Review - Circle Of Balance Druid Subclass

Most of my experiences with DMsGuild to date have been with adventures and encounters, today I'll be going a slightly different route looking at a new and unique subclass of the Druid designed specifically for urban adventure.

The Circle Of Balance is by author Beth Ball of Grove Guardian Press (the design team behind D&D Duets) and is a great example of the kind of content that can really add new content to a D&D 5e game.  In brief the core notion of The Circle Of Balance is that civilization is a part of nature, and as protectors and/or shepherds the city can and is part of a Druid's responsibilities.

The subclass itself seems extremely well balanced adding some martial strengths at lower levels, which make for a good trade off for some of a Druid's basic spells which may be of dubious use in a city.  In addition the Circle spells that have been added give the Druid some additional typically non-druidic utility powers that play off the people and materials that make up a typical urban environment in a fantasy world.  For any fans of the comic The Authority (or later runs of Stormwatch) this subclass and its Circle spells are a great starting point to make a character similar to Jack Hawksmoor (minus the suit and tie).  In addition to the mechanical additions that serve balancing a Druid in a new environment there are a number of features that really tie to the theme of operating in the packed terrain of the city.  "Wildly Compact" which allows more compact versions of Wild Shape animal forms to be adopted.

In addition to the subclass rules themselves the supplement also adds rules for 2 new creatures; The Fey Pug and The Jewel Fox as well as formatting The Fey Pug as a D&D Sidekick.  I know in my home game this has the potential to be right up my daughter's alley.

Overall Circle Of Balance is  a unique and worthwhile addition to the existing player options in D&D and is well balanced enough to drop into an existing campaign without upsetting the power balance of existing classes. 

I strongly recommend Circle Of Balance to both players looking for a new option for their Waterdeep campaigns as well as DMs potentially looking for a new template for sage NPCs in an urban setting.

Circle Of Balance is currently available from DMsGuild at https://www.dmsguild.com/product/294719/Circle-of-Balance-druid-subclass?term=circle+of+bal for $1

-Jay

Wardlings Female Rogue with multiple animal companions

I'm about to go on a string or painting monsters for some D&D games I'll be running over the next few months so I thought I'd take one last chance to show off a player character model before Christmas.

Full disclosure I didn't 'paint' this miniature.  This is one of the awesome Wardlings pre-painted models by WizKids, but I did touch it up and do some basing so here we are.

In my seemingly endless half-baked plans to get my daughter Zoe to play D&D I've gotten her to paint an assortment of miniatures but I've also picked out some cool looking models that I thought might appeal to her as a character.  This is one of those models.

The female rogue with badger is from the first release of Wardlings and in my opinion still holds up as one of the nicest models.

The studded leather armour, knives and crossbow are a great example of what I've referred to before about how I like the fact that the Wardlings models are children and pre-teens but they look like serious adventurers.  These are exactly the kind of miniatures 12 year old me would have been really excited about if they had existed when I first got into D&D back in the dark ages. 

A book of animal companion rules was just released on DMsGuild so I'm also thinking this is going to be the perfect time to use these miniatures with my daughter to draw inspiration from the Spirit Animals series of books by Scholastic.  Having said all that I know a badger wouldn't be her first choice of 'cool' animal to go on an adventure with so I grabbed one of the animals more up her alley from another pack to partner with the rogue; a lynx.

I also thought I'd snap a quick pick of the rogue standing next to an adult-sized model (Fergal from my last post) to highlight how well these models blend into existing fantasy figure lines. 

The Wardlings are smaller while very much remaining in scale with existing miniatures.

That's it for my for PC models for 2019 I think.  Time to dig out the Monster Manual and a notebook and start planning for the bad guys!

-Jay

A new warrior!

A fiend of mine is getting ready to run a Dungeon Crawl Classics one-shot for Halloween and I needed to create a new 3rd level character.  I think as far as Dungeon Crawl Classics is concerned I've only ever had one character legitimately 'earn' his way up to 3rd level so a one-shot is my best chance to play a mid to high level character.

Oddly enough even though in D&D I regularly play fairly vanilla human fighters I've never played a simple warrior in DCC.  That is until now.  Meet Fergal:

Fergal is a Reaper Bones human paladin miniature that I got to try something new on.  Originally I planned to go with the same blue shield and tabbard as my last few fantasy figures again with an eye towards eventually re-purposing them as a warband but then I took a slight turn.  I've always liked the idea of white clothes for fantasy holy warriors but I've never been able to do an even passable job painting white on miniatures.  This time out I decided to try the new Citadel Contrast Apothecary White paint.  I'm fairly happy with how it turned out and I may try it again on another model soon.

Anyway Fergal's got; his sword, his board and he's ready to lay waste to some monsters.  Either that or meet the fate of most DCC characters and go to the graveyard or ripped up character sheets.

-Jay

Pseudo Dragon

While exploring the good ship Sea Ghost (I still want to rename it 'The Fiend') during the second half of Sinister Secret Of Saltmarsh our party liberated a Pseudo Dragon!  In our next game the Pseudo Dragon will be added to our adventuring party so I was really excited to find out that WizKids had released a model for it.

I think the two things I like most about this model are the fact that the pose (including the books the dragon is perched on) is a perfect reproduction of the actual image from the Monster Manual along with the fact that although the model is quite small it's not so tiny that its details can't be distinguished.  Truthfully before I got this miniature I had another Pseudo Dragon model from a different miniature company that was closer in correct scale to a 28mm adventurer model and that made it so tiny that it really just looked like a blob with minuscule wings.  This is definitely one of those times where taking liberties with scale and/or proportions was the right choice.

I'm looking forward to the Pseudo Dragon joining our group and if I can find a suitable figure for Oceanus we may cross the point where we have as many NPCs as PCs in our adventuring party.

-Jay

Review - Grimm Encounters II

The quest for the perfect Halloween one-shot continues today as I go through Grimm Encounters II.

Grimm Encounters II follows the theme of it's predecessor given the DM another dozen encounters blending fairy tale and horror mythology.  One of the improvements over the first collection is that the page count has increased to 42 pages giving each encounter a slightly longer word count which in general seems to have allowed for a bit more background and NPC motivation to be detailed than the previous instalment.  This second collection also includes a few more unique creatures which I enjoy as it keeps experienced players who also DM from inadvertently meta-gaming their way through challenging encounters.  The final thing I'll call out before getting into specifics will be taken either as a positive or a negative depending on your personal tastes, as the first volume used many of the more popular Grimm stories as inspiration this time around I wasn't familiar with most of the starting points for these encounters.  Personally as much as like the familiar feeling of "D&Ding" existing stories the unfamiliar adds that sense of newness and wonder to the game for me.

Once again I find myself drawn to more than one encounter from this anthology but today I'll limit my praise to two encounters.
Beyond the Realms Of Madness by Ken Carcas (inspired by How Some Children Played At Slaughtering) is a Tier 2 encounter that feels like a hybrid of a Grimm and Lovecraft story.  As I've mentioned many times in the past I enjoy a horror story with a twist and the twist here (especially in the context of D&D) works really well.  The party is tasked with helping a grieving father who is haunted by the ghosts of his slain family.  In the context of D&D most players will no doubt assuming they are in fact dealing with a haunting and go about planning strategies to lay to rest the souls of the fallen family.  When the twist is worked out and the players discover they are dealing with something just as supernatural but not quite what they expected they will need to be able to think quickly on the fly to come up with a new solution in real time.  I really enjoyed this encounter and supplanting one horror with a different horror will guarantee that even if this isn't the one-shot I end up running I have a specific player in mind who would love to play through this as a one-on-one encounter.
Two Dozen Devils by JVC Parry (inspired by The Twelve Huntsmen) is another Tier 2 encounter and a great balance of combat and/vs role-play.  In practise one of the things that makes hauntings or curses work really well in D&D as opposed to actual 'mysteries' is that a haunting or curse can frequently be concluded or resolved even if they players aren't successful in working out all the details.  In this encounter a nobleman is the victim of a curse that the party has been drawn into breaking.  Depending on play-style and decisions made by the group this encounter can play out in a variety of different ways and depending on  how things are resolved success or failure is definitely on a spectrum rather than a black and white win versus lose binary end.

One thing I feel the need to call out is that while this is a horror anthology and the author did put a content warning in the preface of the collection there may be some encounters in here that may go 'too far' for some audiences.  Personally I really liked The Trial Of Little Franecker Finn but I know for a fact that one of the players at my regular table would have to get up and physically leave if I ran that encounter.  This is really just a good reminder, and applies to many adventures, that when running horror content check in and make sure your players are comfortable with the themes and content of your game. 

I highly recommend Grimm Encounters II and am definitely looking forward to a Grimm Encounters III.

Grimm Encounters II is currently available from DMsGuild for $4.95 at https://www.dmsguild.com/product/256980/Grimm-Encounters-II?term=grimm&affiliate_id=329977

-Jay

Review - Grimm Encounters (I)

As I start planning out a Halloween session for my local group of victims/players I've begun scouring DMsGuild for some suitable one-shots.

Before I got into any new adventures I was reminded last night that I had already downloaded and printed Grimm Encounters by JVC Parry and Jeff Stevens along with contributions from five other authors.  As I'm sure you can tell by that quick preface Grimm Encounters is an anthology collection of adventures.

The book itself comes in at 28 pages and manages to pack 12 encounters between its covers.  The overall theme of the collection is Brothers Grimm fairy tales with a slight D&D/horror re-imagining.   As I believe I referenced in the past this is the kind of material I really like as it combines the unknown with somethings that begin with a familiar backdrop.  Typically I find that's the kind of flavour and background my players can deeply and quickly immerse themselves in which makes encounters like this ideal for one-shots where you won't necessarily be investing in world-building ahead of time.

Overall the quality of the writing is excellent and the artwork is suitably dark and thematically appropriate to the content.  I appreciate the choice to pull the references for the monster stat locations out of the individual encounters and collecting them in an appendix at the back of the book as it removes mechanical distractions from absorbing the narrative content on a first pass through.  Although I haven't yet run any of the encounters yet upon a first read through they all seems very well balanced to the suggested party levels.  Having said that I really like the fact that 'The Tailor And The Giant' includes an element (sarcastic spoiler warning; it's 'the giant') that if players make bad choices will quickly break the notion that D&D 5E is a non-lethal RPG for player characters.

Normally with an anthology I try to focus on a single scenario that I was really excited about but in this case three of the encounters really appealed to me and I will definitely be using in the near future.
The Marquis Of Carabas by JVC Parry (inspired by Puss In Boots) caught my eye by having a very non-traditional jumping off point for a D&D adventure, using a mysterious cat just showing up rather than an overly contrived 'hired for a mission' start.  At first the players might be inclined to think they're dealing with a Cheshire Cat type of antagonist but after some investigation the twist will reveal itself and the true villain of the story will appear.  It's a short encounter but starts off with a little fun and whimsy before taking a dark turn and it should appeal to both players who like to use their brains to work through a problem as well as those who like to use their brawn to get things done.
Not Another Cinderella Story by Tony Petrecca (inspired by Cinderella) was my next selection.  For most players the setup for this adventure should feel very familiar and many groups will probably guess who/what they'll be fighting at the end (incorrectly) before what's really going on reveals itself.  I like twists in my adventures but I really like twists that make sense and follow narrative logic and this encounter delivers on both fronts.  In addition to being a potentially great one shot this adventure feels like it would fit very well into an existing Old Margreve campaign.
The Tailor And The Giant by Jeff C Stevens (inspired by The Brave Little Tailor) is my final choice for a must-run.  Outside of the narrative itself I will start off by saying that one of the things this encounter does extremely well is break the feeling that the D&D world is like a video game where higher level areas are bordered off until you are ready to deal with them.  Just because you're level one doesn't mean giants don't exist in this world or they'll leave you alone until you're suitably high level to fight them.  This encounter really encourages the use of role-play and soft-skills to get through, it's really nice to see an encounter structured this way as it will give groups a completely different type of experience than a traditional D&D game.  As an aside I can't help but wonder if inexperienced players are more likely to be successful in this encounter than more experienced players.

Overall Grimm Encounters delivers a high quality take on Fairy-Tale-Horror and I highly recommend it to any DMs looking for something fun and dark to run this Halloween season.

Grimm Encounters is currently available from DMsGuild at https://www.dmsguild.com/product/224651/Grimm-Encounters?term=Grimm&affiliate_ID=329977 for $3.95 and is a bargain at that price.

-Jay

First Thoughts - Harper's Tale

Normally when I get excited about an upcoming gaming product I'm quite content to wait until release and absorb it in it's entirety, writing my reviews after I have the finished product in hand.  Today however I want to talk about a new D&D adventure that's currently seeking funding on Indiegogo and I honestly hope I can encourage some of you to give it a look and hopefully back it.

Harper's Tale is a 10 chapter D&D adventure co-created by Matt Corley and his daughter Harper with the goal of benefiting Friends Of Kids With Cancer.  Please check out their crowdfunding page at https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/harper-s-tale-an-adventure-path-for-dnd-5e#/ for full details and the story behind the adventure's creation.  After reading Harper's story I was ready to back the project regardless but after looking at the art, and since then getting a backer's copy of the first chapter of the adventure I'm blown away by how great this project looks and I can't wait to start running it.

The first chapter 'Welcome To Grove' starts with the PCs investigating an abandoned town and mixing a combination of exploration and trying to determine what has happened to the inhabitants.  One of the things that immediately appealed to me about Welcome To Grove is that it is family-friendly without being in any way childish.  There is a definite mystery to be solved, a dark secret to uncover and combat to be had but nothing that would be objectionable to running with a younger audience or a school D&D club.  Welcome To Grove is also a great potential introduction to D&D for new players as the players will have the opportunity to engage in; skill check, role-playing, social interactions with NPCs, and combats scaled well for 1st level PCs.  I don't want to spoil any details but the mystery of the town follows a logical but not overly simplistic investigative path and solving it should give players a real sense of accomplishment and establish them as folk heroes in the community.

From an objective point of view I have to say that the quality of the writing and the style of the art are extremely professional and even though the first chapter I received as a backer made it clear it was not a final edit, it was very polished and ready to be played as is.  I didn't find any gaps, logical fallacies or even simple editing issues common to early drafts that crowdfunders tend to share with backers.

I sincerely hope everyone reading this will check out Harper's Tale and consider backing it.  The opportunity to get an interesting, well thought out D&D adventure while also supporting a good cause doesn't come along every day.

Harper's Tale is currently funding on Indiegogo at https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/harper-s-tale-an-adventure-path-for-dnd-5e#/

-Jay