Dungeons and Dragons Adventurer Magazine Issue Twelve

Issue twelve marks the start of the second adventure. Apparently there will be seven adventures in total over the eighty issue run.  To mark the new adventure we have a new cover picture. Three of the original pre-gens (the dwarf cleric is missing) accompanied by a dragonborn are in an underground setting. Behind them lurks a beholder.

This is the last issue I intend to buy. I hope I've given the part-work a fair run to base my reviews on, and I wanted to see how the first adventure finished and what the difference was between the first and second adventure. I'll do a final post looking back on the first twelve issues, and perhaps even an extra post giving advice on running the first adventure.

Sage Advice

Sage Advice opens with an article on dice. Seriously, twelve issues in and we are just looking at the dice. If you've been collecting all the issues so far you have ten sets plus an extra d20. There are some suggestions on situations where certain dice are more likely to be used, but on the whole, a bit of a let down.

Then a DM guide to setting atmosphere at the table. Essentially this is a look at lighting, sound effects and music. There are some interesting points here, such as comparing film and video game music, and I'm delighted to discover that the BBC Sound Effects Library is now available online. 

I suggest you take the lighting advice with caution. At my age I need as good a light as possible, especially when reading character sheets and rulebooks. For me that's always going to be more important than setting a particular mood.

Finally a guide to grappling and shoving. This is useful, and I'll be using it for player reference. I do think that this should have been presented earlier though, perhaps in issue one's combat booklet?

Character Creation

Age first with a few suggestions how a character's age might affect their behaviour, and a table listing different species' lifespans and when they are considered adults. 

The Dragonborn article introduces the race as it appears in the Forgotten Realms. The next official pre-gen is going to be a dragonborn barbarian (next issue) so this is a bit of foundation laying.

The Life Domain is next, again a broad overview. Frustratingly it mentions that domains grant special abilities and access to certain spells, but these aren't actually covered.

The Folk Hero background gets a page, and we do get the associated rules as well as guidelines on how to play one.

Lore 

Ghouls get a page. As usual, this is just general history and a few suggestions on where they may be encountered and how they are likely to behave. No stat block, but you won't be surprised when you look at the end of this issue's Encounter.

Freebies

This issue we get another set of dice and a booklet of spells. This gives the rules for all the cantrips and first level spells relevant to the pre-gens. 

This is actually a great idea, though, of course, I'm going to suggest that it should have been included earlier. Presumably we will get more of these to cover other spell levels.

Conclusion

I found many of this issue's articles disappointing. I appreciate that the nature of part works means that there may be times when information needs to be imparted, but it might not be very interesting. Similarly, there are times when information can't be given early enough in the magazine's run, so it seems to come late (such as this issue's article on dice). However, I constantly feel that better page layout (and less artwork) would allow for more information to be presented on each page, allowing more to be covered each issue.

I'm not even sure that some of this issues articles are even needed.  The useful information on age could easily have been included on each race's pages (as it is in the Player's Handbook), and I feel that the dice article is long past being useful.

In terms of the Adventure, I'll address the Encounter below, but I will point out that there's no real difference between many of the Encounters in the first Adventure and the opening Encounter of the second (a basic escort quest). There's no sense of starting something new or different, though the PCs are moving away from the village at the end of the Encounter, heading towards Trentor.

Encounter; Plight of the Roaming Dead

The heroes are tasked with escorting an NPC. On the way they meet a pack of ghouls and have the opportunity to rescue more NPCs.

While there's nothing outstanding here, the Encounter is well constructed.  Once the Encounter is over, the party travels on to Trentor and the next Encounter, so the intention seems to be that they are leaving Phandolin.

The initial NPC is a relative of one the party already knows, so there's some continuity here, helping build relationships with the villagers (shame the PCs are leaving, but perhaps they will be back).