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This module provides a small, fun adventure that can serve as a starting adventure. There is not a realy precedent for combat so RP takes the spotlight. The adventures arrive in a small town were a festival is beign prepared. However the festival and the villagers have som ulterior motives.
I shall phrase my review in a few bullet points.
Good parts:
-At the start a small explanation/backstory is given, it provides enough information.
-The different segments of the module are color coded.
-Some NPC's are provided, including quotes, flaws, ideals etc.
-The festival provides several different activities such as wrestling or dancing. DC's are provided were neccerary.
-The writing is good and functional but not outstanding.
-The writer provides several options, depending on the choices the players make.
Parts that can be improved:
-Personaly (others might disagree) I think the color scheme and formatting used is very ugly.
-It misses some form of summary or mindmap that a DM can use to make more sense of the progression and possibilities.
-Some more/other activities or mysterious NPC's would be nice.
-There is no map or overview of the town.
Other note:
-This type of adventure might not be for everyone, it is lighthearted almost childish with no real possibilty for combat. This is neither a negative or good part but it is worth mentioning.
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Creator Reply: |
Thanks for your review Roel. I think all of your comments and criticisms are fair. At the moment I will not be making any changes to the adventure, because I am working on a second follow up adventure. I'll be using the advice you gave in this review to make that adventure better. When that is completed I'll take your advice under consideration and re-format the layout and text boxes as well as provide a little more detail to the town, including a physical map and a description to help the DM build a mind map. Thank you for the other note as well, I will be editing my description soon to include a... warning I guess, that this adventure is a departure from regular D&D sessions. Again, thank you for the review, you've helped a lot. Keep adventuring! |
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This class is flavorful but also specific, the author advises that this class be used in a setting were undead roam the lands. It feels a bit like a undead hunting Witcher or perhaps an undead hating Aragorn from the LOTRs. The document looks nice enough and it follows the normal format. The abilities of the class resemble those found in the ranger, fighter and even paladin, combining them in a sensible way. THe abilities are a bit straightforward and some of them could do with a bit more flavoring or imagination. Two subclasses are provided, one specializes in fighting hordes and the other provides spellcasting abilities. Summarising: if you are looking for an undead hunter class that fits a specific setting this product will suit your needs perfectly. It is well-written and it seems balanced. The drawback is that the class has only a single niche preventing it from being balanced or even fun in a different setting.
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First off this document looks absolutely gorgeous, so that is a nice plus! Flavor wise the hospitaler seems to resemble a paladin subclass fitted into the fighter format. The hospitaler, like a paladin takes an oath giving this subclass a lot of flavor to work with. Now lets take a look at the abilities:
-Healing hands: the abilities given do not really resemble the title of this ability, you gain a lot of proficiencies that I do not really associate with the class but you do not get any healing hands like ability. Why the investigation proficiency? Also would expertise with the healers kit fit this class a lot better than the herbalist kit? I would rewrite this into allowing the hospitaler to use the healers kit as a bonus action perhaps.
-Merciful relief seems nice! Perhaps let it scale more, perhaps copy the sneak attack scaling.
-Combat medic: It is a very flavorful ability though and I can see it work very nice. The temporary hit points given are not really that high but you can use this ability an unlimited number of times, this ability seems balanced.
-Hospitalers reprieve: one thing I would change is this sentence. they can immediately make a saving throw to attempt to end one effect of their choice. (also what saving throw? Different effects require different saves. It would make more sense to choose the effect before rolling)
-Comforting respite: Spells? this class does not get spells, you sure it is not a paladin subclass?
Greetings R. Wellink
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Creator Reply: |
Thanks for the feedback! Here is my thought process, not as a rebuttal but just to explain how I came up with some of these.
-Healing hands. I just called it that because it sounded nice, honestly I'm open to suggestions on changing the name. But the investigation skill was given because I was looking for a "triage" type skill, to overlook the battlefield and determine who needs help to compliment the medical skill. I debated perception but decided that was too broad.
The whole kit recommendation is good. I just wanted this to be a minor ability (look at other fighter archetypes and a lot of them give a proficiency or two).
-Reprieve is supposed to end any one ongoing effect. The idea is you're helping calm nerves against fear, or helping shake off poison, or waking them from being unconscious. Any condition which CAN be ended by a saving throw. So a poison that says "...gets a saving throw at the end of each of their turns, ending the effect on themselves with a success", qualifies but if it lacked that (drow poison, iirc) wouldn't qualify.
-Respite says spells as a way of complimenting other classes, feats, or races, should such a situation arise. Explicit wording to cover those cases.
As for the other comments, I'll take a look at see what might work and again, I really appreciate the feedback. It's not common enough on the guild and it really helps! |
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Flavor wise this subclass is very nice, it does have a lot of overlap with the oath of the ancients paladin. The author does a good job of describing what this subclass feels like, the paladin tenants provided seem to fit nicely. Furthermore the spell-list makes sense and seems balanced. However during the channel divinity part some things can be improved:
-There are some weird sentences and formatting mistakes, making the first channel divinity way more difficult to read and understand than necessary . Take a good look at how other paladin oaths are formatted and just copy that format!
-The second channel divinity (changeling) seems really OP to me, unless I’m mistaken it seems like a more easily available and improved banishment spell.
-Some of the other abilities either are difficult to understand what they actually do (the sight for example) or are to strong forcing an foe to dance without any save (Court Dance).
Summarizing: Flavor wise this product does a good job! I totally get the idea of a flamboyant distracting fey paladin and the abilities supplement this. However at its current state the subclass is not playable, balance issues and vague or complicated abilities make it difficult to use. However! Should these issues be fixed this subclass could become a nice and flavorful addition!
EDIT:
The author has updated the product, using some of my feedback. I see a lot of improvements, so good job! I think it warrants a 4 star rating now.
PS: I know how difficult it is to get revieuws, I'am a starting contentcreator myself and getting people to rate your products is difficult.
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Creator Reply: |
Hello, and thank you so much! I don't usually get feedback on these so I really appreciate it. I have made some significant updates based on this review. I would love to know what you think of the changes! (I've uploaded the new file already, although I am not certain if it is showing up yet.)
(For the record yes, Changeling was just a reskin of the lvl 4 Banishment spell, as I could not come up with any type of creature that the fey would be able to Turn. I had tried to make it a little less powerful by reducing the range (Banishment is 60 ft) and adding a spell attack roll to the saving throw (i.e. you must succeed a roll AND they must fail a roll in order for it to work) but clearly it was not enough! I've gotten rid of it/replaced it, and swapped Court Dance over to the second Channel Divinity (since it's very close to the Oath of the Ancients' Nature's Wrath, and since this is mostly meant to be a flavor thing I'm not too worried about ability overlap). Court Dance is also just a reskin (of Irresistible Dance), but I have added a saving throw to it.) |
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Like it says this is a simple cavemap, it is supplied in different ways (grid, furnished, not furnished etc.).
As a amateur mapmaker myself I quite like the style, it looks quite different than the usual maps I see (in a good way).
Especialy the furnishing is very well made (did you make those assets yourself?).
The textures do look a bit "watery" but maybe that is the style you where going for.
All said and done if you are a DM and need a cave map have a look, you might like what you see!
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Creator Reply: |
All the tilesets are those included in the Dungeon Painter Studio (which are unrestricted for distributing maps made in the software, from what I’ve read), and there are a few different sets so art differs between them.
That said, these are practice maps I’m making to get used to the (somewhat buggy) software and dungeon designing in general. Thanks for the review! |
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This product has a lot of work and thought put into it. The main flavor of this class are the different stances you can adopt, giving you different benefits. Later on special attacks become aviable supplementing the different stances. However some things are keeping it back:
-Flavor wise I do not really understand what is going on yet. Why do they have to return and how does this fit the class’s abilities? I find it difficult to see how the class abilities relate to the flavor of this subclass, maybe I’m missing something.
-The stances give you proficiency in different weapons, whilst the idea itself is unique and interesting it also seems clumsy. Whenever you switch stance you lose lore profligacy and gain a new one. Maybe a more elegant solution can be found.
-Balance wise the abilities are all over the place. Some are obviously way more useful and powerful than others (ex: storm herald stance, seeking weakness).
-All class abilities are combat focused. Most subclasses also gain a lot of different flavorful or out of combat abilities, they are lacking in this subclass.
All said and done there are some interesting ideas presented that are worth salvaging as a DM or players. I like how the creator is toying with new ideas and concepts but I do not think they are game-ready as of yet.
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Creator Reply: |
Hi Roel,
Thank you for the review of my subclass I really appreciate the constructive criticism.
Balance: I 100% agree with you in terms of the unbalance in the class, it's currently being tested by one of my players and needs to be reduced in power. Some combinations have led to devastating damage definitely not intended for the level.
Flavour: I was hesitant to place too much of my own world lore into the subclass as I don't want other DM's to feel obligated to include it. If you think its a little vague I'll add a little more detail to clarify some of the rituals and meaning behind the journey.
Stances: I added the weapon proficiency last minute per suggestion from a friend. I liked the idea of a stance allowing you to wield a weapon more effectively but switching stance does cause an issue. I may switch it to a +2 benefit with certain weapons, or something more straight forward.
Combat Focus: The Shattered Order are supposed to be very combat orientated but i agree that out of combat powers are always interesting. I'll take that on board for my first revision and hopefully have a better subclass.
Once again thank you Roel, any further comments or suggestions I'd love to hear. |
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A nicely written concise guide on skill challenges. Very useful if you as a DM are unfamiliar or inexperience with skill challenges!
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Creator Reply: |
Thanks for the review Roel! |
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It is quite a shame no one reviewed this product yet. First off it looks very good, the formatting, the use of art and the general layout are all very clean, you can see that a lot of work has been put in the presentation. Using this product you can reward your players with something different and new. There are plenty of options presented so you will not often run into the same one twice. The things presented here do not really fit my style as a DM but if you are looking for something to help improve inspiration this product is perfect! One thing I would like to see added is a note about the impact these inspirations can have on balance, as a DM it is obviously up to you when to use it but some of the inspirations are quite powerfull.
Greetings
R. Wellink
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A simple product that delivers precisely what you need. Several lesser elementals are presented to use, they fill a much needed gap! They are simpel to use and seem balanced.
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This adventure is pretty straighforward and it is written well enough to make it easy to follow. Any Matt Colville fans will enjoy this module, it takes Colvilles Delian Tomb idea and adds more substance to it. Some nice maps have been provided to help with the adventure. Some things that would improve the adventure: Add creature statblocks either in the appendix or inline. Make the DCs and skillchecks stand out more by using italics or bold. Add some more fleshed out NPC motivations. Add the battlemaps and perhaps some player handouts as seperate documents.
All things considered the adventure provides an easy to use adventure but it still needs some work to use as a DM.
Greetings
R. Wellink
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Very funny and usefull as a bard. We are not all as great as Scanlan but with this you can get close! It does need some more pun centered mockeries I think.
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This adventure is absolutly beautifull. It looks like it has been made by the wizards themselves! It is well writen with some usefull tools for the DM. I have started writing my own adventures and making my own content on the DMs guild and this product definitly inspired me to improve.
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It is amazing that this is offered as a free product. It is filled with nicely made and written monsters with artwork to boot. This definitly made me a very happy DM!
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