Customer Reviews

Keep on the Shadowfell (Dungeons & Dragons, Adventure H1)

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(19)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Yeah I hate that it comes in a folder, I like books with covers. The paper is crappy it curls and creases easily. The price is high. The cover ink comes off on wet hands.

What's important though is what's inside! It's an absolutely awesome module to showcase what's new in 4th edition. It's a combat intensive adventure to teach new 4th edition players what 4th edition is capable of. Each encounter takes into account different terrain features, and amazing new tactics by our old favorite monsters redefined. They really captured the feel of certain monsters by giving them powers that just seemed to fit. Like the lowly Kobold being able to shift at will. Giving these little short guys ways to mob up on you and get underfoot. Goblins are cowards and good at hiding and fighting on the run "Catch that damn goblin before he gets away!". Zombies can grab you giving you that horror movie feeling of the zombie horde threatening to overwhelm you "Get these things off me!". Even some of the rooms you fight in have their own special qualities which open up tons of new horrifying strategies like being knocked down into a pit and struggling to get out. Or you can knock a goblin into a pit and kick away his ladder. All in all the area features and the enemy combat styles make this adventure really fun to play. Each encounter is fun to run again and again for different players as they are set up great and can turn out completely different. The trap room sucks though.

There is a small town filled with characters. While their physical descriptions are a bit lacking and there's no pictures of NPC's; they did include a lot of NPC dialogs with written out answers to common PC questions. These really help to flesh out the townsfolk. There's even a well written encounter with a major enemy where he asks questions and the PC's have to roll different skill checks like Religious knowledge, Intimidate, etc, in order to succeed at the negotiation. I really like that. It spells out what might actually happen and gets all the characters involved in a negotiation rather than just relegating it to one Diplomacy check by the PC with the highest CHA. The lead negotiator still gets to be in charge though.

The story is basic save the world or at least general area of the town. The party makes the town their base. There are a bunch of side quests they go on to get an idea of what's happening and to acquire XP. There's even a plot event that happens when the PC's return to town after they have been adventuring for a while. Lengthwise I'd say it would take 6 five hour play sessions or more to complete the whole thing. I might be underestimating. I'd say it's 30% outdoor and 70% inside a dungeon. The module is a "site based" adventure that is not high on plot/story. Players explore the area around town and the dungeon encountering all the baddies. If you want a high fantasy story this isn't for you.

The format is the standard everything in order where you need it: encounters and monster stats right next to descriptive text which is way better in my opinion than having encounters and monsters separately at the end of the book. You'll do way less page flipping.

You get three large double sided color maps. One battle near a waterfall looks pretty. These are nice, I probably will use them, but I like chessex mats better anyway.

I try to think to myself "In ten years after everyone is playing 4th edition will this module still be that awesome?" I'd say it might become a classic. They borrowed some cool things from some other old modules with similar names. It's a good 4th ed. intro filled with classic monsters, a decent story, and some very memorable encounters. One criticism I have is that the PC's don't get much interaction with the villain until the end. I would suggest adding two talking encounters with him.

I'm revisiting this review: Now after playing 4th edition for months I realize how much this module taught me about how to DM a game. I'm constantly referring DM's to read this so they can learn how to run a solo monster or how tactics and terrain really make an encounter unique. As a DM you have to create encounters that open up choices. Interesting choices that the party has to pause and consider. Like "Should they chase the goblin who ran around the corner and hid or is it more important to hold the area near the pit so they can try to push the hobgoblin in" This adventure is really great at showing what the 4th edition rules open up in terms of tactics. If you're DM is used to the "X monsters in a room, fight!" style, isn't always trying to set up the flank, and can't see why a kobold's extra shift action is extremely valuable then you aren't going to have fun with this adventure.

P.S. WotC posted this in PDF form for free on their website!

As others have said, the physical construction of this module is generally poor and shoddy. The module consists of three booklets and a few maps encased in a cardboard folder. The booklets are made with very cheap magazine stock, the "covers" are printed on the same paper as the inside pages, and the ink is prone to smearing. The text is generally easy to read, but there is very little art to help "paint the picture" so to speak, for new DM's.

The adventure maps are, oddly, better than the booklets due to the high quality of the drawings and the heavier stock they are printed on. Unfortunately, they do have deep creases in them from being folded to fit in the folder, so flattening them can be a bit of a pain.

The adventure itself is very good at showcasing the changes in 4th Edition D&D at the low level. Adventurers get fun things to do every round, and magic users aren't automatically relegated to the back row after the first three rounds of an encounter at 1st level. The encounters now also feature specific roles for the monsters, to include a "minion" type that has 1HP and is meant to bring the scenes to life by adding easy distractions.

Overall, it's tough to recommend this package in the $20-$30 range. Although the module itself is engaging and well laid out, the actual materials WoTC used to print on is distressingly cheap.

As with anything anyone else has added, What I can add is, that this is no longer worth purchasing. WOTC has it currently posted on thier website. A little lower quality if you print it yourself, however, the price is far better.

I'm not particularly sure where to start with this review. I wanted to give this module a higher score but I'm afraid that, objectively, I can't do so. While I have very few complaints with the new rule set, the module is a disappointing first start. While I understand that it can't be the most in-depth module since it's a pre-release, my initial feelings are pretty much a let down.

The module is fairly straight-forward. The party gets ambushed and starts a chain of events that lead them to fighting a baddy at the end. The complaint with it is that the module is literally just twenty or so combat encounters. While this can be over-come with creative DM-ing or creative players, it's disappointing that the module does very little to show off the skill system (which is just as lackluster as the 3.x rules, if you were wondering) or do anything to rise above the fact that it can be more than a series of combats with a story behind them.

With that in mind though, some of the combats are interesting enough to keep the party going and the new combat rules work well enough. It's obvious that WotC drew its influence from the popularity of MMO's, which I can't completely bash because it opens the game up to new players (and more money. Let's not forget that WotC is a business) and makes balancing a bit easier, since everyone has something to contribute at all times and the first level wizard isn't useless within 5 minutes of game start.

My biggest complaint though is the packaging. As much as every other reviewer has bashed it, I'm gonna go ahead and do the same. It sucks. I understand the need for the folder, but the two packets that come with it are awful. They're flimsy, and can't stand up to the least bit of wear or tear. WotC let me down big time on that one.

All in all it was fun and the group had a good time, and it excites me about what is to come from 4e. But magazine paper? Come on, WotC, make it worth my money. Let's hope we don't get that from our core books.

So, I picked up Keep on the Shadowfell today.

For $30, you get three double-sided maps and two booklets - 80 and 16 pages, respectively. The booklets are made of magazine paper, stapled through the middle. They have no covers. Mine are already getting beat up, and the ink is smearing. It's no exaggeration to say that this is the worst-quality RPG product I've purchased in my 25 years of gaming. Even small press books have covers. And are made out of paper.

Overall, this is a really disappointing price-to-value ratio. It's fundamentally a short module - intended, apparently, to introduce new players and veterans to the game - and you get almost nothing for your money. Were I not already excited about 4e, the production values may have turned me off.

Now, the rules look excellent and solid. The designers took a lot of the best parts of Star Wars Saga Edition, a few drops of Earthdawn, and a whole lot of older editions of D&D. It looks like it will be fun, and I can't wait to run my group through it. 4e may end up being the best edition yet - I'm open to that possibility - but they need to at least take pride in the build quality of their products, first.

Here's hoping the core books I pre-ordered at least have covers... :)

I purchased Keep on the Shadowfell last week. It's a starter adventure for D&D 4th Edition. The quick rules make it seem like the game has changed in a number of ways, but changes would be minor to experienced D&D gamers.

Looking at the pre-statted characters supplied in the module, the game feels even more complex than previous editions. I'm holding off final judgement until I've got a few sessions under my belt and have the rule books.

One huge quibble is the poor production quality. For my money, I received flimsy paper (though full colour), ink smudges on your fingers, just 96 pages, staple bound (with no soft or hard cover - it feels like a thick brochure). The module also came with 3 battlemaps that are decent and of thicker paper. I hope this production quality is not a sign of things to come.

What others have said about the poor quality is true, and it is one of the things that makes me believe WOTC is marketing this to a younger audience-- not altogether bad, we need a new generation of paper-and-pencil gamers, but the poor quality, the simplicity, and the cliches of the adventure are a big turn-off for older gamers like me.

Having said that, I am impressed with what we have seen of the 4th edition rules, even though I was all set to hate them. This product does provide a good intro to 4th edition combat. The problem is that, in addition to being too simple for veteran players, this module would be too complex for novices simply to pick it up without having played before. WOTC needs to figure out who its audience is with this one.

But it is worth buying to introduce players to the 4E rules, and it would be OK to introduce new players to the game if you are an experienced DM. If you are new to D&D, wait for the 4th edition player's handbook, at least to use with this module. As other modules become available, this will not be the best introduction for newbies and will be uninteresting to veterans.

I noticed the negatives first, so I'll mention those first.

The adventure booklet has no back cover. That means that while I'm holding it up to read it, the players can see the names, powers, suggested tactics, and loot of the final encounter. Also the ink's easy to smudge, so even though I've only run the first four encounters, the uncovered back page is getting hard to read just by holding it.

The quickstart booklet has the character sheets bound within it, making it slightly hard to photocopy them. I would have preferred five individual sheets, to make it easier to copy, or even just pass out and use as-is. I also wish the character sketches more closely matched the character as equipped. The sword-and-board-looking dwarf fighter actually wields a bludgeoning weapon, and the dragonborn paladin is pictured with a wicked-looking glaive instead of his equipped longsword and heavy shield.

Other than that, I've liked it. The three double-sided encounter maps have proved useful, and it's nice to have a couple outdoorsy maps instead of strictly dungeon crawls.

The encounters are all on a two-page spread, so that I can flip to the appropriate page and leave it open. I haven't had to flip back 10 pages to find the stats on a minion that was encountered before - all the monster statblocks are reprinted for each encounter.

I'm a fan of kobolds, so it was nice seeing kobolds being used right from the get-go. Other iconic entry-level monsters such as goblins, skeletons, and zombies make their appearance too. And I'm excited to be able to throw a gelatinous cube at the party later on.

I had high hopes for this module because I really like Bruce Cordell's work, and I naturally assumed that Wizards would of course put their best foot forward and present their first module (that presumably everyone would play) with everything that could possibly make 4.0 great.

Boy was I wrong. "Grindfest" does not begin to describe this slow slog through continual waves of bags of hit points. By the end of the module I don't think anyone cared anymore about why we were there - we just wanted to kill the final bad guy and move on. The best thing that happened the whole time was a complete improv by the group that allowed us to bypass huge areas of enemies - thereby cutting down on the battle time. That's right: the best part was when we made something up to make it shorter.

As others have said:
- the plot is linear and boring
- the main villain is one-dimensional and boring
- the encounters are mostly fine on their own, but after so many in a row without any real plot or other interaction it gets boring
- it's very easy to come across one encounter early that is pretty much a guaranteed party-kill at the level you encounter it (then again, maybe this is a Cordell mainstay)
- the cool maps that come with it are largely wasted
- even the Amazon discount leaves it too expensive for what you get; buy from eBay if you are interested

I know it's probably too late to save most people, as many who were going to buy this already have it; but if you are new to D&D or new to 4.0 and have been thinking of picking this up: don't. Make up your own adventure: it will be better than this one.

To be fair, I can absolutely see how this module would appeal to hardcore tactical players who don't need much role playing to stay happy and just enjoy endless battle after battle. And other groups who tend to just blow through areas very quickly without really exploring them would probably have a fine time, too, since you're not getting so bogged down and there aren't any important details you'd be missing. But if you are anywhere in between, do your group a favor and do not play H1. Or if you've already bought it, be sure to cut out huge chunks of needless battle to streamline it. It is a very bad intro to 4.0, which is really a shame.

The title says a lot. First the bad:

As has been said in other reviews, the actual construction of this is shoddy to say the least. Basically it is a cardboard folder with two magazines inside. (The maps are quite nice, both in their durability and ability to be re-used) The folder seems decently constructed, but you can't run the module from the relative protection of the folder. The frighteningly cheap module must come out the actually be used. If you have oily hands (as I do) buy gloves, because if you hold the module for too long the ink will run. After only one read through, I have several finger smears on the back cover, which hold vital info for running the final encounter. I am considering removing the two staples, which comprises the binding, cutting the whole thing in half and putting it all in transparent binder sleeves. For a $30 book to be this poorly made is worthy of a zero out of 5 stars.... as any use, exposure to small amounts of liquid, or the simple act of reading it will cause damage.

The story itself, while a typical dungeon crawl, is well put together. The quick start rules are insufficient if you have players (like mine) that tend to nitpick, and push the boundaries of even the most insignificant rule, but they are a nice inclusion.
The NPCs are pretty well flushed out, and I found on my first read through, myself actually developing their quirks just from the short paragraphs about them. True the baddies are unimaginative, to say the least, but a good DM can give them a lot more spice pretty easily.
The main aspect I like about this module (having not run it yet, so this is not an entirely informed opinion) is that it seems a near-perfect introduction to the new rule set.
And as a final note, Gnomes have been reduced to the level of goblins.