the special edition cover, and once in the D&D Beyond digital format. Two of them will likely see heavy use. The other, not so much. I’ve been playing D&D for a long time. I played a bit in the Forgotten Realms when … Continue reading The Best Baldur’s Gate Adventure
The Only Way to be Sure is a DDAL-legal adventure for level 5-10 characters written by Jason Panella and Jim Parkin that draws a lot of inspiration from the Alien franchise. The plot revolves around a crashed mind flayer spelljammer; the surviving pilot has enslaved a local village and is using them in various experiments. The adventurers need to discover this and free the surviving … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: The Only Way to be Sure
A recent blog post by “Jester” David on problems with the Dungeons & Dragons hardcover adventures made me consider the use of sandboxes in D&D adventures. A lot of people talk fondly of sandboxes, but I’m unsure how many like the examples we’ve seen in official adventures. There’s a reason for that: Sandboxes, certainly in the context of a narrative story, are hard to design. … Continue reading Goals and Sandboxes
Of all the adventures I’ve run, Danger at Dunwater is one of the most difficult to approach. Why is that? It’s because it’s very hard to discern the shape of it. You’ve got an adventure that well could be entirely played as “you walk up to the lizardfolk, talk to it in Draconic, and part friends”. That’s what happened the first time I ran it. … Continue reading Running Ghosts of Saltmarsh: Danger at Dunwater
It’s a gift when you discover an NPC in an adventure that gives you great pleasure to roleplay. One that makes that list is Joy Hultmark from Lysa Penrose’s “Purging the Blood“. Lysa uses three paragraphs to describe Joy, and that’s what was needed. Joy has clearly defined goals, a personality, and a reason for interacting with the PCs that allows both the DM and … Continue reading A Few Thoughts on Designing NPCs
The rules for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition are quite clear (although often misinterpreted) about surprise attacks. Let’s restate them using other language: At the beginning of combat, each combatant that is unaware of all opposing forces is SURPRISED. Combat then starts as normal with initiative, and the normal initiative order. However, any character that is SURPRISED has these restrictions: A SURPRISED character may not … Continue reading Surprise Attack!
The finale of the Olma trilogy, What Lies Beneath Ylraphon is a Tier 1 adventure by Lysa Chen, which sees the characters defending the settlement of Ylraphon from an attack by a horde of undead. The adventure has a brilliant structure, where the players can choose which threats to deal with before fighting the Big Bad at the end, with the choice of threats (and … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: What Lies Beneath Ylraphon
Blood in the Water is the second of the Dreams of the Red Wizards series, written by Ashley Warren as a D&D Adventurers League adventure for level 5-10 characters. The characters attempt to aid the folk of Turmish in their preparations for a war against the nation of Thay. Unfortunately, after a promising start, the path for the characters becomes somewhat confused. The adventure begins … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: Blood in the Water
Follow the Lights is a short, one-session adventure for level 3 or 4 characters. In it, the characters must overcome several traps, monsters and tricks as they accompany their patron, a gnome sage, into a dungeon as the sage attempts to recover a magic elixir. I appreciate a good old-school dungeon, and there’s definitely invention here. You’ll likely find a few encounters that you can … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: Follow the Lights
