I played this advendture for my first time as a DM. I ran it with two PCs at level 5 with the sidekick. This story is intriguing and my players had a great time! The adventure is roleplay heavy, but has plenty of places to add combat if you wish. I found it easy to read through the provided sheets and found each NPC had enough information provided that I did not feel lost, but could still have creative freedom. I'm excited to play this again with a solo player soon.

I got this for a duet session with my husband and it rocked! He always DMs and it was a tad light on the creature encounters, so I threw in an extra goblin battle for him. The story was awesome and really fun to read and then play through! I had him play as level 6 (with the level 6 sidekick) and it seemed slighly too easy, though he was also rolling really well.

My players had a blast playing this. I needed something last minute and this was perfect. It is short as others have said, but well-written and just what was needed for a one-shot that only lasts one session and was easy to pick up and play. I ran this with two players and the companion NPC provided and it was well-balanced, and the lead up to the BBEG is great.

The Proving Glade is a quick (14 page) one shot adventure that is more exploration than combat themed (although there is combat to be had) as the player(s) search for a missing hunter and a many mouthed beast dwelling in the forest. The adventure proper is laid out in three distinct chapters. The first is primarily focused on exploring the forest with a variety of woodland encounters. The second chapter is comprised of two encounters that require the player(s) to make choices about how to overcome some obstacles. Traditionally these are the kind of 'moral choice' type of encounter that video games like to throw in to add a 'are you good or are you evil?' measure that ultimately doesn't mean anything, I'm pleased to say that this is implemented to much greater impact and effect (whether the player realises it immediately or not) and should be a pair of fun encounters for the player(s) and something that will be equally as satisfying for the DM. The final chapter starts with a role-play encounter that really lays on the theme and the flavour of the setting and then concludes with the showdown with this adventure's big bad. This final chapter is where the player(s) earlier moral choices will come to reward or punish them.

Once again the Ball family has used the new Sidekick mechanic to to support their small-party/solo play style and it works really well within the narrative here.

The Proving Glade has classic fantasy-story vibe about it, and in spite of being relatively combat-lite manages to integrate a good number of classic D&D monsters into it's encounters.

Fantastic one-shot. It had all the elements you needed with plenty of room to improvise. Great for players who want to try out DMing too!

The Proving Glade is a one-shot adventure for level 4 – 6 characters in either duets or small parties. It encourages using Sidekicks as established in the DnD Essentials Kit.

In this adventure, the party arrives at the town of Quaervarr as it’s undergoing a crisis. For weeks now, people have been leaving in droves because game has almost completely dried up and people are getting turned around in the neighboring forest. Secretly, a hydra has moved into the area and is devouring prey. Any animals it doesn’t eat are driven away by Alseiad, a powerful fey that is trying to mitigate the hydra’s damage and keep people safe. In the midst of this is Daelin Hoofbane, a ranger that recently lost his partner to the hydra’s attack. The party must go into the woods and assist Daelin in figuring out what happened to his life while also defeating/driving out the hydra.

This was a really nice adventure. The NPCs and background was complex enough that you could sink into them and enjoy the world, and the motivations suitably tugged at the heart/purse/honor-strings. I especially liked that Alseiad was testing the party with the pixies and ettin as they tracked the hydra, and I thought those two elements added some nice levity to the adventure. Although I didn’t like the NPCs re-introduced at each of their sections in the adventure proper, I overall really liked this adventure. It was easy to understand and implement, interesting, and fun. Well worth purchasing and playing!

What I like about this product is the general idea of something changing for worse in an old forest, effecting the village nearby. I also think the sidekick character has potential with his wish to find his lost companion again. And the colourful maps of the forest are nice. So there are good ideas, characters and maps in this one. Also the front cover of the adventure is very beautiful!

But I wish the locations would be more flashed out. The adventure has only 14 pages and it shows. Many of the places could use more details to become really alive. My most important critic-point is this though: The adventure claims to explore deeper moral themes and I can´t find that. Yes, there is a sort of "test" for the group, but it is not really clear why and how the creator of the test has arranged it. This should have been explained in more detail in my opinion. In addition to that, the "test"- character of this main encounter in the middle of the adventure (and forest) also takes away some freedom/agency of the players. If they do not act like the adventure want´s them to, they are getting punished later on (there is even a chart to messure how "good" they acted in the test). A better way to bring complex moral themes into this would have been to explore the sidekick ´s guilt and how he tries to overcome it with the help of the characters in my opinion. Or even the question if and how they want to help a person who failed a friend in the past. But to be fair: If the DM thinks a bit about this and puts in some work, this sidecharacter and what happend to him and his friend has the potential to make this journey into the old forest also an exploration about redemption. You can even make the fey in the forest more mystical, give the sidekick and his redemption arc a connection with the backstory of one of your characters... Well, this would change the tone of this one-shot adventure a bit, but the ideas are there to make it a bit more heavy and more about moral decisions.

Another idea to give the adventure more depth would have been to give the DM some info on how the sidekick acts in certain situations in the adventure, what his hopes, motives are. Sure, I can think about it myself and improvise it, but why not give some cool stuff that can happen in the adventure text rather than make the sidekick a "ghost" in the discription text.

The way fey are presented is also not my cup of tea, because it is a littly to "silly" for me, but that is my personal taste, I can see a group having a lot of fun with this.

So I like the setting, the concept and some npc´s, but I do think that some more details would have been good and also a bit more flexibility for the characters on how to handle the main encounters. All in all solid, with a mystical nature-setting and some very nice ideas. Can be great, but the DM has to put in some work and a few changes in my opinion.

This a relatively short adventure, coming up at 14 pages, but the amount of content, possibilities and depth it packs into those pages is incredible!

There is a great introduction discussing the possibilities of running this adventure for groups or duets, as well as a nice adventure synopsis, emotional background lore and a few different hooks to let this adventure begin or easily slot in to your games.

The main NPC Sidekick is a fully fleshed out hunter with heart/ hart, and character motivations and secrets with roots in the tragic catalyst for the events as they unfold.

One aspect I particularly loved was that in almost every situation there are many different suggestions for you and the players to allow a great deal of flexibility, inspiration and variation, while still giving answers to multiple different questions. This not only helps you handle the player's actions, give appropriate ideas to certain characters, but also lends this adventure to great variety and replayability.

The first chapter has the party find themselves headed to a town in which news of strange activity in the woods begins and/ or encountering the Sidekick NPC sharing their story and setting off with them or running into them in the woods that at first seem peaceful and normal, but soon become more magic and dangerous.

There is exploring and forging on to be done, as well as well thought out random encounters that make for interesting finds, fights and seeds that could be spun out into more lengthy encounters. Who doesn't love a Will-o-Wisp luring the party to a Shambling Mound?

Eventually the party will come afoul of some fun fey tricksters whose pranks are classic and always good for a laugh. There is an element of messing with facial hair, which made me think this would be a great place to add a Beardling to the proceedings.

(The Beardling is a fun, hairy creature/ encounter I really need to get around to including in a game and reviewing. I think it would work really well in this adventure and can be found here: https://www.dmsguild.com/m/product/262367)

The second chapter is a glorious proving of diplomacy, helpfulness, honesty, self-love and a highly amusing relationship between an Ettin and their fey neighbours. I won't say what it is, but the Ettin has a noisy condition that literally made me laugh out loud as I am a Werebear who also has the same condition.

Can the party bring peace between the odd neighbours and open themselves up for helping and sharing?

The final chapter takes the party into the depths of the forest where they meet an Alseiad who has been keeping track of their comings and goings. There are great knowledge and boons to be gained from this fey and possible friend for the final battle to come. This encounter is entirely dictated by the actions of the party from the moment they entered the forest with a nifty points system to see whether they Proved themselves worthy of the ultimate challenge in the Glade.

I love choices and consequences, especially when unnecessary combat is not rewarded as much as negotiation, roleplaying and fun times. There's gonna be a big fight, there's almost always a fight, so it's nice to see diplomacy, lending a helping hand and going along with some silliness get its due rewards.

Finally, we have the epic confrontation with the Hydra, with the Sidekick NPC for maximum pathos, and the possible boons from the Alesiad who can even swoop in to help the party in an emergency if you are feeling friendly.

Can the massive monster be vanquished and can anything meaningful or shiny be recovered?

The appendices have the full statblocks for the Sidekick NPC, the Alesiad and two good looking maps.

I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed reading this adventure with the writing style, the story and characters truly gripping me and thoroughly entertaining me all the way through. There is a thoughtfulness and reflection upon our actions seeped into this adventure, which delves into some heavy emotions, balanced by some outright ridiculous silliness. Not bad at all for 14 pages!

I have definitely got this planned to run for an upcoming group and I am so excited!

The author is one half of https://dndduet.com and https://groveguardianpress.com which are packed with great stuff and deep discussion about playing in a duet (DM and one player). Their Patreon is great too with adventures, maps, creatures, lore and more.

Just to be clear, I haven't been asked to review this and I'm promoting their other work because it's great on it's own merit. I feel like I really shouldn't have to say this, but I'm just being genuinely passionate and enthusiastic about fantastic work, sharing my thoughts on them and getting people to check them out so everybody wins and gets to revel in the adventures and awesomeness...because that's how I feel and what I want to do!