Looking Over Book of Challenges: Trouble Cubed
This is collection of four simple encounters featuring gelatinous cubes, so I’ll give a breakdown of each individually before my final assessment. THE PIT AND THE PORTCULLIS Premise A portcullis trap signals a gelatinous cube to chase people into a pit. Good Having the gelatinous cube react to the sound of the portcullis dropping is a cool idea. Salvageable While it’s not the worst boxed text this book has had to offer, approaching a T-intersection through the stem means that
Looking Over Book of Challenges: Displacer Beast Maze
Premise An ivy maze is the hunting ground of a displacer beast. Good Handling attacks through the maze walls/ceiling as granting significant cover/concealment is a simple solution. The implementation of the secret passages in the maze walls is nice. Attacking from behind walls is one of the better ways of enabling hit-and-run tactics in Dungeons & Dragons. Salvageable The maze is underground just to be weird. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, but there’s also noth
Looking Over Book of Challenges: Dark Water Trap
Premise An area of magical darkness hides other hazards. Good Taking advantage of duergar being short by giving them confined spaces and low walls for cover is nice. It does render their enlarge ability somewhat counterproductive, but that shouldn’t be a major loss. The duergars’ tactics in case they’re engaged in melee are basic, but spelling them out isn’t the worst use of space. The scaling idea to add an electricity-based trap at the end of an encounter which could leave
Looking Over Book of Challenges: Mimic Madness
This is collection of four simple encounters featuring mimics, so I’ll give a breakdown of each individually before my final assessment. WEAPON RACK Premise An old weapon rack is actually a mimic who’s thought of using weapons. Good With how often mimics are described as having perfect mimicry, it’s a pleasant surprise to see a mandated Spot check to notice something off about this one. Salvageable For all that the intro builds mimics up as being “not only cunning, but smart
Looking Over Book of Challenges: Curse of Iron
Premise A door with a letter-based puzzle shocks anyone who interacts with it incorrectly. Good The majority of the treasure is fancy objects instead of simple currency. Adding a time limit via the deathtrap complications suggested for scaling up the challenge would be a great idea. For less deadly ways of doing that, consider adding enemies (either directly or via random encounter) or having means of leaving the room before it fills with water (or whatever else). Salvageabl
Looking Over Book of Challenges: Capstan Water Trap
Premise A room that turns into a deathtrap unless the PCs keep doing the “wrong” thing. Good Given how often gargoyles are disguised as statues in games and other media, it’s refreshing to have statues disguised as gargoyles for a change. It’s quite charming that the trick to stopping the trap is to keep making things worse until it all loops around to reset. It’s almost like the TTRPG version of a variable overflow bug in video games. I like the guidelines for how the flow
Looking Over Book of Challenges: Pool of Endless Froglings
Premise A four-way intersection is trapped with puzzle-locked doors and an elemental portal. Good I like that the self-closing door is gentle enough that someone adjacent to it has a chance to stop it, especially since many later encounters seem to punish that reaction by crushing the character. Having something to dissuade the players from banging their heads against a puzzle forever is often useful, and an unending swarm of froglings that leave behind toxic gas on death can
Looking Over Book of Challenges: No Loose Ends
Premise An ogre and its orc minions have turned a bridge into a trap. Good There’s actually a tracking-type skill check that gives fairly reasonable feedback. The Search DCs indicate that it should be easy for players to discover something fishy is going on with the bridge. That’s probably as close to handling searching well as 3E modules ever get. Climbing out of the chasm seems difficult but possible. This is a nice touch to (a) present choices with uncertain outcomes and
Looking Over Book of Challenges: Bugbear Pit Fight
Premise A bugbear challenges a PC to a one-on-one pit fight, but it’s really a trap for a goblin ambush. Good The noisy stairs leading into the room justify its occupants being prepared for the PCs’ arrival by default. It would’ve been nice to have some mention of what happens if the PCs are able to enter undetected, but that shouldn’t be terribly onerous to improvise. The distributed treasure and the inclusion of some non-coin treasure (along with a fancy but mundane dagger
Looking Over Book of Challenges: Temple of Draxion
Premise Some bandits have taken over the remains of an ancient temple and try to present themselves as being much more powerful than they truly are. Good The overall set-up is clever. Maybe it’s just my limited experience, but I find it’s uncommon for most GMs to have intelligent NPCs disguise their combat prowess. I like that the statue doesn’t look like a textbook Dungeons & Dragons dragon on account of the bandits never having seen a dragon for themselves. Giving plenty
