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Some decent items here, but suffers (like its companion products) from relentless repetition. That's a problem in 3.x already; do third party vendors really have to make it worse? Ten variants on one magic item, each one with just a single change in the description... it gets really annoying.
Maybe I shouldn't grumble, since it's just a buck. But come on -- some of us print .pdfs. Even at just a nickel a page, it adds up. This was a 13 page .pdf that could easily have been maybe four pages long, with no loss of functionality. Did this tree have to die?<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: A buck for a 13 page .pdf sounds pretty good. A buck for a 13 page .pdf that has only four or five pages of new content... less good.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Disappointing<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Disappointed<br>
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The original "Tomb of Horrors" was Gary Gygax's first killer dungeon, published in 1978. It was, by later standards, pretty silly... but it made a big splash at the time, and is still fondly remembered by that first generation of gamers.
"Return to the Tomb of Horrors" was published 20 years later, in 1998. It's an update and a retcon of the original adventure... in fact, it /contains/ the original adventure, complete and unchanged, in all its geeky glory. But (with some really inspired retconning) "Return" puts it in a context that actually makes sense.
And it's great. Wonderful. Starts a little slow, but by the time you reach the last two chapters -- 'The City that Waits' and 'The Fortress of Completion' -- you and your players should be completely enthralled. Hell, just reading this thing can give you the willies. It's that good.
And it's huge! This thing goes on for nearly 200 pages!
Since it's a Second Edition product, you'll have to convert... and this could take a while. But IMO it would be entirely worth it. Even if you don't want to do this, just mining for the cool ideas will make this worth far more than its (ridiculously low) $4 price tag. The 'City that Waits' chapter alone is both longer and better than most $4 commercial .pdfs, and that's just one chapter out of six.
Recommended character levels are 13-16. Depending on how you convert to 3e, that might be a bit low. It's high-level stuff, and the final encounter may be epic. (It certainly /feels/ epic. By the time you meet the boss bad guy, you will know he's both boss and bad.)
It's a dark module; the subject matter is creepy, with a distinct Lovecraftian flavor in some parts. And it's dangerous -- unless you nerf it, expect heavy PC casualties. If this is not your thing, then maybe this is not for you... but, crud, for $4 you might want to buy it anyhow, just to check it out. And if you do want to run dark and deadly campaign that's really different, this is a must.
Highly recommended.
<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: The price. This was a $30 product when it came out in 1998 (and well worth it). Now it's just $4! Wow!
The module itself. It's OK to good in the first half, then excellent in the last two chapters. One of the best Second Edition products ever.
<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: It's a Second Edition product (and contains a First Edition module, intact), so there's some serious conversion work to be done. Also, if you want to use the visual-aid handouts (and you should), you will have to print them out and cut them up.
The First Edition module at the heart of it is... quirky. Gamers who never played First Edition may be turned off by it, so you may need to tweak it a little. Okay, a lot.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>
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Wait a minute. Did this product actually tell me what "d6+1" means?
Yes, it did. And it also told me how to roll a d4, d6 -- "This simple [sic] means that one must roll a normal, six sided once" -- and a d3. Tricky, that last one.
-- This product is an urban encounter chart. The chart itself is simple enough. Roll a d20. 1 = 1d6 Adventurers, 2 = d4+1 Aristocrats, 3 = d4+1 Beggars, and so forth. Roll a second time to see their disposition: Friendly, Neutral, or Offensive. Then roll a third time to see whether their disposition is directed towards the PCs, towards each other, or towards someone else.
And that's it.
There's one (1) mildly interesting idea here: that last roll, which lets you get a wide variety of random encounters. Roll a 6 (Drunkards), a 16 (Offensive) and a 3 (Within Group), and you get some drunks fighting on the street. But make that last roll a 12 (Another Group), and you may get drunks screaming insults at beggars, or muttering to each other as some aristocrats stroll by.
That's fine. And if they'd stopped there and charged, say, 50 cents or a buck, I would have forgiven them the bit about the d6 and given this product three stars.
But this .pdf is 13 pages long. Of what do the other 12 pages consist, you ask. Well, they consist of badly written explanations of the chart, that's what. As in, you rolled, "Drunkards", and "Offensive"... now we're going to explain what happens.
I guess if you assume the reader needs instruction on what "d6" means, then it's reasonable to assume he needs help in running friendly children, neutral merchants, or offensive drunks. I see the logic. Okay.
But does it have to be written in English As A Second Language? Like: "Philosophers: Philosophers are much like performers in the manner that their talents earn a living. Different they are, however, in the fact that a philosopher is more concerned about the elements of society and thought than some form of talented entertainment.
Or: "The trades of the swindler element are quite corrupt, and when such corruption turns foul the behavior of the swindler can become rather hostile and offensive."
Then there's roll #13: Monsters. That sends you to one last chart. (Four charts total. All fit on a single page.) One last d20 roll, and you may get d4+1 Giant Rats, d6+1 Goblins... or 1d3 Vampires. "Only found at night... vampires are a dangerous threat to those who walk up and down the street." But those who lie down on the sidewalk should be fine, I guess.
The funny thing is, I might save the one page with the chart. Even use it if I need a quick urban encounter for color. Like I said -- that's what I bought this for. But I resent paying $2.25 for 13 pages of which 12 are completely and totally useless. By my calculation, Top Fashion Games owes me $2.07, and they're not getting another cent from me until I get my money back.
<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: It reminded me of First Edition. Except, you know, the bits of First edition that nobody gets nostalgic about, because they were silly and really poorly written and, well, bad.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Poor<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Ripped Off<br>
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Repetition, repetition, repetition. There are really only about 20 items here. Here's an example:
"Brittle-gem (burning hands)
"This gem is made fragile by the mystic power it contains. It allows its owner to cast a burning hands spell (as described in the Dungeons and Dragons Player's Handbook, Third Edition) as though they were a 14th level wizard. The owner simply crushes the gem in their hand to activate the spell. These gems are quite delicate; care must be taken while transporting them in order to insure that they remain intact until they are required."
Okay, not bad. But then there are TEN MORE brittle-gems with the EXACTLY PRECISELY IDENTICAL language, with only the name of the spell changed... enervation, ghoul touch, and so forth. And then multiple other magic items in the same pattern. (Fuse-gem: bow. Fuse-gem: sword. Etcetera. Six different cursed coins, and each one uses identical language to tell us that you know, it's hard to tell one coin from another.
Come on. Aside from being really tedious to read... some of us print .pdfs, you know. Did this tree have to die?
<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: The Chalk of Distant Viewing. <br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: A buck for a 13 page .pdf sounds pretty good. A buck for a 13 page .pdf that has only four or five pages of new content... less good.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Disappointing<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Disappointed<br>
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Solid. I'll use some of these.
Okay, some of them are kind of obvious ("The Drinking"... it's the holiday when everyone gets drunk), but they do a good job of getting you thinking about holidays in your campaign. I like a product that kick-starts my imagination. For a buck and small change, that's enough.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>
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This is a good, traditional sort of D&D adventure. PCs start in a town that's under attack by monsters. They track the nasties cross-country, fending off some programmed wilderness encounters, and find an entrance to the Underdark. Eventually they'll confront fiends, an aboleth, and duergar (lots of duergar).
There are multiple monster "factions", though this aspect of the adventure is somewhat underused. (One faction consists of a single creature, a fire giant, who simply attacks the party on sight and fights to the death. Another consists of a bunch of drow, who Teleport away as soon as the PCs attack, and are never seen again. So, limited opportunities for intrigue there.)
One plus is that some of the encounters are detailed and come at the PCs from interestingly odd angles. Duergar assassins using their racial Invisibility power, for instance, are potentially bad news. The aboleth uses everything in its tool kit to mess with the PCs' heads, and that's a good thing.
On the other hand, although the adventure is supposedly for characters around 10th level, some of the encounters are not really going to challenge a 10th level party. For instance, one encounter is with a group of trolls and ogres with some fighter levels. Formally CR 10, and certainly tough if you fight them straight up... but a party with access to, say, Fly spells, or magic that requires Will saves, will chew them up. Similarly, a clay golem in a forest clearing (yes, that's right) is CR 10, but can easily be defeated by a competent party with spellcasters.
Oh, and an awful lot of monsters fight to the death for one reason or another. On the other hand, that feeds into the traditional -- I might even say old-fashioned -- feel of this adventure. Monsters are bad, helpless townsfolk need defending and rescuing, and the Underdark is a scary place. All good IMO, since this adventure doesn't pretend to be anything else.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: Very solid adventure, with a little something for everyone -- town, wilderness, roleplay, dungeon, all for just five bucks. Great cover art.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Some of the encounters need work to be properly challenging. Here and there the writer's imagination seems to have failed, so intriguing encounters are mixed with "hack hack, this monster fights to the death".<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>
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Very nice. Of the dozen, at least half made me pause and think, "hmm -- I could perhaps use that". Which is pretty good for a buck or so.
The title is not really accurate, mind. One doesn't usually find a diseased dead rat, a piece of cheese with a diamond hidden in it, or a severed finger in someone's pocket.
It's really "a dozen found objects".<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: Good production values, obviously some effort here. Several nice ideas. (I particularly liked the retriever stone.)<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Perhaps just a bit skimpy? Some of the ideas could have been fleshed out a bit more -- /what's/ in pawn lot 137? But then, it's a buck or so, so I can't complain too hard.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>
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I liked this and will use it in my campaign. I particularly liked the idea of the planar rift leaking cold into the dungeon setting. That said, I have a couple of problems with this.
One, it's a no-monster, no-treasure, empty dungeon setting; you have to add the encounters, traps, all that stuff yourself. I didn't realize this. Which is partly my fault, because the product description does say so. But it could be a little more clear on this point.
Two, the actual dungeon part is really quite small. There's a one page map with, basically, three rooms, and there are two pages of area key/descriptions. And that's it. The other 10 pages are background, new monsters, one new feat, how to deal with combat and movement on ice, plot hooks, etc. etc.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: Very nice production values. I liked one of the two new monsters and the new hazard. I like the whole idea of a tomb buried in ice, really.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Too short. (The actual dungeon part.) I would have paid another dollar for a few more pages. <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>
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