 |
Review: Keep on the Shadowfell |  |
I finally finished reading Keep on the Shadowfell today, and I thought I’d write up a quick review. Again, I have only read the material, I have not actually run the adventure; that will come later, after 4th Edition launches and I’ve read those books, and I’ll likely amend this review or cover it in a separate post once I’ve run the thing. At any rate, here we go.
I’ll start by talking about what you get when you buy this product. KotS comes in a very attractive, very sturdy-seeming pocket folder, which might even make a good impromptu DM screen if you paper clip some notes to the inside. Not quite as wide as a screen should be, but a decent stop-gap until Wizards releases the real thing. In the right-hand pocket is the 4th Edition Quick-Start Guide, which contains the rules that the players need to know as well as five pre-generated characters, complete with rules for leveling them up to 3rd level. Also in this pocket are three double-sided poster maps in the standard 1-inch miniatures scale; a good number of the encounters in KotS use these maps, and they’re a nice inclusion. In the left-hand pocket is the actual adventure booklet. It weighs in at 80 pages, though the first 15 pages include the cover and copyright page, an introduction to the adventure and to monster stat blocks, and the DM’s quick-start rules, which include things like conditions, types of attacks, and other things that the players don’t necessarily need to know from the outset. Both booklets are in full color, and the artwork is, in my estimation, very attractive.
I’ll mention the not-so-good stuff up front, and move on to the good stuff (of which there is more). Ok, the paper used in the product is not exactly sturdy. It’s about on par with what you’d find in a magazine like the recently-migrated Dungeon or Dragon; the paper doesn’t stand up that well to continued handling, and the ink tends to smudge, particularly on the covers of the two booklets. There are also a few editing mistakes throughout both booklets. Mostly these are things like using the term “attack of opportunity” instead of “opportunity attack”, or typos, or other fairly innocuous things. The only mechanical snafu I spotted was that a certain elite monster has two action points instead of one, but I hardly think this is game-breaking, given that only one action point can be used per encounter (assuming that rule applies to monsters, of course, which it may not). Finally, the quick-start rules are a little lean; they’re a sort of bare minimum required to run the adventure, but there still might be some gaps. Some rules (like the rules on bull rushing, which don’t appear until the second level of the Keep, and the rules on tremorsense, which don’t appear until the third encounter with a monster that has that ability) are a little hard to find, too. And that’s really all the bad stuff I can think of; everything else is great.
The adventure is laid out well. Each encounter is given a two-page spread that includes a setup for the encounter, a map of the area, a tactics section, a section on special terrain features, a section on treasure, and full stat blocks for every monster in the encounter. This is true even for encounters that repeat monsters previously used; the stat blocks are repeated, making it extremely easy to reference everything you need for the encounter, save the rules of the game, itself. The only encounter that breaks this rule is the final one, which spills out onto a third page. I don’t really know how they could have done it in two, though, as there’s a lot of information to disseminate in that encounter.
The encounters, themselves, are fantastic. Each one seems like it will be exciting to run, and some of them make the evil DM inside me cackle with glee. The encounters toward the end seem particularly difficult (as you’d expect), but bear in mind that the PCs will be of higher level by the time they hit them. Encounters generally include a large number of creatures, and minions are used frequently to boost the numbers. There are, however, no encounters that include only minions, and all encounters (except for one against a solo creature) include a variety of different kinds of creatures with different abilities. A word of warning: swarms are scary. So are jellies and slimes. And wights are pretty nasty, too. And gnomes. And a lot of other stuff that the PCs will be fighting. It’s all very, very cool.
Besides the combat encounters, there is also a section on the town of Winterhaven, as well as some FAQ-style question-and-answer sessions that allow the players to gather information between forays into the dungeon. Mention is made of the kinds of things that the players can buy in Winterhaven, but specific prices are not given; for that reason, it might be best to run this as an actual 4E adventure with the core rulebooks, rather than as a preview. At least, that’s what I plan to do.
We also get a glimpse at skill challenges; there is one encounter that has the potential to be solely a skill challenge-based encounter, and there are other encounters in which minor skill challenges are used to bypass obstacles. In fact, skills are used frequently throughout the adventure, lending credence to the claim that they will be more important overall in 4th Edition.
Finally, while I don’t want to spoil the story for any potential players out there, I would be remiss if I did not at least mention it. It’s good. It’s not great, but it’s perfectly good and easy to adapt to your own setting. In particular, I like the use of quests (complete with experience and treasure rewards) as hooks to get the players involved in the adventure in the first place. Nothing gets players ready to go an adventure like dangling 1200 experience points in front of them.
The Good: Great layout, good encounter design, awesome monsters, interesting story, attractive artwork. Overall a very good product.
The Bad: Some editing mistakes and, more importantly, very flimsy paper and smudge-prone ink. Handle with care.
The Bottom Line: A solid introductory adventure for 4th Edition, which I plan on running as my first 4E adventure. It’s not perfect, but it’s definitely good. The retail price ($30) seems just a little steep (isn’t that about the cost of one of the core rulebooks?), but you can get it on Amazon for just under $20, and that price is much easier to swallow. I hope to see more adventures of this quality (or better) in the future, with the proviso that the paper quality is a little bit higher.
