Category: Reviews (Page 5 of 6)

Tim Bannock writes reviews (and creates video reviews) for Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition, Cortex, and other RPGs. See the latest here!

Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set

Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Starter Set Review

12/25/2018 / / 0 Comments

This review originally appeared on neuronphaser.com, and has been moved here for archival purposes.

When “lacks character creation” is your only argument against a starter set for a game that features free online Basic Rules (with character creation, no less!) in multiple formats and happens to be the premiere RPG on the market since the ’70s, all you can really do is say, “yeah, okay: this thing is perfect!” I’m a notoriously nitpicky critic, but I found the D&D Starter Set to be the perfect gateway not only for Dungeons & Dragon’s 5th edition, but also for D&D as a whole. Featuring a stellar, streamlined rule booklet perfect for referencing even after you’ve moved on to the full game, a beautifully executed introductory adventure that doubles as a mini-campaign, well-developed pregenerated characters that can advance up to level 5, and a set of nice-looking dice, this boxed set is a real treasure for new and experienced gamers alike.

Rating: Content 5/5 and Form 5/5.

Buy the box set on Amazon or pick up the adventure Lost Mine of Phandelver digitally on D&D Beyond.

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Monster Manual
Monster Manual

Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Monster Manual Review

12/24/2018 / / 0 Comments

This review originally appeared on neuronphaser.com, and has been moved here for archival purposes.

The D&D 5th Edition Monster Manual is not 100% perfect, but it’s one-thousand percent totally f%$^ing gorgeous! Wizards really did bring the art budget to bear on this book, providing more than just snazzy profile pix of all the monsters, but also neat pre-finalized artwork and concept sketches that often show the creatures in cool stances or doing interesting (sometimes downright silly) things, which helps make them come alive. Honestly, it’s so very, very close to 100% perfect. There’s a couple things missing — better indexing of the monsters by various things (Challenge, Terrain), ecology “stat blocks” like previous editions (organization, morale) — but some of these exist in the Dungeon Master’s Guide or in electronic form, so at worse we’re looking at a couple small missteps.

Rating: Content 4/5 and Form 5/5.

Buy the hardcover on Amazon or pick it up digitally at D&D Beyond.

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Dungeon Master's Guide
Dungeon Master's Guide

Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Dungeon Master’s Guide Review

12/23/2018 / / 0 Comments

This review originally appeared on neuronphaser.com, and has been moved here for archival purposes.

Dungeon Master’s Guides have to serve so many masters and cover so many topics that it’s almost a failing venture even before you’ve written the first word in regards to making it successful at every facet. That makes them hard to review, too, but in the case of 5th Edition’s entry onto the DMG scene, it’s actually been a pleasure! Taking the shortest path to cover every topic imaginable, this edition’s guide for running the game is chock full of functional advice, sleek mechanics, and an unreal number of random tables, optional rules, and variants that can inspire, inform, or redefine how you run a D&D game. It’s dead sexy to look at, too!

Rating: Content 5/5 and Form 4/5.

Buy the hardcover at Amazon or pick it up digitally at D&D Beyond.

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Player's Handbook
Player's Handbook

Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Player’s Handbook Review

12/20/2018 / / 2 Comments

This review originally appeared on neuronphaser.com, and has been moved here for archival purposes.

Even if you don’t like 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons — to which I say, “You, good sir, are crazy-pants” — the Player’s Handbook is a gorgeous piece of work that expertly pulls together the largest swath of playable stuff from editions past, presenting it in as comprehensive and well-curated form as we’ve yet seen. It’s certainly an effort that looks back to D&D’s past with rose-colored glasses, but it adds just enough new stuff and blows off plenty of chaff, creating a much more streamlined approach to the game than we’ve seen in recent editions. It provides more than just token support to the interaction and exploration “pillars of play,” rather than beefing up combat at their expense.

Rating: Content 4/5 and Form 5/5.

Buy the hardcover at Amazon or shop for it on D&D Beyond.

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Skill Challenges in 5e by R P Davis
Skill Challenges in 5e by R P Davis

Skill Challenges in 5e Review

11/28/2018 / / 0 Comments

Prolific Dungeon Masters Guild writer and editor R P Davis has released Skill Challenges in 5e as a conversion of the Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition mechanic to the bounded accuracy of 5th edition. It comes complete with examples and a stat block of sorts. Looking for a structured system for handling complex investigations, challenging social interactions, or simply a way to measure the challenge difficulty of non-combat encounters to award experience points for something other than killing monsters? This is gonna be your jam.

Rating: Content 5/5 and Form 5/5

Pick up Skill Challenges in 5e at DMsGuild today.

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