Swyrlyn's page

I was kind of expecting this to be an interesting place with some ideas to explore but the premise just is missed mostly and ends up just trying to be funny but with dark subjects.

The good things about this are the location and all the things you can find out about the place. As others have said I hoped they would have dwelled a bit more on how this place and its habitants operate. The investigation was decent, but I hoped there was a bit more information to be found. There's some good NPC: s to interact with but also one of the most grating ones also.

Then to the bad things. First, I hate Barnacle Barnaby and it just mixes up some ha-ha ain't I funny things to serious things and just does not match the tone for me at all. This makes these scenarios feel like the worst Marvel movies where they can't go through a serious scene without making a silly joke. The map is just so boring and mostly does not fit what has been written in my opinion but that is just the problem with all the scenarios now. Using this map also makes all the battles just happen in a row which just makes the rest of the scenario a slug fest of combat. I wish there was some guidance on what the NPC: s would do if they were suspected or how do they would act if this happened.

So overall a wasted opportunity to explore this location and it’s habitants that is weighted down by the rest of these problems for me.

This was a bit of a letdown. The locale and the idea behind it sounded a lot better than it fleshed out to be.

I enjoyed the overall plot and things it introduces as possibilities into the story.

Minuses are a lot more heavier in this. First of all there's just too many NPC:s which overlap with each other on information and there's just so many names mentioned overall that do not show up in this one. The map and descriptions are way off sometimes and also they just do not fit the enemies well making it way too crowded. Encounters themselves were ok but especially the second floor one feels very tacked on.

In the high-tier some things are locked behind master proficiency and depending on the society group there might be none who could even make those check (please do not do this in society scenarios where you don't know what kind of a party composition you get).

Running this felt like dropping a new name every twenty minutes and then not really having much more information to give out at that point.

I like the basic story and how this scenario moves forward with it's challenges. There can be a lot of conditions on this one which slows it down. Fights are challenging and there's a nice mix of them and they work well on the high tier. It also continues the story line of Farheaven Clan and I think it's nice to go aid places and characters we have interacted with before.

If I would rate this based on only the high tier I could give this four stars but the horrible adjustments this does for the low tier makes it more of a suicide mission for most groups.

Play this in the 5-6 range and skip the 3-4 if possible.

First of all the premise is nice and the story behind good plus it also sets up the season but that's it for the positives.

I'd really wish the writers would stop with these boring mechanics of throwing dice again and again against one or more objectives. It just gets so repetitive and dull after a few rounds. Especially in this case where the skill challenges are far too high and some of them behind a wall to even try. Why even try rolling on these challenges if your chance of failing is higher than chance to succeed for most of the groups?

Combat difficulty also seemed to be riding a roller coaster of plain easy to one hit KO. This whole scenario also seems like it should have been for a higher level characters and not for level 1-4.

As you head to the climax of this AP you will be heading to a cool location which mostly just serves as a big mega dungeon to finish the AP.

I like the location for this last part and there's some variation to the enemies compared to the last part. The final fight can be very epic in feeling and it serves as a nice end to this series. I also found that the bestiary was quite nice in this and even used a few from there in my game.

Even though the final fight is kinda epic the villain is very bland and I would have liked for some variation in his class choice. Otherwise the whole book is one big slog through countless encounters but if your group enjoys that this serves them well.

All in all this whole AP is kinda mediocre with nothing too exciting to write about but if your group wants an old school player vs giants feel then this serves an alright choice.

First of all the premise of going into a war academy of fire giants in a dormant volcano sounds like it could be an decent adventure but it's not one in this one.

The positives in this are that there's a few fun monsters in bestiary and you can even talk to a few NPC:s. If you want to take your players through this I suggest that you change a lot of things or the players will be bored out of their mind.

If you go by the book you will fight the same kind of encounter again and again with just some variation in the numbers of enemies or with perhaps a lieutenant or captain giant mixed in. The maps to the whole book are all bland caves that offer no variation and they are too big to draw in a flip-mat anyways. You'd except some kind of hazards in a place like volcano but they are not included well in this.

All in all I suggest that you give your players a cinematic experience of this book where they can give you a plan how they fight through a wave after wave of fire giants.

This time we move onwards to the next giants in the line and frost is all around this one.

I liked the sabotage mechanics in this one and it gets creative players an outlet to try out things on these giants. Though most of the encounters in the camps are quite easy if you just use the basic bestiary giants. There's a few NPC:s you can talk to but your players are probably used to just fighting their way through everything at this point.

I liked that the crypt gave some variety to the encounters and the final fight in this is well though out. As in the previous part there's some nice parts but mostly its just mediocre mayhem with different giants in the mix.

From this point onwards the PC:s are expected to go forward and stop a forming of giant army by themselves. Hopefully you have motivated your players to care enough about stopping this giant menace.

First of all I like the crypt and the items you find there. They fit very well into this AP:s theme. The valley and all the places you can visit there are for the most part intresting even though my group found the encounters here quite easy.

If you can somehow draw a bigger part of the cathedral it can give players a nice scale of this places size. There's also some nice monsters in the bestiary to use.

All in all this is and alright part in this AP but there isn't anything special that would raise it above others. Also in this part we continue with find the map/journal about the next place plot device which just gets old.

The second book continues quite well from the first book even though it's kind of a mixed bag why they would send a small group to take over an entire fort.

I liked the march and the Vault of Thorns as locations and there's a diverse mix of encounters in this part of the AP. The boat ride can depend a lot on the group but for us it was kinda neutral thing. There's a few NPC:s you can get to help your party which is a nice plus.

For negatives I kinda expected something more out of the Vault of Thorns loot. The Fort was an alright locale but if the PC:s head straight to the top it can be very brutal. Also starting from the end of this book the hook points towards the next place just use the same idea to get you to move forward.

This book has a good start for the campaign and I'd probably give some more things to do for the players at the beginning festival to get a better feeling for the NPC:s.

Pros:
- Lots of different encounters and some can be very dangerous
- Trunau is introduced quite well and there's useful information about the city
- Investigation is kinda easy but it's a refreshing start
- The siege shows how chaotic a fight like this could be

CONS:
- A few encounters need some adjustments to not kill the PC:s
- The siege can be brutal and the PC:s need a lot of resources to get through it and after that they should go straight to the final (I recommend that you give some kind of a way for them to gain resources back)

I've now GM:ed and played this scenario and withouth a doubt it's nothing special and has some huge flaws.

+ The Place and atmosphere are good plus you have some moral choices you need to make

- The investigation gives you very little information or too obscure information
- Lots of information is behind some items which some groups can't even use or perhaps even know what they are (our group didn't have a single caster)
- Easy fights with the harder/annoying being optional
- Having so many places to investigate and so much things to ask about can drag this out (combined with you don't really learn much)