Rage of Demons. out of the Abyss Review

Developed by Green Ronin Publishing this module is the next in the DND 5th edition lineup

The first thing I noticed with this book was the very high price. 64$ in Canada and 50$ in the usa, Yet some online sellers have it for almost half that. A bit more of an investment but if it gives enough play value it should be worth it.

Print quality is excellent and the images within are top notch and the maps are beautiful. A considerable amount of space in this book deals with setting of the underdark beneath the western  heartlands and specific locals within including towns and cities so as a source book its quite useful as well as the actual adventure within. Ruels for dealing with madness levels and  2 pages dedicated to "fungi of the underdark" expand the page count and do cut into the actual adventure space.

The adventure beginning is an interesting one starting the party at 1st level in the slave pens of the drow.

By chapter 8 the party will have adventured through a large area of the underdark and arrived in Gauntlgrym to deal with the king but with no maps and little detail I felt like a person who had not read all the novels dealing with this area would be a bit lost in running it.

The chapter on Menzoberranzan was especially rich on detail and light on adventure. The new monsters and magic items were very good.

Overall this book holds a lot of great information about setting but seems like it would take more GM prep time than most store bought modules. A full read through of chapters before the players arrive in them is critical in many cases as well as some internet research to fill in some knowledge holes.

Princes of the apocalypse - Advancing the plot

Now that I have run two groups through both the intro 1-3rd level and half of the 3rd chapter I have some tips for smooth play.

Make sure to assign either party wide adventure hooks or individual player hooks before starting the game. Hooks provided on page 12 make the party far more engaged and directed in their explorations. Without these hooks its easy for the party to wander off somewhere on the map and be unable to find much other than random encounters.

Make sure to pay attention to the Side quests on page 160 and their appropriate levels. Anytime the party seems to loose direction or focus spring one of those on them.

The Reprisals on page 45 are perfect for directing the party toward a potential adventure source.

In red larch it can be difficult to find specific info the party is looking for by page flipping so be sure to read over the whole towns description and make some notes about who is in what faction.

EG Harpers : Endrith Vallivoe area 22 note page 20 and 29

In random encounters be sure to notice the chart is 1d8 + 1d12 not 2d10. P 30

One of my parties got totally focused on trying to track down the missing dwarven envoy but really the first few chapters dont really deal with it directly. This can lead to many frustrating sessions of the party being unable to find information because you the GM cant find anything really dealing with it. Be sure to spring encounters and hints about adventure sites often.

While its not specifically detailed out as an area I suggest expanding on the mention made in page 40. The delegations ambush point can give more clues.

As for factions a great way to get started off is to have the players read the factions on the wizards website and affiliate to a faction before game starts.

Its hidden fairly well on the website so here is a link

https://dnd.wizards.com/dungeons-and-dragons/story/factions

Princes of the Apocalypse maps

High resolution player and gm maps are available for sale now from the cartographers website

http://mikeschley.zenfolio.com/

Very worthwhile if you like to print or display on a screen high detail maps for your players referance

Princes of the Apocalypse - 2

Just finished a full read of chapters 1 and 2. Chapter 2, The Dessarin Valley, Is awesome. Really excellent detail, plenty of npc notes location notes towns inn's etc etc I have a feeling that I will be referring back to this module for years and running adventures in this area well beyond whats published in this adventure. This module will be sitting in the forgotten realms reference shelf in my library for good I think.

For reference this module is set in 1491 DR - The year of the Scarlet Witch
Doing a quick scan through the book looking for monsters not in the basic package.

Scout - MM only
Veteran - MM only
Ankheg - MM only
Merrow - MM only
Jackelware - MM only

that's 3 pages looked over and found 5 monsters already so yes MM is needed

Maybe a web extra will be published to give the needed stats.