I have run this game twice, once at a convention, and once with my home group when two of the regulars couldn't make it so we wanted a one-shot. I have seen all five character classes used, so I figured I can give a (somewhat) experienced review of the game. As it says in the description, this is a rules kit. Everything you need to play is definitely NOT included in here. But let's be honest, if you are rolling around this website you have lots of fantasy RPGs already, right? So all this little booklet gives you are what to CHANGE from your chosen rules set. This game gives you character creation rules, character advancement rules, basic combat rules, and rules for casting spells, which are not automatic in this game. The real "change" from other flavors of D&D-style fantasy RPGs is the use of "Deathbringer" dice to allow you to push your character, at a player's choice, to do cool things. How you use them, and when you use them, are up to the players. Other than that classes have a handful of special abilities but that's it. You don't gain new abilities as you level up, you just get more Deathbringer dice to do more cool things.

While the game has a default "low magic" setting (which will naturally appeal to some more than others), I can see the Deathbringer dice being the real dividing line with this game. If you like the concept, you'll like this game. If you don't, you probably won't. Personally, I am not sure I like them. If I was playing a PC, I think a would want more concrete abilities to define my character. Some of the players in may games really took to the idea, though, and found it easier to play with the Deathbringer dice as opposed to trying to remember the 17 special abilities their character had (in, say, 5e) and trying to select the optimum ability to use. One player at my convention game told me that he couldn't play 5e because it was too complex and overwhelming for him with options, but this was totally his speed and was very excited to introduce his friends to the game. So, your mileage will vary.

The game says that you can "import monsters and spells you like from 5e/OSR games" and provides some extremely brief guidelines for doing so. I have used both methods. For my convention game, I used monster stats and spells from the Basic Fantasy RPG. For my home group, I used 5e monster stats and spells. Both worked, though I feel like the hit dice that the character classes have map better to 5e stat blocks, so if you are using OSR or Classic D&D monsters the PCs might have a bit more hit points than expected for the monsters. Most players won't be bothered by that, though. a note on spells: Classic D&D spells that are direct attack spells either auto hit or require the target to make a save. Some 5e direct attack spells require an attack roll. Because Deathbringer requires a caster to roll to successfully cast a spell in the first place, using this kind of 5e spell requires you to make a successful spell roll AND THEN make a successful attack roll to hit the target. This was frustrating to the player that ran a caster in my 5e-based game. So players should probably avoid those kinds of spells and just spam magic missile all day long or something along those lines.

So, I mostly like these rules. Whether relying on 5e or Classic B/X D&D as a base, I would probably just use equipment from those rules and ignore the equipment here (which is so barebones I find it unusable for anything other than a one-shot game). I'm not sold on the Deathbringer die mechanic, but I have seen people really take to it and have lots of fun with it, so maybe I need to run a PC and not be a GM to really understand it. Plague Doctors are fantastic, probably my favorite class. Specifically plague doctors with bombs, those guys are no joke.

Wizards of the High Tower is a solo/coop adventure for D&D 5E, set in its own original setting. As of the time of writing, I have played through three of the six included quests with a friend of mine in the intended two-player coop format. We have enjoyed the adventure, though it is not perfect. Most of my issues with the adventure have to do with the layout of the book (an entire page of text should not be one paragraph, that's crazy) and the occasional situation where the flavor text and the combat instructions don't mesh. For example, in the first quest there was a situation where the flavor text had two warriors telling some others in their party to stay in a cave, and then you enter combat and the combat tactics has these other party members all attack you. So, bottom line, you will have to interpret for yourself some of the edge cases. Nobody else will ever know if you do it "wrong" so just handle the situation how you feel makes the most sense. But you should be aware that you have to do some of that interpretation yourself.

This is NOT a "choose-your-own-adventure" style story. You are on a railroad and you follow the story, playing out the combat encounters. You are given tactics for your opponents to use, and these are generally well done and make sense. The digital files include battle maps for VTT play which is pretty sweet. The book has images of the maps, but if you are playing face to face with someone you are drawing out the maps on your dry erase mat yourself. The digital files include a side quest generator for adding in some side quests to extend the game time. These are not necessary to use, as they do not impact the main plot in any way. They do provide a way to potentially get some extra magic items or support items, so play them if you want to, or don't play them. In my opinion the power curve is screwed up in the side quests, they can be either too easy or too deadly depending on what you roll. So maybe just pick what you want and make sure that the rewards match the risks you are choosing to take. Note that the side quests are not included in the printed book, they are a separate PDF file.

For the first few quests, my friend and I have been able to complete roughly two in a four to five hour session. The later quests might take longer, but the first few are not long. Because you level up at the end of each quest, it does feel like we are leveling up too fast (twice per four hour session!), but my prior D&D experience is in a sandbox campaign so this is my first time using checkpoint leveling. Maybe this is just the way that works.

With the above items noted, my friend and I are enjoying the adventure and hope that it continues into the planned second and third installments. If my opinion of the book is radically changed by playing through the last three quests I will update this review at that time.

The prior review is correct. While the overall story is interesting, there is little to no "game" here. You must manage to find the right items (and only use your spell scrolls at the right time) or you can't win. Even then, you don't win based on anything to do with your character. Overall I was unsatisfied, but a DM could perhaps use this general setup for a brief side encounter during a ToA campaign.

I enjoyed this small module, and consider it to be sufficient value for the price. I used it during Lost Mine of Phandelver, placing it right before the group headed to the Mine itself. It provided nice closure to the whole "where did Glasstaff go?" question and when Glasstaff threw that fireball I thought we might have to break for a change of underwear.

If your group is really interested in what happened to Glasstaff after he runs away then this module provides a good answer to the question.

This is a solid adventure, though there are some flaws with the presentation. For example, the master of the oasis is supposed to be in an office (that has a bed) in a building, but the map of the building has no such room. I changed some things when I ran the adventure, mainly adjusting some creature stats because I had three fourth level characters go through the adventure. I found the adventure simple to put in a desert area in my campaign world and used the "missing caravan" hook, which worked fine. I do feel like there isn't enough treasure in the adventure, as there is nothing except for the payment from the oasis master. My players complained about it, so other DMs will probably want to let players find some collected treasure from the looted caravan somewhere in the ant tunnels. Bottom line, this is a solid adventure but the DM will need to put a little bit of work into it to fine tune it.

The maps in this set are quite nice, and I especially like how they can be arranged in a couple different ways. The fact that a few street sections are also included came in handy when the fight in my game rolled out the front door. However, I did notice that some of the sheets printed darker than others. That might just be my printer, but I had the same settings for all pages printed so it might be something with the file. That is keeping me from giving the product five stars.

This set contains a good mixture of character and creature miniatures for a "fantasy arabian" setting. While it is not totally complete (none of the people wear armor, for example), the mix of character and monster types is hard to argue with. I purchased the set to provide counters for an adventure set in the Emirates of Ylaruam, part of the D&D Mystara world, and they performed admirably. This set even includes bases, which is always something I like to see included in papercraft miniature sets, but often is not present. Thus, this can be called the complete package.