Dungeons and Dragons Adventurer Issue Two

I picked up a copy of Adventurer magazine issue two. Here are my thoughts.

The pack includes another set of dice, a large poster map and the magazine.

The magazine

Another twelve loose leaf pages (24 sides). Again, the first page is cover and contents and uses the same artwork as issue one, but with gold spot colour rather than red.

Sage Advice covers advantage, disadvantage and inspiration, and short and long rests and hit dice. 

Useful stuff, and pretty much complete for the topics.  I think that the description of long rests uses the same text as the PHB.  This can (and has) cause confusion regarding what disrupts a long rest.

Then come two pages introducing Spellcasting, covering the basics of spells (spell slots, duration, components etc). Concentration is covered, as is how clerics and wizards prepare spells

There's enough information here for beginning spell casters to function. So far the only spells we have seen are on the pre-gen character sheets, though, of course, D&D Beyond has more information. 

I note there is a mistake in the examples given using the pre-gens.  The wizard is stated as having three spell slots rather than two.

Character Creation has a page on the human race species, then covers rogues, with a brief overview of the class, followed by a look at sneak attacks.

Presumably we will get the major PC species covered in a like manner, similarly the classes. The human page is general background stuff rather than any actual rules.

Given the amount of information required to run the different classes this is going to take some time to build up a full rulesbook's worth.

Lore gives a very general look at the Forgotten Realms.

This is the kind of thing I'd expected in issue one, but the encounter in that issue needed the Phandalin background.

The Adventure can be run using the pre-gens from issue one, still first level. As with my look at issue one, I'll put details in a section at the end to avoid spoilers.

I'm using words like 'overview' and 'introduction' a lot. The series so far seems a bit like reading the first couple of paragraphs of the relevant sections of the Players Handbook. 

I suppose this is inevitable. The format allows for later issues to fill in details, and there simply isn't enough space cover everything in one issue.  There are frequent mentions of D&D Beyond as a source of further information and choice.

The dice

The standard set of seven dice. This time gold flecked translucent. They look good and shiny, and I suspect that they are better quality than the cheap ones available on Wish. There's no tin this time. 

Another nice dice set. Still only one d6 though. I believe that dice bags are another 'freebie' later in the series. The dice sets are supposed to be colour coded to the adventures. I suspect they are front loading these so that all the players get a set early on.

The map

This is a hex map of the Sword Coast, the same area covered in both the Lost Mine of Phandelver and the Dragon of Icefire Peak. The map is large (76cm x 56cm) and glossy printed on card. The map has five mile hexes and has several adventure locations marked.

This is nice, though I have a couple of minor issues. I prefer six mile hexes (fits easily with adventurers' travel speeds and also with sight distances), but five miles seems to be the current WotC standard. 

If the map is intended as a play aid it does give away future adventure locations ahead of time. I know my players would immediately want to explore everything. Worse, this issues' encounter is further away from Phandalin than another site marked on the map.

It does allow us to know a bit more about Adventure one as a whole, though, which is interesting. In my deeper delve into issue one I suggested that there might be some kind of floor plans in this issue, well there isn't.  I guess they may have been too adventure specific?

A map of the town of Phandalin on the other side would have been very useful. Perhaps we'll get one later?

Thoughts

After the excitement of issue one, and the thrill of fighting rats, Adventurer is settling down to providing more rules.  Given that there are only eleven pages of content, including three of an adventure, that's not a lot of room, it looks like it'll be a few issues before the players have enough information to make truly informed decisions within the game.

I wonder if more small guides, like the combat one in the previous issue, might help. Magic would be a good start.

I do feel that DMs need more advice. So far the encounters do include hints and tips, but I think the way a game plays out at the table top needs more explanation.  This could be me speaking through 40+ years of playing, and there's a wealth of information out there (probably too much).

I'm sure that a group with one player who already has some knowledge of the game will do very well with Adventurer. As I said last time, there are cheaper and more complete ways for mixed groups of beginners and more experienced players to start. Perhaps a totally novice group will find this ideal.

Checking against the latest One D&D playtest document, I can confirm that the rules in Adventurer are essentially fifth edition.  WotC are claiming that One D&D will be compatible with fifth, so I suppose that Adventurer will still be useful once One D&D is published.

Finally, to avoid spoilers earlier...

The Forgotten Vault

This is listed as Adventure One, Encounter Two. It is a simple 'fetch quest', though nicely done. 

The heroes are hired by a Phandalin NPC to recover something from the titular vault. 

I like the reasoning behind why he needs help rather than doing this himself, though it's a magical effect that works automatically that I'm sure any wizard would want to learn.

There are a couple of potential combats, a trap and a hazard.  It's fairly straightforward, but I can imagine it would be a lot of fun at the table.

The six pages include a bit of DM advice, though less than last issue.  One page is a player handout, though it is printed on the back of a monster stat block, making it difficult to use in play, and it is a genuinely important handout containing some useful information and clues.  The stat blocks could have appeared on one page, with the monster pictures on the back of the handout.  I'd like to have seen this also available as a download.

Once again there is no mention of experience points, I guess that they are going for milestone experience.  Given the very structured nature of the product this is understandable (looking ahead on the Hachette website, one of the future issues deals with  levelling up.

I like this adventure, there is a lot more to it than King Under the Hill.  My main gripe is the set up. It is simply given as a quest with the assumption that the heroes will take it on.  Indeed its not even clear how the heroes find out about it.  There's no tie in to the previous encounter other than they both start in Phandolin.  There is the potential for some interaction with the quest giver, Daran Edermath, but its very much a case of you decide to do his quest so he gives you the map.  All these points are easy to fix, and below are my suggestions on how to do it.

Daran was one of the villagers captured by the cranium rats in King Under the Hill in issue one.  Impressed by the heroes efforts, he is looking through his old adventuring gear with a view to rewarding them. In doing so he finds the map and then contacts them.  

This makes the adventure much more personal, deepens the heroes' connection with an NPC, and rewards them for their previous adventure.

I'd also be tempted to allow the heroes to access the vault via the river.  It should be easy to alter Daran's map to hint at the river (indeed, it probably needs some extra text to indicate where the heroes should cross the Triboar Trail).  Clever players can then make the link between the river on the overground map and the one on the map of the vault.

I suspect that Adventure One is focused on the hidden elven kingdom of Iliyanbruen. There is brief mention of it in King Under the Hill, and one of the locations on the map is an elven crypt.