Thunderspire Labyrinth (Dungeons & Dragons, Adventure H2)
by Richard Baker, Mike Mearls
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Book Summary Information
Author: Mike Mearls, Richard BakerEdition: Paperback
Published: 2008-07-15
ISBN: 0786948728
Number of pages: 96
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Book Reviews of Thunderspire Labyrinth (Dungeons & Dragons, Adventure H2)
Book Review: H2 has its flaws but is far superior to H1
Summary: 4 Stars
Thunderspire Labyrinth is an epic adventure taking place in the deep mazes and caves below Thunderspire mountain. In other words this is an underdark type adventure and has many creatures such as duergar that you would find in the underdark. It is heavy on combat for the most part, but I feel this will be a major criticism of all 4e dnd modules. It seems like the way they are releasing their products is put just enough roleplaying material in there and give the players a series of encounters (some aren't combat) the dm uses to level them up or advance the story. If you look at most modules released by wizards of the coast they are also combat heavy with minor roleplaying stuff in there. This one does a better job of giving out the roleplaying info for the 7 pillared hall than H1 did for Winterhaven and there is more of it. In fact nearly the whole first booklet describes the hall and its citizens and gives a basic overview of the adventure. I can see tons of roleplaying possibilities with each of the citizens but they don't map all of these out. In other words a beginning dm may run the 7 pillared hall as a bland excursion in a bland city and bypass most of the roleplaying fluff. This is sad since the roleplaying info here is pretty good and each of the npcs motivations would make for good roleplaying encounters. This is a problem with wizards modules in general dating all the way back to 3rd edition. I don't see why this surprises everyone. However, that being said there are some really cool skill challenges as well. There is even a simple find the items to open the door puzzle as well.
The paper quality is much better than H1. Just compare the two. No ink smudging but as another reviewer said there is still no back to the 2nd adventure booklet. I have no clue what Wotc's reasoning is behind this. It doesn't make sense why they didn't add a back to the actual adventure, but I guess they have some kind of reasoning. There is only one map and I don't see the reason for the folder setup if you are only going to have only one map. Red Hand of Doom worked great as a book that the map could be removed from. There are some handouts but these have to be torn out of the adventure booklet or photocopied to be used. The Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde had similar handouts but they weren't in the adventure books and were separate which makes much more sense.
SPOILERS Below
The overall adventure is actually quite good in my opinion. It far surpasses the bland storyline in H1. It deals with goblins,duergar, gnolls and even vecna (really cool skill challenge with this one). It gives numerous roleplaying opportunities if the dm uses them. The npcs are really fleshed out. I have always been a fan of mazes and underdark type campaigns and this one is actually pretty decent. Despite it's flaws I would recommend it to anyone who has played through H1 or just skipped H1 for that matter but wants to give a premade campaign in 4th a shot.
END SPOILERS
The main issue I had with it was the fact it could have been a whole lot better had they just packaged it with the handouts separate and added more maps as well as mapped out a few more roleplaying encounters. The campaign is pretty long but one would expect it to be when taking pcs from levels 3-6 which roughly equates to about 30 encounters plus roleplaying fluff. It should keep a gaming group busy for a while. I was pretty satisfied with the overall package and actually feel that it was well worth the price. However, this good campaign could have been great if only Wotc had put a little more effort in it.
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